"Torrid Tales of Biff Wellington, Private Investigator" Installments 1 and 2

Click below to access the world of Biff Wellington, PI. I included last week's installment as well as the one for this week.
"Torrid Tales of Biff Wellington, Private Investigator" Installments 1 and 2

Balance

Clay Manes asked our group the other day what each of us saw as our greatest joy as a teacher and our greatest frustration. For me, I think my greatest frustration can be summed up in one word: balance. I struggle in the classroom to balance writing and literature instruction, to balance perfecting skills kids already should have and pushng them to explore new areas and develop skills they may not even know they have, to balance do what I know is effective and trying new things that might spark kids to reach new levels and grasp new concepts but might also completely flop. I struggle to feel I can always maintain balance in my life overall. I try to balance my personal passion, my family, with my professional passion, teaching and coaching. I struggle to balance a need to feel phsically fit with the time it takes from other areas to achieve that, as well as the fact that I really love food.
Balance is a concept that seems to be the key to happiness, or at least that is what the self-help books seem to tell us.  Easteran philosophy gives us ying and yang. Did you know it is more than just a trendy tattoo idea? The little that I know of the concept stresses balance in all areas of life. I beleive in Frankenstein, Shelley presented the importance of balancing the rational mind, spiritual soul, and emotional heart that lie within each and every one us and which drive society as a whole. Without the balance, the individual becomes a zealot who fails to see the consequences of his actions and will eventually drive himself to his own downfall. If society lacks that balance, we end up wtih science run wild without constraint of morals or humanity, or we fall into a world of superstition and myth that fears advancement and progress. The key to happiness, to sucess, to societal peace and contentment is balance.
However, I have to wonder one thing: who defines balance? We read about men and women who sacrifice personal relationships to become successful in the fields that they have choosen to dedicate themselves to. Athletes develop what many would say is unhealthy obsessions with their game of choice and preparation to compete at the highest level. Stories abound about coaches who have rolled cots into their offices to allow them to spend 24 hours a day foucsed on their craft, and literary history is sprinkled with tales of men who drove themselves for days, weeks,  months, and years to create great pieces of literature, searchng for ways to transfer the vivid worlds that existed in their minds to the written page, and eventually into the minds of those lucky enough to read those words written in sweat and blood. Some of these people were unhappy and regretful at the end of the day. Some, however, had found their own and their only path to happiness. They had found their own balance, even if it was not understandable to the masses.  Am I the one to say a man lacks balance in his life because he has chosen a computer, film camera, business career, playing field, or church to occupy his hours and days while I need my family, my classroom, my field, and my friends to feel content in who and where I am?
I suppose, as the Bard said,"There's the rub." (Hamlet is about balance too, isn't it?) How does one find balance when the definition of balance is not truly hard and fast, but, instead, must be as individual as a fingerprint or DNA?  Maybe it is as the old saying goes about art, or about pornography: "I'm not sure what it is, but I know it when I see it."
So, find your balance, for it is the key to happines, or at least it is supposed to be that key. I think, at times, I have found mine. At other times, I am not so sure. One thing is clear though: I definitely do know it when I see it.

"I think I will try something..."

Football season starts, officially, tomorrow morning. I am extremely excited. School starts, officially, for teachers on Wednesday with academic team meetings. For this, I am also extremely excited. I love my job, and I work hard to do my job well. I love teaching, in the classroom and on the field.

I have been bouncing around an idea as the beginning of the fall season has crept nearer. I have committed myself to write on this blog on a fairly regular basis. I will continue to do so.  I promise. It is not that I think not writing will matter to anyone else; I made myself the promise, and I need to keep it. So I will write here at least once a week. I will.

However, I want to try something else as well. I might be cheating a little bit, but I think I will still try it. During Prairie Winds Writing Retreat in 2012, I started writing a piece that is still unfinished. I do not have any idea when I will finish it, or even if I want to. Since I first penned the open lines, I have gone back, revisited the old the friend, to revise, to add, to augment, to reread, and to cut.  I titled the piece "The Torrid Tales of Biff Wellington".

What I would like to do is begin putting this piece here, in Ramblings in serial form. Maybe 500 words or so each Sunday. I am not sure if anyone will like it, or if it will make any sense whatsoever. I am hoping that by running "Biff..." here, it will push me to keep going with it, to find a direction to take it. Right now, honestly, I am stuck.

So, here you go, the first installment of "The Torrid Tales of Biff Wellington" by Jason Kohls. I hope you like it. If not, well, you will destroy my self-image and leave me an empty shell of a man. Whatever works.

Click here for the first installment of "The Torrid Tales of Biff Wellington, Private investigator".

Ready! Set! Hit!

At 6 am tomorrow, approximately 80 young men will fill Buhler's morning air with yells of enthusiasm, encouragement, and excitement. Two hours later, these same young men will be drenched in sweat, their clothes will be filthy, and shouts will be replaced with the labored breathing that comes with youthful exertion. Some will complain and scowl, others will place ice bags on swollen joints, a few will race off the work for a few hours, and many will find their ways home for a much-needed breakfast and a nap. They will return to that patch of green a few hours later and do it all again. For many young men and not a few fully grown ones, tomorrow is one of the most anticipated days of the year: the first day of football practice.

Last week, I helped coach a full contact camp for kids in first grade through sixth grade. Over the last eight summers, I have had the pleasure of watching hundreds of little guys laugh, run into each other, watch the HS players who help coach them, and grow up during these camps. You learn a lot about kids during practice. This year was no different. One kid made three tackles in a drill, jumping up after each one, excited in what he probably envisioned as more Derrick Thomas than slow motion pillow fight. He then went back to the line, and a few minutes later was crying because his friend cut in line in front of him and would not move.  He is not an NFL linebacker just yet; he is 9. Another little guy who has the making of being a very good athlete and a skilled football player made a textbook form tackle in one turn, and then ducked his head (big no-no) on the next try and missed the tackle. I watched him walk back to the huddle with his head hung low and his shoulders slumped forward under the plastic and fabric of his shiny new pads. He was not mad at the ball carrier for making him miss, and he was not upset with mom for not buy the right kind of Gatorade. He was angry at himself for not doing what he had been taught that week in linebacker drills, and now his friends, the HS players, and I had seen him make a mistake. Getting to go to the back of the line and talk to him, seeing his eyes clear and shoulders rise again before he reached the front of the line and once again put the runner to the ground in a nice form tackle is one of the most rewarding opportunities that these camps offer.

One other opportunity that I truly enjoy in these camps is watching the Buhler High football players who come out to the camp work with the younger boys who are just learning the game and who look up to these Friday night heroes. They do not know it, but the tones of their voices change as they speak to a little guy who just realized five minutes earlier that he had put his shoulder pads on backwards. They use their hands, not to give wet willies or push around someone weaker, but to guide them on proper rip technique or hand placement on a block. Sometimes, you see the nine year old that still lives inside the young men who have physically built their bodies up into thickly muscled forms Michelangelo would be pleased to use as a model. Sometimes you see the maturing hearts of those same men as they comfort a frustrated fourth grader who just wants to go home.

Tomorrow begins the most hectic, stressful, and rewarding time of the year for me. I am excited. Who knows, maybe you will hear my voice early tomorrow, mixed in with those of the charges we will push, nurture, teach, and drive. How could I not be excited? It's football season.

Literally, Things Change

As I sit here, I am literally fuming. I blame it on lack of ventilation in the garage, which I just cleaned, and some leftovers that I probably should not have eaten. This morning, I was figuratively fuming as well, as I was reminded by the radio DJ of a tweet I read late last night.  The tweet informed me that google, answers.com, and American Heritage Dictionary (online edition) had added to the entry for the word "literally". Apparently, literally not means not literally. The actual definition on google search reads as follows:

"Adverb In a literal manner or sense; exactly: "the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the traffic circle". Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling" (http://goo.gl/ecdXVK).

After taking some time to think about it, and literally reading the definition online, I am still not completely sure how I feel about the addition. Language, especially American English, is a living thing; it is an organism that grows and matures. I have written about this before in "It's Alive". So, it should not be surprising that such a change might take place. However, as with global climate change and the use of PEDs, does the fact that it is happening mean we should not try to fight it?

As an English teacher, I teach my kids that figurative language is not meant to be taken literally, and such language can be powerful and meaning for that very reason. It is ambiguous. It literally makes you think, or at least it should literally make you think, in order to understand it. I suppose what is most fascinating to me is that in order to understand that what is meant figuratively is in fact not literal, some people feel the need to state that it is meant literally, and, therefore, it is not to be taken literally. While this seems like a great script for a new AT&T commercial, I do not know that it is what is best for our language. I may be reaching here, but to me, it seems that people may have decided that hyperbole is far too advanced for those around them to understand, and, therefore, they must add a touch of irony to the mix to get the point across. The problem with this idea is that most people who have dived headlong into the incorrect usage of "literally" that has now been given linguistic weight did not even realize they were doing so. They wanted to use hyperbole, but did not realize that adding "literally" to the sentence was not only unnecessary, it was ridiculous. 

So, now we as a society, or at least our online resources for language clarification, have decided that it is easier to just give up and go with it. In reality, it will not change anything. Those of us who cringe when we hear that a friend "literally died when I heard that" will continue to do so, and those who have never really worried about it, or noticed for that matter, will continue in their blissful ignorance of the change their ilk has inflicted upon the English language. What else can we do? We are not superheroes, moving effortlessly around the globe righting written wrongs (or spoken wrongs, which lack alliteration).

So, here we are. Will someone from the distant future, some nerd probably, look back one day and shed a tear as he marks August 15, 2013 as the beginning of the end? Perhaps. Perhaps not.  None of us can truly say what will happen in the future. We just do not know. Literally.

Love What You Do

"If you lovr what you do, you will never work a day in your life."

I hate to do be a complete downer, but this statement might be one of the most ridiculous cliches uttered at any graduation ceremony. It lscks truth; futhermore, it creates a completely unrealistic expectation in our young people and unfarily puts work in a negative light.

First of all, let's look at the lack of truth in this statement. "If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life." It is a conditional statement that is completely false. If you love what you do, you are still going to have to work. Yu will have to work to achieve whatever it is you love to do. You will have to work to become good, or, hopefully, great at what you love. I truly love what I do for a living. I teach English and I coach. I consider myself fairly successful in my career, and I feel I have become somewhat skilled in my chosen profession. Each day, I have the pleasur eof working with kids and trying to light a flame within each one of them, to help them become better at communicatiing and at thinking, I get to push kids to become better, to become stronger and to achieve whatever greatness is within them. I love these opportunities, and I will admit that some days, it does not feel at all like work. However, on other days, I work my tail off. I read, I disect wrting and thoughts, I develop lessons and presntations with a hope that they will spark thought within those I work with and I fear I will fail hopelessly. I break down film in the wee hours of the morning, and I argue with my best friends over what is appropriate and fair. I willingly place myself under pressure to perform.  I love this. But it is work. It is worth it, but it is work.

To say that loving what you do will eliminate any sense of work is unrealistic. It seems to say that work is a terrible thing that all of us should want to avoid, and the only way to avoid work is to do what you love. Wait, what? That is ludacris. Work is not a bad thing. It is not a negative act. WORK IS GOOD! If fact, I would go to the point of saying, if you do not work, you are never going to love what you do. You will never reach a level  of achievement or accomplishment in what you have chosen to do, and you will nver feel fulfilled.

The last point is a touchy one. We cannot tell our young people that if they do what they love they will never work a day in their lives. It is unfairt and unrealistic. It is a little bit like the other classic cliches that is truly ridiculous: all we need is love. No, you need food, you need shelter, you need water, and you need to pay your dang bills. And I hate to burst any bubbles, but just becaue you love someone, it does not mean you will never have to work at making that relationship work. There will be tough times, and you will have to work to make it through. It does not mean the love is any less authentic and pure; it means that love is worth working for. At some point, everyone has to work at what they do. What happens to that young person who has sucked down the Kool-Aid and beleived that he will never have to work as long as he loves what he is doing when he hits that tough spot? What happens when his natural talents that led to his love of what he does must be developed and extended beyond what is natural, so he must push himself to learn and develop further? What happens when his coworkers are not as in love with their profession as he is, but the success of the project depends on his motivating them to do their best work? What happens whern he is actually challenged, because he does love what he does and is talented at it, and, therefore, people expect greatness from him? He will have to (gasp) work.

And, there is the irony.  It is not that doing what you love will allow you to never work a day in your life. Doing what you love will, in fact, force  you to work harder. If you love what you do, you will will want to work to do it well, to become great at what you love. Doing what you love allows you to love your work. And, as I said, work is a good thing.

So love what you do. If you love it, you will know that the work is worthwhile, and you will love it even more.

"Who's That?"

Friday morning, as a group of young men took a brief break from running 40s on the track at BHS, Luke Berblinger said how interesting it would be to play lacrosse. I told him that I thought the game looked exciting to me, and that Jim Brown had actually played the sport during his time at Syracuse. Several of the athletes looked at me, puzzled, before one asked "Who is Jim Brown?" After overcoming my moment of shock, I briefly explained that the former running back for the Cleveland Browns had held the career rushing yards record prior to Walter Payton. At that point, another young man uttered the un imaginable: "Who is Walter Payton?"

I am truly confused. I know that I grew up watching Walter Payton rack up yards. I used to read articles about how the Bears great would run up rugged hills in his training for the season. He could run, throw, catch, and walk on his hands for 50 yards. He scored TDs, owned a Lamborghini, and wore Kangaroo turf shoes. I still do not appreciate the fact that Mike Ditka did not call a running play of Payton near the goalline, instead handing the ball to a defensive tackle known as "The Refrigerator".  However, Jim Brown was past his playing days before I fell in love with the game of football. Despite this fact, I knew who he was, as a football player, and not a co-star in the WWII classic The Dirty Dozen. I knew who Paul Hornung was even though I never saw him under center on a Sunday afternoon, and I was aware that Dick Butkus had terrorized NFL offenses even though his final playing days occurred when I was not yet two years old.  Could these guys who were I have seen sweat and bleed for football really not know who the greatest players in their game were?

It makes me wonder if our society, of which I am a guilty participant, has become so focused on immediate gratification and instant access that we have trouble not only looking down the road for what work and effort now might produce but also looking back to what has allowed us to reach our present position? More than once, students have lamented the fact that they must take history courses, and they have become even more exasperated when they discover that some of that history is vital to understanding what we read, watch, discuss, and write about in English class. "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it" I will say. The ironic twist is that this generation (by the way, the existence of the previous quote demonstrates that every generation seems to have dealt with this perplexing puzzle) possesses the means to access historical information more easily and quickly than any that has come before it. Do any of you remember going to the library to access the encyclopedia, biography, microfiche, or magazine back issue to learn some fact about a past event or detail about some science topic? While writing this entry I typed Dick Butkus into google to confirm his final season. I never left my couch, or even turned my eyes away from the screen. I did not even have to type in his entire name before google gave me the rest of it. In .17 seconds, I received a collection of 634,000 instantly accessible portals for information about the man.  I could watch video of the linebacker as a Chicago Bear or listen to his Hall of Fame induction speech. I could have done the same thing with my phone from the middle of the football practice field at midnight on a Wednesday, when all of the libraries are closed.  

Even more amazing, and startling, is the fact that the lack of knowledge about the past does not only apply to sports figures from decades ago. It applies to musicians, politicians, newsmakers, and important figures from every arena of thought and action that exists.  More frightening is that those figures do not have to be from decades ago, let alone centuries. Many of us do not even remember deeds, great or small, of those from last year. "What have you done for me lately?" If your answer is nothing, then even if what you did has truly affected our world today, we have little interest in you or your works. 

I might be blowing this out of proportion. Matt did not know who Jim Brown was. Is that really a big deal? No, not really. However, not knowing who Walter Payton was? That is unforgivable. After all, he wore Roos. Do you remember those?