Every year the union gives you a knick-knack. Lunch box. A fleece blanket. Flash drive. Ren and I like to come home and proudly display our $650 whatever.

This year, because I wander the district, the union didn’t realize I was anywhere. The second to last day of school someone remembered my name on a list and forwarded me the 2010 union gift.

Here it is, my $650 water bottle.

Water Bottle with Tomato Paste

This is a bit tongue and cheek. I don’t, necessarily, have to join the union. It does give you some additional benefits – like access to a lawyer and – usually – decent representation when it comes to contract negotiations. In my – limited – opinion, the quality of teachers in Ohio ranks a good bit higher that what I saw in Texas. Part of this is a supply and demand issue. But part of it, I suspect, is that Ohio is a union state and Texas isn’t.

All that said, I hate the fact that unions are always willing to eat their young. And sometimes (like in Ren’s case) they’re run by fairly incompetent people. And, sometimes, they spend way too much time on protecting terrible teachers that need to go (although, in OHEA’s case I think they do a pretty good job of NOT doing this).

So I stay a member. Reluctantly.

Not one to back from a challenge, he choose construction as his trade. It was through that trade that I got to know him.

As a young boy I don’t think grandad knew what to make of his young grand kids. My earliest memories of him were of a smiling, white haired man, definitely loving, yet peering at me with a slightly quizzed expressions. I remember him poking me with his cane. He wasn’t the grandad that hopped on a bicycle to ride to the park (that was  my other grandpa).

It wasn’t that grandad wasn’t a people person. Far from it. To this day I think he was the most gregarious person I’ve ever known. But I think young children baffled him a bit.

My junior year of high school I went to work for him (like many an uncle, son-in-law, and my own father). My aunt and uncle hired him as the go to man for building their house. My second day of work he had me on masonry, lifting 40 lbs cement blocks up to other fellas who formed the foundation of separate garage structure. My body screamed in agony for the next three days, but it was bearable because grandad gave me a compliment.

“You did good,” he said.

“I did?”

“Yeah, the mason team wanted to hire you for the summer.”

For grandad, a measure of a man’s worth was in how well he did the job. And how well a man could pick up the skills for a job. For two wonderful summers, I worked beside him as he taught me many a carpenter’s skill.

One day he got it in his mind that we had to cap the chimney of my aunt’s 3 story home. Their roof was peeked, a steep 45 degree angle with the chimney at the end. Grandad first wanted to climb up the ladder and do it with me, but I told him that was a bad idea. He could shout directions from the level ground.

I started up. Once I got to the top of the roof I turned around only to see grandad following, his two canes hanging on his shoulders and the ladder moving with his gate. When he got to the point where the ladder contacted the roof he looked at me and said,

“Give me a hand.”

I did, with a good deal of trepidation because of the incline. As I grabbed his right hand, he slipped, kicking the ladder out from under him.

I threw myself over the peak of the roof and barely managed to grab his left hand before half his body slid of the roof. We hung there for a moment, his legs swaying off the edge of the roof and me holding on for his dear life.

And then he started laughing.

“Uh oh,” he laughed.

“Shit, grandad!” I yelled. “This IS NOT funny.”

Thing was, grandad had upper body strength like horse. He could grab a jackhammer with his wirey frame and tear down concrete walls like they were paper. He often put me to shame when, walking with two canes, he’d lift bales of hay (used for shoring up beach erosion) like they were nothing.

So he did a pull up, using first my arms, then my torso, then my legs to pull him to the apex of the roof. And then it was back to work (with me eventually scrambling down the chimney to grab the fallen ladder).

The one comfort, the one major variation to his younger work days, was that we took 45 minute lunch breaks. It was during that time he’d tell me all kinds of stories from his youth, growing up in the depression, raising a family of 5, working colorful and interesting jobs. Grandad was a storyteller. He liked to talk to people, learn their stories, and intertwine them with his narrative. I would listen for hours, often with grandma chipping in with some details, mesmerized.

For grandad, stories boiled down to a usual assortment of elements. There was the church, the CRC and RCA denominations that formed the bedrock of a solid Christian faith. There was family. There were friends who, almost always, were tied to the church. And there was work. Simple ingredients, but with my grandad’s master touch, regaled me every minute.

I think about those two summers often. A grandson should have that opportunity, to work with his grandad and experience a love and pride in hard work, stories, and blood. Sometimes, today, it seems as though generations are too far, too broadly paced. Families are far and shared moments come fleetingly during a holiday or two. Sure, you might be able to convince your older relatives to join Facebook where you can catch the occasional update on what they’re doing. But it’s not the same as a shared experience.

My grandad died 6 years ago today. I didn’t see him his last month which, according to my dad, was a good thing. He suffered a stroke a month before he died. And he wasn’t all grandad anymore. More like bits and pieces.

Ren and I lived in Houston at the time. The funeral was in Michigan on the second to the last day of school. And, in one of the most regrettable moments of my life, I didn’t make the funeral.

At 32, that’s the do over I want out of this life. I want to yell out my younger self and tell him to get on the damn plane and be with his family. Say a proper goodbye and tell a few of grandad’s crazy stories.

That’s the do over I really want.

I realize that, so far, I’ve been blessed. No great tragedies. A wonderful, loving wife. Two new daughters. A profession I’m passionate about. A church that’s home and friends to pray and fellowship with.

But I have a strong suspicion that, along with providence (or as a part of providence), a good many of those blessings have roots that go back to my grandad.

And I miss him.

We live on a culdesac that, for some reason, never gets picked up by the all knowing google maps. People frequently map their way to our house only to call us at the dead end on the other side, staring at a row of honey suckle and locust trees.

The other side of the dead end, the side we don’t live on, has a road that runs into Section 8 housing. In Cincinnati, Section 8 usually means poor and black. On our side of the dead end the road runs to a Jehovah’s Witness church which has a nice basketball court.

See where this is going?

It used to be that everyone would cut through our neighbors yard. Our thicket of trees and brambles were too much of a hassle. Our neighbor’s drive way ran up along the dead end, so folks only had to navigate a small tangle of honey suckle.

But about 3 weeks ago he got fed up. Two young men came traipsing through his lawn and driveway and then promptly threw 2 beer bottles into our street. Over the years we’ve both had things stolen and dumped on our property (not to mention the occasional high speed chase ending in the honey suckle). He had enough. He planted 2 pricker bushes and put “No Trespassing” signs in front of the trees, thereby diverting the traffic through my yard.

And there is a lot of traffic. Kids run their bikes through our yard. Push strollers through the brambles. Irritate McKenzie to no end (she goes after them from time to time). Occasionally frighten our daughters (all strangers who are scary are called “locos”).

I yell at them. At first I was polite. Adults, generally, get the point. But the young teens – spitting images of the kids I used to teach in Houston – kept walking through. Now I’m gruff and to the point.

“Get off my property. Quit riding your bikes on my lawn. Go use the side walk for crying out loud.”

Not that this works. They’ve taken to cussing and sassing me. When they do, Ren calls Springfield township police.  Her mama bear instincts get working and she’s no nonsense.

They usually take off running when the cops show up.

“Winton Terrace?” The cops usually ask.

“Yeah” we say.

“Okay,” they sigh. “We try and keep Section 8 with Section 8.”

The whole situation frustrates me. I’m pissed at the kids, who are being straight A standard pubescent punks. I’m annoyed at myself for being “that guy”. I’m sad that I’m experiencing a stereotype that’s turning true to form. I’m worried for my daughters who associate strangers – particularly strangers who talk back with cuss words – with some very bad history.

Fortunately, we’ve got good neighbors who are just as likely to confront bad behavior as we are. I have back up.

But we’re thinking of putting up a fence.

Can I digress, people, and say that while it’s important to make teachers accountable, telling them their jobs could hinge on their students’ grades on one test is a terrible idea? The women and men who go into teaching tend, as a group, to be both extremely dedicated and extremely risk-averse. The stability of their profession is a very important part of its draw. You do not want to make this an anything-can-happen occupation, unless you are prepared to compensate them like hedge fund traders.

I mean, I am a recent teacher of history. American history at that. And for crying out loud, there are standards in this most states!  Objectives that, supposedly, every student is taught.

After watching so many interviews of tea partiers you’d think they’d never cracked a history book. Or even the occasional dictionary.

From Slate:

And if Obama’s not a socialist fascist communist, he may be—ooh, scary, kids!—a “progressive,” which, as Victoria Jackson learned from the erudite Glenn Beck, is really a secret “code word” for communist.

And they believe him! That’s the thing. The recent New York Times study of T.P.ers reported that party members are “better educated” than most Americans. But educated in what? Clearly, they—or at least a significant, influential portion of them—are utterly uneducated in history. One can get a college degree without taking a single class in world history and thus still be ripe for the idiot distortions of a Glenn Beck.

Most people with a basic grounding in history find Tea Party ignorance something to laugh about, certainly not something to take seriously. But I would argue that history demonstrates that historical ignorance is dangerous and that it can have tragic consequences, however laughable it may initially seem. And thus the media, liberals, and others are misguided in laughing it off. And educated conservatives are irresponsible in staying silent in the face of these distortions.

The muddled Tea Party version of history is more than wrong and fraudulent. It’s offensive. Calling Obama a tyrant, a communist, or a fascist is deeply offensive to all thereal victims of tyranny, the real victims of communism and fascism. The tens of millions murdered. It trivializes such suffering inexcusably for the T.P.ers to claim that they are suffering from similar oppression because they might have their taxes raised or be subject to demonic “federal regulation.”

And

words matter, sometimes in a life-and-death way. Take for instance the Tea Party demonization of “federal regulation” as the instrument of the tyranny that’s been imposed on them. I would like every Tea Partier who has denounced federal regulation to write a letter to the widows and children of the coalminers in West Virginia who died because of the failure of “federal regulation” of mine safety.

Or, for that matter,  adoptive parents working with two federal governments in insuring children are placed in safe homes.

I believe you can quite respectfully have views that favor limited government and individual liberties. But when a growing group starts to really believe the hyperbole and outright lies, then it’s time to get concerned

I am reminded by one of my favorite MLK quotes:

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

Technically, it wasn’t really the 1st day the Chacos have gone on the feet. Our adventures in Colombia were done mostly in a ripped up pair of Levi’s and the ever cool Chacos. But today was the first day in Cincinnati, so it counts, particularly after a super snowy February. The temperature hit 80 today. Lots of sun. And it was time for the sandals.

2010 also is the 10 year anniversary of the Chacos. During spring of my senior year of college Renee gave them to me as a present. I pretty much wear them 3 months out of the year (if not more) every year. I’m absolutely amazed that they’re still in good shape. Definitely one of the best products I’ve ever owned.

This day had a lot of fun moments. It was also the first day of 2010 for hanging laundry outside. Some might find this to be one of the more mundane tasks of life, but I find it calming. Monica, my eldest, loved it – finding a step stool and insisting that she hang shirts “solita”. I had to drill another line into the Maple and Gum trees, now that our laundry had doubled, so we made a trip to the Home Depot to find a retractable line.

Monica loves to help. I find that one of the more enjoyable things in life is doing tasks with my daughters. The tasks always take twice (or thrice) the time, but it’s good bonding. Good self-esteem building.

Chacos’s Day also happened to be vaccination day for the girls. Monica got two, Kelly five. I got to practice some wrestling moves as I (tried) to keep them still as the needles came for them. Thankfully the nurse was quick. But they screamed. Really loud.

Speckled with neon band aids, they got to eat Popsicles as a treat.

The family played and worked outside from when the sun came up to when it went down. Monica fell asleep in – no joke – 2 minutes. We’re all happy and exhausted.

Summer’s coming.

Anyway, one of the comments in the NYTimes had such an interesting response to the article that it’s worth sharing. He/she quoted “Inherit the Wind”:

“Can’t you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers.

And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other.

Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!”

“There should not be an education marketplace, there should not be competition,” Ravitch says. “Schools operate fundamentally — or should operate — like families. The fundamental principle by which education proceeds is collaboration. Teachers are supposed to share what works; schools are supposed to get together and talk about what’s [been successful] for them. They’re not supposed to hide their trade secrets and have a survival of the fittest competition with the school down the block.”

This process was supposed to take a very long time (4-6 weeks), but it’s flown by for us! It only took 3 days to get our sentencia (where the courts legally assign permanent custody of Monica and Kelly to us). Now we’ve a few more things to wrap up (passports, visas, etc) but it looks like we’ll be back in the states before the end of January!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are so happy to introduce Monica and Kelly…

From 2010-01-21

There’s nothing better than the laughter of my daughters. This doesn’t surprise me too much because before having daughters I would say there’s nothing better than the laughter of my wife. I love my family’s laughter.

Things just don’t gross me out as much. This has to be a survival strategy. Poop, snot, you name it you got to get over it. When they’re yours, you can.

On a similar note, I never knew how much fatherhood revolves around a toilet.

You have to eat fast. In fact, eating is an adventure. Our first eating experiences with Monica and Kelly were a whirlwind. We’ve now learned to tell them ahead of time “you have to give mami and papi some time to actually chew their food.” We’ve added a full 90 seconds to our dinning time!

Backrubs and head massages go a long way in helping to calm freak out moments.

I love incessant chattering. Both Monica and Kelly will have massive conversations with the air. Very fast, very light, and I really can’t understand a word of it (but I get the tone). It makes me happy.

Oh my gosh I am sore. Before getting on the plane my sister-in-law made a comment about coming home with some “guns” for arms. I thought she was joking. Nope. From the very first moment of waking up to an hour before bed I am holding, playing, hugging, swinging, piggyback hosting, dancing, jumping, chasing, diving, and running. For the first 3 days my muscles were screaming.

As this picture no doubt demonstrates. This is Papi trying to give a piggyback and piggyfront ride.

From January 16