Summer Vacation

First day of summer vacation.

Finish cleaning out my room, turned in my grades, brought my computer down for storage and maintenance, and almost took my toe off.

If you have ever seen my room, you know it is no small task to even clean my desk off, not to mention my entire room.

One of the things sitting on my desk happened to be a chunk of arc welding from a former student, Laura. When I found out that she wanted to be a welder, I couldn’t resist giving her some good-natured ribbing about a woman being able to weld. She promised to bring in a sample of her welding when she got into college.

Laura was as good as her word. Late this fall she marched in with a ten pound chunk of welding that served as her final project. I told her I would proudly keep it on my desk as a memento.

People always inquired about it too. So today I decided to put it into storage. So I grabbed the chunk of metal in one hand and my pencil container, weighing all of a few ounces, in the other. On the way to my storage closet, all of four feet or so, I somehow managed to drop the chunk of welding (of course, it could not have been the pencil container, right?).

The chunk plummeted toward my left foot, specifically my left big toe. And this had to be one of the few days I happened to wear flip flops (I can already see my sister shaking her head – she works developing safety plans for schools and businesses).

Luckily, thanks to my cat-like reflexes, I was able to move the rest of my foot out of the way, except, for my big toe. Thankfully, the chunk of welding didn’t land on edge. That would have likely neatly severed my toe.

Instead if fell flat. Actually, the piece, about the size of a large paper back novel – and about as thick – is actually bowed in the middle, so it didn’t land flat on my toe.

That didn’t, though, stop it from carving a nice one inch cut along the side of my toe – as well as bruising the hell out of it.

While fighting not to pass out, I managed to sit open my middle right drawer where I keep my rudimentary school issued first aid kit (a large Ziploc bag filled with plastic gloves, antiseptic wipes, and band aids) – (take that big sis! At least I have a first aid kit).

So I limped my way through clearing off my desk and room.

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This was the first last day of school that really didn’t feel like the last day of school. Ever since I was in first grade, the last day of school always had a specific feeling to it – a combination of anticipation, freedom, and a little bit of disappointment (I know I’m nuts – but when you grew up on a farm, the last day of school marked the end of much of civilization as I knew it). Well, that feeling never really left me – not through high school, college, or teaching. But this year just didn’t have that same vibe.

Maybe it was the fact that the previous Friday was really the last day of school. The final three days were just pantomiming. I dismissed my College Comp juniors the same time as the seniors, so they didn’t meet. I was left with only a handful of underclassmen in my Sci Fi class and we just finished up The Matrix: Reloaded. My Lit and Language 11 class did their best to sit through No Country for Old Men, which was supposed to close out our Hemingway unit, but rather it ended with a whimper.

I guess the last day of school vibe just petered out like, well, the last day of this school year.

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Kristie and I celebrated our one year anniversary with a trip to Fargo. We had an early dinner at the Olive Garden and then caught the premiere of the new Sex and the City movie with two friends, Aaron and Jeff.

The movie, just like the past year with my beautiful wife, was excellent. As was the Olive Garden.

I just wish we could have had some time off to actually go back down to Sylvan Lake in SD and stay in our cabin. Then we could go on the Voecks March up Crazy Horse again (on the way back down was when I actually got to use the phrase “my wife” for the first time).

Maybe we’ll do that for our two year anniversary.

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The new Entertainment Weekly has an interview with one of my favorite writers, David Sedaris. I’ve only read one of his book, the classic Me Talk Pretty One Day, but I’ve re-read the essays numerous times and laugh harder with each reading (Kristie, of course, has read every single one of his books. But I bought them for her. Does that count for anything?).

Sedaris’s style of memoir takes self-deprecation to an entirely new level. That is, of course, what makes his work so hilarious? However, apparently Sedaris has received some criticism about fictionalizing some of the essays in his memoirs.

My response to this criticism is “how could he not?”

When I was writing my memoir on my grandmother, the controversy over James Frey’s memoir A Million Little Pieces hit. Apparently, he was not truthful about every detail in the novel.

This troubled me not at all, for I have always considered memoir, even the best most painstakingly accurate memoir, as creative non-fiction. That means that there is no honest to God 100 percent true memoir. Humans just can’t remember every little detail, even if they are willing to go back and research old weather charts to make sure that the weather was actually cold when they wrote the sentence “It was very cold the night my mother died” (as Anna Quindlen is reported to have done).

Maybe if humans are ever foolish enough to create Artificial Intelligence, and it writes a memoir, then I’d be willing to believe that it is honest to God, 100 percent true. Until then, I’ll always accept memoirs with a healthy dose of inconsistencies.

So if a writer like Sedaris has to fudge a few details or change some things around for emphasis, fine by me.

After all, we experience reality differently. That is one thing my parents – and their countless arguments about who remember an event the ‘right’ way (or my arguments with my wife about the same thing) – taught me.

Of course, in Frey’s case he happened to piss of Oprah and brought her wrath down upon him.

Now I know that Frey didn’t just fudge a few details. In fact, he fabricated entire scenes that never actually took place.

Again, I say no big deal. After all, the memoir is about his attempt to overcome drugs. What do drug users do better than anything else? Lie. So what better way to get at the emotional truth of his ordeal than through a lie. Again, I have no problem with this.

When Sedaris was asked about Oprah’s harsh opinion of Frey, he said, “His [Frey’s] punishment outweighed the crime . . . I don’t recall Oprah Winfrey calling George Bush a liar when he was on her show. And those lies cost thousands of people their lives.”

Now that is a hell of a good point.

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As Memorial Day fades, it marks the appearance of my favorite summer reading material, the NFL prediction magazines. The best of them, and it is the best by far, is Lindey’s. I have been reading this religiously for the past 17 years.

Of course, it is asinine to try and predict anything, let alone the NFL. I really just read it for the excellent player analysis, draft recap, and future NFL draft prospects.

The predictions are foolish. And thankfully the editors devote very little time to them.

Last year, they got only four division winners correct. They also only accurately predicted two teams to finish in the bottom of their divisions.

So what does that tell us? That they not only cannot predict who will win a division, but they also cannot predict who will NOT win the division either.

Every year there are a couple of teams that are the sexy picks for the Super Bowl. A few years back it was my beloved Bengals with their great young quarterback, superb wideouts, and improving defense. Well, all they have left is the great quarterback.

Times change.

A few years ago they popular pick to win it all was the San Diego Chargers. Hasn’t happened either. New Orleans was another popular pick too. Didn’t happen either.

This year it seems to be Jerry Jones’s Cowboys. We’ll just see about that.

I think the Cowboys are rapidly becoming the Yankees of the NFL (without the championships of course). Jones loves to spend his money in the name of winning and get his botoxed face on as much TV as possible (what other owner actually walks down and parades around the sidelines?).

All of those things endear him to the fans and ESPN, but it doesn’t do much in terms of victories. Sure, they made the playoffs the past two years, but they also made quick exits. Before that, Bill Parcells got them into the playoffs in 2001, but they were destroyed then too.

Actually, Jones, for all of his spending and big market approach to the game, has not done much since the real brains behind his organization, Jimmy Johnson, left after their second consecutive Super Bowl in 1993. I know Berry Switzer won a Super Bowl two years later, but it was with ALL of Johnson’s talent that he had already assembled.

The real fun is hoping that your team (well, my team, anyway) is this year’s Giants. Go Bengals!

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