humor

“Dish Bitch”

/ twaldron2014 / 10 Comments

Image

This started way back.  Way back when apparently our dishwasher began to emit nearly lethal amounts of radioactivity.  I was the only member of our family unaware of it, and apparently the only one immune from it.

We all liked having a dishwasher.  We would have felt deprived with out one.  No one minded putting dishes into it, and I think there was a kind of satisfaction to be the one who would declare, “I think it’s time to run the dishwasher!”  No one, except me, seemed to understand that the appliance became essentially useless once it was sitting there full of clean dishes.

However no one, and I mean no one, would voluntarily empty the dishwasher. Except me.

I accept the idea that there are certain things that are “dad” jobs.  I understand the division of labor.  I knew that I maintained the outside of the house, and that it was my role to fix things (or make them worse at my discretion), to build walls, and dig up pipes.  As a modern guy, I didn’t mind splitting the household chores as well, and the whole family agreed that we were all better off with me not being the head cook.  For some reason though, bags of trash never made it farther than the middle of the garage, as if my two kids and my wife were incapable of the 7 extra steps it would take to go through the garage door and actually deposit them in a trash can.

And there was emptying the dishwasher.

On a Friday afternoon when my teaching friends were gathered at the local pub, celebrating the end of the week with a few beers, I launched into my lament, the unfairness of it all.  Stephanie, ever able to turn the phrase declared, “Oh honey, you’re just the dish bitch.”  Along with everybody else, I burst out laughing at the label.  “Damn,” I said, “you’re right!  I am the dish bitch.”

I went home determined to ditch my new-found title.  At this time the kids were still in their teens, and therefore basically indentured servants.  Chores around kitchen clean-up seemed to be split between “washing” and “drying” only.  Everyone was long gone by the time the dishwasher shut itself off.  It just so happened that we filled it that night and as I fired it up, I declared “Just so you know, when this gets done, I am not going to empty it.”

The kids (and my wife, I think) rolled their eyes, saying silently to each other, “Ah, dad’s having a thing” and went about their business.  The dishwasher sat full, the dishes cleaned, for another two days.  After all, we had other dishes.  If someone had a favorite glass, you could always pull it out.  Eventually, once I had reiterated my stand loudly and repeatedly enough, the kids broke down and split up the task.

And then things went right back to normal.  Every now and then, I’d try the silent, passive-aggressive approach.  After a week or so, the kids might notice.  “Oh, “ my son would say, “gone on strike with the dishwasher again, dad?” and then he would do the responsible thing.  He’d figure out a way to manipulate his sister into doing it.

Now the kids are grown, and it is just my wife and I and the appliance.  For some reason, she takes great care in making sure the dishes are positioned properly, frequently reorganizing them once I have put them in and occasionally pulling some things out and informing me that “these don’t go in the dishwasher!” although the rules about this always seem to be changing.

I knew I had finally lost the war when I returned from a 10-day visit to my sister in Hawaii and in the morning began to clean up my breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher.  “Hey,” she said, “the stuff in the dishwasher is clean.  I ran it right after you left.”

I was speechless.   She was busy getting ready for work, and said it so matter-of-factly that I checked myself from saying what seemed so obvious to me.  In fact, to save time, I just ran the dialogue through my head.

Me:  So, you ran the dishwasher and let clean dishes sit in the dishwasher for 9 days until I would return to empty it?

Her:  Look, when you’re gone, I barely cook, I use paper plates. I never needed anything from it.  I don’t even think about it.

Me:  (long silence, since I have no idea how to respond—this happens a lot)

 Game, set, match.  After all, what if Mary insisted we split up the cooking responsibilities 50/50?  She is nearly a professional chef, and I get confused when the recipe says words like “bake for 30 minutes”.  We would live in a culinary wasteland for half of each week.

So now, I embrace my inner dish bitch.  I am one with the dishwasher. I will make sure that it is cared for and well tended, like my vegetable garden.  Putting away the dishes will no longer be a chore, but my spiritual communion with the kitchen gods.  I will hear Rodney Yee’s voice coaching me as he does in my yoga videos. “Feel your sidebody stretch as both arms extend to put the big plates on the second shelf. Breathe…”

“I Am The Eggman”

/ twaldron2014 / 4 Comments

Image

When asked what led me into teaching high-school English as a career, I have several ready answers–I wanted to dedicate myself to helping young people; I loved reading and writing and was happy that I could make a career out of it; I liked the idea of having summers off—the usual.  And while all of those things were true, I always left out one key factor because I didn’t want to admit it.  I wanted to go back to high school.  I wanted to go back to high school to see if I could achieve a level of “coolness” that had always eluded me as a student.  I’m not proud of it, but there it is.

There were two teachers that most influenced my thinking about this because they provided models for how someone could be well liked and also be a powerful teacher.

Vic Player, geography teacher at Saint Augustine High School, was a man with a bold and playful sense of humor.  I was a painfully shy freshman who just wanted hide behind a large person in class and go unnoticed.  As he was taking roll one day early in the semester, he called out “Waldron?  Waldron?  You mean like walrus?  You are the eggman, you are the walrus?”  I sat in silent horror as I raised my hand to acknowledge my presence and my new connection to the popular Beatles’ song of the time.  “Yeah, Waldron,” he said smiling, “from now on, you are the Eggman.”

And from then on, I was the Eggman.  All of a sudden, I had an identity in the class.  I was someone, and I could no longer hide, no longer wanted to hide.  This man, with one silly nickname, transformed my first year experience in high school by giving me an identity that I could never have carved out for myself.  He refused to call me by any other name from that point on, and I marveled as I watched his easy confidence in the classroom, how he teased, and taught, and cajoled, and nurtured his ninth grade class.  He was by far, the coolest person in the room.  I wanted to be like that.

Three years later I faced the terrors inflicted by John Bowman, my senior English teacher.  The year before I had been in a class next door to his, and we frequently heard pounding, yelling, and then laughter coming from the class.  We were terrified.  All we could imagine was that someone in his class had said something stupid and had been thrown up against the wall, maybe pinned to a cork-board like an impaled butterfly, to be ridiculed by the entire class.  We entered his room, already cowed by the legend and his fierce reputation, the knowledge that he did not suffer fools, and that he did not spare criticism.

To our relief, we quickly discovered that the pounding came from Mr. Bowman slamming his hand on his desk for emphasis, as frequently in praise for a good comment as in disgust for one that didn’t please him.  Our written work was treated with contempt for most of the first quarter, but we quickly learned how to write and how to please the great man.  There was no better day, no greater compliment, than the moment when he called on me and I ventured an answer to a question and he slammed his hand on his desk with satisfaction.  “Mr. Waldron!” he shouted. “Say that again!”

It took most of the year to figure out how much he loved his class.  We knew he loved literature.  His passion swept us away—Sophocles, Shakespeare, Thoreau, Hemingway—all of them were heroes, giants.  However, he was a consummate actor and hid his affection for us as long as he could.  By the end of the year, when he handed out his own home-made awards for excellence, we were allies with him in his secret.   The incoming juniors would never know.  But I knew.  And I wanted to be like that.

As it turned out, I could never “be” either one of those two exemplary teachers.  However, I learned some of my key values from them—passion, humor, a dedication to excellence, and a commitment to making every student feel included, honored, respected.

If students remember anything from my classroom it will be the fact that for the last 15 years or so, I greeted every student, every day, with a handshake.  It provided a short, personal moment of acknowledgement for every one of my kids.  It became so ingrained as a classroom ritual that if I forgot and started class without having made the rounds, students would cry out in protest. One student described it this way in an end-of-the-year note to me: “Taking those few minutes out of your day to talk to each student, really made a difference especially during a time where every teenager is struggling to figure out who they are and where they fit in.  It was nice to know that at least one teacher cared enough to take those few seconds out of their day to treat each student like a real person, not just another face in the crowd.”

So, did my 36 year-high-school do-over achieve its purpose of giving me a status I couldn’t quite grasp the first time around?  Not exactly.  While I gained a certain amount of notoriety for my classroom traditions such as the handshake, loud music to begin each day, Barry White Fridays, movie nights, and the year-end scrapbook, I pretty quickly realized that I was there to make my kids feel special as they tried to survive high school; to make them feel accepted, and cool, and as if they were in a place where they belonged.  It was when I had a really good day in helping a student, that the Eggman felt cool once again.

 

 

Thank You, Paul McCartney

/ twaldron2014 / 2 Comments

Baby, I’m a man, maybe I’m a lonely man

Who’s in the middle of something

That he doesn’t really understand…

I have to admit, despite my eventual qualms about all things Catholic, it was a good decision for me to attend Saint Augustine High School, an all boy’s Catholic school in San Diego.  All freshman had to endure a period of hazing, which included wearing a beanie with the purple and gold school colors for the first six weeks, and being taunted and ordered about by upper classmen, but it was tolerable, and a part of a fierce sense of school spirit, loyalty, and tradition.  The entire school could fit inside the gym.  We did so every Friday during football season, and I can still feel the sense of anticipation as we waited for the band to begin blaring out “When the Saints Go Marching In” as the football team marched in and began a loud and raucous pep rally.  I had excellent teachers for the most part and was proud to be a Saintsman.

Meeting girls, though, was a different story.  Our school took turns hosting dances with the local Catholic girls’ schools, but I found them uncomfortable and awkward, full of a multitude of opportunities for rejection and only slim hopes for satisfaction.  I did managed to go on a couple of dates in my first two years, mostly with girls who were as scared and awkward as I was, but still found them to be mysterious and confusing.

Then one day, I hit the jackpot.  My friend, Pat, a drama kid, came to me and begged me to join the musical production of “The King and I” at Rosary High School, the nearby girls’ school.  “You don’t have to be able to act OR sing,” he reassured me, “they just need guys.  Anyone can do it.”

So, I joined the production for the simple reason that I knew that the girls would vastly outnumber the boys, and I still had hopes as a junior that I could salvage at least some valuable and maybe even memorable social experience before I graduated.

It was my first exposure to drama and in my 16-year-old-eyes, we slowly mounted a magnificent production on the tiny high school stage. The only musical accompaniment was a single piano played by the enthusiastic and dictatorial nun who was also the play’s director.  I had seven different parts in the play, all of them non-speaking.  Nightly, I had to smear my body with a base make-up to make my pasty skin look bronzed and I spent every performance racing from costume change to costume change, just trying to be in the right place in the right time.

Having never been in a drama production of this magnitude or of any magnitude, I was a little overwhelmed by the emotion of closing night.  Even before the final curtain call, there was a tremendous amount of hugging and kissing going on and I was intent on being involved in as much of it as I could be.  In the midst of this vortex of emotion, one of my friends nudged me over towards Dolores, a lithe, beautiful Pilipino girl who seemed intent on passionately kissing every boy she could get her hands on.

I should mention here that I did not then, and even sometimes do not now, have a clear understanding of the appeal of French kissing.  My only introduction up to that point had been my older sister and her boyfriend showing off in front of my younger sister and I who both agreed the behavior was completely disgusting.  My older sister sneered at us.  “You’re too young to understand,” she sniffed.  Whatever.

But when suddenly I found myself in Dolores’s arms, she was kissing me with her mouth wide open, something that immediately made me feel I had become connected to a lovely but out of control vacuum cleaner.  She seemed to be waiting for me to do something, but I had no idea what it was.  I was just sure I wanted to kiss this way as long as she would let me, hoping maybe I would figure it out.  We broke the kiss and I stumbled away with a sense of wonder, loss, and determination.  I had to have a second chance.

The chance came a week later.  My school had a junior-senior prom coming up and so I had been casting about in my mind for who to ask.  After that night, my sights were set firmly on Dolores.  She had no good reason to go with me except that we knew each other from the play and as a sophomore girl she had never been to a prom.  It was just enough for her to say yes.

Proms are supposed to be about flowers, tuxedos, music and pictures, but in my mind, the dinner, the dance, and the after-prom were simply 10 hours of foreplay leading up for a chance to kiss her goodnight. Through the first part of the evening, she was a delightful date.  I still remember the aqua-colored dress and her long, lustrous hair done up beautifully to frame her delicate face. I, at times, could not believe that I was there with a date as lovely as she.

Things took a turn for the worse at the after-prom.  Suddenly Dolores disappeared and from the reports I was getting from my friends, she was chasing after Rocky, our star wrestler, a friend of mine, while I sat disconsolately by a pool table in the bowling alley.  After a miserable hour or so, she re-appeared, looking bored, and finally, it was time to take her home.

I walked her up to her front porch feeling a little sulky.  After all, she had bruised up my ego pretty well.  Of course, I had asked her for the shallowest of reasons but still, was one night of pretend loyalty too much to ask?  My feelings weren’t hurt so badly that I didn’t feel a rush of anticipation as we approached her front door.  She turned and smiled and thanked me, and the smile was enough to melt any resentment I had felt as she drew me toward her and once again kissed me deeply and passionately and for the last time.  Somehow during that kiss, that I hoped would last forever, she taught me what I was supposed to do.

I drove home in a daze and I can still hear Paul McCartney singing, “Maybe I’m Amazed” on the radio, which seemed perfect at that moment.  The sun was coming up, and I was immersed in the wonder and mystery of love and lust, hope and loss.  I had a feeling the world had just grown for me a little bit.

Thanks, Paul, for crystallizing that experience for me, freezing the moment in a way that only a song can do.

Baby, I’m a man,

And maybe you’re the only woman who could ever help me.

Baby, won’t you help me to understand?

 

Rock Star

/ twaldron2014 / Leave a comment

 

DMB

I told a group of students in a baccalaureate speech that I was asked to give, that I had a dream one day that I would be called out from off-stage at a Dave Matthews Band concert to join the group as a guest guitarist, where I would get to jam with one of my musical heroes. I also told them that I accepted the reality that maybe if I worked really hard, I might get to practice with one of the local bands around San Diego who I’ve come to know or maybe perform protest songs at my old high school when the American history course starts covering the 60’s and 70’s.  Maybe I’d get good enough to play some Christmas songs during the holidays for the family or get a few Mexican tunes under my belt so that I can play along with my wife’s cousin, Felipe, who is always the hit of the party.

The truth is, I’ve only been taking lessons off and on for the last 5 years or so, with lots of gaps.  I am indifferent practicer, even with all of the time I have available in my retirement.  I avoid the accusing stares coming from my unused guitar as it sits there in the family room waiting for me, making me feel guilty.  Now and then I’ll pick it up and pretty soon find myself lost in making my way through a little bit of James Taylor, or Jackson Browne, or The Band.  I practice some scales and go through my blues progressions and finish up feeling fresh and clean, sort of like I used to when I’d finally get myself to confession and feel relieved of all of my sins.

The problem is that starting into music in my post-middle age years is really hard.  With no real musical background, any signs of improvement are incredibly slow.  Even when I practice more regularly, I can feel deflated by a perceived lack of progress. And I’ve learned terrible things about myself musically.  I’ve discovered that my vocal range is quite limited and that when I do sing, I make small children cry.  I’ve also discovered that I simply cannot play and sing at the same time.  I thought it would be easy, but as soon as I start groaning out the lyrics, my hands forget all about strum patterns and chord progressions, my left hand flies all over the fret board, and the song screeches to a halt.

All of that was true until two weeks ago.  After a three-week absence I returned to my Monday night, adult education intermediate group guitar class.  It is a friendly bunch of mostly guys, all of who will profess to be terrible but some of whom are actually pretty talented musicians.  I’m definitely in the bottom third, talent-wise.  Our instructor, Bill, is friendly and enthusiastic and disorganized and never quite sure what he wants to do with us.  We might spend half the class going through some music theory and then he’ll take us through a comfortable version of “Let it Be” that we all play together and when it’s done he will always declare, “You guys sound really good!”

But two weeks ago, he decided we needed to get into groups and required each group chose a song and gave us 40 minutes to rehearse, knowing that we would have to perform it for the class during the last 15 minutes.  I immediately made for the group forming around one woman who had once said that she was a singer.  We picked the Buffalo Springfield song, “For What It’s Worth” because it was easy and we all had played it before.  Suddenly, Susan, the supposed singer declared she couldn’t sing this song.

Very quickly all the other guys in the group looked down and pretended to be practicing.   No one wanted to sing.  It just so happened that I had been playing around with that song during the week and could vividly remember it, having heard it so many times, and that as we just started practicing the chords, I found myself beginning to channel my inner Stephen Stills and tentatively began to sing.

No one asked me to stop or looked appalled and in fact, they began to follow my lead when I knew I wasn’t getting the timing right or when I knew we had lost our way.  Suddenly, I was the de facto group leader and lead singer.  After a while, once we had worked over the rough spots and run through the song repeatedly, we actually felt we were kinda, sorta ready and it was time to perform.

When it came our time to play we launched into the song and somehow, I lost all self-consciousness and just tried to stay in the song, to hear the song I had lived with for almost 50 years and try to sound a little bit like it.  Before I knew it, we were working through the tricky third verse…

Paranoia strikes deep,

Into your life it will creep,

It starts when you’re always afraid,

Step outta line the man come,

And take you a way…

…and then, before I knew it, we are coming around to the chorus.  We are listening to each other and adjusting, and fixing problems when they come up and doing everything a band actually has to do when they are in the midst of a performance and it felt really good.

…Think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound

Everybody looks what’s goin’ down….

We ended there and the members of the Monday night, adult education intermediate group guitar class erupted into applause.  Well, in all honesty, it wasn’t an eruption. It was more the kind of polite applause that class members are sort of required to give to each other.  Bill declared, “You guys sounded really good.  Yeah,” before starting off the next group.

When it was all over, Juan, who after one conversation has decided that we are best friends, came up to me and said, “Tommy, you sing really good, man.” (no one except my 91-year-old mother calls me Tommy).  I deflected his comment with a joke but, in fact, I was floating as I packed up my guitar and walked out to the car.

It wasn’t an appearance with Dave, but I had performed.  I loved it.