The day after the packs were stolen, three of our members went home. The girls had simply had enough, but the other guy was distressed over the three hundred dollars worth of ADD medicine that had been in his pack. He said that without the medicine, he would be in a daze, and would be more liability than team player. So he packed off too and, counting the councilors, we were really the Dirty Dozen.
Over the next couple days we realized that food was not an option anymore. Dominic denied that there had been any such conversation regarding beef jerky and reminded us that this was all about eating whatever came to hand, on the fly. He offered us some hard apples, which we downed reluctantly. But we took him at his word and Day Two saw us diving greedily into every berry patch we could find. As the group trekked along, those at the back came upon berry bushes that were stripped completely bare, as though some sort of berry blight had hit the country in front of them.
Camp was reached by noon after mercifully short hike – perhaps only three miles. Dominic had promised us that the campsite was near a massive berry patch and pond full of cattails, from which we could make cattail tea. After we dumped our packs and slumped down beside them, Dominic called for volunteers to go with him to the nearby patch. How far, we ask. About an hour’s walk. We gave up. We had water, we could stay hungry. Several people did volunteer so in a bid to get something out of the eventual meal, those of us that stayed behind helped set up other’s tents, gathered firewood, and generally engaged in organization of the camp. Then we sat until evening, absorbed either in good novels or contemplations of our own stomachs.
When Dominic and his party returned at dusk, they had several plastic sacks completely filled with berries and cattail roots. We set to with what gusto we had left and for being so hungry and tired, we had a good evening. Even when it started raining, we just put on our ponchos – to this day I don’t know why I didn’t just take a free shower – and lined up for cattail tea. It as very good, and warm, and came with a complimentary cattail fry, which actually tasted like French fries. The next day there were still berries left over from breakfast, so Dominic packed those in preparation for another spare day.
That day Dominic decided that we needed some encouragement. We were making poor time already, so he shaved off a number of miles and then led us up a steep wooded hill. At the top we beheld the green glory of the Ozarks, and considering how drained we all felt, it was remarkably good to see. Thereafter we retired to an Indian shelter under some cliffs for the evening.
Monday, November 30, 2009
ONSC Deathmarch: Part One
It is called the Deathmarch by those that survived the trek. There were no screaming guards, no dehydration, no concentration camp awaiting the weary travelers at road’s end. But there wasn’t any food either. And ironically, we had paid money to do this.
I had been to Ozark Natural Science Center before on two occasions for summer camp. The center was roomy and sophisticated, complete with a full kitchen and dining room, schoolrooms, and nearby campsites. On those pleasant occasions I and the other campers were called upon to join in activities from around nine in the morning until dinner time, activities that usually focused somehow on natural science, art, and writing. We made our own paper, sculpted pottery, and took soil samples from creek beds. So when the center’s team leader, Dominic, offered a wilderness trek the following year, my sister and I were stoked.
The idea was to live off the land. There would be a truck that would bring clean water to given drop zones and according to what I heard second hand from the parents’ meeting there would be a handful of beef jerky somewhere, but by and large we would be fishing and collecting wild berries and cleansing our creek water with iodine tablets. Sounded somewhat fun, so we purchased professional hiking backpacks and paid the three hundred dollars to join Dominic’s group.
We were to be the Dirty Dozen, twelve kids hiking through the Ozarks for five days and washing it all down with a leisurely canoe trip. After a quick briefing, we were stowed away for the night in cabins to await Dominic’s call in the morning.
The problems began right away when one of the three councilors turned up sick. That left Dominic rushing to locate another energetic young councilor type at the last minute. The replacement was named Kyle, and he did not really want to be there.
We awoke at “o’dark-thirty” and stumbled aboard the vehicles that would transport us to the first drop zone. As the sun was just turning the gray morning into a faint blue, we found ourselves looking downhill at the dirt road that stretched off into the distance. Tired, but chittery and excited, we hustled off with pent-up high school energy into the early morn. Things went well at first. We snapped pictures and yelled and generally behaved like city kids doing something that they thought brave and possibly dangerous. Kyle was in reasonable spirits, though early on it was apparent that he did not appreciate the incessant questions regarding the distance traveled and the time of day.
Our path took us through fields and streams and along roads both dirt and paved. Every now and again we would stop for a quick breather and splay out across the road, though whenever a vehicle approached someone would yell, “car!” and we’d scatter to either side and wave them by. We stopped for lunch under a large tree in a field. There was some sort of snacks provided, if I remember rightly, and we were made to understand that this was the last of its kind, there would be nothing else coming unless we picked or caught it. That made us a little nervous, but we took heart and started up again. As I pulled on my pack I asked how far we’d come.
“About five miles.”
We made it seventeen miles that first day. Up hills, down hills, tramping and trudging, stretched out in a line roughly a quarter of a mile long, each person or couple of people keeping mere line of sight with those in front. As the sun set we were exhausted, though still a little exuberant, and happy to know that our campsite was nearing. At last we came to a huge man-made hill around which the road bent. We had two options: walk the road, or climb the hill and cut off about half an hour of walking. Several of us elected to climb, sherpa-like with our heavy packs, by hands and feet up the hill, while the rest trudged along. I and my sister kept our packs on, but a couple girls and two other friends decided to leave their packs on the highway for the water truck to bring along. At the top of the hill, the girls agreed to watch the bags from the high point while we went on to the camp to await the others. It was a little ways into the woods and off the road that had snaked around. It was pleasant and we began putting our tents up when the girls suddenly approached. The bags were gone. Apparently a truck had come, picked them up and driven away and the girls assumed that, despite the fact it was a totally different vehicle and did not have a trailer like the water truck, that it must be the one. When the others arrived with the water truck close behind and demanded to know who had taken the bags, the girls shrugged. It didn’t matter to them anyway, they were ready to go home and absence of packs was a perfect excuse.
More on our own series of unfortunate events next time…
I had been to Ozark Natural Science Center before on two occasions for summer camp. The center was roomy and sophisticated, complete with a full kitchen and dining room, schoolrooms, and nearby campsites. On those pleasant occasions I and the other campers were called upon to join in activities from around nine in the morning until dinner time, activities that usually focused somehow on natural science, art, and writing. We made our own paper, sculpted pottery, and took soil samples from creek beds. So when the center’s team leader, Dominic, offered a wilderness trek the following year, my sister and I were stoked.
The idea was to live off the land. There would be a truck that would bring clean water to given drop zones and according to what I heard second hand from the parents’ meeting there would be a handful of beef jerky somewhere, but by and large we would be fishing and collecting wild berries and cleansing our creek water with iodine tablets. Sounded somewhat fun, so we purchased professional hiking backpacks and paid the three hundred dollars to join Dominic’s group.
We were to be the Dirty Dozen, twelve kids hiking through the Ozarks for five days and washing it all down with a leisurely canoe trip. After a quick briefing, we were stowed away for the night in cabins to await Dominic’s call in the morning.
The problems began right away when one of the three councilors turned up sick. That left Dominic rushing to locate another energetic young councilor type at the last minute. The replacement was named Kyle, and he did not really want to be there.
We awoke at “o’dark-thirty” and stumbled aboard the vehicles that would transport us to the first drop zone. As the sun was just turning the gray morning into a faint blue, we found ourselves looking downhill at the dirt road that stretched off into the distance. Tired, but chittery and excited, we hustled off with pent-up high school energy into the early morn. Things went well at first. We snapped pictures and yelled and generally behaved like city kids doing something that they thought brave and possibly dangerous. Kyle was in reasonable spirits, though early on it was apparent that he did not appreciate the incessant questions regarding the distance traveled and the time of day.
Our path took us through fields and streams and along roads both dirt and paved. Every now and again we would stop for a quick breather and splay out across the road, though whenever a vehicle approached someone would yell, “car!” and we’d scatter to either side and wave them by. We stopped for lunch under a large tree in a field. There was some sort of snacks provided, if I remember rightly, and we were made to understand that this was the last of its kind, there would be nothing else coming unless we picked or caught it. That made us a little nervous, but we took heart and started up again. As I pulled on my pack I asked how far we’d come.
“About five miles.”
We made it seventeen miles that first day. Up hills, down hills, tramping and trudging, stretched out in a line roughly a quarter of a mile long, each person or couple of people keeping mere line of sight with those in front. As the sun set we were exhausted, though still a little exuberant, and happy to know that our campsite was nearing. At last we came to a huge man-made hill around which the road bent. We had two options: walk the road, or climb the hill and cut off about half an hour of walking. Several of us elected to climb, sherpa-like with our heavy packs, by hands and feet up the hill, while the rest trudged along. I and my sister kept our packs on, but a couple girls and two other friends decided to leave their packs on the highway for the water truck to bring along. At the top of the hill, the girls agreed to watch the bags from the high point while we went on to the camp to await the others. It was a little ways into the woods and off the road that had snaked around. It was pleasant and we began putting our tents up when the girls suddenly approached. The bags were gone. Apparently a truck had come, picked them up and driven away and the girls assumed that, despite the fact it was a totally different vehicle and did not have a trailer like the water truck, that it must be the one. When the others arrived with the water truck close behind and demanded to know who had taken the bags, the girls shrugged. It didn’t matter to them anyway, they were ready to go home and absence of packs was a perfect excuse.
More on our own series of unfortunate events next time…
Sunday, November 29, 2009
My Cousin's Appendix
I’ve typically thought of appendixes as scary little beasts. A container for culturing bacteria in the human’s lower gastric system (bio majors out there, feel free to correct me or add enlightenment via the comments), if it gets destabilized it goes into critical mode and erupts inside the abdomen, spewing said bacteria into the vulnerable bodily systems. I guess it is no more volatile that any other body part, but the seemingly fickle attitude that some appendixes have with regard to their vital duty disturbs me.
My opinion was not improved when my cousin had his appendix removed last year. I was in a friend’s dorm room playing Call of Duty when my phone rang. My cousin calls all the time so I was not really concerned. I ducked my British Special Forces troop behind a heavy-looking crate and picked up.
“Yeah, what up?”
“Hey, listen I think I have Appendicitis.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I’m at the campus clinic and in a lot of pain. You wanna come to the hospital with me?”
I was taken aback and I stammered some kind of rebuttal and wished him luck before handing up and exiting the game before me. Appendicitis, really? Wasn’t that sort of deadly? What was I supposed to do, anyway? Better to stay behind and say a prayer on his behalf rather than get in everybody’s way.
No.
I called him back and asked if anything had changed. No. Where was he? Same place, getting ready to drive to the hospital. Okay, but wait for me, I was on my way.
After donning my street clothes and filling a bag with homework and casual reading, I marched down to the clinic and found my cousin outside, leaning against a pillar in the covered breezeway. We grinned and exchanged nods – none of the usual rough greetings – and he informed me that his wife was on her way. They were planning on going home, packing up, and heading out pronto. She arrived and we bundled into the car to go to their house where my cousin snatched a few papers and kissed his wife goodbye. Now that I was on board, there was a new plan: I would drive to the hospital with cousin riding shotgun and wife would follow with supplies enough to make it through the night if necessary.
I’ve never driven so fast in my life. To date I had driven my Mom’s 1987 Volvo at a top speed of seventy miles-an-hour when I lost track of my speed. With my gut-busting cousin unbuckled and reclined beside me, I topped out somewhere between eighty and ninety, cutting off Mack trucks and taking exits when they were right on my bumper. We whipped into the emergency room drop zone and cousin marched briskly inside while I sought out the parking deck. Well, things must not have been too bad because by the time I made it into the emergency room the nurse was only taking his blood pressure. After a short wait my cousin was stripped and laid on a mobile bed to await surgery.
At that point I learned a little more about appendectomies. Apparently if caught in time, the doctors make no rush out of the procedure. My cousin was left in his place for several hours, visited only by his wife – lugging several duffle bags full of clothes and food – and a nurse who proffered some papers granting the doctors permission to perform surgery. That document was signed at once but no doctor bothered show up for another couple hours. About five hours after admission, roughly six or seven since I received the phone call, my cousin was wheeled away into surgery and I joined his wife in the waiting room.
It was loud and crowded and entirely unpleasant, but in a little while my aunt and uncle arrived with my cousin’s grandmother and we all hugged before moving to another, plushier waiting room where we waited out the surgery. It was done in short order so that about eight or nine hours after the phone call he was coming out of the drug-induced sleep and was allowed a few visitors. I was allowed to leave in his car with a few Burger King coupons in hand, though I struggled for about ten minutes to disable the car alarm, dodging wary cops and rediscovering how to use an automatic.
After the surgery, my cousin was allowed to come home, but was excused from work and school. Fearing lest he injure himself, his wife requested that I stay with him during her work hours that week. I didn’t mind, there was Xbox.
My opinion was not improved when my cousin had his appendix removed last year. I was in a friend’s dorm room playing Call of Duty when my phone rang. My cousin calls all the time so I was not really concerned. I ducked my British Special Forces troop behind a heavy-looking crate and picked up.
“Yeah, what up?”
“Hey, listen I think I have Appendicitis.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I’m at the campus clinic and in a lot of pain. You wanna come to the hospital with me?”
I was taken aback and I stammered some kind of rebuttal and wished him luck before handing up and exiting the game before me. Appendicitis, really? Wasn’t that sort of deadly? What was I supposed to do, anyway? Better to stay behind and say a prayer on his behalf rather than get in everybody’s way.
No.
I called him back and asked if anything had changed. No. Where was he? Same place, getting ready to drive to the hospital. Okay, but wait for me, I was on my way.
After donning my street clothes and filling a bag with homework and casual reading, I marched down to the clinic and found my cousin outside, leaning against a pillar in the covered breezeway. We grinned and exchanged nods – none of the usual rough greetings – and he informed me that his wife was on her way. They were planning on going home, packing up, and heading out pronto. She arrived and we bundled into the car to go to their house where my cousin snatched a few papers and kissed his wife goodbye. Now that I was on board, there was a new plan: I would drive to the hospital with cousin riding shotgun and wife would follow with supplies enough to make it through the night if necessary.
I’ve never driven so fast in my life. To date I had driven my Mom’s 1987 Volvo at a top speed of seventy miles-an-hour when I lost track of my speed. With my gut-busting cousin unbuckled and reclined beside me, I topped out somewhere between eighty and ninety, cutting off Mack trucks and taking exits when they were right on my bumper. We whipped into the emergency room drop zone and cousin marched briskly inside while I sought out the parking deck. Well, things must not have been too bad because by the time I made it into the emergency room the nurse was only taking his blood pressure. After a short wait my cousin was stripped and laid on a mobile bed to await surgery.
At that point I learned a little more about appendectomies. Apparently if caught in time, the doctors make no rush out of the procedure. My cousin was left in his place for several hours, visited only by his wife – lugging several duffle bags full of clothes and food – and a nurse who proffered some papers granting the doctors permission to perform surgery. That document was signed at once but no doctor bothered show up for another couple hours. About five hours after admission, roughly six or seven since I received the phone call, my cousin was wheeled away into surgery and I joined his wife in the waiting room.
It was loud and crowded and entirely unpleasant, but in a little while my aunt and uncle arrived with my cousin’s grandmother and we all hugged before moving to another, plushier waiting room where we waited out the surgery. It was done in short order so that about eight or nine hours after the phone call he was coming out of the drug-induced sleep and was allowed a few visitors. I was allowed to leave in his car with a few Burger King coupons in hand, though I struggled for about ten minutes to disable the car alarm, dodging wary cops and rediscovering how to use an automatic.
After the surgery, my cousin was allowed to come home, but was excused from work and school. Fearing lest he injure himself, his wife requested that I stay with him during her work hours that week. I didn’t mind, there was Xbox.
The Karate Years
Like most little kids, I grew up loving heroes. I watched Star Wars and read the Hobbit and dreamed that one day I could be an almighty conqueror on whom men would look with awe. When I learned about marital arts, I thought that my dream had come true. People learned how to fight? At all ages? Without joining the army first? I begged and begged to learn. At length I suppose that my parents decided that I was in earnest, so they signed me up for Taekwon-do lessons. I would be in martial arts for the next ten years.
My first teacher was a Korean that we called Master Kang. He was a middle-aged Mr. Miyagi type, who spoke with an accent and behaved as though his parents had been samurai. I remember him as a fantastic teacher, and though he was a little rough – he would give us a smart knuckle rap on the forehead for being late, which he called a “peanut” – he was fair – whenever an older/bigger/more advanced student beat up on a junior student, Master Kang would pair them next with someone even bigger. I stayed at Master Kang’s for about six months, where I earned my Yellow Belt and a going away trophy that is still in my room.
After Dad changed jobs and we left Florida, I spent a year or so without any Taekwon-do. But after some searching we discovered a local school run by Mr. Edwards. He was a good teacher and fun to be around, but at his school I learned two important truths about most martial arts instructors: they are always looking for new real estate, and they don’t always stay in business. After several changes of building location, Mr. Edwards turned over the school to a subordinate, who in time turned it over to Mr. West. Mr. West lasted a while, but he too changed locations once or twice and subsequently fell on hard times, so before long his business closed. I moved from there on to Mr. Place. He had been a subordinate under Mr. Edwards and I spent several good years at his new school. But as I grew older and earned more ranks until I was a Black Belt, I grew tired of the competitive atmosphere and decided to give Taekwon-do a break.
A year or so passed before I grew restless and started again. We looked around, but several familiar schools were on hard times and not terribly functional. So I turned to karate. Where Taekwon-do was a kicking-based Korean variant, karate was a fist-based Japanese variant. I wound up at a kenpo karate dojo run by Professor Cale. Unlike my previous instructors, the professor did not have to close down, though he did change locations several times. I consider my time spent at his dojo to be the best period of my martial arts career. Prof Cale was easygoing, but serious and did not push his students beyond what they would not willingly do. However, the style that he taught was much more dire than what I had experienced in Taekwon-do: a certain move as taught by Edwards would disarm an opponent, while the same move as taught by Cale would shatter an elbow.
I enjoyed my time at Professor Cale’s but as college became my new life, the trouble of setting up a contract for only summers – busy, part-time job summers – was too great a headache and I’ve since ceased attending classes. I miss martial arts and have not really found a comparable experience on campus. Maybe once I settle down after college I’ll give the Professor another try.
My first teacher was a Korean that we called Master Kang. He was a middle-aged Mr. Miyagi type, who spoke with an accent and behaved as though his parents had been samurai. I remember him as a fantastic teacher, and though he was a little rough – he would give us a smart knuckle rap on the forehead for being late, which he called a “peanut” – he was fair – whenever an older/bigger/more advanced student beat up on a junior student, Master Kang would pair them next with someone even bigger. I stayed at Master Kang’s for about six months, where I earned my Yellow Belt and a going away trophy that is still in my room.
After Dad changed jobs and we left Florida, I spent a year or so without any Taekwon-do. But after some searching we discovered a local school run by Mr. Edwards. He was a good teacher and fun to be around, but at his school I learned two important truths about most martial arts instructors: they are always looking for new real estate, and they don’t always stay in business. After several changes of building location, Mr. Edwards turned over the school to a subordinate, who in time turned it over to Mr. West. Mr. West lasted a while, but he too changed locations once or twice and subsequently fell on hard times, so before long his business closed. I moved from there on to Mr. Place. He had been a subordinate under Mr. Edwards and I spent several good years at his new school. But as I grew older and earned more ranks until I was a Black Belt, I grew tired of the competitive atmosphere and decided to give Taekwon-do a break.
A year or so passed before I grew restless and started again. We looked around, but several familiar schools were on hard times and not terribly functional. So I turned to karate. Where Taekwon-do was a kicking-based Korean variant, karate was a fist-based Japanese variant. I wound up at a kenpo karate dojo run by Professor Cale. Unlike my previous instructors, the professor did not have to close down, though he did change locations several times. I consider my time spent at his dojo to be the best period of my martial arts career. Prof Cale was easygoing, but serious and did not push his students beyond what they would not willingly do. However, the style that he taught was much more dire than what I had experienced in Taekwon-do: a certain move as taught by Edwards would disarm an opponent, while the same move as taught by Cale would shatter an elbow.
I enjoyed my time at Professor Cale’s but as college became my new life, the trouble of setting up a contract for only summers – busy, part-time job summers – was too great a headache and I’ve since ceased attending classes. I miss martial arts and have not really found a comparable experience on campus. Maybe once I settle down after college I’ll give the Professor another try.
Homeschool "Cons"?
So is it true that homeschoolers are socially inept? Or that they have an inferior education? Or that they have been too sheltered to face the “real” world? I honestly do not know, because I have not spoken with every homeschooler in America. But to judge from my own experience with those of my homeshcooled friends, I’d say that our time at home was invaluable, not detrimental.
Granted, it is not often that the above-mentioned assumptions come up in conversation. Most people that I talk to regard a home education to be beneficial and out of the several universities that I considered for application, only one even hinted that my education might negatively impact my chances of being accepted.
But from time to time I have encountered a subtle condescension in conversations that suggests that the old biases against the home educated are still lingering in the popular imagination. Whether it be the casual statement made by a guest teacher at summer camp back in 2002, “at least he’ll get to meet other kids his own age,” or the observation by a friend that I might not be comfortable in a classroom setting, the vibe does not suggest that my kind are entirely accepted yet. Which is strange, since – if I remember my American history correctly – public education was not a fact of life until the Twentieth Century.
But facts and figures aside, how does my personal experience disprove the assumptions? For starters, I’d say that I’m socially stable by-and-large. Growing up at home, I got along with my sister just fine, in defiance of the stereotypical sibling-rivalry model. It was based on the assumption that siblings aught to get along, and we got to know one another on very personal terms. Likewise, I was called to interact with a range of age groups within my own extended family, as well as in my homeschool group – which also solved the problem of social interaction.
What about inferior education? I suppose that is subjective, because I do not think that my education was lacking at all. Rather, the liberty that I experienced growing up leads me to suspect that what restraints I might have experienced in a public environment were simply non-existent at home. History was read out of real books of our own choosing, not textbooks. When given the opportunity, I chose ballistics as a science focus and my sister and I jointly took a course in forensics. We also had liberty to choose our foreign language, so we took Japanese because we were simply interested. And Mom could tailor the curriculum whenever there appeared to be trouble – such as the hateful Hooked On Phonics and our different mathematics programs. Too, if ever there was a subject that Mom could not teach, but required more than a few books – like Japanese or high school chemistry – we could always turn to tutors or other moms in the homeschool group.
But what about my worldview, my opinions? Was I not simply indoctrinated by my parents from day one? Again, that is a subjective argument, because one must first argue that any education will not have a bias. Of course my parents were biased, but so are all my instructors at university. But what my instructors at university largely fail to do is teach how to think. At home, my parents and family and friends taught us how to think rationally, and we even took worldview classes at the homeschool group, where we read books by authors with radically different assumptions about life and compared them. Those were some of my best memories. As a consequence, now that I’ve been to university and experienced the different worldview available to me, I’ve not only kept the faith of my childhood, I’ve come to appreciate it more.
So are there any cons to being educated at home? I’m sure there are plenty, but I can’t think of any.
Granted, it is not often that the above-mentioned assumptions come up in conversation. Most people that I talk to regard a home education to be beneficial and out of the several universities that I considered for application, only one even hinted that my education might negatively impact my chances of being accepted.
But from time to time I have encountered a subtle condescension in conversations that suggests that the old biases against the home educated are still lingering in the popular imagination. Whether it be the casual statement made by a guest teacher at summer camp back in 2002, “at least he’ll get to meet other kids his own age,” or the observation by a friend that I might not be comfortable in a classroom setting, the vibe does not suggest that my kind are entirely accepted yet. Which is strange, since – if I remember my American history correctly – public education was not a fact of life until the Twentieth Century.
But facts and figures aside, how does my personal experience disprove the assumptions? For starters, I’d say that I’m socially stable by-and-large. Growing up at home, I got along with my sister just fine, in defiance of the stereotypical sibling-rivalry model. It was based on the assumption that siblings aught to get along, and we got to know one another on very personal terms. Likewise, I was called to interact with a range of age groups within my own extended family, as well as in my homeschool group – which also solved the problem of social interaction.
What about inferior education? I suppose that is subjective, because I do not think that my education was lacking at all. Rather, the liberty that I experienced growing up leads me to suspect that what restraints I might have experienced in a public environment were simply non-existent at home. History was read out of real books of our own choosing, not textbooks. When given the opportunity, I chose ballistics as a science focus and my sister and I jointly took a course in forensics. We also had liberty to choose our foreign language, so we took Japanese because we were simply interested. And Mom could tailor the curriculum whenever there appeared to be trouble – such as the hateful Hooked On Phonics and our different mathematics programs. Too, if ever there was a subject that Mom could not teach, but required more than a few books – like Japanese or high school chemistry – we could always turn to tutors or other moms in the homeschool group.
But what about my worldview, my opinions? Was I not simply indoctrinated by my parents from day one? Again, that is a subjective argument, because one must first argue that any education will not have a bias. Of course my parents were biased, but so are all my instructors at university. But what my instructors at university largely fail to do is teach how to think. At home, my parents and family and friends taught us how to think rationally, and we even took worldview classes at the homeschool group, where we read books by authors with radically different assumptions about life and compared them. Those were some of my best memories. As a consequence, now that I’ve been to university and experienced the different worldview available to me, I’ve not only kept the faith of my childhood, I’ve come to appreciate it more.
So are there any cons to being educated at home? I’m sure there are plenty, but I can’t think of any.
Homeschooled
Before going to college I had never set foot in a public school. Ever. Except if one counts 4-H and the Sundays when our then-nomadic church was held in a high school cafeteria. I was homeschooled, and I regret nothing.
I am not sure when my mom started making plans to educate my sister and I by herself. I don’t think she even knows when the decision was made. More accurately, I cannot even say that the decision was made at all, like just sort of happened.
The initial purpose was to let us “play one more year.” Mom did not see any point in making us perform elementary math equations or regurgitate grammatical principles. She read to us herself and math was not terribly important to five and six-year-olds. But the law is the law, so at age seven I was suddenly called inside and commanded to count M&Ms before eating them. It was great fun, and the math problems were interactive pictures, not unlike my coloring books. So school began.
Unfortunately, not all school was so enjoyable, nor did those enjoyable subject remain so. Hooked On Phonics was my bane through the early years of grade school and Saxon Math was just as bad. Mom diligently sought out new materials for us to use, and with each passing year she refined her methods and curriculum. Her mission was to make school profitable and fun at the same time, so before long we were enjoying comparably superior course programs. In the tradition of reading as a pastime, Mom made it a policy – to which I am eternally grateful – to use as few textbooks as possible, leaving us with real books for use in most every subject besides math and the occasional science.
Each year Mom made plans to send us to public school, but each year something would come up and she would decide that another year at home wouldn’t hurt. So grade school passed and we were “off” to junior high and high school, so before we knew what had happened, I was a senior and my sister was making plans to spend a semester of her junior year studying overseas in Osaka, Japan. By that point Mom had given up on the idea of ever sending us off to finish up in public schools, so we churned right along until graduation.
It was said the other day by one of my history teachers that it takes a few years for a newly proved fact to become common knowledge. That seems to be the case with the assumption about homeschoolers and functioning in society. Some years ago I heard about a study conducted that found that homeschoolers are just as socialized as “public school kids,” if not more so. And yet, I continue to encounter a subtle assumption that because I was educated at home, I am somehow inferior in my social skills. I can see the logic, and if I was indeed “chained to a table leg,” as goes the joke among my homeschooled friends, then I would certainly consider myself socially juvenile. But as things stand, I can sense no indication that I am lacking at all.
More on homeschooling “cons” next go ‘round.
I am not sure when my mom started making plans to educate my sister and I by herself. I don’t think she even knows when the decision was made. More accurately, I cannot even say that the decision was made at all, like just sort of happened.
The initial purpose was to let us “play one more year.” Mom did not see any point in making us perform elementary math equations or regurgitate grammatical principles. She read to us herself and math was not terribly important to five and six-year-olds. But the law is the law, so at age seven I was suddenly called inside and commanded to count M&Ms before eating them. It was great fun, and the math problems were interactive pictures, not unlike my coloring books. So school began.
Unfortunately, not all school was so enjoyable, nor did those enjoyable subject remain so. Hooked On Phonics was my bane through the early years of grade school and Saxon Math was just as bad. Mom diligently sought out new materials for us to use, and with each passing year she refined her methods and curriculum. Her mission was to make school profitable and fun at the same time, so before long we were enjoying comparably superior course programs. In the tradition of reading as a pastime, Mom made it a policy – to which I am eternally grateful – to use as few textbooks as possible, leaving us with real books for use in most every subject besides math and the occasional science.
Each year Mom made plans to send us to public school, but each year something would come up and she would decide that another year at home wouldn’t hurt. So grade school passed and we were “off” to junior high and high school, so before we knew what had happened, I was a senior and my sister was making plans to spend a semester of her junior year studying overseas in Osaka, Japan. By that point Mom had given up on the idea of ever sending us off to finish up in public schools, so we churned right along until graduation.
It was said the other day by one of my history teachers that it takes a few years for a newly proved fact to become common knowledge. That seems to be the case with the assumption about homeschoolers and functioning in society. Some years ago I heard about a study conducted that found that homeschoolers are just as socialized as “public school kids,” if not more so. And yet, I continue to encounter a subtle assumption that because I was educated at home, I am somehow inferior in my social skills. I can see the logic, and if I was indeed “chained to a table leg,” as goes the joke among my homeschooled friends, then I would certainly consider myself socially juvenile. But as things stand, I can sense no indication that I am lacking at all.
More on homeschooling “cons” next go ‘round.
I Enjoyed Mom Reading
Growing up, I lived books. Ever since I was a baby. Somewhere in a photo album there is a picture of me on my elbows – I may have been crawling by that point – leaning with raised eyebrows over a little wooden and foam picture book. I have always loved books because my mom read to me.
The library was a great place to go for a little kid. The books were colorful and fun to look at, and the stories talked about entire lives that we could never live, but could enjoy vicariously through mom’s readings. We would sit as she read to us in the library, then we would fill up one or two large canvas bags – that was before the unfortunate twenty-book limit was enforced – and proceed to work through them, five or ten picture books a day, until the next week, whereupon we would troop back in to the library, say hello to the nice librarians – we all knew each other by name – and troop out with another several bags worth of reading material.
My first real love was the Chronicles of Narnia. Mom started reading those to my sister and I when we were four and five years old. We did not follow much, and Mom was able to skip pages when the chapter was running long, but after a couple years we were able to pick out when she “missed” pages, and at that time, I was hooked. Sadly, after reading Prince Caspian Mom had some time-consuming issued come up. I never understood why, and I don’t suppose that I ever shall, but while we still read picture books together she did not have time to start anything longer. Distressed, I begged and begged for her to start the next book, but she encouraged me to do so myself until she got more time. That was out of the question because, at age ten, I still could not read – my parents had been worried and it was suggested by some kind of specialist that I was Learning Disabled, but at that my parents had vehemently determined that I would read whenever I was ready, possible disorders aside.
So one day I decided that I would try out Voyage of the Dawntreader, the sequel to Caspian. If Mom would not do it, then I would just have to man up and do the job myself. I finished the book in a couple days and moved on to The Silver Chair before Mom knew what had happened, and I have been reading great fiction ever since.
But the overdue advent of my reading career did not keep my mom, sister, and I from reading together. Dr. Seuss and the Berestain Bears were replaced by J.R.R. Tolkien, Rosemary Sutcliff, and Longfellow, but we carried on the tradition through middle school and into high school. Some might say that going so far was a bit much. I would never have exchanged a moment.
The library was a great place to go for a little kid. The books were colorful and fun to look at, and the stories talked about entire lives that we could never live, but could enjoy vicariously through mom’s readings. We would sit as she read to us in the library, then we would fill up one or two large canvas bags – that was before the unfortunate twenty-book limit was enforced – and proceed to work through them, five or ten picture books a day, until the next week, whereupon we would troop back in to the library, say hello to the nice librarians – we all knew each other by name – and troop out with another several bags worth of reading material.
My first real love was the Chronicles of Narnia. Mom started reading those to my sister and I when we were four and five years old. We did not follow much, and Mom was able to skip pages when the chapter was running long, but after a couple years we were able to pick out when she “missed” pages, and at that time, I was hooked. Sadly, after reading Prince Caspian Mom had some time-consuming issued come up. I never understood why, and I don’t suppose that I ever shall, but while we still read picture books together she did not have time to start anything longer. Distressed, I begged and begged for her to start the next book, but she encouraged me to do so myself until she got more time. That was out of the question because, at age ten, I still could not read – my parents had been worried and it was suggested by some kind of specialist that I was Learning Disabled, but at that my parents had vehemently determined that I would read whenever I was ready, possible disorders aside.
So one day I decided that I would try out Voyage of the Dawntreader, the sequel to Caspian. If Mom would not do it, then I would just have to man up and do the job myself. I finished the book in a couple days and moved on to The Silver Chair before Mom knew what had happened, and I have been reading great fiction ever since.
But the overdue advent of my reading career did not keep my mom, sister, and I from reading together. Dr. Seuss and the Berestain Bears were replaced by J.R.R. Tolkien, Rosemary Sutcliff, and Longfellow, but we carried on the tradition through middle school and into high school. Some might say that going so far was a bit much. I would never have exchanged a moment.
Living in the Country: Part Two
Spiders aside, the countryside was to me the perfect place to live. There was plenty of room to run around and scream without bothering the neighbors, and the neighbors could not even be seen with all the trees around our house. There were acres and acres of woodlands for hiking, and though we established no permanent trails, we hiked with our friends through the woods on a regular basis.
Below the house, the hilly slopes came together in one great ravine, where water collected during rainy weather. When things were dry, the water made a single little pool amidst large rocks, and where it spilled the water was almost immediately dried up. But when rains came the little pool was hidden by a torrent of rushing, crashing water that rose waist-deep and could knock a man over and drag him away. A sorry fate, for if he survived the rocky dashing, then he would have to dodge the barbed wire fence that marked our property’s westerly border.
Our neighbors on the ridge were varied. To one side, nearest the highway, was an old man who raised mules and hunted in the woods on his property. He asked permission to do the same on ours, assuring my dad that it was necessary to curb the coyote population.
“They come up here and breed with the wolves!” he said in deadly earnest. My dad denied him, thinking of his kids running about in the woods with firearms going off from time to time. That said, we became used to hearing the occasional boom thump off the hill side during hunting season, and the coyotes regularly set up a racket, but our dogs drowned them out and kept the place clear.
The next neighbors down were a family, with grandma living by herself in a doublewide next to the house where her son’s family lived. The man raised fighting cocks that he took to matches in neighboring states, since the fighting – but not the raising of – roosters was illegal. He valued his fighters, so we were all a little alarmed when my sister’s dog turned up with Number Thirteen twitching in her mouth. Dad clipped the tag off, beat the dogs with the dead rooster to scare them into submission – he hated every minute of it, too – and tossed the bird into the woods.
On the other side of our property, there lived some kids a little younger. We played often until the high school year took us in different directions. We read the same books, played the same games, and went to the same church for a while. Our fathers even rigged up a “climb-over,” a wooden stockade-style ladder that straddled the barbed-wire fence that divided our properties. Using that, all we needed was a wave and a shouted explanation to our parents before we disappeared over the fence to play for hours.
Below the house, the hilly slopes came together in one great ravine, where water collected during rainy weather. When things were dry, the water made a single little pool amidst large rocks, and where it spilled the water was almost immediately dried up. But when rains came the little pool was hidden by a torrent of rushing, crashing water that rose waist-deep and could knock a man over and drag him away. A sorry fate, for if he survived the rocky dashing, then he would have to dodge the barbed wire fence that marked our property’s westerly border.
Our neighbors on the ridge were varied. To one side, nearest the highway, was an old man who raised mules and hunted in the woods on his property. He asked permission to do the same on ours, assuring my dad that it was necessary to curb the coyote population.
“They come up here and breed with the wolves!” he said in deadly earnest. My dad denied him, thinking of his kids running about in the woods with firearms going off from time to time. That said, we became used to hearing the occasional boom thump off the hill side during hunting season, and the coyotes regularly set up a racket, but our dogs drowned them out and kept the place clear.
The next neighbors down were a family, with grandma living by herself in a doublewide next to the house where her son’s family lived. The man raised fighting cocks that he took to matches in neighboring states, since the fighting – but not the raising of – roosters was illegal. He valued his fighters, so we were all a little alarmed when my sister’s dog turned up with Number Thirteen twitching in her mouth. Dad clipped the tag off, beat the dogs with the dead rooster to scare them into submission – he hated every minute of it, too – and tossed the bird into the woods.
On the other side of our property, there lived some kids a little younger. We played often until the high school year took us in different directions. We read the same books, played the same games, and went to the same church for a while. Our fathers even rigged up a “climb-over,” a wooden stockade-style ladder that straddled the barbed-wire fence that divided our properties. Using that, all we needed was a wave and a shouted explanation to our parents before we disappeared over the fence to play for hours.
Living in the Country: Part One
To some degree, I have always lived in the country. Until my trip to Japan in the autumn of 2006, my time in cities had been only trips and visits, either to see my urbanite relatives, or to play tourist at famous museums and the like. The closest I ever came to the urban environment was my infancy in Rapid City, South Dakota – which at the time could barely be called a town, to hear my parents tell it – and a few years in neighborhoods while Dad job-hopped in the early Nineties, right after he got out of the Air Force. And even then, we were close to city parks and hiking trails, which Mom forced us all to use on a daily basis.
So it was no great change when my family moved out of our grandparents’ roomy country house and resettled outside town in an old two story wood and brick house that Dad likes to call the “cabin.” It was up on a hill in a young wood on the county border, with several sloping lawns and a long driveway that ran parallel to the dirt road. The house was curiously built into the hillside, with the top floor for living and the bottom floor for sleeping, unlike any house I had ever seen. The floors were connected by a spiral staircase that was (and is) painted a bizarre purple color that seemed to defy the house’s color scheme. But I loved that staircase and bounded up and down every day for several weeks.
One aspect I did not get used to were the arachnids. I had seen plenty of spiders at my grandparents’ (we even nicknamed the bathroom located near the dark back of the house, “the spider bathroom” for all the water spiders found in the sink on mornings) but these little buggers were the infamous Brown Recluse, and I dreaded even the sight of one. There were also scorpions in the corners, and it was not uncommon for the first year or two in that house for us to espy one of the vengeful beasts scuttling along the baseboards. The spiders and scorpions did not discriminate, and infested the entire house for years, though they tended to favor the dark downstairs – where we all slept. to fight back, my dad discovered invaluable sticky traps at Wal-Mart and we scattered these throughout the house, to great effect. The scorpions vanished and the spider population plummeted, although on occasion we would encounter a lone hunter stalking silently across the carpet in front of the TV. I have often considered the accidental flooding a few years back a miracle in disguise, because after we ripped up the ruined carpet, our spindle-legged foes were easier to point out, and after Dad got up the gumption to tile the downstairs, the Brown Recluses stand out like bandy-legged caltrops.
Strangely, despite living in that house for over ten years, not one of my family has ever been stung.
So it was no great change when my family moved out of our grandparents’ roomy country house and resettled outside town in an old two story wood and brick house that Dad likes to call the “cabin.” It was up on a hill in a young wood on the county border, with several sloping lawns and a long driveway that ran parallel to the dirt road. The house was curiously built into the hillside, with the top floor for living and the bottom floor for sleeping, unlike any house I had ever seen. The floors were connected by a spiral staircase that was (and is) painted a bizarre purple color that seemed to defy the house’s color scheme. But I loved that staircase and bounded up and down every day for several weeks.
One aspect I did not get used to were the arachnids. I had seen plenty of spiders at my grandparents’ (we even nicknamed the bathroom located near the dark back of the house, “the spider bathroom” for all the water spiders found in the sink on mornings) but these little buggers were the infamous Brown Recluse, and I dreaded even the sight of one. There were also scorpions in the corners, and it was not uncommon for the first year or two in that house for us to espy one of the vengeful beasts scuttling along the baseboards. The spiders and scorpions did not discriminate, and infested the entire house for years, though they tended to favor the dark downstairs – where we all slept. to fight back, my dad discovered invaluable sticky traps at Wal-Mart and we scattered these throughout the house, to great effect. The scorpions vanished and the spider population plummeted, although on occasion we would encounter a lone hunter stalking silently across the carpet in front of the TV. I have often considered the accidental flooding a few years back a miracle in disguise, because after we ripped up the ruined carpet, our spindle-legged foes were easier to point out, and after Dad got up the gumption to tile the downstairs, the Brown Recluses stand out like bandy-legged caltrops.
Strangely, despite living in that house for over ten years, not one of my family has ever been stung.
Babies, Blessings, and Shrines
One of the joys of living on one’s own in a foreign country is “getting lost.” That is, leaving the house and losing one’s way en rout to the destination. One is almost always due to encounter interesting, if not fascinating, people and places. So one day I got lost in Japan. I was in the park surrounding Osaka Castle and, seeing as it was a weekend, there was some sort of festival in motion. I looked at my watch, “I’ve got time,” – in English, just in case someone was listening – and started wandering aimlessly.
Because there was a festival present, there were also the requisite kiosks. So I bought some takoyaki and set out to see the sights. My wanderings took me to the paths that lead around the outskirts of the park and which lead to many out-of-the-way buildings and smaller “parkish” places. I happily strolled about, finished my takoyaki and set to getting found. I asked about, usually approaching blue-collar types such as gardeners; they are usually the most helpful. At last I was nearing my exit when a huge arch caught my eye. Well, I was “lost” so I turned aside and discovered a massive Shinto shrine. No one was in sight so I began snapping pictures with that crafty feeling that a kid gets who is doing something possibly detrimental, though he or she has not been told so. But suddenly the doors opened and a priest exited. He was followed by several people, which turned out to be a family. Then the wife appeared and she had a baby! Was it…?
The priest stopped outside the door and bowed to each family member as they filed out and I snapped a picture before he turned and looked me over quizzically. But I had no time for him; there was a baby to be seen. The family began walking toward a cluster of vehicles opposite where I entered and I hovered about on the outskirts, getting up my courage. Finally I threw aside my wayward fears and strode confidently up to the mom. I pointed at her child and asked authoritatively…“blessing, blessing?” She stared at me. My worst fears were realized. But they were all very gracious. Through a mixture of broken English and all but recognizable Japanese on my part, I ascertained that yes; this baby had just been baptized, Shinto style. She had a red kanji on her forehead, which is for girls only; boys have blue for their mark. Her mother held her up and bounced her in time to, “konnichiwa, say konnichiwa!” But the girl, barely larger than a football and semi-comatose, just let her head flop like a bobble toy and did not even un-cross her eyes. So I thanked them all and they smiled politely as the strange foreigner marched away to find an exit.
Because there was a festival present, there were also the requisite kiosks. So I bought some takoyaki and set out to see the sights. My wanderings took me to the paths that lead around the outskirts of the park and which lead to many out-of-the-way buildings and smaller “parkish” places. I happily strolled about, finished my takoyaki and set to getting found. I asked about, usually approaching blue-collar types such as gardeners; they are usually the most helpful. At last I was nearing my exit when a huge arch caught my eye. Well, I was “lost” so I turned aside and discovered a massive Shinto shrine. No one was in sight so I began snapping pictures with that crafty feeling that a kid gets who is doing something possibly detrimental, though he or she has not been told so. But suddenly the doors opened and a priest exited. He was followed by several people, which turned out to be a family. Then the wife appeared and she had a baby! Was it…?
The priest stopped outside the door and bowed to each family member as they filed out and I snapped a picture before he turned and looked me over quizzically. But I had no time for him; there was a baby to be seen. The family began walking toward a cluster of vehicles opposite where I entered and I hovered about on the outskirts, getting up my courage. Finally I threw aside my wayward fears and strode confidently up to the mom. I pointed at her child and asked authoritatively…“blessing, blessing?” She stared at me. My worst fears were realized. But they were all very gracious. Through a mixture of broken English and all but recognizable Japanese on my part, I ascertained that yes; this baby had just been baptized, Shinto style. She had a red kanji on her forehead, which is for girls only; boys have blue for their mark. Her mother held her up and bounced her in time to, “konnichiwa, say konnichiwa!” But the girl, barely larger than a football and semi-comatose, just let her head flop like a bobble toy and did not even un-cross her eyes. So I thanked them all and they smiled politely as the strange foreigner marched away to find an exit.
Women Only
How I boarded the train and wound up in the women’s-only car, the Lord only knows. It had been a long day in Japan, I had gone into Umeda to see the Umeda Sky Building, a ten minute train ride from home, and come back before going back to Namba to visit the Nipponbashi shopping district, for which the area is famous. I stayed perhaps two hours in the neighborhood in a fruitless search for a particular store but, giving up at about 6:30, I located Namba Station to make the trip home.
I boarded as usual and was soon absorbed in a good manga that I had picked up (one is hard-pressed to NOT find a manga-ya in Nipponbashi) and traveled to Shin-Osaka, perhaps seven stops from Namba. The manga finished, I put it away and looked about me at the singularly feminine car wherein I stood. My brow wrinkled only a little as something poked the back of my brain and I glanced up at the pink handle in my fist. Indeed, the entire car’s trim, handles, and seats had a pink aspect and further inspection yielded sufficient evidence – a sign – to convince me that I had traveled nearly all the distance home in the Woman’s Only, the bane of any self-respecting western – and Japanese – male. Strangely, I was not embarrassed (I mean, it was an accident, right?) and upon coming to a stop at Shin-Osaka I stepped calmly from the car, “adieu, ladies” and collapsed, knees weak, against a low wall. I had just lived through my worst commuting nightmare and not only survived it but did not even notice until the trip was nearly over. Well, at least my experience was not as bad as that of the gentleman my sister witnessed.
My sister lived in Osaka for a number a year before my trip and often traveled the very Midosuji rout that I took on a daily basis. She rode on many occasions in the Women’s Only, as it was infinitely more roomy thanks to the male half of the commuting population being stuffed into every other car. Well, she was one day traveling somewhere and into the Women’s Only steps a gentleman. She said this was actually not unusual, for on some occasions, little boys and teens with their girlfriends would make use of the exclusive car. Except, this was a stout, briefcase-toting businessman. In he came, huffing and so on from an apparent run he had recently finished, and plopped down between two schoolgirls. He leaned back and closed his eyes through a sigh of relief, glad that he was safely on the train. But only for a moment did he remain thus, because my sister said that he, obviously more observant than this author, slowly opened his eyes to study his surroundings. In a second he was up and in the next car, leaving three very amused schoolgirls behind. Being Japanese, he probably went home and committed hara kiri.
I boarded as usual and was soon absorbed in a good manga that I had picked up (one is hard-pressed to NOT find a manga-ya in Nipponbashi) and traveled to Shin-Osaka, perhaps seven stops from Namba. The manga finished, I put it away and looked about me at the singularly feminine car wherein I stood. My brow wrinkled only a little as something poked the back of my brain and I glanced up at the pink handle in my fist. Indeed, the entire car’s trim, handles, and seats had a pink aspect and further inspection yielded sufficient evidence – a sign – to convince me that I had traveled nearly all the distance home in the Woman’s Only, the bane of any self-respecting western – and Japanese – male. Strangely, I was not embarrassed (I mean, it was an accident, right?) and upon coming to a stop at Shin-Osaka I stepped calmly from the car, “adieu, ladies” and collapsed, knees weak, against a low wall. I had just lived through my worst commuting nightmare and not only survived it but did not even notice until the trip was nearly over. Well, at least my experience was not as bad as that of the gentleman my sister witnessed.
My sister lived in Osaka for a number a year before my trip and often traveled the very Midosuji rout that I took on a daily basis. She rode on many occasions in the Women’s Only, as it was infinitely more roomy thanks to the male half of the commuting population being stuffed into every other car. Well, she was one day traveling somewhere and into the Women’s Only steps a gentleman. She said this was actually not unusual, for on some occasions, little boys and teens with their girlfriends would make use of the exclusive car. Except, this was a stout, briefcase-toting businessman. In he came, huffing and so on from an apparent run he had recently finished, and plopped down between two schoolgirls. He leaned back and closed his eyes through a sigh of relief, glad that he was safely on the train. But only for a moment did he remain thus, because my sister said that he, obviously more observant than this author, slowly opened his eyes to study his surroundings. In a second he was up and in the next car, leaving three very amused schoolgirls behind. Being Japanese, he probably went home and committed hara kiri.
Graves of Murderers
My teacher of Russian History is rather enigmatic. The man is eccentric to the enth and his background is dodgy. He loves Russia. He talks about the great freedom that the citizens now enjoy and he speaks as though the Russians invented Democracy.
We were in class one day and the teacher was going on about the succession of the throne in Muscovite Russia. Ivan the Terrible had died and left only two sons. He had one son earlier, but he had offed him for treason – a fact that the teacher was very deliberate in defending, after all, with all these traitors running around, it was incumbent upon Ivan to uphold the law! Never mind that there was a law passed declaring those generals who surrendered in wartime to be traitors, worthy of death, thereby driving them to flee to the enemy in Poland. No! They were traitors and Ivan had every right to defend his crown!
So Ivan had a son that he killed – there was definitely no mental illness involved at all! – leaving him with two sons more. Fedor was a sickly man, but he did his best as Czar when his father died, though that did not stop him from succumbing to his illness and dying shortly thereafter. So that left young Dmitri as the last heir.
There was at the time a curious church law dictating that any marriage after the third was illegitimate. And it so happened that young Dmitri was the son of the fifth or sixth wife (I can’t recall which). Well, Dmitri was the son of a violent czar, so it came as no surprise when he was found dead in the courtyard, having tripped or slipped while playing alone with a dagger and thereby slitting his own throat. some suspicion was cast upon the boyar Boris Godunov, but that was ridiculous and unfounded, for he became the next czar and when he too died in time, he was buried in a cathedral.
But our teacher was eager to prove that Boris was innocent. Remember that church law about the third wife? Well, since Dmitri was the child of the sixth wife, it is clear that he was illegitimate – the prof used a stronger word, and he used it frequently. So, if the boy was illegitimate, then Boris was clearly innocent. After all, what competition was there in an illegitimate child? No! Boris was innocent, he was elected to the royal seat by a council and he was buried in a church, wasn’t he? Moreover, when our teacher went to Moscow last time, “I went to Boris Godunov’s grave, and I prayed over Boris Godunov’s grave, and I would never have prayed over the grave of a man whom I thought was a murderer!” and he seized the podium in both hands and glared at us from under his Gandalf eyebrows.
There was no response, though the guy behind me snorted real loud and buried his face in a textbook.
We were in class one day and the teacher was going on about the succession of the throne in Muscovite Russia. Ivan the Terrible had died and left only two sons. He had one son earlier, but he had offed him for treason – a fact that the teacher was very deliberate in defending, after all, with all these traitors running around, it was incumbent upon Ivan to uphold the law! Never mind that there was a law passed declaring those generals who surrendered in wartime to be traitors, worthy of death, thereby driving them to flee to the enemy in Poland. No! They were traitors and Ivan had every right to defend his crown!
So Ivan had a son that he killed – there was definitely no mental illness involved at all! – leaving him with two sons more. Fedor was a sickly man, but he did his best as Czar when his father died, though that did not stop him from succumbing to his illness and dying shortly thereafter. So that left young Dmitri as the last heir.
There was at the time a curious church law dictating that any marriage after the third was illegitimate. And it so happened that young Dmitri was the son of the fifth or sixth wife (I can’t recall which). Well, Dmitri was the son of a violent czar, so it came as no surprise when he was found dead in the courtyard, having tripped or slipped while playing alone with a dagger and thereby slitting his own throat. some suspicion was cast upon the boyar Boris Godunov, but that was ridiculous and unfounded, for he became the next czar and when he too died in time, he was buried in a cathedral.
But our teacher was eager to prove that Boris was innocent. Remember that church law about the third wife? Well, since Dmitri was the child of the sixth wife, it is clear that he was illegitimate – the prof used a stronger word, and he used it frequently. So, if the boy was illegitimate, then Boris was clearly innocent. After all, what competition was there in an illegitimate child? No! Boris was innocent, he was elected to the royal seat by a council and he was buried in a church, wasn’t he? Moreover, when our teacher went to Moscow last time, “I went to Boris Godunov’s grave, and I prayed over Boris Godunov’s grave, and I would never have prayed over the grave of a man whom I thought was a murderer!” and he seized the podium in both hands and glared at us from under his Gandalf eyebrows.
There was no response, though the guy behind me snorted real loud and buried his face in a textbook.
Book Sale!
Books sale in the liberal arts building! The History department was conducting a general purge of its library, with paperbacks for one dollar, hardbacks for three dollars, and textbooks for five dollars. I disregarded textbooks entirely and homed in on the histories, discovering a title on American expansion, one on the conquerors (of Britain, I suppose), and a trilogy on the kings of Merry Olde England. All told I spent a mere thirteen dollars on my new acquisitions!
I arrived early to said book sale so I helped to sort out and stack some books, browsing all the way. I received a free plastic sack for my troubles. Said the professor on staff, a younger fellow with a ponytail and soul patch, “Can I interest you in a FREE complimentary plastic book sack? It is also very useful for waist disposal, the asphyxiation of small animals, and makes a great urban tumbleweed!” I accepted gladly. As I strolled away he began a lament over his lack of stereotype; he was not too old, nor pretty, nor even big and threatening enough to scare away potential buyers; which left him out of sorts with regard to manning the table.
Later the next day, I spoke with my Christianity professor as I went down to the book sale again. Much to his delight, I spent a further seven dollars on works about medieval culture and politics (my professor was pleased to recognize several that he had donated to the sale), a bible commentary, and a novel titled Esau. It may be junk, but hey, it was only a buck.
The only problem now: what to do with my books? I always have great intentions to read every day and work through at least one book per semester, etc. yet inevitably, a combination of homework, social interaction (even if that means just sitting on the couch and watching a friend play Mariocart), and dilly-dallying leaves me with little time to read. As such, I do not have the time so late in the semester to read my new books, much as I would like to. I can’t even read the ones that I have brought from home, there is just no time at all, after the aforementioned time-taking escapades. And I really hate to just shelves the things until next semester. But wait! My mom is a history teacher!
So I off and packed the books back into their plastic sacks and toted them home. Mom was very pleased, and filed some away for later use while I stashed the thicker ones on the shelves with my other tomes of knowledge. Maybe come Christmas break – or graduation – I shall take the time to look through them.
I arrived early to said book sale so I helped to sort out and stack some books, browsing all the way. I received a free plastic sack for my troubles. Said the professor on staff, a younger fellow with a ponytail and soul patch, “Can I interest you in a FREE complimentary plastic book sack? It is also very useful for waist disposal, the asphyxiation of small animals, and makes a great urban tumbleweed!” I accepted gladly. As I strolled away he began a lament over his lack of stereotype; he was not too old, nor pretty, nor even big and threatening enough to scare away potential buyers; which left him out of sorts with regard to manning the table.
Later the next day, I spoke with my Christianity professor as I went down to the book sale again. Much to his delight, I spent a further seven dollars on works about medieval culture and politics (my professor was pleased to recognize several that he had donated to the sale), a bible commentary, and a novel titled Esau. It may be junk, but hey, it was only a buck.
The only problem now: what to do with my books? I always have great intentions to read every day and work through at least one book per semester, etc. yet inevitably, a combination of homework, social interaction (even if that means just sitting on the couch and watching a friend play Mariocart), and dilly-dallying leaves me with little time to read. As such, I do not have the time so late in the semester to read my new books, much as I would like to. I can’t even read the ones that I have brought from home, there is just no time at all, after the aforementioned time-taking escapades. And I really hate to just shelves the things until next semester. But wait! My mom is a history teacher!
So I off and packed the books back into their plastic sacks and toted them home. Mom was very pleased, and filed some away for later use while I stashed the thicker ones on the shelves with my other tomes of knowledge. Maybe come Christmas break – or graduation – I shall take the time to look through them.
Monday, November 16, 2009
The New Age and World’s End: Part 2
Picking up from Part One, Joanne was instructing me in the ways of Atlantis, in short, that through evolution, intelligent beings that were created by the Logos left their ethereal existence behind and became physical beings, moving up through the ages until human-kind came about. From thence, the primitives (did she call them ‘Liberians’?) reincarnated into the Atlanteans who reincarnated into the Aryans.
There are, however, some reincarnated Atlanteans still in existence; they constitute a class of society that is predominantly labor-oriented. Many of them are high school educated and a few are even college educated. They can own businesses and perhaps even achieve very high places in society. But they are still not Aryans; Joanne knows because she said that she’s met some pretty “thick-skulled” doctors and the like. They are wonderful, fine people, but can never aspire to Aryan levels. “We have trained them well!”
However, in light of recent history, please do not misunderstand: Aryans are certainly not superior in the least bit. Adolf Hitler was a wicked man who ruined a beautiful concept.
But I digress. Aryans are the ones that can reach their minds into the … I can’t recall. Higher-mindedness? Anyway, by reaching into the spiritual upperness, Aryans display their superior ability through works of art and magnificent things that Liberians (or whatever the tribal types are called) and Atlanteans cannot grasp, such as going to the Moon. But such power can be misused, like the atom bombs. Truman chose a life (I inferred that he chose while pre-incarnate) that would possibly land him in such a mess, but it was his choice.
All this is made possible because we learn and advance through our lives via cell-memory (see the video game Assassin’s Creed), the imprinting of life-lessons or something into our genetic material, thus pushing our kind forward through evolution.
All these concepts are universally taught by the world’s religions, sans a terribly miss-lead Catholic Christianity. The druids of Europe had it down, as did the eastern people who taught Christ, in the years that He was growing “in stature and in favor with God and Men.” Pantheism is the Way, the Truth and the Life-line to God – incidentally, the Hopi Indians had some good ideas. Oh, and don’t eat meat, because it tends to mess with one’s frequency, cutting one off from the Most High.
A lot more was said that I cannot recall, but just as we finished discussing how she could perceive – via sound resonance, or heat waves, or some such notion – that, as a writer, I was soon to embark on a great quest to collect the tales of the druids and make them new for my future audience, Mom walked up and said that the car was leaving, adding to Joanne, “I hope you taught him something!”
Ironically, she had. As pointed out somewhere in the protracted discourse on humanity’s role in a rather Lovecraftian universe, Joanne inadvertently claimed that it was all for naught. She said that the world was to end in 2012.
There are, however, some reincarnated Atlanteans still in existence; they constitute a class of society that is predominantly labor-oriented. Many of them are high school educated and a few are even college educated. They can own businesses and perhaps even achieve very high places in society. But they are still not Aryans; Joanne knows because she said that she’s met some pretty “thick-skulled” doctors and the like. They are wonderful, fine people, but can never aspire to Aryan levels. “We have trained them well!”
However, in light of recent history, please do not misunderstand: Aryans are certainly not superior in the least bit. Adolf Hitler was a wicked man who ruined a beautiful concept.
But I digress. Aryans are the ones that can reach their minds into the … I can’t recall. Higher-mindedness? Anyway, by reaching into the spiritual upperness, Aryans display their superior ability through works of art and magnificent things that Liberians (or whatever the tribal types are called) and Atlanteans cannot grasp, such as going to the Moon. But such power can be misused, like the atom bombs. Truman chose a life (I inferred that he chose while pre-incarnate) that would possibly land him in such a mess, but it was his choice.
All this is made possible because we learn and advance through our lives via cell-memory (see the video game Assassin’s Creed), the imprinting of life-lessons or something into our genetic material, thus pushing our kind forward through evolution.
All these concepts are universally taught by the world’s religions, sans a terribly miss-lead Catholic Christianity. The druids of Europe had it down, as did the eastern people who taught Christ, in the years that He was growing “in stature and in favor with God and Men.” Pantheism is the Way, the Truth and the Life-line to God – incidentally, the Hopi Indians had some good ideas. Oh, and don’t eat meat, because it tends to mess with one’s frequency, cutting one off from the Most High.
A lot more was said that I cannot recall, but just as we finished discussing how she could perceive – via sound resonance, or heat waves, or some such notion – that, as a writer, I was soon to embark on a great quest to collect the tales of the druids and make them new for my future audience, Mom walked up and said that the car was leaving, adding to Joanne, “I hope you taught him something!”
Ironically, she had. As pointed out somewhere in the protracted discourse on humanity’s role in a rather Lovecraftian universe, Joanne inadvertently claimed that it was all for naught. She said that the world was to end in 2012.
The New Age and World’s End, Part 1
Some weeks ago in the summer, I was at a political rally. The purpose of the rally is not important, but that is where I spoke with Joanne. She was a grandmotherly woman, white-headed and hale, seated in a lawn chair, waving at the cars that honked in salute to her sign. My first contact was a general “you’re a promising young college student, what are you studying?” type of exchange. “Writing and history.” That was how it began.
Talk of history led to talk of perspective. I must be careful, she warned, to look at a given teaching from every angle. See that building? We can only see one angle, not the backside, nor the interior, nor the roof, because of our angle in relation to the building. We must be careful to consider the other side before making any judgment.
Talk of angles led to dimensions. In our world, she reminded me, we can perceive only four: length, width, height, and time. But there are more dimensions and wavelengths (like light and radio) that we “see” but do not perceive. The spiritual is another example. There are some people who can see, but they are taught by others to suppress the “imaginary” and move on, and thanks to thousands of years of suppression, the human eye can no longer see such things.
You see, we are all God, she continued. When the Logos created the world, part of “Him” withdrew (God) and part was used (Creation); we are all God; we can all become Christ-like. Because, Jesus was a man (who studied under the Hindus) who operated at 75% frequency, but became more in tune when John baptized him. Same with Buddha’s Enlightenment.
After all, there was originally a super race (I think she called them “monads”) that came to Earth first. These super beings were near to god. On a related note, the original incarnated humans (actually, “beings”) were ethereal, wispy and smoke-link. These later reincarnated as gelatinous beasts with a single feeler, like a snail. After evolving some millions of years (the Church really screwed up this “universal” truth by denying evolution) the more enlightened beasts took on reptilian shapes, and so on. Then there was cave-man (please note that apes were not a part of the equation, they had something to do with the Dark Powers) who reincarnated – or were one with – the first people (there was a name for them that sounded as though it was derived from a Conan novel, like “Liberians”). These people were in tune with the spirit (Logos, I guess) but were not so “high-minded” or connected with that dimension. These people exist today as the tribal types, like the Aborigines. Further evolution resulted in the Atlantians, who were on the fence; they were more “high-minded,” but were still child-like. They were destroyed along with their civilization – the War in Heaven – and were replaced by us, the Aryans. We are “high-minded,” able to understand complex spiritual and philosophical concepts. Joanne reassured me that I am an Aryan like her, because I listened and could understand what she was explaining.
More on Atlantis next time…
Talk of history led to talk of perspective. I must be careful, she warned, to look at a given teaching from every angle. See that building? We can only see one angle, not the backside, nor the interior, nor the roof, because of our angle in relation to the building. We must be careful to consider the other side before making any judgment.
Talk of angles led to dimensions. In our world, she reminded me, we can perceive only four: length, width, height, and time. But there are more dimensions and wavelengths (like light and radio) that we “see” but do not perceive. The spiritual is another example. There are some people who can see, but they are taught by others to suppress the “imaginary” and move on, and thanks to thousands of years of suppression, the human eye can no longer see such things.
You see, we are all God, she continued. When the Logos created the world, part of “Him” withdrew (God) and part was used (Creation); we are all God; we can all become Christ-like. Because, Jesus was a man (who studied under the Hindus) who operated at 75% frequency, but became more in tune when John baptized him. Same with Buddha’s Enlightenment.
After all, there was originally a super race (I think she called them “monads”) that came to Earth first. These super beings were near to god. On a related note, the original incarnated humans (actually, “beings”) were ethereal, wispy and smoke-link. These later reincarnated as gelatinous beasts with a single feeler, like a snail. After evolving some millions of years (the Church really screwed up this “universal” truth by denying evolution) the more enlightened beasts took on reptilian shapes, and so on. Then there was cave-man (please note that apes were not a part of the equation, they had something to do with the Dark Powers) who reincarnated – or were one with – the first people (there was a name for them that sounded as though it was derived from a Conan novel, like “Liberians”). These people were in tune with the spirit (Logos, I guess) but were not so “high-minded” or connected with that dimension. These people exist today as the tribal types, like the Aborigines. Further evolution resulted in the Atlantians, who were on the fence; they were more “high-minded,” but were still child-like. They were destroyed along with their civilization – the War in Heaven – and were replaced by us, the Aryans. We are “high-minded,” able to understand complex spiritual and philosophical concepts. Joanne reassured me that I am an Aryan like her, because I listened and could understand what she was explaining.
More on Atlantis next time…
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