Patriot Day Trilogy

Listen my children and you shall hear

of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

on the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Paul Revere's Ride

By the rude bridge that arched the flood

Here once th'embattled farmers stood.

Their flags to April's breeze unfurled

And fired the shot heard 'round the world.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn

If you're a patriotic sports fan living in New England, there is almost nothing better than Patriots Day, a day, celebrated mostly in New England states, that honors the bravery of the colonial soldiers during the battles of Concord and Lexinton on April 18, 1775.  On any givenyear, if you do it right, you can go to the 11 a.m. Red Sox game, catch the end of the Boston Marathon(it's the 113th running today) sometime between 1:30 and 2 (depending on who's pitching), take a leisurely stroll across town, grab something tasty to eat in Quincy Market, and then catch either a Bruins or a Celtics play-off game that evening.

Crazy as it sounds, I actually did that once, a number of years ago now.  Then, it was a Bruins game.  Today, it will be a Celtics game vs. the Bulls if you're so inclined.  Several times, I've done the 1-2, Red Sox and Marathon.  On top of all this, if you're a real early bird, you can witness the re-enactment of the famous battles and then go downtown for the atletic events.  The re-enactment starts before dawn when "Paul" and his friend "Samuel Dawes" ride "sound the alarm to every Middlesex village and farm."  As the sun rises, the British march on the two towns and the patriots rise to the challenge while hundreds, perhaps even thousands, stand along the way to gawk and marvel at the antiquated warfare tactics that set this country on the road to the democracy we now enjoy and flourish in.  And yes, I've done that, too.  More than once

No matter the weather (and it's often cloudy, overcast and/or rainy), there's nothing like this day for community warmth and friendliness.  It's one of my favorite holidays.

Not a Bowler

I'm not a bowler. Not of any kind. I don't bowl, although I'll go if that's what everyone else is doing. I'm just not that good at it (probably because I don't do it very often). I do remember a funny incident, though, when I was in high school and some of my classmates and I went bowling one Saturday night. One of the guys thought he was quite good and went into a fancy wind-up (I know, bowling is not pitching...just don't know what else to call what he did). He went into his release, but let go too late and swung himself onto the floor. We were unmerciful in our laughter =)

I have become a collector of bowls recently. I've found some beautiful bowls at Home Goods for next to nothing, literally, and since there's only one of me most of the time, been able to build a nice little collection for soups and salads.

The real bowling I meant to speak of tonight, though, was the Super Bowl. The truth is, I've watched many a Super Bowl, but have cared about very few of them. Football is not my favorite sport. I only learned it in the first place because I had a sophomore English class that was all boys my first year of teaching (in a boarding school in Michigan). I was desperate to find a way to reach them and discovered football worked. Every class period after a game, we'd talk about it first thing. That would buy me the rest of the class period for English! The weird thing was that every boy in the class liked a different team, none of them the Patriots!

All this to say that I'm doing lesson plans and editing my Alumni Newsletter tonight instead of watching the Super Bowl!

"If we walk long enough . . .

... and talk long enough, we might come to understand one another."

That was one of Jesse Owens' favorite sayings, one he learned from his high school track coach. And it's one of mine. Ever since I first saw the made-for-TV movie about Jesse Owens' life back in the 80's, he has been an inspiration to me, especially in the way he worked with young people. His way of dealing with troubled kids was to walk and talk. Where others would yell and punish, he would walk and talk until they understood each other.

Jesse didn't like confrontation. Much of how he lived his life gives ample evidence to this. And yet, in that same life he not only confronted Hitler on a world-wide stage, he also dared the United States government to confront him when he didn't pay income tax for several years. I showed the movie to our 7th-12th graders this week. For an hour each morning, Wednesday-Friday, they sat mesmerized by this great man's story. Some of the things he faced, the prejudice, the disrespect, is unthinkable. But he met it all with dignity. And ultimately victory.

I especially appreciate his philosophy of trying to make something good out of a difficult situation (the walking and talking). I wrote about him and how his philosophy has influenced me as a principal in my early blogging days. You can read that entry here. Meanwhile, here are some of my other favorite quotes of his:

--Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing in it.

--To me, we must learn to spell the word RESPECT. We must respect the rights and properties of our fellowman. And then learn to play the game of life as well as the game of athletics, according to the rules of society. If you can take that and put it into practice in the community in which you live, then, to me you have won the greatest championship.

--One chance is all you need.

--The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself--the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us--that's where it's at.

--The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.

--We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.

Happy Hanukkuh, #400, and SNOW!

I failed to notice when I posted on Friday that it was my 400th entry in this blog! It kind of crept up on me when I wasn't looking, I guess. It's kind of amazing to me that I've accumulating that many entries, as I wasn't always that regular in posting. Others I know are much more prolific. I respect their ability to share on a daily basis. My goal is to write more in the coming year. It's good for me, if nothing else.

This weekend our church celebrated Christmas and Hanukkuh in the same service. I thought it was a profoundly beautiful service that not too many people enjoyed, thanks to heaps of snow pouring down from the sky. We had wonderful music (that included my sister, her husband, and two children, all cellists) throughout the service.

Then a Russian scholar of Judaism talked about the origin of Hanukkuh and connected it to the Messiah and Salvation. It was fascinating. He brought with him a handwritten scroll of the Torah that took nearly two years to write. It was very old (don't remember how old) and fragile, but we were allowed to see it up close.

It had started to snow Friday afternoon and didn't stop much over night until early morning. Then it started again in the afternoon and kept on snowing all night and all day. It's still snow, in fact. Many things were canceled becasue of the snow, but not the Patriots' game. If you watched it, you saw how crazy it was out there. I went to a game once, years ago, in the snow. We had sleeping bags and heavy blankets to keep us warm, but there were some who didn't have as much protection. And still they stayed. My eyes watered so much, and then the tears froze on my face and my feet were blocks of ice, in spite of the covering we had. But did we leave? Of course not! That's a New Englander for you =)

All the same, school is already canceled for tomorrow. That's because it has now turned to ice on top of all the snow and is very dangerous. Tough, yes. Wreckless, we're not.

Travel Plans

I'm getting excited. Starting Sunday, I will be traveling for 4 of the next 5 weeks. First, I'll be going to Tucson, Arizona for a 4-day fund-raising and development conference. I don't know how much "fun" that will be, but it should be interesting and useful to me. Our vice principal will be going, too.

Our meetings are 8-5, with the evenings available to us for rest and/or socializing. I suspect I'll spend most of that time in my room working as I will be taking the month of July completely off from work for the first time in 14 years!!! I am so looking forward to that, you cannot imagine.

I will have a week back at school before I begin my next trip. On the 27th, I'll be going with my sister and her family down to New York City to meet up with the orchestra and choir we will be traveling with for the next three weeks. We have a concert in Carnegie Hall Sunday afternoon and then will be taking an overnight flight to Athens where we will begin a concert tour that will take the group to many of the places where the Apostle Paul visited on his missionary journeys.

The orchestra we are traveling with, the New England Youth Ensemble, is the orchestra I traveled with for three years back in the early 90s, which my sisters played with for many years in the 70s and 80s, of which my brother-in- law is an inaugural member, and in which my nieces and their cousins have been members for a few years now. The orchestra is celebrating more than 37 years of performing all over the world, and I am so excited to be traveling with it again.

I will not be playing this time, although my sister, brother-in-law, and niece will. I am just going along for the (inexpensive) ride. And what a great ride it will be! I'm not going on the entire tour. It actually lasts until the end of July, but I just didn't see how I could be gone from home all that time, so will be leaving them after Istanbul. I'll miss Romania, Bulgaria, Austria. Part of me is sad about that, but I'm just thrilled to be doing what I'm doing, so won't cry over the missed cities. My niece and a good friend will do the whole thing, so I'll revel in their pictures and stories when they come home.

Photos: More flowers in the gardens at school (except the daisies which are from my mother's garden); what is keeping me up late every other night recently. Go Celtics!

Two Fenway Fly-Overs

Four F-14s were scheduled to fly over Fenway Park during the Red Sox' home opening day ceremonies. The cool thing for us at our school is that we are directly along the flight path for these amazing jets. We see and hear them either on their way to the ball park or on their way back (depending on which direction they decide to fly over). I warned the visiting committee that somewhere around 2 they would probably hear the 4 jets, and indeed some of them did.

I'm not going to say I'm jaded by now, having seen/heard a number of these. But I will say that there was another Fenway flyover that interested me just as much. The hawk I wrote about a few days ago has refused to leave Fenway Park! She and her mate continue to call the Park home, and today, during the opening ceremonies, the two of them flew all around the park, one of them with some kind of a rodent in its talons that it dropped into the crowd as it cruised by!!! I would love to have been there to see that!!!

The pre-game ceremonies were exciting, too. They brought in legendary athletes from all four of Boston's major sports...including several of my personal favorites from the '70s and '80s, including Bobby Orr, my favorite Bruins player, and Brian Daubach, a Red Sox player that my journalism class interviewed a few years ago in the pressroom at Fenway Park! The Boston Pops played while the team received their 2007 championship rings, and Bill Buckner (the "goat" of the 1986 World Series loss) threw the first pitch to my all-time favorite Sox player Dwight Evans.

A pretty classy affair when all was said and done. I just wish I had been there. (The only time I've had tickets to Opening Day, it got snowed out and was rescheduled for the next day...when I was flying to Russia on a choir trip. I had to give the tickets to my parents and had to watch the opening ceremony from the airport waiting area.)

Photos from the Boston Globe. I had a picture of the hawk with the rodent, but I can't find it. I'm afraid I deleted it. If so, I'm so sad because it was kind of cool...the photo here is by an AP photographer...admittedly much cooler than mine off the TV...

Not so Perfect Season

I guess this picture says it all...

Good thing I wasn't too invested in the game, working all through it (grading essays and editing articles for the school newspaper. I could hear the people upstairs from me yelling and clapping with every play, though. They were awfully quiet at the end...sigh...

Oh Say Can You See?

My father is a purist about many things, but especially about music. There are certain things you don't mess with. If, for example, Cesar Franck composed a piece for the violin, it's just not right that the cello takes it on. Never mind that it sounds equally, albeit differently, beautiful on either instrument. It was composed for the violin (my dad's instrument...and he was a very fine violinist in his day), then no other instrument should play it. Period.

He feels even more pas- sionately about the Star Spangled Banner. You should not mess with the nation's anthem. He takes great offense when singers add all kinds of embellishments to it trying to make it more interesting, or something. He says that's not something you mess with, for all kinds of patriotic reasons. I mostly agree with him on that (although I do like Franck on the cello).

I remember in 1991 when Whitney Houston sang it prior to the Super Bowl it caused a great stir. There was all kinds of conver- sation about it as it was a great departure from all versions previous (it's a real bear to sing, if you've ever tried it). Still, to this day though, it is considered the favorite recorded version.

I always think of my dad whenever I hear someone attempt to sing the national anthem, especially at an event such as the Super Bowl. Most times, it's not so great, and again, I think how right he was about trying to make it your own. Tonight, though, as I listened to the young Jordan Sparks render our national anthem, the 42nd time this has happened in such a setting, I was moved to tears. She sang every note pure and true to a beautiful orchestral accompaniment (and yes, I am partial to orchestras). It really was lovely. As she finished, I saw her wipe a tear from her own eye and I realized what an amazing experience that must have been for her, too. Good for her!

And go Patriots =)

18-0, one more to go

So, the Boston sports writers are playing the MEME =) I'm listening/ watching (multi- tasking) to the post-game press conference of today's Patriots' win over the San Diego Chargers and one of the reporters asked Tom Brady if he thought he'd ever live to see the day where a team goes to the SuperBowl 18-0.

The answer for everyone, of course-- including Tom who was only a few years old 25 years ago--is no. I'm betting he wasn't thinking that 4 Super Bowls in seven years was in his future either. But here he is, MVP, offensive player of the year, receiver of every football/athletic accolade conceivable, on the verge of doing what has never been done before.


I'm not a big football fan. I learned it 25 years ago when I had a 10th grade English class of all boys. All they cared about was football, so I learned football so I could talk about things they were interested in. I remember having a Super Bowl part at my house (this was a boarding school) when it was so cold that everyone huddled under quilts for the duration of the game (the house was very poorly insulated and the wind cut through the walls with an icy cold). None of us then thought any further than the next day, to be honest. At least not during the school year.

When I moved back to Massa- chusetts to teach at the school where my father was principal (!), my football knowledge came in handy when teaching Patriots-crazed students. The school even took "field trips" to see Pats games, once in December when it was so cold tears stung our eyes and froze on our cheeks, and we could hardly walk out of the stadium on our block-solid frozen feet.

Happily, today, I was watching the game from the comfort of a well- insulated condo. Being at the game in person was kind of cool , but watching from home is preferable to me because I can do other things...like blog about it. Yet another thing I wouldn't have dreamed of doing 25 years ago!

"How do I Love Thee?"

I'm not a huge fan of racing, but I was looking for the news tonight as caught this commercial at the end of today's race. I thought it was a cool take-off of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous "How do I Love Thee" poem.

First Annual...

Our first annual Basketball Camp is done. It was an amazing week. We started with about 12 kids and ended up with 29! Boys, girls, kids with low self-esteem, kids who thought they were "all that." Coach "AB" was a master at working with all ages, both genders, and every emotion that they showed up with. This was not only a master class in basketball, but it was a living breathing role model of how to handle a disparate group of young people...bring them together, motivate, and inspire them. I can't say enough about what I learned just by watching things unfold during the week. He had firm discipline, taking no guff from anyone. And yet he was so kind with the ultra-sensitive girl who wore her heart on her sleeve. Wow.

His buddy, our VP, asked me to take him to his hotel yesterday after camp. I'll be honest. I was a little intimidated. What would we talk about? How could I calmly drive this big, tall, ex-pro basketball player?!!! I had no choice, so I took a deep breath, told myself he's just a regular human being, just like I am, put the key in the ignition, and took him to his hotel. Our conversation ranged from the kids in the camp to his own kids to his life philosophy: No sense to worry. Do your best, and put the rest in God's hands. Simple, to the point, it has served him well, helped him keep his head on straight in a profession where many do not have the same success.

My sister and I talked further with him this morning. He told us about the opportunities he had when he was first drafted, about all the money he was making as a young kid, about the way some of his teammates spent their time and money. He said he never wanted to lose himself that way. That he wanted to have no regrets when he looked back on his life. And he says he has none.

It's all about the kids, he said. It's all about teaching them to make their lives count...all about making a difference, doing something good for others. At the end of the day if you can say you helped someone out, made a difference in their life, that's enough...that's all you can ask for.

He came for them...but he gave me something I'll not soon forget: a tangible, visible illustration of the difference you can make in a child's life in an hour, a day, a week. A perfect reminder as I get ready to start the new school year.

Star Struck

So. There's an NBA player walking our hallways and hanging out in our gym this week. I have to admit I'm a little star struck, and not a little impressed. He's a friend of our new VP and 7/8th grade teacher and, as a favor to him, has come to do a basketball camp for us this week. It's our first-ever camp, and so far so good.

I keep getting distracted from my work watching the kids (including my nephew and three girls) and this guy working together. He's very good with them, and they are so focused on him and what he has to say. As a teacher, I'm envious! If a kid doesn't do what he says immediately, they have to do 10 push-ups. If they whine or complain or question, it's 10 push-ups. Rest assured, by the end of the first day, he had totally compliant, listening kids.

No longer an active player, this is what he does for a living. He runs day camps in Orlando all summer long, and runs afternoon camps during the school year. He also sponsors a men's league. At our camp, we start and end each day with prayer and pray before lunch as well. He gets the kids in a circle at center court and they touch fists/knuckles (that doesn't sound good, but it's actually very meaningful) while they pray.

The first day he told the kids his story, about how he was drafted by the Houston Rockets just after they'd lost the championship to the Boston Celtics and knew he wouldn't get immediately playing time, so requested to finish college first. They liked him enough to let him do that, which impressed me. He played for a number of NBA and European teams before retiring. Now he's making a difference in the lives of the hundreds of kids he coaches each year. "That's what it's all about," he told me this afternoon. "Making a difference."

Yup. I'm star-struck!

Rained Out one day, inspired the next

Last week, my family celebrated Mother's Day and my birthday together (a day early for my mom and two weeks early for me). One of my presents was two tickets to Wednesday's Red Sox game for my nephew and me. We are both avid Sox fans, so you can imagine what a treat this was going to be. The fact that he was going to a game with his sister and her friends the night before did not dampen his enthusiasm for this game. But the pouring rain Wednesday afternoon did cause us some worry. Rightly so, as it turns out.

We're fans enough so we were going to go to the game as long as it was being played. I picked him up at 5:30. We armed ourselves with plastic bags, umbrellas and warm clothes and headed off to Boston. Traffic inbound was pretty smooth. We got to the park and found a parking lot nearby. The skies had lightened up quite a bit during our drive in, and the pouring rain was quite a bit less as we made our way through the streets to Fenway. We were hopeful.

By 6:45 we were settled in our fantastic seats about 20 rows behind the Red Sox dugout along the first base line. They were the best seats I've had in dozens of years and scores of games. We had fixed my umbrella in front of us to protect our legs and laps, and I used my plastic bag as a hood and cape to keep the rest of me dry. We were all set.

Some 10 minutes later, though, a voice came over the PA system saying the game had been canceled. We were so sad! Even worse, they announced that the make-up game would be the next day at 12:30 p.m.!!! My poor nephew was so disappointed, because we both knew we'd be sitting at school on Thursday instead of cozy in our fantastic seats. Instead, his sister and a friend went and saw a great, winning game.

The Red Sox pitcher who won the game has an amazing life-story. I heard him tell it today. He was born in the Dominican Republic the year I graduated from academy (sigh) to a terribly poor family. He basically grew up without parents. He lived in a dirt-floor hut with no electricity, no running water, no bathroom. He had no clothes to wear, literally, until he was in his teens, and then only had two ragged pairs of jeans and one pair of sneakers that he made last for several years. He never went to school, and still hasn't. He would run errands for people in exchange for food. A big meal for him would be a cup of rice. The only thing that saved him was baseball. He loved to play baseball. Somewhere along the line, some major league scouts saw him and offered him $800 to sign with a team in the US. Long story short, he broke into the majors in 1992 when he was 21 as a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. It was there that some of his teammates took him under their wing and helped him learn English. He also took classes twice a week. That's still the only formal schooling he's ever had.

But he has a Friend in Jesus who has been his Savior since he was a boy. He said that it was having Jesus in his life that gave him hope, that got him through the difficult times of his youth. What was so impressive to me is that he gave this testimony on a sports radio show where many (though obviously not all, as I was listening...) of the listeners are hard core male sports fanatics, and probably not likely to choose to hear about God and salvation. This pitcher was so compelling. His enthusiasm so genuine. I was impressed and inspired.

(Red Sox AP photo)