How scary is that?

So you have been having a hard time with getting around the last couple of weeks, mostly because you are tired right out at the end of the day, so you start to slip into this blue funk, what I called the Black Hand, this depression that envelopes you and freezes you and keeps you from doing anything productive. Naturally, you begin to think, maybe you are really depressed this time, so much you just don't want to move. You realize that is a whole lot of being depressed, but then, its been seen; you're not breaking any new ground here.

So when your legs finally decide not to go forward anymore, you almost accept, almost anticipate it. "Just give in," you tell yourself. Then you change your mind and try to move - too late, the legs are not working for you'

But after a day of resting, you feel like you can take on a day of work once more, so you go. The results are predictable: within hours you are back in the same predicament.

So you see your doctor, who looks at you and says, "Let's call someone to come get your things, and we will transport you to the hospital."

You call your Dad, who comes to get you and take you to the local hospital, where you are ushered in as a "Direct Admission." You get a bed, a late meal (Mac and cheese, baked), and changed into hospital gowns to be rushed to an MRI - stat!

Except the machine won't accept people your size. In fact, after calling around the area, no one seems to have a machine large enough - so the nurse walks in and announces: "You are being transported to Gainesville, four hours away." I have time to call my Dad at 2am to let him know I am leaving - then they load me in an ambulance and we leave.

How scary is that?

Circle closes

There was a time when I went to bed each night, swearing that I would find a way to get my revenge on two people for what they had done to my life. And to my ex, I swore I would wait until one day when she would see what a mistake she had made, and I would have my revenge on her as well.

Then life dulled my hatred a bit, other pressures intervened, and I began to forgive just a bit, but not to forget. I knew I would never, ever forget. This was my first love, crushed, I could never fully recover.

That is until I recovered. It took time, I can't lie, but I did recover, and before long, I forgave and forgot. Then the whole of that part of my life faded into the background of my life.

Again, life intervened, and a fire took place on board my submarine. I met my own death, mortality staring me in the face, and somehow I survived. My life was renewed on so many levels.

Then I got everything I had ever wanted in my early days: my revenge. Only it wasn't what I wanted to hear now.

I met Satan in that fire under water, and I found that we weren't too different, he and I. I know myself to be a profane, fundamentally flawed being, totally undeserving of the trust that was placed in me at that early age, or maybe at any age. I cannot accept the apology of one who, having served God, I feel more deserving of an apology from me than I from them.

If we could wind back time, would it be worth the try? Could we try again from the start, be a family and stay with each other for 35 years faithfully? Yes, it would be worth a try to start over and stay together this time. But would we? Would I just end up breaking your heart again some other way? If I broke up our family twice, I would not think I could stand the pressure.

I am older now, and have settled with a wonderful person that knows me, and can help me make it day to day. It helps me just as much to know I have a son once again that carries my name, and that I have a very dear, old friend that I can talk to once more, that I have missed for over thirty years.

We can't turn the clock back, but often we need the help of everyone we know to help us to push the clock forward just one more day.

Crow.

Fighting the Black Hand

I am sitting here at this machine, working up the courage and the energy to fight the black hand, which has been closing in on me for the last three days. There are signs all around me that the hand is winning: dishes stacked on the counter, the unmade bed, heaps of 'stuff' on the chairs, the table, my recliner covered in dirty socks, shirts, things left where they were removed.

This is far from my Navy training, and far from where I am happiest, a clean and orderly house. But then, the Black Hand is not something I choose to have come over me.

Winston Churchill called it his black dog, and he fought with it all his life. It was a deep depression that took him for weeks at a time, and caused him to sink into great despair. He battled it with constant drink, and smoke, and even spending great sums of money he didn't have, although he always seemed to get by.

I haven't always had this Black Hand, but it has taken me lately, and it does send me into despair. I quit caring, as it were, and just sit, all of a lump, and let time slip by me.

Also, I cannot sleep during these times when the Hand takes over my life. So I stare out at the world with no hope, exhausted, in the building trash around me, falling deeper and deeper.

Then I finally fight back. The only way I can fight the blackness is with light: I open all the blinds, let the light into the house, run all the ceiling fans to stir the air, and start cleaning! If I can clean just one room, then I can go there when I need hope again, and then back into the house to clean more, then finally the laundry, and all is done.

I find that once the wash is finished, the house straightened, and my things put away, then I can sleep, or at least I can try.

I see the sun peeking through the blinds; time to face the Hand.

MMG

When to Listen to Your Heart

I had a week to remember. We all agreed that it was pretty much the worst week we had all experienced, and that includes teachers that had been teaching in the system for over twenty years. It seems that all our concerns about lack of vision, lack of consistency, and a complete lack of planning of any kind all came to a head in one terrible week, the Perfect Storm of Errors and Complacency.

I learned long ago not to make a statement in a blog that you weren't prepared to make a.) to the person or persons concerned, and b.) to your mother. I have notified the administration of my workplace that the last week was exactly as stated above, the worst I have ever seen, and I have the additional advantage of having worked for government contractors EG&G and Lockheed-Martin, so I have seen some pretty bad administrations. But I had never seen conditions such that I didn't know what the rules under which I was to discipline my students were from day to day. Infractions change daily, penalties change daily, even the person making the decision changes daily!I informed administration that this situation was not only bad for morale, it was untenable. Period. (The new school motto: A new day, a new way!)

Thinking back on my life (I'm doing a lot of that lately, which I think is the purpose of this blog), I consider the times when I faced issues or situations that I thought were right or wrong, and someone or something tried to get me to change my position for what ever reason. I know that through most of my life, I have been very clear; what is right is right. Period.

What that left me with is a trail of jobs that I was fired from ('relieved' is the Navy term), and a set of situations I had to leave to find new pastures. I was relieved from a division leader position in the Navy at the Training Unit because I refuse to have my division paint joints that were under vacuum with shellac in order to pass a critical test to get the plant started up. Instead, I chose to do it the right (and slow) way which would have delayed the start-up. In my defense, everyone agreed that the old shellac trick was bad, but since it was quick, the Chief asked around for a First Class that would do it, and as soon as he found one, I was relieved.

That's the one that sticks in my mind for some reason, there are others. I have had six careers (including the present one), and all of them except the Navy I left on my terms. What more could a person want?

My dad told me once 'You have to go along to get along.' I have never, ever been able to do that. I tried, honestly I tried when I worked for the State of Florida's Agency for Workforce Innovation. Getting along, however, meant firing a man that did nothing to deserve it. In fact, the man that my boss wanted me to lay off had the best numbers in the whole section. I couldn't 'go along' any more, and I laid myself off instead.

Try to stay true to what you think is right. It might refine as you get older, but it will never go away.

MMG

Flying (or not)

When I was a young teen, I spent gobs of time and what to me at the time a horrible pile of money (all made on my own) on model airplanes, which I would build, then with a gang of friends, we would go to the edge of the municipal golf course at Audubon Park, claim three or four flying circles, and fly our airplanes from noon until just before sunset. The planes were magnificent, each one the product of three to four weeks of labor, brightly colored, striking in design. Most were Topflight Flight Streaks, I do remember, and a few profile P-51 Mustangs. My first was a smaller Fokker Eindekker, but the favorite was a Shoestring, painted teal and red. No one else had a Shoestring! Those were good days, long days. We were busy, and our time and money went to legitimate pursuits, not drugs and gangs like so many young people today.

So here I ma, many years later, and I am looking for something to fill my hours while I have to endure a temporary situation of stagnation. And, voila! I once again find that I can get involved in my old hobby, except some things have changed: the planes are less expensive, the materials are different, and there are no cables anymore, its all radio controlled. I think, 'Outstanding! I can so do this!'

The materials are now foam, the same styrofoam type material that the trays which hold your fresh chicken the meat from the grocery are made of. I know this because when I had to make a recent repair to one of my planes (I have had to make many), I used one such tray, and you can't tell the difference. It makes for a very light, but also easy to break, plane.

And I have a reputation for breaking them. I build them, often in just a day or two, as it doesn't take that long to build a kit. Then I try to fly them. Or maybe I don't try to fly them. I do not have a clue what the problem is. I try hard to cover all the bases, to make sure I am doing everything just right. I even bought a simulator to practice flying on the computer.

This morning was the best of all examples. I got up at 5:30 am, and loaded the car with two planes, one that I had worked on for a week, and was really looking forward to flying, the other was a kit that I knew I could fly, and I was taking as a back-up in case something happened to the first plane, at least I would have something to fly. I made sure I had a couple of spare propellers, just so a broken propeller wouldn't ruin my flying day. I packed a hat, a bottle of water, etc. Then off to Panera for a bagel and cinnamon roll, then to the flying site, 10 miles away,

When I got there, it was quiet, the sun was just coming up, no one else was around. THe site has a piece of road, then open field. I was ready!

I hooked up the battery on my Eindekker, the big plane I had built from scratch, and it synced with the radio, all was ready! I tested the elevators and rudder - they were backwards! Hmmm... I had to stop, open up the plan, and move the plugs for the elevator and rudder servos to the other connections, about five minutes, then button it back up - now ready!

Power up, plane begins to move, lifts off the ground, starts to veer off to the left, I try right rudder - not enough - POW!

The plane hit the car. The motor mount on the plane gave way, so did the rudder. Every thing else is fine - except the pilot, of course, is steaming. She will get rebuilt to try and fly again.

So out with plane number two, a little bright red number, a Fokker D7, nice model, I expect I can at least get some fun out of this one. I put it down, and taxi out on the road, it hits a pebble and careens into the curb, where it lays quiet, no longer responding to any throttle commands. On closer inspection, when it hit the curb, it knocked the motor off its mount, and pulled a wire out of the motor somewhere - end of my flying day.

I have a timer that I use, which is suppose to time the flight so you don't overdraw the lithium-polymer battery. It is set for twelve minutes. Today's total was 6 seconds.

Usually I go flying, and I come home an hour later, my significant other asks, 'So, how many did you crash?' Hmmm. Okay, two. Both repairable.

One of these days I am going to get one up for 12 seconds. Then it will be a minute. And finally, I will have the whole 12 minutes. It may take the rest of my natural lifetime to do so, but many who know me know I am persistent, if I am anything.

And anyway, it keeps me off the streets, and keeps me from buying drugs, joining a gang, etc.

What I Have Learned (So Far)

I have finally begun to sleep again, after a period of not sleeping due to reasons beyond my control, and the rest feels pretty good. Now that I can rest, I am able to wake, make a cup of tea, and reflect on what I have learned in my somewhat long life so far.

The most important thing I have learned is to do what you love, or what you feel in your heart is the right thing for you to be doing at that time. To do work you hate, even if it is for a premium in pay, will only take the life away from you and leave nothing for you at the end of the day, or the week, or year. Working at something you enjoy is a joy, and the days pass lightly, even fly, the evenings all for you to use as you will. If your work is something you truly love, you will find the days light as a feather, and time passing without notice. Before long, you will be recognized in your field and teaching others. This is an enviable life to live.

I have learned not to be afraid to leave a work situation that I found untenable. You will find another, and if the one you are in is making your life unhappy, then it would be better to spend your time searching for a new situation than forcing yourself to bare another day in hell. The money will come form somewhere, or maybe you should change your lifestyle so that you can live within the new bounds for a while. In the worst of situations, however, I have walked away from a job that was causing me physical problems (headaches, stomach aches), and stepped into another position two weeks later.

I am still learning to accommodate my physical disabilities to my job. There are few things I cannot do; at one time I would have said there is nothing that I cannot do, but I have learned that I do have physical limits. However, with the help of a few tools and appliances, I can pretty much do anything that my peers can do. Add to that the willingness of the students to help, and I am able to perform in the classroom at the same level as anyone.

I am also learning to accommodate my physical disabilities at home. This is considerably more difficult of a task, as there is no one to assist me at times, and when there is someone, I want to do things myself so as to show my continued independence. I have to learn to navigate the kitchen, cook outside, cook for more than one, etc.

I am learning to build model airplanes again, a return to a favorite past time of youth. I built and flew airplanes when I was in my teen, back when we had gas motors and control lines. Now the motors are electric (and much quieter), and the radio control equipment is very affordable. The planes are hard for me to fly, as I have a depth perception problem and cannot tell if the planes are about to hit something, usually a pole. So I build them, and fly when conditions are perfect, which is not often.

I am learning to live with another person. I have always had a dual problem; I cannot live alone, yet I am very picky about some (but by no means all!) things in my living space. I know that makes me difficult to live with, maybe even impossible to live with. But finally, after many years and several tries, I am learning to be patient, and to not be so tight with my living space, and to share.

And I am learning that people are not trying to hurt me. I have had the overwhelming felling since the February fire that everyone I meet is trying to hurt me. I worked with a tightly knit crew of 100 men, well trained and integrated. We all knew each other, we worked together and played together. Then when the fire broke out, they had to isolate the compartment - and me - in order to secure the fire and prevent its spread. In effect, I was being expended. I have carried that abuse of trust for the last 25 years, and I can say I am just now getting over the feeling of abandonment.

I don't think I will ever trust again to the extent I did before. I have not learned that yet. Perhaps I will before my black feathers all turn grey.

To Choose Not to Participate

In am teaching the last unit in the new core curriculum this week: healthy choices around sex, alcohol, and drug use. You might think this an unusual unit for a science teacher to teach in a middle school, and you would be correct. It is a Health unit. However, the district eliminated all their Health teacher positions two years ago in a money-saving measure, and consolidated this unit under the science curriculum.

At the same time, the district hired a company from New York to provide a curriculum for use in suburban Florida. The Health portion of that curriculum looks like something that would be taught in teh New York City schools, where the vast majority of eighth graders are sexually aware if not sexually active; the terminology is explicit, the web sites are explicit, and the instruction is explicit. If a child did not know all there was to know about having, wanting, soliciting sex, preventing pregnancy, avoiding detection by parents, shirking responsibility (boys), demanding responsibility (girls, after the fact), they would after this class.

I taught this curriculum last year. We split the classes up, girls in one class taught by the lady teachers, and boys taught by me. I thought at the time maybe we were putting out a little too much info for the age group, but the curriculum specialist from the district, and my principle, both insisted that it was not a big deal, that this stuff was taught in the middle schools all the time.

I kept trying to imagine putting my own daughters in the class, and I just couldn't do it.

This year, it was decided not to split the classes. I would have to teach both boys and girls in teh same class. Okay, I think I can deal with this.

There was no lesson plan. The district did not have an approved lesson plan, the teachers are supposed to come up with their own. How am I supposed to know what is approved and what is not? I was given a list of websites that had "good model lesson plans," but when I went to the sites, I found the sites *very explicit*! Oh, boy!! I asked the curriculum specialist if she had been to any of the sites, "Well, no, I haven't had the time," she told me.

The permission letter that the district provided us had the URL address for the district's curriculum that we were to follow so that parents could look up the curriculum to decide if they wanted their children exposed to that kind of thing. The link did not work. When parents inundated me, and I forwarded their requests to the district, I was told the site was protected: "The curriculum cost a lot of money, the district doesn't want someone stealing it." ?!?!?!?!

So after reviewing the lack of support and competence of the district concerning the sex ed portion of the curriculum, after attempting to look up the supporting documentation for the (nonexistent) lesson plans, and after reviewing what information they DID present to me to teach to my students, I concluded that the information was not age appropriate for the classes I taught.

I have chosen not to participate.

During the Second World War, after the surrender of France to the Germans, the Nazi government only occupied about 40% of French territory, allowing the remaining area to be self-governed by a government out of Vichy. This government was completely autonomous, with absolutely no military or political ties to Nazi Germany, nor were there any German troops in the lands administered by the Vichy government. Even still, Vichy did the bidding of the Nazis simply on request, up to and including the rounding up and delivery of Jews to the German border all the way up to the end of the French Occupation in 1945. There were no German troops to enforce these requests, no German policemen to escort the shipments, simply the French doing the best job they could at delivering Jews to the death camps because they had been told to, including sanitizing the cattle cars between shipments, and running trains on time.

It never occurred to the French to just not participate.

Like I have decided to do today. I am not going to do this, because it is just wrong. Someone will look up in a few years, and ask "How did this get taught? It is obviously very wrong?!"

It starts here. Let someone else teach it, if it must be taught, Maybe the principle can teach it. I will not. I know what I *can* teach. I can teach that the latest research on brain development shows that the prefrontal lobe, or the area of the brain that controls right from wrong, judgment, and moral values, isn't fully formed in young adults until they are 25 years old. So giving 13 year olds information and then hoping they will develop the moral ability to handle that information appropriately is gross conceptual error.

And you would hope that institutional educational professionals would know better.

Crow has learned to follow my instincts, they have served me well through the years.