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

October 15: Beauty and Grace, Amusement Park, Forever Young

The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

Dillard is speaking about God's beauty and grace in the world, and human beings have a tendency not to see them.  Sometimes we ignore them.  Sometimes we're blinded by our own fears and worries.  And sometimes, on good days, when the stars align properly and the car keys aren't lost or the paycheck is larger then anticipated, we notice the goodness that God sends our way.

Over and over this weekend, I have been reminded of the beauty and grace of my daughter.  Last night, at the water park, an older gentleman who was a manager there told me that she was beautiful.  As she was dancing in her classes today, I was amazed by her poise and ease, how comfortable she is in her own skin.  Tonight, at the Kalahari's indoor amusement park, a young male attendant on the ropes obstacle course had the balls to actually flirt with her in front of me.  I felt like cutting his safety line and tossing him over the side.

Yes, my daughter has graduated from gawky, awkward tween to beautiful, graceful teenager.  I don't know how or when it happened.  I still think of her as that little girl calling for me in the middle of the night because she had a bad dream.  It's difficult for me to accept that she has secrets.  That boys are paying attention to her.  That she's growing up, and part of that growing up is being her own person, making her own mistakes, allowing her heart to be broken.  I can't protect her from any of that. 

Saint Marty turns once more to the 2016 Nobel literature laureate Bob Dylan to end this post, something he wrote about growing up:  "May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong.  May you stay--forever young."

October 9: Lovely Trip, Wisconsin Dells, Eric Torgersen, :"What Is Your Earliest Memory?," Adventures of Stickman

It had been a lovely trip, London everything they had wanted and imagined--for Annie, reading selections from several Dickens novels at the time, it was an enchantment, they took strolls through the Queen's gardens, fed the swans in Regents Park; tried to envision the shantytowns that Dickens had once written about, along the Thames, the city's architecture sometimes suspending their notion of modern time...

After years of depression and struggle, Ives and his wife, Annie, go on a trip to the British Isles.  London, especially.  Annie loves the words of Dickens, and Ives loves the work of artists like Seymour and Cruikshank, the first illustrators of Dickens' work.  Ives and Annie rekindle their love on this journey.  It gives them a fresh start.

Greetings from the Wisconsin Dells.  We arrived around 4 p.m.  The journey was unremarkable.  We didn't get lost once, the weather was sunny and cool.  This trip was the first we've made to the Kalahari Resort without the navigating skills of my sister, who couldn't come because of work conflicts.

This evening, I have been to an indoor amusement park and water park.  My son dragged me up to the top of several water slides.  My feet are sore, and I can still smell chlorine.  My wife just fell asleep, and my kids passed out about an hour ago.  After I am done with this post, I will be calling it a night, as well.

Just like Ives, I've needed this time away from my day-to-day existence.  Since the beginning of the semester, I've felt a little distracted, at the medical office and university.  Perhaps it's the stress of the summer finally catching up with me.  Or maybe it's grief.  I don't know.  Whatever the cause, I have not really been fully myself.  Perhaps these few days away will heal what's ailing me.

There will be no fairy tale this evening.  I'm taking a vacation from that, as well.

I do have a poem, however.  It's about memory, and fragility of time, things I've been thinking about a lot this past month.

Saint Marty is hoping to make a few happy memories over the next few days.  This year hasn't provided a whole lot of those.

What Is Your Earliest Memory?  What
Does It Mean?

by:  Eric Torgersen

Barbara the earliest thing I remember
is pushing a train of wooden blocks
sawed off the ends of two-by-fours
around the top of the concrete foundation
of the house my mother and father built
up Lyons Street at the end of the war.

It means we really were all there
together once, my father and mother,
my house, my brother and I,
my three sisters one after the other.

The foundation was a foundation
to hold up my little train
and I was a block on my brother
and sister and sister and sister.

I remember a little while later
my mother on the roof with a hammer.

The roof was a roof over our heads
but the house was never whole:
the bathroom no more than a shell,
around the back no shingles,
in the front yeard a big stump
we had no one to dig up and haul.
We cut and tunneled and burned but the stump
was bigger than all of us together.

The stump was the stump of a tree
I can't remember.  The tree was my father.

Adventures of STICKMAN

October 16: Kalahari, Dance, Whassup

Okay, people, I know I missed posting yesterday, but whassup with the low traffic yesterday for the blog?  Seven page views.  Really?  I mean, I usually am pretty good about giving you something new every day, but yesterday, by the time I got back from the amusement park with my daughter, I was in no shape to be witty, profound, or poetic.  I was just exhausted.

On days where I don't post something new, I suggest you go back to an old post, something from a year ago, and think of it as a rerun of one of your favorite TV programs.  Call it the Best of Saint Marty Show.  For instance, one of my favorite episodes of The Bob Newhart Show is the Thanksgiving episode where he gets drunk and tries to order moo goo gai pan.  I could watch that particular episode every day and not get tired of it.  Next time you check Saint Marty and don't find anything new (which is a rarity), tune in to his moo goo gai pan rerun.  You won't be disappointed.

Tonight is our last night here at the Kalahari in the Wisconsin Dells.  My daughter has danced for two days straight, and her feet are aching.  We just got back from the indoor amusement park, and she's pretty excited.  She won 1000 tickets from one of the arcade games.  That means she got to trade those tickets in for some prizes that probably cost around 75 cents, but she was ecstatic.  Just the look on her face was worth the $78 I spent on tokens for her to win.  (I'm exaggerating a little bit there.)  Then we rode the ferris wheel and had a blast.

My last piece of wisdom for tonight is a little bit of fatherly bragging.  My ten-year-old daughter worked her butt off this weekend.  She took like 14 or 15 dance classes over the course of two days and worked like crazy.  She is a great kid, and I couldn't be prouder of her.  Plus, she's a great dancer.  And I'm not saying that just because she's my daughter.  She really has talent.

Saint Marty is allowed to be a little proud of his kid tonight.  She's the best daughter in the world.  Now, ask him about her after the trip home tomorrow, and he might have a different answer for you.  But tonight, she's aces.

Moo Goo Gai Pan episode--still the best