October 16: Brain Weary, Normal Life, Classic Saint Marty

I just got back from the Kalahari's indoor amusement park.  My kids are beat, and my wife is exhausted.  I spent most of today grading a stack of essays and watching my daughter dance.  Then I went to the water park with my son.  The night ended with me on top of the Ferris wheel with my wife and daughter.

My brain is weary.  Really weary.  And I have a long day of driving tomorrow.  I'm not looking forward to the end of this weekend.  It means a return to all the worries and headaches of normal life, with no breaks until Thanksgiving time. 

That's about all I have tonight.  My brain has already gone to bed.  Tonight's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired two years ago, when my brain was awake.

October 16, 2014:  A Lamb, Bullying, Stephen King's Carrie

"You smell just the way you are," remarked a lamb who had just walked in.  "I can smell you from here.  You're the smelliest creature in the place."

Creatures of the sheep persuasion are not very nice in Charlotte's Web.  In fact, they tend to be bullies.  It's the sheep that tells Wilbur about the Christmas conspiracy of turning him into smoked bacon and ham.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree with the lamb, either.  For some reason, because they provide Zuckerman with wool, all the sheep tend to be a little...elitist, for lack of a better word.  They think they're above all the other animals in the barn.

I've been thinking a lot about bullying recently.  Earlier this week, I saw a PBS documentary on the subject.  I just browsed the news on Google, and there was a story of a twelve-year-old girl who committed suicide because classmates posted comments like this online:  "Why don't you drink bleach and die."  And, of course, there's the whole issue of my six-year-old son punching kids on the school playground during recess.

It doesn't help that I'm also rereading Stephen King's Carrie at the moment.  It's the ultimate bully revenge tale.  Carrie White going on a telekinetic killing spree after being pushed over the edge by a group of "popular" girls.  There's something very satisfying about Carrie's actions.  I'm not saying I agree with the mass extermination of all school bullies, but, in the context of King's novel, I root for Carrie, even as she is transformed into a blood-covered nightmare.

I don't want my son to be a bully.  Every time he gets in trouble at school for punching or scratching a classmate on the playground, I tell him, "You know, one of these days, you're going to punch the wrong person, and that person is going to punch back.  Hard."  I'd like to add, "And you better hope that person can't lift and throw Volkswagens with his mind."  But I haven't played that card yet.

I've known a few Carries in my lifetime.  People who skulk around the fringe of life, hoping not to draw attention to themselves.  They're quiet.  Sometimes bookish.  Always, they look as though they're ready to flinch or duck.  That's the result of getting hit by too many dodgeballs in gym class.  Carries simply want to blend in.

Stephen King published Carrie in the early 1970s.  It is now 2014.  Forty-four years later, the book is still relevant because there are still Carries and bullies.  Our world is a broken place.  A place where terrible things happen sometimes.  School shootings.  Suicide bombings.  Cruelty is as common as brown eyes.

I've made mistakes in my life.  Participated in bullying through silence.  It's easy to do.  Just turn your back and pretend that Carrie isn't covered in pig's blood, and that love and compassion are stronger than dodgeballs. Basically, lie to yourself.  Dodgeballs hurt.  Always.

So tonight, Saint Marty hopes everybody who reads this post will speak up for all the Carries out there.  Be part of the solution, people.

Don't be part of the problem

July 1: Ferris Wheel, Quick Post, Prayer Update

"The most fun there is," retorted Fern, "is when the Ferris wheel stops and Henry and I are in the top car and Henry makes the car swing and we can see everything for miles and miles and miles."

Fern is a normal little girl, growing up, becoming a young lady.  Henry is now more interesting than Wilbur, and the biggest thrill of her life is the Ferris wheel.


This post is going to be quick.  My daughter is waiting to get her hands on my laptop.  My daughter is a normal little girl, growing up, becoming a moody teenager.  She knows how to throw a major meltdown if she doesn't get her way.

Tonight, I would like to give you an update on "Tara," the young woman I told you about last week.  I told you that she was having tests to determine if she had cancer.  Well, the tests came back positive.  Tara has thyroid cancer, and she is about to start her treatments, just before she's about to start her senior year of high school.

Please pray for Tara.  Pray for health and happiness.  She should be worrying about college admissions, not chemotherapy and surgeries.

Saint Marty is humbled by Tara, and she deserves all the hope and blessing in this world.

Amen, Padre.

May 29: Ferris Wheel, My Book Bag, "Winter by Degrees"

As they passed the Ferris wheel, Fern gazed up at it and wished she were in the topmost car with Henry Fussy at her side.

Fern is growing up.  Instead of sitting around Wilbur's pen at the Fair, she dreams of riding the Ferris wheel with Henry Fussy.  She yearns for something she can't, at the moment, have.  The Ferris wheel and Henry Fussy's company.


I know I always fall victim to this habit.  As I drive to work in the morning, I dream of being back in bed.  As I'm working at my new job, I'm dreaming about being at my former job.  Or teaching at the university.  Or playing tag with my five-year-old son.  Anything.  It's a bad habit, always yearning for something better but out of reach.

If I could simply be satisfied with my life, I think I would be a much happier person.  Unfortunately, at the moment, I find myself very dissatisfied with my life.  I miss teaching.  I miss having my Fridays off from work.  Tomorrow morning, I have to be at the office at 7:30 a.m. for a department meeting.  Yes, I will be on the clock, but I will be thinking about being off the clock.  Plus, I just found out that I have inherited the late shift in the business office.  That means, for the moment, I will be working from 8:45 a.m. 'til 5:15 p.m., Monday through Friday.  I  am not thrilled.

Speaking of being thrilled, I am currently reading a book by John Smolens.  Winter by Degrees was his first novel, and it's wonderful.  Gritty, hard, and cold.  It's sort of a mystery.  A man disappears, and the narrator has to figure out what happened to him.  The victim may have fallen through black ice on the Merrimack River and been swept out to the Atlantic.  Or he may have been murdered by the narrator's brother.

I haven't finished WBD yet, but it's gripping.  It has all the elements that make John Smolens such a great writer.  Strong, complex characters.  A moral swamp for a plot.  The narrator is a divorced father who forgets about his ten-year-old son's hockey games, drinks heavily, and can't seem to hold on to a steady job.  Yet, Smolens makes me care about this man, despite all these flaws.

I can't provide any spoilers for you.  I haven't finished the book yet, but I know I'm not going to be disappointed.  John Smolens' work never disappoints.

Saint Marty needs to get to bed now.  He's got an early meeting tomorrow.

Everybody has a Ferris wheel to dream about

February 1: Ballet, Henry Fussy, New Cartoon

I just got home from my daughter's ballet recital.  She was beautiful.  Tall, poised, and graceful.  I sat in the auditorium, watching her glide and leap across the stage.  I remembered her first recital at age five, when she wore a purple tutu and bossed the other dancers around.  Loudly.  I remembered how small she looked, too.  Tonight, she looked so...not small.  Grown up.

Mrs. Arable experiences the same thing in Charlotte's Web when she spies Fern on the Ferris wheel with a certain person of the opposite sex:

The children felt refreshed after their nap.  Fern met her friend Henry Fussy, and he invited her to ride with him in the Ferris wheel.  He even bought a ticket for her, so it didn't cost her anything.  When Mrs. Arable happened to look up into the starry sky and saw her little daughter sitting with Henry Fussy and going higher and higher into the air, and saw how happy Fern looked, she just shook her head.  "My, my!" she said.  "Henry Fussy.  Think of that!"

I understand how Mrs. Arable feels.  Except, when I saw my daughter in her white costume, dancing across the stage with a wedding veil on her head, I didn't think "My, my!"  I thought, "Holy shit!"  I'm the father of a teenage girl, and she's gorgeous.  Time to arm myself against all the Henry Fussy types headed my way.

Grown up or not, Saint Marty's daughter is going to be banished to a convent very soon.  It worked for Mother Teresa.

Confessions of Saint Marty