The School Bus and Big Kids

I was driving to an appointment in the next county. I left with time enough to get there without rushing, and for a change there was not a logging truck or a feed truck ahead of me.  I made the other side of the mountain that marks the boundary between our county and the one where I was headed, got down on the flat, set the cruise control and enjoyed the ride. And I got where I was going with enough time to be a few minutes early. That was good.

What wasn’t good, or at least understandable, were two stops I had to make for school buses. I’m always careful when I see one, because they stop so frequently in the populated rural area between home and where ever I’m headed. About half-way to my destination I approached a small town with a county school complex in the middle. As I got closer there were two buses ahead of me. We stopped, we waited, we started again, and so on until one turned off to head for the county high school. The other continued on half a block more. And then it stopped. One block from the elementary and middle school complex that is in the town a mother put her small child on the bus. Half a block more, it stopped again for two middle school kids. I thought the bus must be for a special school beyond the town. Then the bus turned in at the entrance to the school complex! One block? Half a block on the school bus?

I grew up in a largish town (not officially a city), that had neighborhood elementary schools feeding district junior high schools, and one high school that also served the county. And I never ever rode a school bus. The elementary was four blocks from our house. Our street went down, crossed another, then headed up hill and finally, when it was level, reached the school. My sister, four years older, walked with me the first few days, I’m sure, and then as kids do, we met others and broke into small groups walking to school. At some point I was even a crossing guard, stopping other kids from crossing until the road was clear, then walking them across the intersection.

By the time I went to junior high my sister was in high school. One was north, the other south. I walked or rode my bike.  It was probably two miles to the school.

High school was three miles or so. I walked or rode my bike. Even in my senior year, when we finally had two cars in the family, I almost never drove to school. That was for boys who took auto shop and learned to rebuild engines and things. I didn’t learn much about that stuff until I was in college and was able to justify a car ($50, which explains why I had to learn to be a mechanic) and pay for the insurance.

If I ever rode a school bus it was for a class trip or a ball game. Of course the county kids, from farms, from rural enclaves near the factories that supported the city, rode buses. They had many miles to go if they came to school in town. But my neighborhood pals and I never had that luxury. Rain, snow, hot end-of-school year days, we walked or rode bikes. Sure there were some kids whose parents drove them, but we had one car, my father traveled and he left on Monday and returned on Friday, so that wasn’t an option.

I’m sure there are reasons why kids ride buses today that have nothing to do with who has a car. We live in a rural area with one school for the whole county, “K-12" as the educators like to call it. There are virtually no sidewalks except around the school and in the village where the school is located. I understand why the buses are necessary, recognize that as the one-room schools closed and consolidated, the need to move kids safely became necessary. After all, not every kid had a horse or mule to ride. But those three kids getting on the bus to ride a block or half-a-block to school?

Now I understand why my elders would harrumph and say things like “A foot of snow? Why when I was a boy we walked five miles uphill in a blizzard every day!”

We were all skinny in those days.

Small Change

When I joined the workforce at the age of 12, there were only three generations: children, grownups and old people. Generation X, Baby Boomers, Millennials, Generation Y; today there are so many subsets that I suspect to the survey-addicted, people are no more than boxes to be checked and accounted for, but not realistically relevant.

In the beginning I worked for change. I still do, but rather than in my pocket I want change in the world I am part of. It was enough to know that I was working toward two goals. One was to earn money to support those things parents either couldn’t or shouldn’t pay for, like hobbies and movies and such. The other was to put money away for college or to buy a car or to takes young ladies on “dates.” Looking at this paragraph I see several things that are anachronistic, at least if what I read in the papers is accurate. That seems to include dating, as opposed to “hooking up.”

Now there are so many sub-divisions of social status that it would seem irrelevant to even have birthdays, which in my youth were part of the definition of category. You were a child until you went to work, a grown-up when you had a full-time job, and old when you were . . . well, when you were “old.” One of the first steps to adulthood was getting a social security number. You didn’t get that until you had your first job (mowing lawns didn’t count). Today I understand that the Social Security number comes with the birth certificate, so I guess even infants can get jobs if their parents want them to. I hope not.

It was clear to me, and to my generational cohort (to give us a more scientific designation), who was in charge, who had survived long enough to be listened to, and who was still learning how to  change the world (date to be determined).

I was a child, then a grown-up, and now (if you ask), I’m happy to tell you the changes you need to make.

Living Well, Dying Well

What is a good death? It is what we all hope for I think: painless, easy, quick. We want that for ourselves, and we should certainly want that for those we love. To suffer to death is to deny the goodness and happiness of life, of living. Painless, easy, quick: it is what I would want, should I have a choice.

Sometimes those left behind decry not having the opportunity to say goodbye, but then again, neither did the one who left. But to wish that another person had lingered, had given advance  notice of what was about to happen, seems to me very selfish. It is the very opposite of living well and dying well.

There are no certainties in life except death. We all know that surely at some time we will cease to be; no more a physical presence in another’s life. For most of us that remains an unknown until the moment it happens. The only way we can prepare is to live as if that moment is in front of us now. Because, of course, it is. You cannot know the future, you cannot prepare for that final moment except by admitting that it is to come, and live accordingly. I think the most important thing one person can say to another is “I love you.” Say it truthfully and often.

The survivor has lost only one. The one who dies loses all.

Building Character(s)

When a writer (this writer, anyway) creates a character, the process begins with some sort of model. It can be oneself, which will bore both reader and writer, or it can be based on another real person, or simply the characteristics the writer has identified in “all of the above.”

Characters attract readers because they are true; you can find the model in someone you know or know about. Readers identify with the people in a story when they can find a connection or a response they would understand. The reverse is true, too: a character has so many or such strong negative parts that the reader is repulsed. If that is what you want, that’s great. If you are trying to make a player in your story one the reader will root for, then you must be aware of what they seem to be. And of course, it is absolutely necessary, I believe, that every central actor in a story have some flaw, some negative that makes him or her less than a god. We don’t (in general) like our heroes to be gods because then everything is too easy, too uncomplicated to make a good story. A god-like human isn’t really human.

Writers are observers first, creators second. The writing process begins with a “what if” sort of thought process. What if the hero is unaware of being a hero? What if the situation the hero finds himself/herself in is too demanding, or strong, or negative? It can only be too strong if the character isn’t up to the task, and can’t find it within to do what is necessary to succeed. And success may be measured in so many ways, like survival or reward or winning the one he loves (or losing the one who is really the cause of the problem in the first place).

You see what I mean, I hope: finding a storyline is only part of the writing task. Finding the people who can carry out the work is the most important part because who they are sets up the way the story works.

To the five “Ws,” writers add the three “Is”: Invent, Interpret, and Improve.

Rattling Around In My Head

Sometimes a week will go by and I haven’t written anything I want to share, at least in whatever form my writing has taken that week. Last week was one of those.

We’ve been busy here with winter: clearing snow from the driveway and trails we need open, cutting, splitting, moving wood from the wood pile to the outdoor furnace. No, we don’t heat the outside (but it’s an appealing thought). The furnace is outside, heating water that warms the inside – it’s a country thing. Later this week the prediction is for 50 degrees and sunny, and that will be welcome, but the work won’t end until maybe June. All of that takes time and energy and distracts from writing and even thinking about writing. Having a running chain saw in your hands, or operating a log splitter or even packing wood on the truck and then unloading it by the furnace are not tasks you can do with half your mind on something else. At least more than once. Unless you are a slow learner. I’m not.

So whatever story I’m working on at the moment gets less attention than I would like to give it, and whatever other things I’d like to write about don’t come to the surface. I am working on a new police story, and it was finished (I thought) a couple of days ago, but somewhere between driving to or from the woodpile, or perhaps running into town to resupply some part of our pantry or workshop, the whole story changed. One of the central characters underwent a total “re-do” as I was driving somewhere, and that, in turn, pointed to changes in at least two others and a slight modification of the storyline. It’s what happens to writers.

Now, with a warmer week promised, and a pretty good supply of wood ready to burn, I’m ready to go back to work doing the hard part: re-writing. It’s what happens to stories as they evolve. No matter how many times I start a new story, no matter how well developed the idea is before I begin to write, there will always be changes to make. It’s part of the way I work.

Life here seems to revolve around three things: writing, outdoor work, and getting together with friends. It doesn’t matter what season we’re in: those are the points of our compass where we live.

And people ask: What do you do in the country? A lot!

A NewYear, a New You?

This is usually the time of year when people look back over the past twelve months, take stock of their lives, and often resolve to do better or at least more of the same. I’ve never been very good about doing that. I look forward rather than backward, and anticipate the future rather than regret the past.

I do remember a certain feeling I would have as I was growing up when I recognized that I had learned something new: anything from a word to a way. It was an exciting emotion to me, knowing that I had grown, that I had learned, that I had achieved. Of course those moments don’t stop coming, at least for me, but they are neither as frequent nor intense as they were. I’m still learning though.

Writing is one way of learning for me. In my early twenties I first learned that I could earn my living by writing. For many years I researched subjects and wrote educational films based on that research. The best part of that was that I could learn something new, tell others what I had learned, get paid for doing it, and then move on to another subject. Turning to fiction after many years of facts opened a whole new area of study.

Fiction writing has thrust me into deeper study of myself, of my family and my friends and even people I know only through observation. While the stories writers tell may be completely made-up, what a writer knows about himself or about other people informs his characters, guides the plot or story arc, even designs and colors settings, locations, decorations and time lines. At the core of all of that lies the writer: who he is, what he knows, how he responds and reacts, how heroic or cowardly he might be. Writers are inveterate people-watchers, noting and annotating what they observe around them.

Now we come to the end of another year, and I’m still looking forward, learning forward. What happened in these last twelve months happened. What is done is done, and cannot be undone. Modified, perhaps – compensated for but not erased. We are who and what we are. Next year we may be the same or better or worse, but we will still be who we are.

I really don’t spend a lot of time looking back: I’m still thinking about what I want to be when I grow up.

Happy New Year.

Propaganda By the People, For the People ... is still Propaganda

Today I’d like to share with you some thoughts that were generated earlier last week. An acquaintance had passed on one of those videos so common on the Internet, this one intercutting headlines about children being killed by rockets and drones, with video of our president (OUR president, the president of all Americans) talking about the lives of children destroyed in one day at one school. I don’t usually look at such things, especially when they portray a political view because I know what propaganda is, have studied it and have, in my life as a filmmaker, created it. I know how to manipulate images and words and, in the end, people. That’s what I did. I don’t do it anymore. Here’s my response to the people who think tinkering with the truth is okay:

You know, a long time ago, even before modern weapons were invented, even before history began, people started killing people. They always had an excuse. You can mourn the loss of all those who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or you can accept the fact that as long as we divide ourselves into religions and nations, there will be people who want to kill other people, and sometimes that will mean truly innocent lives will be taken. When you have a solution, then you can take issue with your own country and its ways. Until then, we do the best we can. We are in a global war now, fueled by those who call it “God’s Will” and vow to remove all who refuse to accept their version of what God’s Will really is. And there will always be little, innocent children who die because their grown-up relatives decree it. For as long as my people can remember, there have been those who would destroy us. We have lost many millions, even in the modern era, simply because some have seen “God’s Will” as the justification for their own failures.

 America didn’t invent 9-11, or the Taliban or the Nazis or the Romans or any of those. But we have invented the measured response, the surgical strike, and over-all, we do a pretty good job. We don’t send rockets blindly into Jewish towns and settlements, into schools and hospitals, into crowded markets. And we don’t just sit back and say, “It can’t happen here.” My people tried that in the face of the Nazis, and look where it got them. America retaliates when it is struck, and we try as best we can to minimize the effect on innocent people. And no president of the United States flew 747s into the twin towers, or called for the annihilation of a whole people; has never said that we will “push them into the sea.” But if we sit back, and we let those who would destroy the world because they believe their god orders them to, then one day there will be nothing left on earth, period!

 So no more insinuation that our president is an evil genius, that the CIA and the American military are simply killers without conscience. And no more edited lies that someone who knows how manipulate videos thinks it is okay to “share.” Lies are lies, even in video format.

 And don’t let the media manipulate you.