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The Metropolitan Museum of Art

06 May

The Sunday of my annual NYC weekend this year – was that really only one week ago? – was dedicated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Well, that and another huge diner breakfast. Something about starting the day with bacon makes everything seem rosier. So, once again sleeping in until about 10:30am (is it still called sleeping in when you didn’t go to sleep until 5:30am?) I woke feeling tired, but otherwise fine. A quick shower and repack of my bag and I was ready to hit the town. It was nice knowing that I basically had a full day left in the city. An 8pm flight out of LaGuardia really opens up the day. So after dragging Kris to a diner a block from her apartment, I walked across to the Met. Once again the weather glorious, perfect to show the weekend aspect of the city. Strollers and kids on scooters, runners, big guys walking tiny dogs, people more relaxed and happy overall. I really do just love walking and people-watching around New York City.

Once I got to the Met I went immediately to the American Wing. There have been ongoing renovations in the American Wing during my last few visits, but this was the first time that it was totally reopened. And while my tastes typically run towards 17th-19th century European painting, I do love the grand, sweeping landscapes of Bierstadt & his contemporaries. Plus, I’m a fan of furniture and I adore the period rooms they’ve constructed. But I was wholly unprepared for the amazing new section they’ve titled, “Visible Storage.” Amazing. It is an entire floor of the American Wing that is, well, exactly what the name implies. Row after row of clear-fronted storage cases. Grandfather clocks stuffed cheek-to-jowl. Shelves and shelves of china and other household decorative items. Paintings hung side-by-side with almost no separation between the frames, and no apparent thought to adjacent style/subject matter. Small paper placards give attribution for some works, but not all. It is, quite simply, storage. A way to keep a tiny portion of their vast collection in a temperature & humidity controlled environment. Yet it is visible. To any museum visitor.

I have had dreams about having access to the basement of the Met. The collection they keep underground, hidden from view is mind-boggling. Even my beloved Pygmalion & Galatea, who usually hangs in a spot of honor, is currently languishing there. But they can’t properly display even a fraction of the works owned. So, to keep them safe, they are in special storage, far from prying eyes. But here, in a genius move, they have moved some of their storage into the light. I was in heaven. And wandering around slowly through those glass display cases, I felt like I was doing something naughty, getting a peek at something I really wasn’t supposed to see. By constructing this “visible storage” the Met doesn’t have to worry about properly curated display, and they’ve allowed the public to see more than would be otherwise possible in their current space. I had to laugh out loud when a group wandered by and a woman, in a quite disgusted tone, said, “Why do they have all this stuff here? What a waste of space to use it as storage.” Yeah. Safe to say she doesn’t get it. But I think it’s a brilliant move. And holy cow if they ever construct a European paintings visible storage I’m never leaving.

Though I did give some thought to that idea. Never leaving the museum. One of my favorite childhood books, one I have reread several times in my adulthood, is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. If you’ve never read it, you should. I don’t care whether you have children or not. Sometimes children’s literature speaks loudest to adults. It is the story of Claudia & Jamie Kincaid, who run away from home and make a plan to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oh, how I fantasize about pulling a Claudia Kincaid. Though I imagine the security measures now in place are a little more stringent than they were when the book was first published in 1967. But wandering through the rooms in the American Wing, I could just imagine all the places to hide!

And wandering the American Wing, taking in the special Duncan Phyfe exhibit, standing in front of Washington Crossing the Delaware, it made me think of Pam Simpson. Made me miss her. I would have loved to have had her at my side, heard her insightful commentary. I’m sure we would have argued. And we both would have loved it.

My day at the Met was, as always, lovely. That museum has a strange hold on me. I feel at home there. Safe. Insignificant, but pleasantly so. Standing in front of a display case of Egyptian clothing and decorative items, things that are thousands upon thousands of years old, but once were part of some ordinary person’s everyday life. It’s fascinating. Humbling. And that feeling is why I return, year after year. Every chance I get.

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Bananas in the Bronx: Episode IV

03 May

So here’s how my Saturday started. With me wondering what time it was (10:30am) and where my Advil were hiding. This is not typical for me. Then again, neither is drinking copious amounts of beer and staying up until 5:15am. It was a very long, but fun night. Let’s just say there were McNuggets eaten at 4:55am. Yeah. So, there’s that. After drinking a glass of water, taking 2 Advil, and setting my alarm for an additional 30 minute cat nap, I was ready to get in the shower and face the day. And by face the day, I mean call the front desk and beg them to let me stay an additional 30 minutes since I stepped out of the shower right on the nose of check-out time. But that’s okay, because the plan was to meet at Kris’s apartment at 1:30. That gave me plenty of time to grab a sandwich downstairs in Grand Central (yummy panini) and make my way via subway (my favorite uptown 6) to the 7-11 near Kris’s apartment. Yeah, that’s how much I need a fountain coke in the morning. I have in the notes section of my phone the location of two 7-11′s within 10 blocks of her apartment. On this Saturday morning that Big Gulp tasted particularly sweet. So now I’ve got food, a fountain Coca-Cola, the weather is stupendously beautiful, and it seems like everything is coming up roses.

Because today’s the day. Saturday is the crown jewel in my annual New York weekend. It is the reason said trip occurs in Spring. Because it is on Saturday that me & the crew take in a Yankees game. Day drinking in the bleachers of Yankee Stadium. Does it get more American than that? This all started four years ago. I was planning a trip to New York and wanted to take in a Yankees game. It fell to deciding which of my NYC-area friends might be most interested in catching a baseball game. Um, could this be any more of a no-brainer? How about the girl who blogs about the Yankees under the nom de plume Crazy Yankee Chick? If you’re interested in the Yankees, or just baseball commentary in general, you should check out her blog at http://crazyyankeechick.com, it is after all a Top 50 MLB blog. The girl’s got the stuff. As a side note, there is nothing funnier to me than watching some boy try to pick her up by talking about baseball because she’s in the bar wearing a Yankees cap instead of stilettos & a tube top. She’s always vastly more knowledgeable and more than happy to call bullshit on their posturing. It’s amusing to watch them storm away under a cloud of humiliation. And then there’s the guy last year who introduced himself to her as Lenny and she said, “Like Lenny Dykstra?” As he stared at her blankly and said, “Who’s that?” I felt like just saying, “Go ahead and move along, dude. If you don’t know enough baseball to know the name Lenny Dysktra, and your name is Lenny, you should just move along.” But I digress… We were talking about how the crew got together. In 2009 I asked Kris if she wanted to go to a game when I came to town. I had gone on StubHub and gotten 4 left-field bleacher seats, now with 2 of them accounted for, we needed to round out the crew. Kris’s slightly younger sister, Lauren, was the obvious choice. Not only is she loads of fun with her effortless cool and her sarcastic mouth, but she’s a rabid Yankees fan, too. As evidenced by her running into Nick Swisher at Dorrian’s after that first game we went to together in 2009 and telling him she was surprised he was the only Yankee not picked up in her fantasy league. You gotta be a fan to pull that sentence together. So now we’ve got me, Kris, and Laur, with one more ticket unaccounted for. I figure, they’ve got to have some other friend who wants to go, someone who really appreciates the Yankees, and that’s how Keith came to round out our merry crew. I’m not gonna lie, when they told me that one of the bartenders from their favorite bar was joining us, I had my doubts. When I found out that he was like 20 years older than them, trepidation did not begin to cover it. But then I met Keith and grew to love him as much as they do. He’d lay down in front of a train for those girls. And I dig that about him. As overexcited, foul-mouthed, and generally crazy as he is, he takes care of them. Like some inappropriate favorite uncle. And he is the perfect addition and counterpoint. Together we’re like a dysfunctional family. Or a comedy team. Never a dull moment. For us, or the people around us. Like in 2010, Yankees Game: The Sequel, when Kris & Lauren put up the jumbotron message welcoming us all to the stadium and we nearly died of laughter (no, literally: tears, chest pains, and all) while Keith sat very still, scratched his head and said, “What the f%#$ was that?!”

So, now it’s 2012 and it’s time for Episode IV. I can’t believe we’ve been doing this for four years. And each year is just as great as the last. It’s always something different, but wonderful in it’s own way. This seemed to be our year of overcoming adversity. If I had been paying closer attention, I might have recognized the sign when we got separated at the subway station. Saturday happened to be one of those days when construction was forcing a train that normally runs on a lower track to run on an upper track. Easy enough, but when Kris & Laur went back up the steps, Keith & I somehow lost them in the crowd. At this point I realize that I have to stay with Keith no matter what. And Keith is grumbling and ranting while the train is barreling into the station, and we’re doing the do we or don’t we hop on this train, where the heck are they dance, and that’s when I spot them. Which is especially good since Kris was holding all our tickets in her purse. We manage to pile into the subway car together and we’re on our way. Crisis averted. And we revel in the beautiful weather, doffing our jackets, starting to feel the energy of the crowd. Get a good laugh out of the cops descending on the moron who throws the trash can lid onto the sidewalk practically in front of the stadium NYPD sub-station. We get through the gates and collect our “Yankees Beach Wallet.” Yep, it’s one of those hand-out days at the stadium and today we got a plastic case that snaps shut to be waterproof. It’s got the Yankees symbol on one side & Disney Cruise Lines on the other. (Cross-promotion because apparently Disney is now sending cruise ships out of NYC) Well, Keith immediately starts coming up with wildly inappropriate, but highly imaginative uses for said waterproof case. And we’re looking around to be sure there aren’t any kids around us. When Keith spots Mickey Mouse standing at home plate and gets crazy excited by the idea that MM is in the house. And we’re cracking up because for a 51 year old guy he’s kind of a child, and it seems like we’re already off and running for another bananas weekend. Until it all comes crashing down.

Because apparently there is a new regulation in place this year in Yankee Stadium that only affects those in the bleachers. ONE BEER PER PERSON. Say it ain’t so, Joe. Yes, it used to be that you could get two beers per person, per transaction.

Thus the way our bucket’o'brews concept was born. The very first year, Lauren & I purchased a souvenir bucket of popcorn and immediately dumped said popcorn in the trash. Then we individually scrounged for cups of ice with which we then filled the bucket. Keith getting props for securing an entire bag of ice by gesturing to Kris’s massive, post-ACL surgery brace. Then in a single fell swoop we each purchased our two beer limit and put them to cool on ice. We replenished as needed, and that’s how we had ice cold beer into the 9th inning, well past the 7th inning last call. We’ve done this every year. It gets trickier to procure the necessary ice, but with the two beer per person limit it was easy to stock the bucket without missing too much baseball. Plus we had the fun of hearing other bleacher occupants ordering “the bucket of beer” and getting a blank look for their efforts. We’re innovators!!

But this was not destined to be the year of the bucket. This was the year of ONE BEER PER PERSON. Well, being the innovator that he is, Keith was not going to take this lying down. Muttering under his breath he took off into the bowels of the stadium. To be honest, I wasn’t sure when we might see him again. But he resurfaced approximately a full inning later carrying a small cardboard box. When he gets to the seat he’s still muttering, “No one’s going to tell me that I can only have one beer per person.” And he proceeds to unpack from the box & his person a total of 6 beers. We’re, of course, laughing hysterically. At which point he turns and like a warrior returning triumphant from the field of battle addresses the crowd assembled in the bleachers: “NO ONE’S going to tell ME that I can only have ONE BEER per person!!” And the crowd goes wild. But this campaign has taken too much out of Keith and despite our desperate need for the bucket to keep his plunder cool, he doesn’t have the heart or the energy to strike out again in search of ice, so we’ll just have to drink fast, or keep our distaste for warm beer to ourselves.

Sometime shortly after this, we notice that there are two pigeons hanging out in center field. I mean, like really spending some time, perhaps considering building a nest. Everyone’s starting to comment on how strange it is that these birds are standing so close to the center fielder and wondering what they’ll do if he has to make a break for the ball. Then Keith asks, in all seriousness, “Do you think those birds know what’s going on?” To which we once again dissolve into laughter. So he continues, “I don’t mean in a there’s-two-outs-and-a-runner-on-third kind of way. I just mean do you think they realize there’s like a million people watching them eat grass?” Laughing too hard to give him any kind of answer we just nod sagely. And then we see on the jumbotron the people who got their seats upgraded from the bleachers to field level. In a stunning display of irony, it’s the guy who almost got arrested prior to the game for throwing the trash can lid. Amazing. This does nothing good for Keith’s mood that this moron is now sitting pretty. But I should also mention the girl sitting next to me, the one wearing the Nick Swisher jersey over her polo, who says she’s a huge Yankees fan, and then turns to her husband and asks, as she attempts to check-in on Facebook, “Are we in the left field or right field bleachers?” Um, yeah. Clearly a huge baseball fan. Maybe she just meant she has a huge crush on Nick Swisher. Same difference.

As for baseball, it was an ugly game. Garcia doesn’t seem to understand that standing on the mound means you’re a pitcher and you’re supposed to throw pitches the other guys can’t hit. The game went by way too fast. Guess that’s what happens when your team goes three up, three down. Meanwhile the Tigers just kept hitting multi-run dings. Doesn’t take long for a team to get way ahead like that. And then the Yankees started revving up in the 9th inning. It seemed like maybe the magic was there. They started closing the gap, but the deficit was just too large and the door slammed shut on a 7-5 Yankees loss. Hmmm. Well, we’ve been at this for 4 years. Our win-loss ratio goes like this L-W-W-L. Now I will say, that singing a rousing chorus of “We Are the Champions” on the return subway last year was pretty damn fun. But in 2009, the first L, the Yanks took it all, so we’re not going to cry a river over an April loss.

This year the subway crowds were immense & Keith, still clearly upset over stadium regulations, was not going to wait. This is how we found ourselves following some guy two blocks from the stadium to his car. Now, it was a real licensed Town Car, but it all still felt a little sketchy. But, after a rather speedy ride, we were back at Dorrian’s. Here’s where I’m leaving something out. See, Keith & I had a bit of a verbal altercation. But he apologized later and all is forgiven. And while I didn’t actually enjoy that experience, in retrospect, I did. Because it means we’re all really friends. Kris & Laur jumped to my defense. Keith later apologized and I was genuinely able to forgive him. We are past the point of politeness, that false kind bred by being uncertain of other people. We know each other. We love each other. Sometimes we’re going to fight and argue and be our real, cranky selves with one another. I dig that. It’s every bit as much a hallmark of true friendship as taking care of one another is. This is my Yankees crew. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Well, the rest of the night rolled out a lot like Friday night, but we added Lauren to our merry band. A happy addition. Once again in search of entertainment beyond the standing in one place ridiculing drunk girls that Dorrian’s is especially good for, we wandered down to a place called The Bullpen. And that is how we found ourselves at 3:00am playing beer pong against a boy named Dan (?) who had a smurf tattooed on his hip/upper butt cheek. Then Laur went home – perhaps her departure spurred on by Dan revealing his ink? And Kris & I made our way back to her apartment, where we went up on the roof. I love the city at night. And it was really cool to think about all the people, all the lights that were still or already on. But it was more than time to be asleep, as I was once again seeing 5:00am from the backside. But I was happy, oh so happy.

Another successful outing to the Bronx. And it may have been a loss for the New York Yankees, but it was a win for me.

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Free Friday 2012

01 May

As most of you know, I take an annual weekend trip to New York City. Just me. Alone. It is one of the highlights of my year. Every year is slightly different, but follows the same basic framework. Typically I fly up early on a Friday morning. I see a friend or two who live in the area – maybe lunch on Friday with one friend, brunch on Sunday with another. But basically keep my Friday free of scheduled events. In fact, I often refer to it as Free Friday. Because it’s just me, doing what I want to do. No responsibilities, no one else’s needs/wants/desires to consider. Want to duck into Mikimoto on 5th Avenue and try on pearls you could never hope to afford in your life? Why not? It’s Free Friday, and you don’t have children clinging to your legs like kudzu. Want to spend 5 hours straight in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, perhaps going to a lecture, or perhaps just sitting down on a bench amongst the Greek & Roman sculpture to read a book for a bit, or perhaps spending long minutes staring lovingly/scrutinizing your favorite painting in the world, Pygmalion & Galatea, which just happens to hang in the Met? Why not? It’s Free Friday, and to quote Keith Nelson, Eric Stoltz’s character from Some Kind of Wonderful, “This is my church.”

I always visit the Met. Every Free Friday. I have to. It’s like a compulsion. The mothership calling me home. It is a stunning collection. And despite my many, many visits, I’m still just scratching the surface. Plus they keep renovating and opening new wings, hosting new exhibits. But more about that later. So, I know that at some point on Free Friday I’m going to end up on 5th at 82nd. But I also try to do something new each year. Some past adventures have included a visit to Eataly, a stroll along the High Line, visiting the Frick, the Whitney, seeking out the Peanut Butter & Co restaurant to order an authentic “Elvis” sandwich, scoping out the Natural History Museum & the Children’s Museum of Manhattan for possible inclusion in Crazy Momma’s Road Trip, wandering through Central Park with no destination in mind. The list goes on. It’s amazing how much experience you can pack into one day when you’re on your own. And I feel like I should go on record as saying that I love riding the subway. I do. The people-watching possibilities are endless. It’s like every time I step on the train I’ve become an observer and/or participant in a new play. I’ve seen anger, aggression, passion, joy, sadness, all played out before my very eyes. I’ve had meaningful interactions with strangers – a communal laugh, a shared eye-rolling look in response to someone else’s ridiculous antics. Plus I think I enjoy the satisfaction that comes from successfully navigating my way through a city that is not my own. It’s actually rather easy once you know how to read the subway map. And I do so very much love my map.

Anyway, this year, I mixed it up a bit. I usually fly up Friday because, well, who can possibly afford the cost of an additional night in a hotel in New York City? Not me, anyway. But this year, thanks to the re-connective power of that much-maligned social media, Facebook, I flew up Thursday night to stay with an old friend. Now, she’s not old, but our friendship is. We met during a summer scholars program during the summer between our Junior and Senior years in high school. We were fast friends. Then we maintained a close pen pal relationship throughout college. For those of you in a younger generation than me, you might not be familiar with the concept. We used to write letters. Literally. With a pen and paper, envelopes and stamps. We didn’t have the internet, there was no e-mail. We wrote to each other. Long letters. So, the point is that I knew Robyn for about a nanosecond a million years ago. But last year when she was rummaging about in her parents’ attic she came across a stack of letters from me. This prompted her to google me. And thus, another reconnection on Facebook, via this blog, came to be. And I could not be happier about it. So, she’s living in NYC, and since I want to see her, spend time with her, I screw up my moxie and ask if I can crash on her couch Thursday night. Being awesome, like she is, and disregarding the fact that I am now clearly a nutcase, she says, sure, come on!

So, I flew into LaGuardia last Thursday night, was thwarted at the cab queue by the Rangers in the Garden, thus no cabs, but one bus, and a subway transfer, and four blocks later, I arrived at her apartment on the Upper West Side. And when she opened the door, it was beyond amazing. Instantly I was transported back to that undecorated college dorm room, where we used to sit on the bed and talk. Our hair is definitely better now, and we’ve acquired a great deal more life wisdom and experience, but personality wise, we are exactly the same people. And it is no surprise that the grown-up versions of us, are once again fast friends. What a delight to see in a woman the girl you were friends with 23 years ago. Unbelievable. The short story is that Robyn and I had an awesome time catching up and she was gracious beyond belief that I came in so late and commandeered her couch. I didn’t think it was possible to like her more than I did when I was 16, but I think I do. Of course now we can talk about all the amazing places we’ve traveled instead of just the places we want to go. And we still have about the same taste in literature. But just like our 16 year old selves, we’re still talking about boys (50 shades of Renner meets Efron’s Mrs. Robinson?) It’s good for the soul to catch up with an old friend. Watch out, Robyn, you just became one of my NYC traditions. Next year let’s go back to my new favorite diner: Big Daddy’s, ’cause next time I’m trying the Captain Crunch muffins.

So this year’s Free Friday started with a leisurely diner breakfast with an old friend and a fairly late (for me) start out into the city. But some quick planning, with the help of Robyn’s laptop, had me on my way with a vague logistical game plan. I headed down from the UWS to Midtown. I always stay in a hotel on Free Friday, despite having people who are willing to put me up, because this is one of the major points of the trip. To taste some autonomy. And as pathetic as this may make me, there is little I like more than staying in a hotel. Seriously. Doesn’t even have to be a particularly nice one. I just love hotels. And when it comes to NYC, I like to stay in midtown because I have some weird kind of obsession with Grand Central. I love it. I don’t really think I can even explain why. It’s just one of the places in the world that makes me happy. And it shouldn’t, right? It’s crowded. With people who are gawking tourists, and people who are locals who hate the gawking tourists. But for whatever reason, the people-watching inherent in the crush of humanity? The soaring 125ft ceilings? I love it. And I always stay near it if possible.

Striking out from my midtown hotel I first headed over to The Morgan Library and Museum on Madison. Wow. I am always staggered by the immense wealth of the previous centuries. I mean, this really was someone’s private library. Like when they wanted to refer back to a book they owned, it was there, on the shelf. In their private library. That has three story bookshelves. And an integrated vault to store rare manuscripts. Awesome. I especially loved that the library had three stories, but no visible means of accessing the upper stories. It seems that the staircases to access the second and third floors were hidden behind the bookcases. So I set about trying to see if I could locate them. Sure enough, after walking around the room, head down, scrutinizing the floor & moulding, I noticed curved scuff marks on the wood floor. Then I looked closer at the book cases directly in front of the scuff marks and found the hidden hinges. So. Freakin’. Cool. And their collection is, well, impressive seems like such an understatement. A Gutenberg bible? Check. Sheet music hand written by Mozart? Check. A Thoreau journal entry, dated Walden 1845? Check. And numerous other personal letters and original manuscripts by Keats, Dickens, Austen, Bronte, Lord Byron, Abraham Lincoln, Steinbeck, and Thomas Jefferson, to name a few. Oh, and there’s a few pieces of art worth looking at, too…

My next stop was the Museum of the City of New York. Another first for me. This is one cool little museum way up on the Upper East Side on 5th at 103rd. They have a movie there called “Timescapes: A Multimedia Portrait of New York.” It runs for about 20 minutes, is narrated by Stanley Tucci (whose voice I adore), and it is fascinating. It shows how Manhattan was settled, and even more engrossing, how it grew. It was the perfect companion piece to their current exhibition – The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011. Wow was that cool. Tons of old survey maps and archival images, including the original 1811 hand-drawn map of the proposed grid of streets and avenues through Manhattan. What a stunning piece of city planning, and it is amazing to see how it was put into action and how it has grown. I was a big fan of this museum, and I’ll definitely check their exhibit schedules on future visits.

Since I love to walk the city I decided that the 20 blocks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art would be a piece of cake. It was a bit chilly, a bit blustery, but come on, I was walking down 5th Avenue. Along the edge of Central Park. On my way to the Met. Yeah, you could say I didn’t really feel the cold. Once I arrived, I was disappointed that my favorite painting, Pygmalion and Galatea by Gerome, is still languishing in the basement since being returned to the Met last summer after an outing to the Getty & the Musee d’Orsay. I would think they’d rush to put the lovely Galatea back on the walls. But alas, I went up the stairs, turned left, down the long hall, turned right, looked right, and no Pygmalion clutching his marble-turning-into-flesh love. Boo. I want my painting back. This makes three visits without it. And I’m missing her. But there was still much to be seen and little time to see it. I stuck mostly to the special exhibits: The Steins Collect, Durer and Beyond, Spies in the House of Art, and the rather titillating, Naked Before the Camera.  Goodness, it’s getting hot in here…

The reason I was in a bit of a hurry on Friday night was my desire to hear some live music. When I was preparing for my trip I was messing around online last Wednesday and just googled “live music NYC Friday”.  That is one thing that I have typically not taken advantage of during my visits to New York. Live music. And why not? I don’t have the answer to that. But it was something I intended to change. I couldn’t believe it when the first thing that popped up was Colin Hay, and according to Ticketmaster, there were tickets still available. But, it being Free Friday, I didn’t want to pull the trigger on tickets and then be stuck with a place I had to be at a certain time. I decided to roll the dice, to gamble. Despite desperately wanting to go see Colin Hay live, I left it up to fate. Okay, so maybe my rather hasty exit from the Met was a little bit of an encouragement for fate. But I made my way quickly to my hotel, changed clothes, and headed straight back out to a little venue called The Town Hall, just a few blocks from my oh-so-conveniently located midtown hotel. Sure enough, single tickets still available, and I even got an orchestra seat for a balcony price. It’s so funny to me, if I had heard that Colin Hay was coming to Jacksonville I would have purchased tickets months in advance, made specific plans, it would have been, to me, a very big deal. But here I am in New York City, roll up to the box office when the opening act is already on stage, and secure a seat on the floor. Now that’s the way to take advantage of a Free Friday. And Colin Hay? Amazing. He’s still got that Men at Work lilt to his voice, and it was fun for him to play some of the band’s old songs. And he had some cool new stuff, too. But let’s face it, I was mostly there to hear him sing “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You” and “Overkill.” He did not disappoint. But what I did not expect was the fact that Colin Hay is as much a storyteller live, as he is a musician. Highly entertaining. Overall, a wonderful experience.

But then it’s 10pm, and you’re alone in the city, so what do you do? Text a friend and see if they want to meet for drinks, of course. And that’s how I found myself taking the subway back up to Dorrian’s at 84th and 2nd. Love me the uptown 6. Now I’m not going to rehash the rest of my Friday night, but suffice it to say that I was reacquainted with one of my favorite New York City-dwelling partners in crime, none other than the original Crazy Yankee Chick. Kris is a fellow W&L alum, though of a decidedly younger class. We met while I was in law school and she was an undergrad. She was a theatre major fulfilling college credit while playing an Indian with an Irish brogue. I was a law student shirking my reading while playing a Mexican. Yeah, that seems about right. Exactly the stuff a lifelong friendship is built on. Anyway, she’s become one of my favorite people in the world. Mostly because she’s one of the coolest I know, and yet, for some strange reason, she thinks I’m cool. Clearly we’re both messed in the head. But she is 1/4 of the crew that takes in a Yankees game each spring, the centerpiece of my annual trip to NYC. And for a little pre-game entertainment, we met Friday night at Dorrian’s. There may or may not have been drinking, ridiculing of scantily-clothed drunk girls, her shutting down flirty, but clearly unimpressive boys, a side trip down the street to another establishment that had a beer pong table, meeting some of her closest guy friends (every tomboy has them!), and some unintentionally illegal behavior. Is ignorance of the law a good defense? Perhaps I should have paid more attention in law school instead of doing so many plays.

Anyway, Bonus Thursday and Free Friday 2012 were a great success. I reconnected with an old friend, visited new places, visited favorite places, heard an amazing musician sing to my soul, and cavorted as if I were a much younger person in the presence of one of my favorite much younger people. Overall, not a bad 36 hours. But of course, it was only the beginning…

 

Next installment… How I spent my Saturday. Alternate title? Bananas in the Bronx: Episode IV

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A loss for words

16 Apr

My neighbor died on Friday, April 13. He was 43. I don’t know the details. Neighborhood whispering tells me he likely died in his sleep. All I know is that when I got up that morning there was a fire truck, an ambulance, & sheriff’s cars in front of the house three down from mine. I was shocked. Concerned. This is not a regular occurrence in my sheltered suburban neighborhood. But even as I speculated why they might be there, I didn’t truly believe it would be anything serious. People call in emergency services for all manner of non-life-threatening maladies or accidents. But the longer the ambulance sat in front of their house, the more concerned I got. And when I received a text hours later from another friend & neighbor saying that the man of the house had passed away, I was too shocked to process the news. It couldn’t possibly be true. But it was. And I want to reach out to his wife, but I don’t know how. I am at a loss for words. How do you properly express your own sadness over a loss that isn’t your own? What can I possibly say to comfort her?

Andy was, without a doubt, the friendliest man I knew. He was never without a huge smile and friendly greeting for everyone. If he drove by you, he waved at you. And if you didn’t see him waving, he’d slow down, roll down a window, make sure you heard him saying hi. In those face-to-face driveway encounters that occurred on weekends or long summer evenings, he was always eager to engage in conversation. And when Andy turned his attention your way, you felt like the most interesting person in the world. He was a talker, yes, but also an amazing listener. If you were willing to talk about it, he wanted to listen. He wanted to hear what you thought, ask questions, really understand your point of view. He was a graduate of the Citadel and many times we traded stories of his time in Charleston. He was just enough older than my friends that attended the Citadel that they didn’t overlap, but it was fun to hear about his experiences and compare them with stories told to me by my other friends. He was exceedingly proud of that huge Citadel ring he wore. But even more than that, he was proud of the band on his left ring finger.

Andy was a devoted husband. I have known teenagers in love that were less in love than he and his wife. They were yin & yang, two parts of a whole. The couple that, no matter your own experience with love, made you believe in soul mates. Always holding hands, touching, arms wrapped around one another. Genuinely affectionate. And this was a man who was not afraid to tell you about his incredible luck in having such an amazing wife. He truly was a man who lived and breathed for his family. I cannot even begin to fathom the depth of loss his wife is experiencing right now. She was everything to him. And I can only assume him to her.

But now she has to move forward. She continues to live. To breathe. And the family their love created includes two young girls. Children too young to lose a beloved father. She now is, literally, their everything. I want to tell her how sorry I am that he is gone. How sorry I am that she is having to pick up the mantle of both mother and father, to soldier on in this grinding, relentless life; when I imagine that all she wants to do is crawl under the blanket of her grief and disappear. But she is strong, no wilting flower. She will survive this. She will scratch and claw her way through this heart-rending ache. I just hope she knows that while none of us can understand her pain because grieving the death of a loved one is an intensely personal journey, she is not alone in it. There are others who are grieving. Those of us who wish there were some way to help. Even if it’s just to free her from obligations that become stumbling blocks on her path of grief. There are no words capable of expressing how much we care about her and how this personal tragedy has affected us all. I think everyone who knew him will miss Andy. I think one of the greatest gifts he gave to those around him was the way he noticed you. No one was invisible to him. And everyone was worth greeting and getting to know. He had a way of making people feel good about themselves. That’s a gift I wish I had. And I wish most of all that I could give it to his wife. But I am at a loss for words. What can I possibly say?

 

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Geek Chic

23 Mar

I felt like I was in some kind of after-school special when I got an e-mail from my son’s teacher saying this:

“I wanted to tell you that Beau has been struggling to see. He has been in the back of the room (so I moved him closer), but when he was back there he wasn’t able to read words that he should have been able to read. The words were written large and clear and the other children sitting near him weren’t having a problem reading. I told him that I’d email you and let you know.”

What?! Um. Okay. First of all, thank you. Thank you for even noticing that he was having a problem. And thank you for following through and letting me know. But again I say, WHAT?! And on today’s very special episode, Little Johnny has a vision problem…

To say this shocked me is no understatement. Shouldn’t I have noticed it if he had a problem with his sight? But then again, why would I? He clearly has no problems reading, as his nose is always crammed in a book. And he has no problems seeing the tv from the respectful distance of the couch, because when he’s not reading or playing outside, I’m not ashamed to say he watches movies, or plays Wii with great aplomb. It’s not like I ask him to read road signs from a distance. Or in any other way “test” his vision. But I was still surprised. As it began to sink in and I immediately called the optometrist for their first available appointment, I started trawling my memory, looking for any signs I might have missed that he was struggling. The only thing that came to mind is this kind of scrunched up face he sometimes makes – complete with curled lip, but yes, also, squinting eyes. He typically makes it when he is ticked off, especially at his sisters, but sometimes also when he is confused about something. You know, in that, You want me to do what? And what possible purpose could that serve? kind of way. But maybe he was squinching up his face for another reason. Maybe he was trying to read my expression for more clues. I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like much of a potential sign to go on. So I’m done beating myself up for having to get the notification from the teacher.

I thought about beating myself up for the genetics, but the truth is that I had perfect vision as a child. My dad & grandfather used to call me Eagle Eye. I could quite literally find a needle in a haystack. Or a tiny baby shark’s tooth on a shell-covered beach. I think those early days of them encouraging my superior vision was probably the genesis of my now annoying habit of noticing everything. Okay, maybe not everything. It slipped my notice that my kid probably needed glasses. But I tend to notice the minutia of life around me. I myself lost my perfect vision record after college when I started working this-close to a computer screen for my gainful employment. And while I wear glasses or contacts on pretty much a daily basis, my prescription is very light and apparently improving. I can easily function, including driving, without my glasses, but I like for everything to be in sharp, clear focus. Especially people’s faces from a distance. I’m bad enough with names that I need all the time I can get when someone is walking towards me to either dredge their name from my memory banks or come up with an acceptable nickname alternative. But this isn’t about me, or my only vaguely deficient eyes, it’s about my kid. The one who apparently can’t see the blackboard at school.

Luckily I managed to get him an eye appointment for the very next day, which was yesterday afternoon. So when he came home from school on Wednesday, I talked to him about it. About getting his teacher’s e-mail and making him an appointment to have his vision checked. When I asked if the words on the board were blurry or fuzzy around the edges (like they are for me at a distance), he said, “No. It’s just that they look too tiny to see because they’re so far away.” Hmmm. Okay. So I launched into an active positivity campaign about wearing glasses. And I started thanking my lucky stars that his new obsession, the dear Mr. Harry Potter himself, wears glasses. Definitely the jumping off point for my glasses can be super-cool spiel. All of which was apparently unnecessary as he just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said something like, yeah, I might have to get glasses. That’s fine. Oh, sweet little 7 year old, thank you for your good attitude about this.

Jump to the eye exam where he was a very good patient. Sitting still, following directions, even getting kind of excited about that heinous puff-of-air-directly-in-your-eyeball machine. The only thing he actively disliked (and with good reason) was the application of drops for dilation. Those suckers burn, and drip into your nasal cavities, and are just generally unpleasant all the way around. Plus you have to sit there and take it in the other eye, knowing it’s going to be bad. So he whined a bit, but kept it together better than some adults I know, so I was proud of him. While we were waiting for his eyes to dilate we went out to pick out frames as it was very clear in the initial read-this-chart exam that he was going to need vision correction. This was not something I was looking forward to. Picking out frames for a kid that has never needed glasses before. Trying to make him understand that these needed to be comfortable, something he would really like, because he was going to be wearing them every day of his life. At least until he outgrew them, or broke them, or lost them. Oh, god the possibilities for how this is going to cost me an excruciating amount of money are endless. Sigh. Don’t get me started on that. But anyway, I was trying not to steer him too much, let him pick for himself, because as much as I wanted him to pick a pair that I would enjoy looking at until he outgrew them, it was more important for him to like them.

Beau looking like Anakin ready to podrace

 

My frames are Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Classic black, chunky, Clark Kent style frames. Add a fedora and I could play a 1950′s newspaperman. Before those I had fairly thick tortoiseshell frames. Very librarianesque. I like for my glasses to be noticeable. If I’m wearing ‘em, you should see ‘em. Clearly they need to complement my face shape and fit my abnormally large head, but I don’t want them to blend into my features. His father wears a pair of frameless glasses, and before than, thin, wire-rimmed frames. He likes for his to blend, to not be noticed. Which is, to be sure, a more professional, conservative look. So which way was this little boy going to go? I must admit that I was surprised not to see any Harry Potter style round frames on the wall of children’s frames. But there was quite a selection. Of course many were of similar shape, just different brands. True to the examples of glasses he’s seen before, he started trying on chunky frames like mine, and thin coppery colored wire frames like his dad’s. There was one pair I thought he might go for that were kind of thick across the top, but wire underneath the lens. The thick ones stood out and were very HEY! I’m wearing glasses! The wire ones blended nicely with his hair and skin tone, very conservative and not immediately noticeable. Clearly, my own bias was for the funky frames. But like I said, the first priority should be comfort. His, not mine.

When it got down to it, he actually selected rather quickly. My fears were for naught. Turns out those nose pads on the wire framed glasses were uncomfortable to him. He wanted the molded nose bridge of the thicker frames. And that’s how he ended up selecting a pair of Lucky Brand frames. Totally chunky and retro. A deep midnight blue, almost black, with little silver inserts. He looked so stinking cute in them I couldn’t stand it. Absolute geek chic.

And my little first grader, the one who I thought was going to need convincing about this whole glasses wearing thing? He was actually upset that we didn’t get to take them home from the optometrist’s shop. He thinks waiting two weeks for them is an awful fate because he wanted to wear them to school on Monday. I know it may become a different story when he actually has to wear them, and even worse, take care of them. I know we’ll possibly have some heartbreak over this. But looking at him with his crooked, gap-toothed grin. His sweet face smiling enthusiastically behind these chic retro frames. Well, as it often does when I’m with him, my heart overflowed with nerd delight.

First pair of glasses

Beau shows his geek chic sensibilities

 

 

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Tribute

18 Mar

After tragedy unfolded at Episcopal High School last week I was made aware of it the way I learn most of my news these days: through social media. In this case, it was Facebook specifically. I was waiting at my kids’ bus stop and happened to check my news feed for new and interesting status updates. I certainly didn’t expect to see the words: “What happened at Episcopal? Who was hurt?” Something happened at Episcopal? What? So I read the comments there, then moved on to check other EHS alum statuses. Before turning to the local news I already had more updated information than was available to the news outlets. Tragedy. A different form of school shooting. The death of a beloved teacher and administrator. And I found it very touching that within the next few hours, all of my friends who are fellow Episcopal alum had changed their Facebook profile pictures to be either the crest of EHS or the sports logo of the school. It was something small, some way to make a connection in our collective grief, and it turned into a lovely and moving tribute.

As with all tributes, there comes a time when we must move past the tragedy that inspired them and continue on with our lives. But when is that time? And does taking down a tribute too soon reflect disrespect, a lack of concern or empathy? Does leaving it up too long become an awkward sense of new identity? Being an emotional person I struggle with this. I am and forever will be marked by this tragedy simply by virtue of being a graduate of Episcopal High School. I will continue to think about Dale Regan, her bereft family, those kids who heard the shots, their shattered innocence, and the violated sanctity of the campus. But part of the healing process is laying down your physical tribute and making the way you live your own life a tribute. So, in this case, I’ve decided that on Monday, when the campus of Episcopal is reopened, I will change my Facebook profile picture back to a personal photo. A way of moving forward. Letting the students reclaim the campus and mold the new identity of the school in the wake of this tragedy. I remain together with the EHS family, united in our grief. These events will never let go of us. But I need to try to let go of them. Just as this tragedy will not define Episcopal High School, I cannot let it define me. It is irrevocably part of who I am now, a part of all of us. And the next step in the healing process for me is to move forward, try to return to a sense of normalcy, and wear my scar on the inside.

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The courage to run

13 Mar

I listened to the recordings. I’m kind of surprised at and a bit ashamed of myself. Especially since when I read that they had been released I felt a mild rush of outrage. I don’t understand why 911 calls are public record. I don’t know why they release them. I understand their use in legal proceedings, but why must they be posted on news outlet websites to go viral? I get the curiosity factor, but what help are they? Especially in this situation. How will the recordings of the 911 calls made from the Episcopal High School front office aid in the healing of this fractured community? But in the end, I listened to them. Not so much because curiosity got the better of me, but rather because I wanted to know if my feelings were correct. I was seeking a deeper understanding. I was seeking validation.

You see, it came out that there was a man in the office with Dale Regan when the shooter entered. He apparently saw that the killer had a gun, and ducked out of the office quickly before the shooting began. When I heard this my first thought was, oh no, I hope they never release the name of the man that was in the office moments before the shots were fired. I was concerned about the public response. I could just see it, him getting branded a coward. People shouting for his head because he didn’t attempt a foolishly heroic act. I could imagine that people would flame him for ducking out of the office at the sight of the gun instead of…what?…jumping on the shooter, attempting to wrestle the gun away?

But you know what I think? I think he did the right thing. And frankly, I bet Dale Regan would feel the same. Heck, perhaps she’s the one who ordered him out of the office. If he had tried something foolish, there likely would have been three bodies in that office. Or worse. Maybe if there hadn’t been a witness that got away, someone who was already in the process of locking down the campus and getting help, the shooter would have shot the head of school, then left the office on a rampage, claiming many, many more innocent lives before turning the gun on himself, or attempting to commit suicide by cop. I think the man slipping out of the office at the sight of the gun probably saved lives. And while it meant that he didn’t or couldn’t save Dale Regan’s life, he may have prevented a massacre of epic proportions. This is my view anyway. And I listened to those recordings because I was hoping they would validate my thoughts. I wanted to believe in the heroism of that man.

And after listening to those horrible recordings, I am even more convinced that his actions were their own form of heroism. I don’t believe that he could have saved Dale Regan’s life by staying in that office. Shane Schumerth was a killer intent on death. This young man, no matter his physical capabilities, would have been no match for an assault rifle. And the very fact that he had the jump, that he was able to start an active lock-down of the campus, may have been the very thing that kept the tragedy contained within the walls of that office. His escape may have been the very thing that put down a killer before he could claim more lives.

But let’s get back to those recordings. They were very hard to listen to. Especially knowing what we know now. That the calls were happening after the danger had actually passed. It seems that the shooting unfolded rather quickly. But, of course, the others on campus had no way of knowing that. They were fearful that this crazy man with a gun was loose on the campus. And it must have seemed like their entire world was tilting on its axis. I can’t imagine their confusion and fear. And I was so very, very impressed with the two people who placed the calls. The young girl on the second recording, who even as she was hyperventilating in fear, her voice cracking with anxious tears, had the presence of mind to sincerely thank the 911 operator for her help. And the young man, the one who was initially in Dale Regan’s office when the shooter burst in? He was calm and professional. It sounded to me like he had military experience. If not active duty service, then ROTC or perhaps a graduate of VMI, the Citadel, or one of the academies. His manner was crisp and efficient, his vocabulary indicating military exposure (calling an alternate car a “secondary vehicle” and using “Alpha” when relaying a license plate). Even the fact that he confidently and without pause identified the weapon as an AK-47 instead of just generically saying “gun” or even “assault rifle”. I was impressed with his handling of what must have been a horrifying situation. He kept his cool, even when most would not have. And it was obvious his desire to get back out onto campus. To emerge from that office and help get the kids’ out of harm’s way, track down the gunman if he was still on campus. He was clearly not a coward. He did what needed to be done. He’ll have to live with this for the rest of his life, he will forever revisit that moment when his fellow staff member pulled an assault rifle out of a guitar case. He will relive his actions. Darting out of that office. But it is my hope that he will find peace in knowing that he did the absolute right thing. It took more courage for him to leave her behind to face him alone. It took more courage for him to understand in that moment it was more important to protect the kids, to seek help. He is, in my opinion, a hero.

As I’ve already expressed, I revile the cowardice of Shane Schumerth. But after listening to the recordings of the 911 calls, there is someone else against whom I am directing some rage. I can’t even imagine the stress involved in being a 911 operator. To constantly be dealing with distraught people, some of whom you can’t help. Knowing that things are going to end badly, or have already gone badly. And you can’t help. That has to weigh on a person. I would hope that they have access to constant training and counseling. And I would say that the operator who handled the call with the young man from Episcopal needs both. She was condescending and downright rude. She sounded annoyed that she even had to deal with the call. She was a very poor listener, frequently talking over the top of the caller, and apparently not listening to the answers he was giving. The fact that he remained cool in the face of her rude annoyance was, to me, amazing. I found myself shouting at the computer screen as I listened to the call. Things like, “He just told you that! Listen to him!” He was cool and efficient in giving the information available to him. She was unprofessional, at best. Like she was judging him for not having more precise information. I expected her to heave a heavy sigh and say, “How do you expect me to do my job when I’m working with incompetents like this?” I wanted to hit her with a bat.  The second 911 operator was professional. She kept a calm tone, she soothed the nervous girl on the other end of the line, while still eliciting the necessary information without brow-beating her or speaking in an annoyed, condescending tone.

I hope that something will come of the release of these recordings. If nothing else a review of sensitivity training for that operator. She was cold and unprofessional. I get that it’s a tough job, but when you’ve got an intelligent, cooperative caller on the line, it shouldn’t have been as difficult as she made it. And I also hope that people will realize in listening to the recordings that the young man did everything he could reasonably do to save lives. That his actions were the right course of action. This tragedy was unstoppable. But he may have changed the face of it. All because he had the courage to run.

 

 

 

 

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Just love your people

09 Mar

I wasn’t able to make the Celebration of Life service at Episcopal High School today. I wanted to, but life is full of tricky logistics. I heard from several friends who were able to attend, or watch it streaming live online, that it was a lovely service. That it was, as intended, a true celebration of Dale Regans’s life. A celebration of her love for her family, and her dedication to Episcopal High School. The weather certainly cooperated, and someone even managed to snap a photo of the rainbow that appeared over the school during the memorial. I am grateful that the EHS community was able to gather, to remember Ms. Regan, to support one another, to share their memories, as well as their grief. I would have liked to have hugged John Regan and told him that I thought his mother was a fantastic lady whose loss is keenly felt. I would have liked to have seen my fellow classmates and other former students with whom I shared so many of my precious high school memories. Last night I was trading e-mails with a friend discussing whether or not we should, or would be able to attend. We both admitted to a nagging feeling that perhaps the limited space available on campus belonged to a current student, or parent, or faculty member. But this was my ultimate response to her:

“While my initial inclination is like yours, that the space belongs to those who lived the moments in person, I think it is crucial for the healing of the school that the alumni are also there in force. So they understand that one act will not break us, it will make us stronger. That the school is not the 10 by 10 room that housed this atrocity, it is the people. It is our memories. It is a belief that Episcopal can once again be a place where kids have nothing more to worry about than a pre-calc quiz or who’s going to ask them to homecoming. It is every bit as much a tribute to our school, to our collective memories, as it is a tribute to Dale Regan. So, my two cents? If you have the time and ability, you should go. Even if you’re just standing under a tree, too far away from the speakers to hear a word. Just to be on campus during that time will be a powerful, moving, and hopefully healing experience.”

Fortunately, she was able to go. Maybe much like I needed my friend’s permission to grieve, this other friend needed permission to take her rightful place among the Episcopal community, to celebrate this courageous leader who was taken from us so violently. I am so happy that she went. She said that the EHS spirit was strong and the presence of those who were unable to attend was still felt. News which made my heart glad. And I think we are all in need of news like that.

 

On a personal note, I want to thank those of you who have taken the time to respond to my rambling blog posts. Those who have sent me personal e-mails, commented on facebook posts, and especially those who have taken the time to leave comments on my blog. Writing these past few days has been something I needed to do. It is my own form of grieving. The first step on a healing path. I’m not seeking answers; there aren’t any. But a shared load is a lighter load. Just sending it out into the ether is a way for me to lighten my load. What was thoroughly unexpected was how many of you would pick up a share. When I log in and see comments waiting from people who don’t know me personally, fellow EHS alum, parents of current students, it staggers me. That my disjointed thoughts and jumbled words can touch someone else, well, that gives me a sense of purpose. Makes me feel less alone in my confusion and my grief.

I especially want to thank the man who commented on my post regarding my sense of grief for the other grieving family. I appreciate his simple, heartfelt words of support for the Schumerth family. Nothing will excuse their son’s actions, and he wasn’t trying to defend them. But he is right in saying that family also deserves the support of their community in dealing with this tragedy.

I have said, “Why, why, why?” a thousand times over in the past few days, but the question is rhetorical, at best. I don’t expect any answers. But it is the pondering that helps me digest and process the information. None of this truly yet feels real. On an intellectual level, I know it is. Dale Regan is dead. The Episcopal campus has been violated, marred by senseless violence. I know these to be the facts. But on an emotional level, I am right there in that courtyard, 21 years ago, talking, playing, flirting, philosophizing. I hear our bright laughter, as bright as the sun shining down warm upon our skin. I see easy smiles and flashing eyes. We are wrapped up in casual embraces, arms thrown around one another. Nothing can touch us. Our innocence is intact and pristine. And I want it back.

But I can’t have it back, can I? No. That is the way of a world gone mad. There are no answers. You can’t return. But I want to leave you with the words of my former classmate, Jason, who so eloquently summed up all of my confusion and gave me a plan for moving forward:

“No way to comprehend. Do not attempt. Just love your people.”

 

 

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The other grieving family

08 Mar

Let me start by saying that I understand there is truly only one victim in the tragic murder-suicide that took place at Episcopal High School Tuesday afternoon. And that victim was a beloved and courageous administrator who spent her last moments on Earth in a face-to-face confrontation with a killer. Dale Regan is the victim here. She was senselessly gunned down. Taken too soon from her family, from her community, from the extended Episcopal family. She was brave. And I’m sure she was standing up for herself, for her school, until her very last breath. But I cannot fail to remember that another death occurred in that office.

Here’s where I’m going to get flamed by people who misunderstand me, by people who won’t take the time to contemplate my thoughts. For some there will be a knee-jerk reaction to my even mentioning the killer’s death in the same paragraph as Ms. Regan’s. So let me be clear. Crystal clear. I think Shane Schumerth is a despicable coward. I think his actions were atrocious. I think death is too good for him. Not a proper punishment at all. I do not feel anything but disgust and rage churning in my gut when I contemplate that young man. But I feel something else entirely when I contemplate his family.

Maybe it’s going to come out that the perpetrator had a horrible childhood. Maybe he was abused, maybe he had a long history of psychological problems. Maybe he was addicted to drugs. I don’t know. But if so, it isn’t being reported thus far. Personally, I’m guessing there won’t be anything like that reported. I’m guessing he had a typical American childhood. I’m guessing he had loving, supportive parents. I’m guessing he was afforded many opportunities, much like the one Dale Regan granted him when she hired him to teach at Episcopal High School in August 2010. I’m guessing this senseless act of violence and cowardice was an aberration. And I can’t even begin to imagine the grief that is currently overwhelming his parents and siblings.

I can’t imagine receiving that phone call, or that front porch visit from a state trooper, informing you of your child’s death. And it is utterly inconceivable to me what it must have been like for them to hear that he was not only dead, but a cold-blooded murderer dead by his own hand. Their son is gone for them. On every conceivable level. He is gone. What comfort can there be for them? Even their happy memories must now be the fodder of nightmares. Was there a sign they missed? Could they have done anything to stop this tragedy from happening? Could they have helped him and in doing do prevented this senseless destruction? How could their boy, no matter his former problems or issues, have morphed from being their son into a monster? This could be any of us. Mental illness, much like addiction, does not discriminate. It doesn’t care what kind of parents you have, how much love and affection you received as a child. People who were stable, well-adjusted children can commit horrible, unspeakable acts. Without preface, without warning. The boy who pulled the trigger was someone’s child, someone’s brother. And his selfish cruelty has deprived not only Dale Regan’s family of their beloved daughter and mother, but also deprived his own parents of their son, his own siblings of their brother. He has ruined their lives. Despite the tragedy of Dale Regan’s death, her family, her community can find some peace in knowing that she was courageous, steadfast, and honorable to the end. The killer’s family will find no such peace. Misplaced or not, they will be buried under a mountain of guilt. An endless loop of wondering what they did wrong and how they could have stopped it. And despite the fact this sentiment may make me overwhelmingly unpopular, I grieve for them.

I grieve for them in somewhat the same way I grieve for the students in his class. While there have been several students quoted in the press as saying their former teacher was “awkward” and “didn’t fit in with the other teachers,” or that they weren’t surprised to find out he was fired, it is my understanding that many other students held a different view. These students haven’t been quoted, and many may be ashamed to reveal their feelings to the general public, but I’ve heard there are many students who liked Mr. Schumerth. Who thought he was kind, he was nice, they trusted and respected him. So what does that do to a child? To discover that their teacher was a monster underneath the veneer? It speaks to the very basic elements of trust. It will make them wary of their own judgment regarding people. They may be terribly confused and ashamed. They may feel their own form of misplaced guilt. How could they have liked a man who was capable of such an atrocity? And if you are a parent of one of these students, how do you help them through it? How do you tell them it is not wrong that they liked him? That they should continue to trust their feelings, trust their judgment about forming connections with people? How do you ever make it okay for them to trust again?

There are no cut and dry answers. The close ties with other trusted teachers and administrators will hopefully help. Giving them permission to grieve the loss of their own innocence. Permission to speak about their feelings, no matter how unpopular their views may be. All of these confused emotions, feeling duped, feeling guilty, feeling anger, feeling anything at all that they are feeling. It’s all okay. Perfectly normal. But I hope they can recover it. A sense of trust. A sense of optimism. It’s okay to trust the authority figures in your life. To bond with them. And it is no reflection on you or your judgment should they fail you. Because that’s what happened here. This man failed us all. Failed his students, failed his employers, failed his family, failed society as a whole. I wish with all my heart that it had turned out differently. That if he was set on traveling a coward’s path that he had done so alone without leaving this wake of devastation in his path. But he didn’t. And we are left to pick up the pieces. Something I doubt his family will ever be able to do.

 

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Permission

07 Mar

The tragedy that unfolded yesterday on the campus of Episcopal High School is unspeakable. Yet I continue to feel the need to speak. My disjointed thoughts need an outlet as they threaten to overwhelm. Please bear with me.

I am impressed, but not at all surprised by the way the EHS family has pulled together in the face of this heinous crime. Facebook, which many people malign as pointless, has become a tightly bound community. A source of comfort. A place to let others know they are not alone in their grief, they are not alone in their confusion. A place to express shock, to rage against this atrocity. Several friends chose to share my blog post from yesterday on their facebook wall. I am humbled to provide a voice for others who may have temporarily lost theirs. Gratified that my muddled thoughts echo a collective confused grief.

Several friends have reached out to me to say they are so sorry to hear of the tragedy and that they are thinking of me. My first reaction to that is: Me? Why are you thinking of me? It makes me feel like a poseur. This didn’t happen to me. This happened to the family of Dale Regan, like her son, John, whose sweet face floats up from my memory. This happened to my classmate, Cristi, the daughter of a beloved EHS history teacher, and a current EHS crew coach who is intimately involved in the daily lives of current students. This happened to another classmate, Allen, a former teacher at Episcopal who credits Dale Regan with providing him the courage and support to make a huge life change to pursue a career in medicine. This happened to my friend, Jason, who, like many of the former class of 1991 alum, had Ms. Regan as an English teacher several times during their early years at EHS, and not just their senior year. This happened to my friend, Jeff, whose family is inextricably tied to Episcopal High School through their generous gifts and ongoing support, and likely enjoyed a personal friendship with Dale. This happened to the current students, no matter where they were, whether or not they were on campus at the time. This happened to the parents of those current students who received those frightening texts. This happened to the faculty, who put their crisis plan in action, staying calm when they couldn’t possibly have felt that way. This didn’t really happen to me. I only had Ms. Regan as a teacher for a single class my senior year. It has been years since I’ve really even been on campus, other than an occasional alumni event. As I accept people’s condolences, I feel like a poseur in my grief. This didn’t happen to me. We all know someone who wraps themselves up in the mantle of someone else’s tragedy in order to draw attention to themselves. I find that kind of behavior detestable. And I am not that person. This did not happen to me. And yet, I feel so very sad. So very confused. So very angry.

A dear friend called me this morning to offer kind support, and I was relaying this to her. That I felt her concern for me was misplaced. That, again I say, this did not happen to me. She didn’t even hesitate before saying, “Of course it did. Of course it happened to you. That’s your alma mater. This affects you. Everyone grieves in their own way and you have every right to grieve this horrible thing.” It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders and my eyes filled. She was giving me permission to grieve. I didn’t realize that I needed it, but I did. I needed that permission to grieve in my own personal way, and for my own personal reasons. That was truly a gift.

I do not profess to have known Dale Regan well. I remember her fondly. I remember her as someone who cared so very deeply about the lives of the students she touched. I mourn the loss of a courageous lady who stood up for the school, who made the hard decisions, who challenged her students from all the posts she held during her 34 year tenure at the school – be that the front of the classroom, or behind an administrator’s desk. She was a treasure of Episcopal High School, and I know they will miss her guidance, her counsel, and her friendship immensely.

But I think that I am grieving in equal measure for the students. I am grieving the loss of their innocence. I am grieving the fact that their lives have been unalterably changed. Nothing can take away this black mark. This violation of their most sacred space. My high school days at Episcopal were filled with the typical ups and downs, the typical angst endemic to the teenage years. But overall, I liked high school. I look back on that time fondly. And a huge part of that was the culture and campus of Episcopal High School. So many afternoons spent hanging out in that courtyard. Mere feet away from where this tragedy unfolded. Making weekend plans with girlfriends, trying most awkwardly to flirt with boys, pulling up the hems of our skirts to get an extra inch of sun on our legs before an administrator like Ms. Regan rounded the corner to remind us with a raised eyebrow about the dress code policy. Will scenes like this ever play out in the senior courtyard again? I desperately hope so. But how can those kids in the surrounding classrooms, the ones who heard the shots, recover from the emotional toll this experience has wrought upon them? Yes, they’ll laugh again. They will regain some sense of normalcy. Their classes will continue, their sports teams will take the field. There will be dates and dances and senior skip day. But this will forever mark theirs and every other EHS students’ high school experience. And for that I am so terribly sad. And so terribly angry. I grieve for the loss of their innocence. For the loss of their pure, clean memories. I grieve for the way this evil has touched them at such a seminal time in their lives.

And it’s okay for me to feel that way. It’s okay for me to grieve. It’s okay for any of us, whether or not you have an official affiliation to EHS to grieve. To feel shock. To feel horror. To feel violated. To feel a crushing sadness. I thank my friend for giving me the perspective. For granting me the permission to accept my feelings. An understanding that my grief is not misguided nor disrespectful of those with closer personal ties to Dale Regan and the current Episcopal faculty, staff, and students. I am a part of this huge, wonderful family that has come together in the face of tragedy to console, to remember, and to plant a seed of hope that we can carry on and perhaps, one day soon, even thrive.

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© 2010 Krista Lindsey Willim