The Unclad Soul

While walking the track the other morning at the large high school behind where I live, I saw something that disturbed me. As I was making a turn there was a small group of boys at the end of the football field that is in the middle of the track. Standing far above the others was a big kid, maybe 6’2’, 250 pounds. He was waving something in his hand. There was a much smaller boy a few feet in front of him with his hands up in front of him. From a distance, I thought the big kid had a small football in his hand because he was waving the smaller boy out onto the field as though to catch something. Just as I got near them, I saw the big kid had a cell phone in his hand. He threw it long and high in the air. The smaller kid was awkwardly running to catch it, but it hit hard on the ground and bounced twice. The big kid just laughed along with the others and walked off. The smaller kid picked up his phone, put it in his pocket, and walked over to the group and sheepishly stood wi...

What would a perfect world look like? I don’t know. Probably very sterile and boring. I don’t really want a perfect world. I’d be happy with just a humane one. Dictionary.com defines humane as, “characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals; especially for the suffering or distressed: acting in a manner that causes the least harm to people or animals.” When I was a boy I used to spend a few days with my paternal grandparents whom I called Nana and Granddad. They were both gentle souls, quiet, kind people. One afternoon after Nana had fixed me lunch in the kitchen and I had finished eating, I took my plate to the sink to wash it. I noticed a small spider on the window sill and asked Nana for the flyswatter so I could kill it. She said, “Oh honey, don’t hurt it. It’s not poisonous. It’s not bothering anyone. And it will eventually find its way outside.” I will never forget how at that moment I started feeling a deeper sense of compassion fo...

The Independent , a UK online news source, reported this week that Jack Wood, a 15-year-old boy from South London rescued a baby and a grandmother from a burning house. Jack was walking to school when he saw smoke coming from a neighbor’s house. He knows the family and knew a baby and grandmother lived there. He called his mother and told her to call the fire department. Then he ran into the house and grabbed the baby and put it on the lawn outside. He then went back into the house and got the grandmother and led her out to safety. Then he went back into the house, found a bucket, filled it with water and proceeded to put out the fire until the fire department got there. “I just wanted to get the baby and the gran out and make sure the fire was out,” Jack told reporters. All three were treated for smoke inhalation, but Jack was called a hero for saving the lives of the baby and the grandmother. Kids today, like kids in all days, are so easily dismissed. But young people today are ...

Now that the murdering of 17 students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, has more fully registered on us, most Americans remain stunned. We are stunned that in this country of ours we still have a government that refuses to do anything about gun violence. The flimsy, tone deaf comments of politicians about this horror seem worthless. They are finally starting to talk about mostly cosmetic changes in the law but I’m skeptical of anything significant. We are stunned that our president has been mostly silent, unwilling or incapable of a simple sign of outrage over the senseless massacre of helpless teenagers at school. He is beginning to make gestures about passing new legislation, but I'm waiting to see if any changes are made. We are stunned that an organization like the NRA (National Rifle Association) has the unlimited power to dominate and control our elected legislators. We are stunned by our political leaders’ greed and their cowardice. We are ...

I suppose nearly everyone has now heard of Keaton Jones, the Tennessee middle school boy whose mom’s video of him went viral. Keaton apparently has had surgery for a cleft pallet that sometimes interferes with his speech and his appearance, although he’s a handsome boy with bright eyes. After kids at school made fun of his nose, called him ugly, and said he didn’t have any friends, they then poured milk on him in the lunchroom. Broken hearted and ashamed, his mom came to school to pick him up. Thankfully, celebrities and others have covered him with affirmation and offers of friendship. He knows now he’s not stupid or ugly. And what child doesn’t need to know that, always? As parents, we have the moral and human responsibility to teach our children to treat all children with respect and care. I don’t know where the teachers or monitors were when this boy was being so mistreated, but the real responsibility for bullying others lies directly at the feet of those of us wh...

Ingrid, who will be 15 next month (unbelievably), is at dance camp this week. This one is two hours away in a university setting. This is her first time to be away by herself from her family and from me. We went shopping the other day for some outfits for her. Each day of camp has a theme and the girls were encouraged to wear things that fit with those themes as they work on their routines. So she picked out some things. Ingrid rarely likes what I like for her. Maybe it’s a girl thing, or just being a teen. I’d pull something off the rack and say, “What about this, sweetie?” She’d hold it up in front of her and say, “I’m not feeling it.” And hand it back to me. That happens a lot, actually. But, I don’t mind. She has good taste and besides, I love her independence, the fact that she knows what she likes and it doesn’t have to be what I like. She found things that fit her feelings, that express who she is, things that out in the middle of the dance workouts, will feel g...

"You try as a parent. You love beyond reason. You fight beyond endurance. You hope beyond despair. You never think, until the very last moment, that it still might not be enough." ~ Lisa Gardner, Novelist

I attended Ingrid’s 4th & 5th grade Valentine's Dance last night at Larry G. Smith Elementary. She had been talking about this for weeks and wanted to know if she could go. Of course she could, I said. And she was so excited. But then I asked if parents were going and if I could go, too. She said she wasn’t sure about that and would have to get back to me. I asked if she would be embarrassed if I went with her and she sort of shyly grinned and I so I promised I wouldn’t get out on the dance floor in front of all of her friends and do the Glide, or the Fist Pump, or the Shuffle, or that thing kids today call cwalking. She giggled and said, “Oh Poppy.” Anyway, I bought our tickets and decided to go as a volunteer. I kept telling her she needed to pick out an outfit for the dance but she insisted that she was just going to wear her skinny jeans and “a cute top.” Hmmm, I thought. Okay. So we went to the mall and picked out a cute top which she didn’t end up wearing a...

“To be in your children's memories tomorrow, You have to be in their lives today.” ~ Barbara Johnson, Writer/Literary Critic/Professor