Get Out of the Way and Just Listen

I am blessed in so many ways, and one of those gifts that I am reminded of at the most opportune times is that I have two of the most creative, thoughtful children. There is a myriad of ways that they prove this to me over and over again. So many times, I grow as a person and as a teacher just because I get to spend time around them.
Recently, my lovely offspring reminded me that I need to let my kids, those who call me Dad and those who call me Mr. Kohls or Coach alike, teach me more often. Every year that I teach, some kid teaches me to look at a piece of literature in a different way. So many poems, such as "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" have touched varying cords with different students, and when they are allowed to tell me what they see, hear, and think, when they have the confidence to let those ideas guide our discussions, new angles are opened and amazing new lights are shed on the language and speaker of the poem. I look forward each year to diving in and hopefully watching a student, often one who might not be atop the list of most likely to deliver a literary gem, surface with a fresh pearl.
This week, my son Dylan wanted to talk. That in itself is an event. Dylan is not one to waste breath and effort on idle chatter. When he shares, it is usually something he has been rolling around in his head for a while or something he has been researching after a chance encounter. On this occasion, my boy wanted to talk about Of Mice and Men. SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ IT, WELL, SHAME ON YOU. GET A COPY AND READ IT. THEN COME BACK HERE AND FINISH READING THIS POST. Dylan had been reading the novel in Miss Porter's English class, and he had read ahead and finished it on the bus that afternoon. He started the conversation with "I finished the novel today. And well, um, I cried a little." I told him that was good; it meant that the novel was worthwhile. It had moved him, which is a terrific thing. I also told him that I always teared up when I read the end of the novel, and sometimes even when Candy lets Carlson shoot his dog.  For the next hour or so, we talked about the classic and what the characters had done, why they had done it, and what it all meant. Then Dylan hit me with a new one. "Dad, I think the farm is supposed to be Heaven." I had not thought of it that way before. It represented dreams, hope, a future. Heaven? Hmm. Dylan went on to tell me that the farm was Paradise, it was the place that Lenny hoped to get to one day where no one would make fun of him, and no more bad things would happen. And he had to be good to get there. It was Heaven. He went further. The only way for Lenny to get there was to die. He had to die to reach Heaven because it was never going to happen on earth, and that is when he would be truly happy. So George let him go.
I did not lead him to this thought in any way. He just went there, and the more comfortable he became talking, the more his mind turned. And then he taught me. He reminded me that I sometimes need to get out of the way and let it happen.
Now, this is also the same kid who spun a joke during a conversation about the Rubio-Trump mudslinging that included a comment about Trump's small hands. Dylan's turn. "You know what they say about guys with huge hands, right? They get shot in the back of the head by their friend George."
My son.
Tonight, I was taught another lesson by my lovely daughter Emily. As a second semester frosh, she is taking 3D Design and is sculpting a figurine of Alice's (you know, from Wonderland) great-great granddaughter. As part of the project, she is also designing packaging artwork that involves other descendent characters. She had already sketched an amazing depiction of The Mad Hatter as inspired by the lead guitarist for Motorhead. Then we started bouncing ideas for other characters, inspired by rock legends, preferably from the from the 80s. Joan Jett-inspired Red Queen? Debbie Harry-influenced White Queen? We spent a long time throwing out potential models for the Blue Caterpillar. Jimi Hendrix? Jim Morrison? Iggy Pop? Axel Rose? It had to be somebody lanky.
What is the point here? We just turned the ideas to an arena for which Emily has a passion, in this case, hard rock, heavy metal, and classic rock. Then we just had fun with the ideas. Now her sketchbook is full of ideas that may grow and blossom. The possibilities are infinite.
I need to give my kids, all of them, the tools to dream and think, and then get out of the way. I need to supply support and encouragement, and the opportunity to grow, in knowledge, expectations, confidence, and passion. I know I need to be there and it is not always going to work perfectly. Sometimes I do need to deliver material or content, and I need to make it relevant. But sometimes, I need to just listen because when I do, kids surprise me. They show me new things and make me see old things in new ways.
They point out Heaven. And often, how to get there.

Of Harper Lee and Kurt Cobain: Small, Significant Moments

Now, before the English nerds out there not of my generation completely lose their minds and cry literary heresy because I have dared to couple the beloved Ms. Lee and the grunge icon in the same title, please hear me out. Before you raise a protest and demand revocation of my TNS (True Nerd Status), let me meander just a bit down a pathway that hopefully leads to a worthwhile end.

My daughter made her first foray into the world of blogging last night. She wrote to commemorate the birthday of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, and to speak of the influence he has had on her.  She called him a mentor, and the story of her first exposure to his voice and the music of the band. She wrote, " For once, I was alright with being the quiet introverted artistic kid. "  That moment when Emily first hit play on the CD she had snagged from my dusty collection, she found a kindred spirit. Her granddad once asked my why Emily was so infatuated with Kurt Cobain, with Jim Morrison, with the band Green Day, and I told him because those artists, they were her. This is that girl, who much like Cobain, sometimes let her hair fall forward over her face, hiding those revealing windows to a sensitive, creative, thoughtful, and, sadly, sometimes tortured soul. You see: with those strands cascading past those eyes, one can still watch the world, but it makes it extremely hard for the people in that world to look back in. That way, they are kept at bay, separated by that curtain. It seems a little safer that way. I see several of those kids in my world right now, and I wish I could help them brush back the bangs, to let the world see the promise within.

I know: I put a lot of significance on a haircut.

As Emily describes it, that seemingly insignificant moment when she first hear Kurt Cobain sing "In Bloom" and "Come As You Are" was incredibly important. It changed her view of the world, of herself, and of her place in this world. It was a nothing moment, and it was everything. Emily has been blessed to encounter people in her education have enabled and encouraged her to find her voice, and to let it be heard. They let her explore her passions, and they help ignite others. I cannot thank those people enough for what they have done. A willingness to let those passions burn was stoked by what Emily called a "small, significant moment".

Emily's blog started me thinking: what other "small, significant moments" have changed lives. Then, as I read an article commemorating the passing of Harper Lee, one such moment for me struggled up from the depths of my memory and peeked into my consciousness. I remember Miss Jewel, the legendary English teacher at KMS, telling my parents how impressed she was with a character sketch I had written on Scout as part of our study of To Kill a Mockingbird.  I had written before that assignment, but that assignment, and her reaction to it, stays with me. It probably meant very little to her at the time; she was just giving feedback on assignments in her class, as she did so often on "Major Test" and sentence diagramming. But it meant a great deal to me. If it had not, it would not have stayed with me since that fateful day in the 7th grade. It was a small, significant moment. It may be why I continue to attempt to write. It definitely is part of why I teach.

Those moments are what I want to allow to blossom for each and every one of my kids. The problem with those moments is that they cannot be written into a lesson plan. I wonder which moments will have that positive spark? The kid may not even remember it, but it could allow them to feel something, some confidence or some comfort, which will allow them to one day do something amazing. One day, I had a conversation with a student about the movie Pacific Rim. We nerded out for a while. He seemed to get legitimately excited about speaking about the possibilities of an alien force residing deep within a fissure in the earth's crust, and the irony that one day nuclear energy will be classified as "old school".  Was it a monumental literary discussion? Uh, no. Could it have created a little bit of a connection that will lead the kid to maybe, just maybe, give some piece of literarature that I nerd out about as chance? Perhaps.

Recently, a colleague and I have been exposing our students to Shakespeare's writings. Greg Froese mentioned his ideas for an activity, and I stole it for my classroom as well. This led to what has taken on a bit of a life of its own and has been dubbed "The Sonnet Throwdown". Our students have been impressive, in their literary efforts and in their enthusiasm. (On a side note, the finals of The Sonnet Throwdown are going to be EPIC! I believe The Ocho, ESPN8, is currently in negotiations regarding the right to televise the event.) As the activity progressed, one student commented that if this is a competition, it needs to have a trophy. And at that moment, it was on. Like Donkey Kong. One of my students, a young man who is a dream to have in class but who I am going to lay odds will not say English is his favorite subject, partly because he is "not the creative type" (not my assessment, by the way) took that off-hand comment and ran with it. You see;  while he would rather ride than write and run a bead than count out beats, he is, in fact, the creative type. After employing a plasma cutter, welder, and a grinder, after meeting a time or two with his ag mech teacher, and after applying some unique skills and vision, he produced our trophy, a piece far beyond our expectation.

Within this activity were so many "small, significant" moments. What if we had grumbled or disregarded a student at any point along the way? What if Mr. Froese had not had the confidence to take a flash of brilliance one morning and turn it into an opportunity to help literature come alive? What if our kids had lamented having to study texts written by some dude 400 years ago and not spoken up and thrown out ideas, even though they would wreck the lesson plan and reading schedule? Small, significant moments.

We never know when those moments will happen. So, we have to assume each moment is one. We have to listen, we have to encourage, we have to be flexible, and we have to allow passions to ignite. We have to hit play on Nevermind; that tap might lead to a brushstroke that changes the world.

And changing the world is what we dream our kids will do. One small, significant moment at a time.

"I want to talk right down to Earth, in a language that everybody here can easily understand."

A couple of weeks ago, while working out in the weight room with a dozen or so young men and women, a particular song shuffled onto the playlist of my phone, which was broadcasting through the weight room's speakers. It was a cover of "Cult of Personality" by the 90s metal band Living Colour.

The song's opening lines are from a speech I could not place, so I asked the other coach who was with me at the time, who happens to be history teacher, and he too was not sure who was speaking the words, although they sounded incredibly familiar. As has become common, a google search saved the day. I won't reveal to you the answer, even though I would suggest you look for the results yourself. The song, and the quote, which resulted in a brief bit of research, led to a conversation as we continued to lift. Two teachers and several high school students intent on sweating away some calories and building some fast twitch fibers discussed major historical figures and the words they uttered that still ring today.

Some people would be amazed at how often such conversations actually take place. Once, while waiting for his turn in "the cage" during offensive line drills, a player asked me if a thought was more along the lines of an atheist or an agnostic, and what exactly was the difference? I will admit that this is one of the more thoughtful students I have ever worked with, but it was an interesting philosophical question and an exchange of knowledge and thought took place. LEARNING took place.

So where am I headed with this? I recently was struck by the use of the phrase "in the instructional classroom" as it applies to school funding. That phrase kept turning over in my head. Every day, so many teachers strive to take teaching beyond the four walls of the traditional classroom and push students to learn in whatever way possible. Tonight, as The Walking Dead returns with its first episode following its mid-season hiatus, more than one student and I will exchange thoughts regarding the plot, characters, themes, style, and symbolism presented in the show on A&E. Much of this conversation will take place via Twitter, and the feedback will be swift. How could I pass up such an opportunity? The series has used an intriguing non-linear storytelling style the past couple of seasons, and that has raised more than one literary discussion that may have never occurred otherwise. Former and current students have waited to initiate conversations on "TWD Mondays", many of which revolve around how this character or that character moves through the traditional hero's journey, how Daryl is the prototypical antihero, or how his angel's wings, once subtle and symbolic, have become soiled and ironic. The commercial for TWD mobile game uses the lines of Frost's "The Road Not Taken" in a startling new way, which allows for examination of tone and mood, and how different presentations and reading can alter a poem's effect. When Carol sobbed, "Just look at the flowers" to Lizzie, it prompted a discussion of the themes Of Mice and Men and the use of literary allusions. The opportunities for thought, for discussion, for learning, are surprisingly vast.

Every day, new opportunities to teach and learn present themselves. Sometimes they are expected and obvious. We grab hold of them and run with them. Hopefully, they work out and the kids are captivated. At other times, we do not even know those opportunities are there until we look back and see that they took place. Regardless, we need to be open to them, in whatever form they take. They may take us out of our comfort zones, and they may sometimes fail. Sometimes that is scary.

What they should be is exhilarating. Who would want to miss out on such opportunities, whether it happens inside four walls, in the weight room, or in the Twittersphre? It is all learning, and isn't that what we are searching for?

The Elusive Speech Bubble Selfie

Recently, there has been trend on Facebook and Twitter in which teachers post "selfies" with a speech bubble expressing "Why I teach". I love the idea because it allows teachers to share with one another the myriad of reasons why we all choose to spend our days in classrooms working with kids. It is an important exercise; it is a way for us to turn our gaze inward which needs to happen. Sometimes, looking inward, whether it be within ourselves as teachers and people, within the walls of our classrooms, within the structure of our teams and buildings, or within our profession, is vital because looking outward can be frustrating. So, looking inward it is.

So, why do I teach? I had the opportunity to truly consider this question during the application process for the Kansas Teacher of the Year program last spring. I, along with our elementary nominee and fellow semi-finalist Jennifer Keller, was fortunate enough to be nominated by the leaders of our district to be a part of the program. The process is one for which I am tremendously grateful, and it is incredibly humbling. I struggle with it at times. There are moments when I do feel as if I am a pretty good teacher; however, most days, I realize that I am not even the best teacher in our hallway at BHS. One blessing of the process is how it has forced me to reflect on "Why I teach" and focus on what I can do to better address that why. A second blessing is that I have an opportunity to meet and spend time with dedicated and talented teachers form across the state. Recently, we started our district visit "tour", in which we get to see the great things going on in the schools of each of our team members. We get to see their whys, and what their whys drive them to do each day. To put it simply, it is rather neat.

I will admit that I have not actually posted my "Why I teach" selfie. We were assigned to do it on our district workday in January, but I traveled with Samantha Neill to Hill City, America to work with teachers as they explore writing across the curriculum, and I never posted. Every time I see one of those posts on Twitter, I know I need to do mine as well, and I actually started writing my bubble on a dry erase board in my classroom one morning. I did not complete the task, however. I struggled with small space and necessary brevity, so when a student came in my classroom to ask a question, I just set it aside.

Honestly, none of the teachers who are posting these images truly sum up the "why" in short line within a bubble. They are presenting the essence of a single, minute aspect of their why, which most likely exists within a plethora of others that could fill reams of paper and yards of rolled butcher-block paper. For me, my why develops and grows every day, and often moment to moment.

This week, one of my whys came trotting toward me in Jim Baker Fieldhouse wearing a huge smile. She proudly told me about her afternoon, one that capped off a good day and that let her feel good about what she had done, something that she does not allow herself to do enough. My whys were in my classroom before school and in the counselors' office working on lines of verse and making me laugh. One why was in the newspaper, and I owe it to him to do the best I can in my little sliver of his life, for he is destined to do great things, as are so many others. They moved through my door over and over again, and during the brief moments we spent together, they made me proud and frustrated, they made me laugh and grumble, they challenged me and questioned themselves, and they made me tired and invigorated.

So, I suppose this week I will try to post that long-overdue selfie. Or maybe not.

Can I take a selfie without actually being in it? That is a selfie I can do. I might be on to something. The selfless selfie.

As Christmas Break Nears...

As Christmas Break nears, and I see a glimpse of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel that is grading senior research papers, two particular thoughts rise up in my cloudy mind: first, as soon as I finish grading these research papers, I have to return to grading Honors Sophomore reviews of The Road because honors students expect writing to be graded, and second, I am blessed to work with some incredible kids.

The seniors at BHS undertake an ongoing project each year that begins with researching a topic for which the student holds a passion and then proceeds into an Extension Activity that allows the young person to somehow use or extend the research as part of an independent activity that is service related, builds something, develops and designs a lesson, or creates some time of production. They later will present the activity and the product to an audience. The undertaking has been a part of BHS for many moons, and the benefits and experiences that come from it are invaluable.

Part of the transition from research paper to activity is the creation of a proposal by each student which lays out exactly what they hope to accomplish in the spring semester regarding activity. As I have been working with students on these proposals, I am struck not only by the ambitious nature of some of the proposals, but also by the desire of our students to help others. Students are designing and building vehicles. Others are producing cooking segments that will demonstrate the proliferation of GMOs in the food we eat. One student is going to produce a portfolio of clothing made entirely from alternative, nontraditional materials. Examples of ambitious undertakings abound.

In addition to the ambitious nature of so many of the proposals, the number of students who are proposing to give of themselves in an effort to make the lives of others better is impressive. Students are planning charity drives to benefit The Open Door program that assists young mothers, they are organizing fundraising campaigns for Children's Mercy Hospital, and they are developing bullying and suicide prevention seminars to reach out students who need a helping hand. Students are designing lessons for freshmen to help them understand how alcohol affects decision-making in young people. They are reaching out to national organizations who assist athletes with disabilities. They are planning books to help educate the general public about the issue of homelessness in our community. Some of these students are what most would pray to have in any classroom. They have an internal drive that has propelled them throughout school to high grades and repeated recognition. They are the students you expect to dream big and then go chase those dreams. Others do no fall into that category. Some are students who struggle. Some seemed to want to be written off as sophomores, to be labeled as losers so no one would expect anything of them. But something happened; they grew up. They found themselves and they found a direction. They, along with the stellar classmates who drove them crazy answering questions that just confused them, are looking to provide some sort of light for people in need. They are thinking beyond themselves, and beyond just getting through without having to do much. They, along with their stellar classmates, are becoming the stories we will want to tell years down the road to remind us to never give up on the sophomore who finds every possible way to aggravate, well, just about everyone at some point in the day. That is why I am frustrated by the move to assess whether our kids are ready to succeed in the world at the sophomore level. So much growth takes place after that year. At the sophomore level, for some, success is sometimes means just getting through day. Give them a chance to grow; so often, they surprise us.

Are all of our kids perfect? Absolutely not. Actually, none of them are. However, they are our kids, and I am impressed every day with how some of them grow and mature and begin to dream, and then start working for those dreams.  So, as Christmas break approaches and my eyes grow more weary, I am already looking forward to 2016. Some great things are going to happen, and some amazing people are going to shine.

And I have not even told you about my sophomores yet...

School Days Are Here Again, Almost

This week, my little girl officially starts her college career. Tomorrow I officially start my 22nd year of teaching as football practice formally begins. By Wednesday, my son will, hopefully, have begun to alter his sleep schedule in anticipation of his first day of school. Yes, anticipation. I know some of you who started school last week or will this week are confused, but BHS students will report for their first day of classes on August 26. Hate me if you must.

So yes, it is that time of year again. Emily will dive into the next stage of her academic career and the challenges it will offer her. Dylan will embark on his high school adventure, and I am confident that he is going to surprise me more than once in the coming months and years. I have the opportunity to welcome back young men and women who have grown up before very eyes as well as those who will fearfully step through my door for the first time. It is exciting.

As often happens, my kids, those born to me by my beautiful wife, taught me, or retaught me, some things recently which should serve to focus my efforts and make me a better teacher. When I returned from the annual rafting trip last weekend, Emily handed me a two-CD set of music inspired by great literature. She had pulled together a collection of tunes connected to works by Huxley, Orwell, Shakespeare, Carrol, Faulkner, and Hemingway, among others. The music was created by bands such as Anthrax, Metallica, The Police, The Ramones, and Green Day. As part of the offering, Emily included not just the playlist of songs and artists, but also details of what works were connected and when they had been produced, as well as album and book cover artwork. 

"What's the big deal?" some might ask. Sure, I have some interesting music to listen to as I write lesson plans, workout, or watch film, but what is there beyond that? There is plenty. I have lesson resources at my fingertips, and I will use them; trust me on that one. I have examples of how creative minds used the written works from time centuries ago or mere decades past to inspire their own thought and creative processes, to stir up those mental juices. I also have before me one of the most clear examples of cross-curricular assessment that I could hope for. "What?" you say. In recent years, we have all heard about Common Core and its evil slithering through our schools. I have read the College and Career Readiness Standards for ELA, Literacy, and Speaking and Listening adopted by Kansas, I have placed them next to our former standards, benchmarks, and indicators to see how they match up or diverge, and I have applied those CCRS to my lesson planning. Despite all of the gnashing of teeth and hysterics, Common Core, no matter what term is used to identified it, are not evil and is not destroying our schools. They actually free many teachers to truly teach students on a more in-depth level. I will not say the CCRS have been implemented perfectly, or even remotely well, in some school systems, but that has more to do with those systems than anything else. CCRS give us guide and a destination; how we get there most effectively is up to us. 

But I digress. Back to Emily's compilation. One of the reasons that I am so confident that Emily will prove successful as she moves forward, beyond the obvious genetic advantages she holds, is that she has learned how to think. She can examine a piece of music and see its literary value, research its historical significance and relevance, ponder the psychological implications of the lyrics, and delve into the piece's artistic influences. How do I know this? Because she discusses these things with me on a daily basis. Emily learned how to think, and I owe a sincere thanks to those who guided her throughout school, the social studies teachers, the art instructors, the English teachers, the counselors, and the administrators. Now, no standardized test could measure the depth of thought and experience she can apply to her studies or her daily life. I do believe that her experiences prepared her well to succeed on those tests, but, more importantly, they allowed her to develop as an intelligent, confident young person. 

My son is beginning to display some of those same qualities despite his youth. This summer, he walked down to Hastings and returned with a book exploring Tolkien's writing process in creating Lord of the Rings. He wants to write, and he has learned that if you want to do something, and do it well, you must research it. That research might be academic, it might involve speaking to an expert, or it may take the form of personal experience. That last method has led Dylan to request that he be allowed to walk part of the way to Buhler one day. I have not passed that little tidbit on to his mother just yet. Dylan is currently writing a story whose protagonist ventures out from the safety of a walled city to find supplies and search for other survivors. Dylan told me that if he is going to effectively create a character who must walk the post-apocalyptic world, he must know what that character would feel, the exhaustion, the isolation, and the uncertainty. He can only discover those feelings through experience, he said. Dylan sometimes frightens me with his thought process, his vocabulary, and his wealth of seemingly irrelevant facts, as well as his ability to apply those facts to topics we discuss and his willingness to research whatever topic strikes him as interesting. Once again, I credit so many teachers in Dylan's life over the last decade who instilled in him the curiosity, the ability, and confidence to explore his world fairly independently. He will do fine on standardized tests. I do not think the most important lessons were focused on doing well on those assessments, however. The lessons that gave him the tools and inspiration to learn were the ones that have proved most valuable. 

Where am I headed with this rambling? I am glad you asked. We are not teaching assessments, we are not teaching the ACT, we are not teaching Student Growth Measures. We are teaching kids. We have to provide them with tools that will let them explore their worlds and then express what they have learned on those adventures. We have to inspire them to seek out the challenges that will test those tools. We have to push them to develop as people, not just as test-takers and assessment measures. I will not pretend that those mandated tests are not important, and we must be aware of them. However, I also believe that high achievement on those measures while providing the tool, inspiring challenges, and driving development in those young people.

So thank you, Emily and Dylan, for inadvertently reminding me why I am a teacher, and why I am a teacher at Buhler High School. You have focused my vision and inspired me once more as I begin this year. Hopefully, I can live up to the expectation. 

Now, how do I drop off my son on the side of the highway at 6:45 am so he can become a great writer without Heidi discovering such a questionable parenting choice?

Note: I won't drop Dylan of on K-61. Jason Williams has made several valuable suggestions such as Sand Hill State Park and the trails at Dillons Nature Center that may provide even more useful experience in creating Dylan's post-apocalyptic world.

So, Who Are You?

I saw this posted by Grammarly  today on Twitter:

Considering I am a huge nerd, I found the question intriguing. I would love to know "who you are" based on the last book you read. It might say something about a person, right? Or it might not.

Personally, I started this summer with the works of who is becoming one of my favorite authors. Greg Froese introduced me to Cormac McCarthy a while back, and I dived into a couple of his novels this June, All the Pretty Horses and No Country for No Men. Based on those two reads I am might be John Grady Cole, the young cowboy protagonist of All the Pretty Horses. Not a bad guy to be, if you like horses and brunette daughters of hacienda owners. Well, unless you are not a fan of imprisonment in Mexican prison, corrupt officials, knife fights, and social bigotry. The good with the bad, right? I suppose I could be one of the three main characters from No Country for Old Men.  I would lean toward Ed Tom Bell, the Texas sheriff who is thrown into the turmoil of a drug massacre and the carnage that follows the disappearance of a briefcase full of cash. He is an honorable man, and he simply wants to do what is right in a world where that is becoming more and more difficult. It makes him question who he is and whether he belongs there anymore. I would choose Ed Tom over Llewelyn Moss, the welder who stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad while on an early morning hunt and ends up walking away with a briefcase of cash that would change his life, and the lives of every person close to him, is the most horrible ways. He is not a bad guy; he is actually incredibly likable. However, his decision made in a briefest of moments, was ignorant and at the same time, innocently naive. I definitely would not choose to be Chirgurh. He is an assassin, and, surprisingly, he is the most principled of any character in the novel. He lives by a simple code, that he must keep his word and complete his given task, and he lives up to that code with cold dedication. One could say that is truly honorable. But then there is the whole killing people with an air-powered piston or a shotgun fitted with a makeshift silencer. He is also pretty creepy.

This week, I took a step away from McCarthy, although I do hope to continue reading ""The Border Trilogy" this summer; All the Pretty Horses  is the first novel of the trilogy. I had to move away from McCarthy for a little while, despite how much I love what he writes. There is a long list of books I want and need to read, and the list just keeps growing. I decided to pull from that list Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I am only about halfway through the work, and I am enjoying it immensely, but it is, shall we say, odd. I find myself laughing at things that really should be funny, and I feel bad a a while until it happens again. If I am the protagonist of this novel, I am Billy Pilgrim. Billy bounces through times from one point in his life to another, "unstuck in time" as he calls it, and even spends time in an alien zoo after being abducted by an alien race who takes him aboard their flying saucer and whisks him away to their home planet. You know, the usual stuff. So far, Billy has proven to be an incompetent chaplain's assistant in WWII, an optometrist on the verge of a mental breakdown, a senile 40-something (according to his frustrated daughter), and pathetic prisoner of war. I do not like Billy. Granted, no one seems to like Billy. I guess I should finish the novel before I make an actual judgment.

What would "being" any of these characters say about me?

For now, I am going to be Ed Tom. That is the last book I finished reading. John Grady Cole is a cool dude, but I am too old to go riding off for the border, although there are days when that sounds pretty desirable.

That is the great thing about this little exercise: if I do not like who I am, based on the last book I read, I simply have to pick up another book. Problem solved.

So off I go to get unstuck in time with Billy. Who are you going to be?