What Do Teachers Do in the Summer? Conclusion

Powerless

            "If you do get her, her poor little beating heart will explode before you get her outside."  That was my wife's prediction and I feared it might be true, but one hummingbird had already died in our brand new shed/garage, and I didn't want to find another on the ground in the morning.  This female had been frantically flying around in the peak area for more than half an hour and right now was pushing herself into the insulation around the ridge cap.  For some reason, hummingbirds are unable to fly down to the light of open garage doors, instinctively seeking an escape route up.  We had twisted our necks to follow her flight and tried hanging a sugar feeder to attract her down with success.  I saw my moment now.

            I set the aluminum ladder up leaning on a rafter and I climbed right up to the peak.   She was struggling to find a way out through the rubber insulation strip; I told myself I'd have to be quick, and on my second attempt, she gave a tiny wail from my hand but did not struggle as I climbed down.  As I opened my hand outside, she flew straight up and up and up, 50 feet or more before moving off to the north.  The poor little beating heart was mine, absolutely pounding still, from that moment of reaching out to gently grab her.

            As I had watched her struggle, I had felt gratitude that I was not trapped in some similarly powerless state.  It could have happened this week when I went in to ask my superintendent about the status of my request to be paid three years of back pay for advising my school's Spanish Club; I had not caught the clerical error until this past school year, assuming it had been included in my salary.  It was only a matter of $600 dollars, but I was counting on it to get me through till the August paycheck.  He told me that he didn't know where he could get the money because the accounts from all those years had been closed.  He says he'll discuss it with my principal after August 1^st, and if the principal wants to take it out of his high school budget, he can, but he wasn't hopeful.  This caught me off guard and while I expressed my dismay mildly, I didn't realize until a bit later that he was claiming to be powerless.  Later that night I resolved my own struggle to not be powerless and the next morning I acted on the idea.

            My friend Carl tells me that I need to simply ask to be put on the school board agenda and let them know that our school can't pay its bills, but I'm not feeling that confrontational yet.  My club just received the $13,300 grant for a baler (compactor) for our recycling program and I'd been busy collecting bids and working out the details.  I knew there would be as much as $1,500 left over in those grant monies, so I did some checking to see if we could get permission to put those funds toward a forklift the school needs to handle baled material.  I wrote the necessary letter, and if I get that permission, I'm going in to the superintendent to say "I'm not powerless, and so here's the money you need for a forklift, which you've already approved.  Now are you going to take care of me?"  At least that's my strategy.  It's easy to be brave when you're just fantasizing about such a move, but I think I've got it in me.  And if that doesn't work, well maybe I'll have to take Carl's advice.  I'm not going to be walked on or exhaust my enthusiasm for teaching because somebody with a much bigger salary thinks they have to keep me in line.

            I've been at school a lot lately, working on plans for my classes, preparing for French mostly.  I'm learning a lot and having a great time, but there is oh so much to do there and at home.  When I come into the house in the evening my wife asks "Have you been hugging your garage?"  It makes me smile because I've been building a workbench, installing cabinets salvaged from our old house and hanging up my tools, which makes it look very tidy and organized.  But we burn wood for winter heat and I'm not ready with this year's supply.  Then I'm going to miss half of my remaining three weeks of freedom, going back to Minnesota for my sister Teresa's wedding and a general family reunion.  I'm heading up earlier to see old friends too.

Oh, Pretty Woman

Before I left on my trip, I finally got a hold of my friend Bill Dees to ask if I could come and play him the version of the song the two of us had worked on together.  He had been traveling, but now he was set to move into a new house and there was just too much chaos in our schedules to meet.  So I set off with him much on my mind; I would have liked having his approval for the song before I started playing it for my old friends, but even as it was, I presented it to a number of friends, along with the story of Bill being Roy Orbison's songwriting partner and the co-writer of "Oh ,Pretty Woman."  That got people's attention, and the song "Who Gets The Credit?" just seemed to make the story real.  Then it was at the home of friends Gary and Janice that Gary went on line and found a clip of Roy Orbison singing his most famous song on the Ed Sullivan show in 1965.  It's a spellbinding piece of video, but when the camera panned to Bill playing piano and singing harmony, all three of us were beside ourselves with excitement.  From that moment I told my story and sang the new song with even more passion.

            I was able to sing the song for my former voice teacher, who told me that my voice has definitely improved and was only off-pitch in spots where I was almost talking the lines.  My friend Lonny, a long-time bass player in a successful country band, told me to get it recorded with a full band behind me.  But finally I had to turn off my own ego trip and become part of the family preparations for my sister's wedding.  And since my two siblings and I are widely scattered, we needed to fit a number of activities into this short spell together, including an interment ceremony for our father and a graduation party for my eldest niece. 

            My Dad's ashes were buried in the Camp Ripley Veteran's Cemetery, amidst the laser-perfect rows of markers and after a short ceremony with a local pastor who was kind enough to officiate.  My father has been gone since 1990, but was mostly gone by 1980, when we realized he had Alzheimer's.  I was able to do just a little of the grieving that has never really come, in the presence of five grandkids he never knew.  I'm the patriarch of the family now, and I was caught a little off guard by the emotion that welled up in me, and I softened myself just a little to his ashes remaining in a container.  I have long clung to the words from the song "Buy For Me The Rain" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band—"Gravestones cheer the living dear, they're no use to the dead."  I see myself returning scattered to the Earth some day, but I understand why one set place means so much to people who are trying not to forget someone.

            The emotion of seeing my sister have her chance to be the pretty woman also caught me off guard.  My new brother-in-law Marv is a terrific person, and the event did much to relieve my guilt about moving her to Minnesota eight years ago, after she became a widow, into a house that wasn't the greatest, and then leaving her and her kids there when we moved to Missouri.  The house I bought her was right next to the dairy farm owned by Marv and his brother.  I felt that emotion carry right on through to my niece's graduation party, at which, strangely enough, I rescued another hummingbird from the garage.  I guess my reflexes are still pretty decent at fifty because I had to snatch it bare-handed off a wire where it had perched to rest.

Turn It Off

            And now everything here at the end of another teacher summer is all compressed into a frantic bundle of last-minute projects, excitement, and tonight, insomnia.  Tomorrow we go back for two days of time-wasting workshops, but tonight I can't turn off the music in my head, after recording two new songs today, after a shopping trip for new shoes and a new pair of work boots.  Even though I came home from Minnesota with a horrible cold, I've worked like crazy at school all week and I'm more ready than I've ever been, and I also made time to visit Bill Dees again to play him the song, but he was already looking beyond it, and we spent nearly the whole evening writing a new song together. He says "I think we've really got something," and I suspect that it won't be long before I'm in a studio with him.  I'm riding a creative high that should help sweep me into the new year with great enthusiasm, and I can't regret the end of summer, because it's been a incredible season.  When I look back, there will be a lot to remember, but you know what is going to stand out for me?  It will be how much fun it was to write about it on Gather and thereby relive the summer another time or two.  I guess it's no wonder I can't turn it all off tonight.  I am so blessed to have learned to love life this much and live it with this much energy.