Rowing toward equality

In a powerful passage from Arshay Cooper’s “A Most Beautiful Thing,” the author reflects on the time when a police officer flipped his backpack upside down and forced him to pick up his books.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag, I help old ladies cross the street, and I work with kids,” writes Cooper, who is Black. “I want to stand up for myself, but any wrong move can scare him and get me killed, then what? What will they say about me?”

“A Most Beautiful Thing,” this year’s One Book One Community selection in Alliance, is Cooper’s reminiscence about his place in history as a member of the first all-Black high school rowing team. It is also a testament to the challenges of growing up on Chicago’s West Side, where the writer had to navigate the dangers of gangs, drugs and poverty.

Rowing was more than just an extracurricular for Cooper. It was a lifeline. Through rowing, he was exposed to entrepreneurial classes, elite college campuses and summer job opportunities.

The rest was up to him.

Nevertheless, the book isn’t a “bootstraps” story, the kind of tale certain politicians use to sell constituents on the idea that a person can surmount any obstacles through sheer determination alone, and that those who can’t or don’t are somehow lacking.

Make no mistake, Cooper demonstrates that he has more than enough determination. But he also credits many people in his life without whom he wouldn’t have had such opportunities – a church member who paid him to read books, a mother who overcame addiction to become a stable influence, and the stockbroker-turned-coach who started the inner-city rowing program.

Cooper also notes the sadder fate of some of his equally gifted contemporaries, including a friend who started selling drugs to support his family, and former athletes who were coddled in school when they were winning, but then quickly discarded once their playing days were over.

“I feel like the coaches develop them too much as athletes and not as good human beings,” Cooper writes. “It’s almost as if their existence is about basketball skills and not life skills.”

If readers finish the book thinking Cooper is an anomaly, one of only a small number of deserving people who escape poverty in America, they will have gleaned the wrong message.

The book is a reminder that many, many worthy people, especially minorities, are chewed up by the system each day, their potential squandered, pawns in a political game that finds them courted at every election and then largely forgotten until the next time their votes are needed.

Meanwhile, the stereotyping and inequities for Black Americans continue — by police, courts, schools, employers, and the housing market, despite laws and policies to discourage it. Maybe the reason Critical Race Theory is disparaged by so many conservatives is not that it skews the study of America’s history, but that it reveals the faults of America’s present.

This is a reality that receives perfunctory acknowledgment during Black History Month before returning to the backburner for the rest of the year.

Arshay Cooper’s story is the optimistic tale of one person who beats the odds, an example of the underdog formula that holds so much appeal, the “Rocky” of rowing. Yet it is also a reminder of a popular saying from a few years back: It takes a village.

The book is a challenge for society to create conditions where all underdogs have such a village, in the form of scaffolding and mentoring to ensure they don’t have to paddle so hard just to reach the starting line.

“A Most Beautiful Thing” is available to purchase or borrow at Rodman Public Library. Cooper visits Alliance on March 31.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

When is the right time to put away the mask?

Something was missing when I stepped in front of my class Monday morning: my mask.

The district where I teach announced the transition to a mask-optional policy last weekend. Before the announcement, I had been wearing a face covering in almost all public situations, even as the number of COVID cases and hospitalizations declined in the area. Yet I persisted, to protect those around me and to be a good role model for students who saw me outside the classroom.

The shift away from mandatory masking in my district wasn’t a surprise, but it nonetheless forced me to grapple with what to do. Similar thoughts may be percolating with many readers currently. Here’s my admittedly jumbled thought process.

First, I am vaccinated and boosted. This means I have a much smaller chance of serious complications if I contract the virus.

I’ve already had COVID twice. The first time was in the pre-vaccine days of late October and early November 2020. The second was between Christmas and New Year’s Eve a few months ago.

The double whammy wasn’t from a lack of caution. My wife and I both work around lots of people. When COVID ripped through Holly’s long-term healthcare facility, it wasn’t surprising that she contracted it and passed it along to me.

I was fortunate in my first go-round to be only moderately ill; I lost about four days. My second time was much easier, similar to a head cold.

No, the vaccine and booster didn't keep me from getting COVID, but they weren’t supposed to. Instead, they helped me to navigate my second illness with fewer symptoms. If a golden window of time really exists that confers some level of immunity, I’m still in it, which was another reason for deciding to remove my mask.

Finally, I don’t come home each day to anybody under the age of 5, the demographic that cannot yet be vaccinated. Nor do I have regular, close interaction with the parents of anybody younger than 5. Those parents, I suspect, may still be masking. I would too.

I don’t fool myself into thinking COVID is over. The zero-cases ship sailed long ago, partially because of inept decisions in early months of the pandemic that politicized public health policy, turning masks, social distancing and vaccines into an “us vs. them” situation. Plenty of blame to go around there.

In my pocket each day as I teach is a mask. If I’m in a situation where a student or I feels uncomfortable, I won’t hesitate to slip it on. Ditto if numbers start to rise again locally or regionally.

And if any second booster or fourth shot comes along, I’ll get the jab, just like I do for the flu each year.

There’s still so much we don’t know about COVID, including whether this latest decline is for keeps. Some experts insist it isn’t and that the virus could mutate again. Hopefully in the summer, when more people are outdoors and less likely to spread it.

Some Americans have criticized the medical community for mixed messaging about COVID, which has added to the confusion. But with a challenge this large, one being wrestled with at federal, state and local levels, with reams of differing laws and procedures, maybe conflicting recommendations are inevitable.

On the positive side, the ongoing COVID experience could normalize some public health procedures. When the flu is especially virulent, or if COVID makes a comeback, maybe residents in hard-hit regions will be more willing to slip on masks to stop or slow the spread. It shouldn’t require a mandate to do the right thing.

Meanwhile, back in my classroom, a few of my students were appalled that the top half of my face didn’t match what they imagined the bottom half looked like. One suggested jokingly, or maybe not, that I cover up again.

Many of my students have unmasked as well, while others have not. Some go home to immunocompromised people. Others are being extra cautious to compete in sports. Still others haven’t secured their parents’ permission to receive the vaccine. Regardless of the choice and the reason, everybody is being respectful of these decisions.

Students haven’t been permanently scarred by masking. Sure, lives have been altered, milestones canceled and modified. Yet there is a sense of being part of something bigger than themselves, of having made a small but significant sacrifice through a piece of material over their mouths and noses.

It’s a model of community that could put many adults to shame.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig on Twitter

Wordle Bows to the inevitable

Wordle 253 2/6

⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Like millions of people, my wife and I have been playing Wordle.

We like the challenge, but also the finiteness and simplicity. One five-letter word, once a day, with six chances to guess. This is the experience in its entirety. If the minimalist movement had an official game, it would be Wordle.

I came late to the fun. This is typical, as I jump on most fads well past their apex. I got my first Rubik’s cube — back in the day, as the younger generation says — just as most of my junior high friends were consigning theirs to the scrapheap.

Wordle isn’t in its death throes yet, but The New York Times purchase of it does portend changes, and not all of them positive. At some point, the new owner will want to make money from what Time magazine described as the paper’s “low seven figures” investment.

Changes so far have been limited to branding the puzzle with The New York Times logo and moving it from the UK site that previously hosted it.

I hope any future modifications aren’t too drastic.

Part of Wordle’s charm is not taking up too much time. Yes, plenty of knock-off sites provide multiple words each day, but I and many other players have avoided these. If The New York Times starts to offer unlimited play to keep people on the site longer — a reasonable goal — it will alter the unique nature of an online pastime that, by design, can be experienced between the main course and dessert or when crawling into bed after a long day.

Contrast this with the near-incessant obligation of Words with Friends, that darling of the 2010s, or the laborious cyber agriculture of FarmVille, where crops withered and died in the time it took to mow the real yard. The tiny commitment to Wordle is one of its biggest assets. Play it daily, walk away for a week, come back when you can — or stay away permanently.

Another part of the attraction is the humble-brag. Users can share their gameplay, minus the actual answer, to social-media platforms. The fewer the guesses, the more likely players are to post the green-and-yellow reminder of that day’s sequence. After all, a Wordle solution in just two turns is a worthy accomplishment, even if it involves more guesswork than skill (says the player who almost always takes four or more turns).

Yet coupled with this ostentatious show of lexical proficiency is the reluctance of players to ruin each day’s word for others. In a world where major plot points are blasted across the Internet within minutes of a movie or TV show’s release, Wordle players keep their word(s) close to their vest. I’ve only had the day’s answer spoiled once, and that was an accident.

And maybe this last advantage is just me, but a key draw of the game was knowing it was a one-person show. Josh Wardle, with a name so similar to his creation, designed it only to please his partner. In an era when so much is made of collaboration and teamwork, when the rugged individualism that has always been a prevailing myth of success – and much less an actuality, but that’s a topic for another day – is rapidly giving way to intense specialization, Wordle is a throwback, essentially a one-man-band. Or, more accurately, an understated solo. Love of the game was Wardle’s priority, and he appeared content to leave it as such, despite the lure of easy money.

I love when creators take principled stands like this, striking mini-blows against rapacious capitalism. Bill Watterson, the architect of the late, lamented “Calvin and Hobbes,” was one such person. He refused offers to merchandise his characters, believing their presence on coffee mugs and T-shirts would destroy their uniqueness on the comics page. (That decal showing Calvin peeing on the Ford or Chevy logo is not officially sanctioned.)

J.D. Salinger, the late, reclusive author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” refused to let Hollywood adapt his seminal coming-of-age novel. In his case, it was because he was displeased with a movie based on one of his earlier stories. He certainly could have pocketed a kingly amount for “Catcher,” but once burned is twice shy.

Wardle was poised to join this august group, but no more. I don’t blame him. Maybe it was easier to take the big payout than institute smaller money-making modifications one at a time.

So it probably won’t be long before we see Wordle caps, Wordle greeting cards and Wordle the Netflix game show. It’s not fair to say the five-letter word of the day is “greed,” but maybe “fated” fits.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig

'Reaching out' in search of another way of saying nothing

Society has a new scourge, and it is "reach out."

Everywhere you look, people are doing it. A Google search of the expression reveals the following headlines from the past week alone:

"Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders Reach Out to Latino Voters in Las Vegas"

"Rev. Graham to Pope Francis: 'Reach Out And Build a Bridge to Donald Trump'"

"Steelers Reach Out to Free Agent Cornerback Brice McCain"

"Police Probing I-78 Pileup Reach Out to Public"

"Friends, Clients Reach Out to Help Colorado Springs Massage Therapist"

"How the Indian Railways is Leveraging Twitter to Reach Out to the Millions Who Ride on its Trains"

That last headline gets bonus points for incorporating "leveraging," another expression that should join "fidelity" and "paradigm" -- for example, "implementing the strategic initiative with fidelity will cause a paradigm change" -- in the Overworked or Useless Waste of Syllables Hall of Fame.

While you're at it, induct "implement" and "initiative," as well.

But "reach out" is the darling of the moment, favored by every organizational lackey who wants to put a positive spin on contacting somebody else. Doctors are reaching out to their patients, lawyers to their clients, and teachers to their students and their students' parents.

I get it, I guess. Reaching out sounds much more friendly and proactive, an act of individual and corporate charity.

It's also lazy headline writers' shorthand for any story that hasn't really happened yet. At the time of the above headlines, we didn't know if Hillary or Bernie would prevail in Nevada. Pope Francis' attempts to "reach out" to Donald Trump hadn't yet devolved into the war of words that culminated in The Donald calling the pontiff's comments "disgraceful." The Steelers may have made an overture toward a new player, but the jury is out on whether he will wear the black and gold next season.

"Reach out" is also this journalism generation's kinder, gentler way of saying that a source had no comment before press time. It casts the journalist and her organization in the most positive light -- we "reached out" in an effort at fairness and equanimity -- while implying that the grumpy old source didn't or wouldn't respond in time. Bad, bad source.

It also attempts to make something simple sound highfalutin'. A friend noted the similarity to medical personnel who feel compelled to use "ambulate" when describing how a patient walks.

In real life, nobody ambulates. We merely walk. Sometimes we saunter, or even prance (especially when we discover $10 tucked in a spring jacket), but we don't as a rule go on daily ambulations.

The same is true of "reach out." It camouflages much more prosaic actions. A reporter who reaches out to a source probably called, emailed or texted. Be precise, not ornate. Or if you must be vague, use "contact." Then your readers won't know if you phoned the mayor or stood below his second-story window, shouting questions about the budget until police removed you.

Back in August, I included "reach out" in a column about odious expressions. I also mentioned its nefarious partner, "share out." People who love to reach out inevitably love to "share out," which apparently means to tell others what you're doing or what you've done. The "out" serves no linguistic purpose. It's OK just to share.

But it's not OK just to "reach," unless you're describing a physical action: "I can't reach the Oreos on the top shelf." Or a more philosophical observation, like Robert Browning's: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" Or if you're using "reach" as part of an accepted idiom, such as "reach me between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m."

"Reach out" is on the fast track to idiom status, when it should be stuck on the side of the road, one thumb in the air, while better expressions whizz past. It's unnecessary, imprecise and lazy.

This is the point where I should make some sort of cute, column-ending statement that uses "reach out" in an ironic way and sends away readers with a smile. But I can't. I just can't.

Originally published Feb. 28, 2016, in The Record-Courier. 

So there's a game this weekend

At least one local restaurant is closing early on Super Bowl Sunday.

The sign on the door didn’t indicate why — maybe they’re hosting a private party — but my guess is so employees may enjoy the Super Bowl with their families, a riff on similar wording used for holidays.

Super Bowl Sunday might as well be a national holiday; it has most of the characteristics. On that day, people hold soirees that would put Jay Gatsby to shame, fall off the diet wagon, drink too much, stay up too late and call off sick from work the next day. Just like Christmas.

Retailers advertise weeks in advance, construct special displays of soft drinks, beer and snack foods, and offer insane discounts on electronics, especially behemoth big screen televisions so that viewers may enjoy up-close-and-personal views of the coaches’ nose hairs.

That sounds charming, yet in my usual curmudgeonly way, I don’t know if I’ll watch this year.

I don’t hate professional sports, but I am indifferent to them. Most people don’t see the distinction. If you’re a man who can’t rattle off at least half a dozen useless facts about a player’s yardage, passing percentages and hamstring injury people tend to view you with suspicion, probably categorizing you as a closet tree-hugger, communist, or classical music aficionado instead of a red-blooded, camo-wearing, Bible-thumping American.

I learned this during my years in sales, where it was detrimental to my bottom line to see customers on a Monday morning without some knowledge of what went down on the national gridiron the day before. My usual procedure was to lie (hey, it WAS sales, after all), either by claiming I had family obligations that kept me from watching -- I had a lot of sick grandmothers who needed visiting -- or by rattling off one or two key plays that I saw on the morning sports wrap-up.

The latter was dangerous, as any follow-up question would reveal my complete ignorance of professional sports. In all honesty, beyond the Ohio- and Pennsylvania-based franchises, I doubt I can name more than a handful of teams in all professional sports, and even then, I can’t distinguish between baseball, football and hockey. It’s just not my forte.

That said, I have watched a few Super Bowls, sometimes for the inventive commercials and the halftime entertainment, but mostly because it’s kind of neat to recognize that, in a nation of 314 million people (give or take a few hundred thousand), so many are engaged in doing the same thing, at the same time.

Such universal entertainment used to occur more commonly, back in the days before DVRs, Hulu, Netflix and the fracturing of the popular-entertainment audience. With only three networks from which to choose and no easy way to watch a program missed, viewers engaged in communal experiences via television in percentages that are difficult to imagine today.

For example, the final episode of “M*A*S*H” was watched by over 60 percent of households with TVs in 1983, good for about 106 million viewers, still the top-rated, non-sports broadcast. Even the almighty NFL couldn’t beat that until 2010, when Super Bowl XLIV topped the record by about half a million more viewers.

Outside the Super Bowl and major breaking news covered by all networks simultaneously, it’s hard to conceive what sort of event these days might draw so many eyeballs at the same time.

Even so, I probably won’t watch this year. Too many news stories about the dangers of concussions in the NFL, too many players dead before their time, and too many athletes behaving badly on and off the field have tainted what little enjoyment (emphasis on “little”) I derive from the sport.

If the game is on at all in my house, it will be pure background noise, something to glance up at from time to time from whatever book I’m reading or set of papers I’m grading.

But I’m glad some local restaurant workers will be able to enjoy the game with their families and friends. Nobody should have to work on a holiday.

This originally ran before the Super Bowl in 2013. I guess not much has really changed about my opinion regarding football. Since Cincinnati is in this year's game, I'll watch a little more attentively. Maybe.  

Remembrances of food past

Have you ever craved food that nobody makes anymore?

I don’t mean in the “nobody makes gravy like grandma” sort of way, but rather in the “manufacturer discontinued it” sort of way, that sinking feeling you get when your favorite dish has been unceremoniously dumped from the menu, or when the spot where the item used to be on your grocer’s shelf has been filled by some imposter product.

Take the Arch Deluxe. With much fanfare, McDonald’s introduced it as an uptown version of the venerable hamburger, the sandwich equivalent of the girl you wouldn’t be ashamed to take home to mother.

Released during the height of my own McDonald’s mania – before I was concerned about what all the calories and grease were doing to my weight, not to mention my heart – the Arch Deluxe quickly wormed its way into my good graces. It became a destination sandwich, one I would forgo all other fast-food fixes to buy and savor. Honestly, I was eating two or three a week.

Then, one day, it was simply gone. Little did I know that the quarter-pound of 100 percent domestic beef, cradled lovingly between slices of a home-style bakery bun and a special “secret sauce,” was costing the company a fortune (some $300 million by one estimate), and that there weren’t enough of us patty connoisseurs to keep the curtain from ringing down on a marketing misfire. (But such a tasty misfire!)

One website purports to offer the Arch Deluxe recipe, including ingredients in the secret sauce, so that diehard devotees can experience it once again. I don’t believe it. It’s like kissing the photograph of an old flame 20 years after the fact and wondering why it doesn’t feel the same. I’ll let the Arch Deluxe be a happy memory from the days before calories really counted.

(As an aside, a visit to an urban slang website taught me that “arch deluxe” has far naughtier connotations than I can hint at in a family paper. The over-18 crowd may want to check it out.)

Another food that’s gone AWOL is Micro Magic French fries. Each red box with the yellow Micro Magic logo contained one serving of Idaho’s best. The user would peel back the lid, tuck it beneath the box and expose the shiny foil innards to the heat of the microwave oven. A minute or two later, a greasy mound of crinkled potatoes beckoned. Along with ramen noodles, they formed the staple of my bachelor’s diet.

Like all good things, Micro Magic went away with marriage. A few years later when a nostalgia craving struck, I was dismayed to learn they were still available – but only in Japan. Not having a passport or access to a nonstop flight to the Land of the Rising Sun, I reluctantly bid sayonara to the fries.

The unkindest cut of all, however, is Kellogg’s abandonment of grape-flavored Pop Tarts, which I ate for breakfast daily from childhood right up to the day when the purplish boxes disappeared from store shelves. Thus began my quixotic quest from store to store, including some in other states, with no success.

Amazon.com lists the item, along with a photo reminder of the glory of grape Pop Tarts past, but urges shoppers to “sign up to be notified when this item becomes available.” One frustrated grape nut, D. Bowman, wrote on the site in 2007, “I’ve been eating grape Pop Tarts (and only grape!) since I was a child. Now it’s the only Pop Tart my children will eat. Little by little they have faded from our stores. The last two boxes we’ve had I’ve gotten off of Amazon and paid way too much. But I guess it was worth it seeing as how we’ll no longer have the chance to eat them again. I hope Kellogg's will reconsider retiring this classic Pop Tart.”

Me too, D., me too.

During this season of thanks, I know I shouldn’t whine about foodstuffs past and should instead focus on those comfort foods still readily available – the Red Robin gourmet cheeseburger (sans cheese, of course), Keebler Soft Batch chocolate chip cookies (three cookies, 32 seconds in the microwave – never 30 seconds! – equals bliss), and Snyder’s of Hanover sourdough hard pretzels.

Eat ’em while you’ve got ’em, boys, for tomorrow they may have gone the way of the dodo bird – or the late, lamented Arch Deluxe.


This column originally ran in 2009. Based on the reference to "this season of thanks," it was probably in November. If I wrote this today, I probably wouldn't say that all good things end with marriage, because they don't. And I'd think twice about "the sandwich equivalent of the girl you wouldn’t be ashamed to take home to mother." I'd also note that Wild Berry Pop Tarts are a good substitute for my still-missing grape variety. 

A new metaphor for love

All language is metaphorical, and the language of love is no exception.

Red and pink, especially in February, make most of us think of love. Those two colors dominate Valentine’s Day cards, candy boxes and other items designed to separate us from our money. But why?

Red is the color of the heart, I suppose, and the heart is the organ most closely associated with love. Well, it’s the organ most closely associated with love that can be named in a family newspaper, anyway.

But red is also the color of blood, and blood isn’t all that romantic unless you have a vampire fetish. Which is far more common than you might think, if the Internet is to believed. (And who doesn’t believe the Internet?)

But, Chris, you say, red is also the color of roses, and what is more romantic — or expensive — than a dozen of those crimson beauties, their petals open like an inviting pair of ruby lips?

This brings me to my point. Well, to one of my points, anyway. What is so inherently romantic about a rose? Who was it who decided that this particular flower was joined so intimately with our belief in love?

Scottish poet Robert Burns — “Bobby” to his friends — famously wrote, “O my Luve’s like a red, red rose/ That’s newly sprung in June,” but the rose/love connection goes back much farther than the eighteenth century. It stretches all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who equated the flower with the goddess of love.

But roses have thorns, and thorns cut and scratch and poke. Roses also die. Now, depending on your significant other, maybe your love cuts and scratches and pokes, too. And if your relationships aren’t all that stable (or if they cut and scratch and poke too much), some of them likely die. Not literally, of course, unless you’re a graduate of the Hannibal Lecter School of Lovemaking.

Still, a beautiful, sharp object with a limited shelf life doesn’t sound all that romantic to me, so I’m introducing a new metaphor for love.

From now on, my love is like a mossy rock.

Think about it. A rock is strong and stable. Rocks are found in all climates and cultures; so, like love, they’re universal.

Moss is a living thing, far more hardy than a rose, so it better represents a stable relationship. It is green, representing life. Moss also grows on a rock, the way two partners grow on one another. After all, the nail biting or nose picking that seems so weird in the early days of a relationship becomes rather endearing in later years.

So this year, I’m bypassing the expensive roses and candies and cards to give my wife a gift straight from the heart — a new metaphor for love created especially for

her. That’s right, she’s getting a mossy rock.

If you want to beat my time and give a similar gift, borrowing my explanation the way Christian stole the words of Cyrano de Bergerac to woo the beautiful Roxane, go ahead. You’d be smart to do it this year, though. By next Valentine’s Day, I expect the cost of rocks and moss to triple because of the demand. I’m nothing if not a believer in capitalism.

However, in these early days of the rose/rock transition, don’t be surprised if your special someone is less than thrilled to receive a stone in lieu of flowers. It took millennia for the rose to win its place in our hearts, so I expect it might take, oh, two or three years for my more-fitting metaphor to replace it.

In the meantime, though, expect that your love might take your gift of a rock for granite...er, granted.

Ouch. Love hurts.

Originally published in The Alliance Review in February 2014. 

All the sins of literature

There’s child abuse in "Huckleberry Finn."

Regicide in "Macbeth."

Profanity in "The Catcher in the Rye."

Suicide in "Things Fall Apart."

Domestic violence in "The Color Purple."

Rape in "A Streetcar Named Desire."

Gang violence in "A Most Beautiful Thing."

Adultery in "The Awakening."

Grave robbing in "Frankenstein."

Incest in Greek mythology.

Drag racing in "The Outsiders."

Witchcraft in "The Wizard of Oz."

I’ve taught using every one one of these works in the last 20-plus years, and never have I suggested that students partake in any of the above activities. Nor has any student, to my knowledge, ever murdered a king, joined a gang, or taken part in any of the other behaviors just because they’ve read about them.

Addressing tough topics in school isn’t the same as advocating them. Most kids understand this. Some adults, apparently, do not.

Case in point: In Tennessee recently, the McMinn County school board voted 10-0 to remove Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, from an eighth-grade unit on the Holocaust because it has a few cartoon depictions of naked animals and a handful of swear words.

Spiegelman’s book recounts the story of his interviews with his father, who in turn tells his harrowing story of survival in Poland and Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and 1940s. It’s not a pleasant read, and it’s not supposed to be. We are talking about the Holocaust, when more than 6 million Jews were murdered.

The author depicts all the people in the book as animals. The Jews are mice; the Germans, cats. It’s a brilliant metaphor and a powerful testimony, worthy to stand alongside other essential works of Holocaust literature, including Elie Wiesel’s “Night.”

A story by David Corn in Mother Jones explains how the board decided to ban Spiegelman’s book. According to Corn’s recap of the meeting, one member admits he hasn’t read “Maus,” and suggests that the volume is “only the tip of the iceberg” in terms of allegedly inappropriate material.

Another board member suggests works like “Maus” could be part of an attempt to “normalize sexuality, normalize nudity, and normalize vulgar language.” He also hints that such books are a way “to indoctrinate somebody’s kids,” as though teachers in Tennessee are chortling at their desks as they hatch a subversive plot to destroy America’s youth by teaching the truth about the Holocaust.

And children need to learn that truth. The U.S. Millennial Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Survey in 2020 revealed that “11% of U.S. Millennial and Gen Z respondents believe Jews caused the Holocaust” and some 59% believe something similar to the Holocaust could happen again.

(Conspiracy proponents ready to pounce on mask and vaccine mandates as contemporary examples should sit right back down. No valid comparison can be made between curbing a pandemic and killing millions.)

Focusing on only nekkid mice and a few swear words misses the point of “Maus,” in the same way that focusing on only the bloody daggers in “Macbeth” misses the larger themes of unchecked ambition and crushing guilt in the rest of the play.

Far from normalizing negative behaviors, works that deal with challenging subjects provide teachable moments. After my class read “A Streetcar Named Desire,” I invited the director of the local domestic violence shelter to speak. She demonstrated how Stanley Kowalski, the male protagonist, met most of the characteristics of an abuser. At least one student recognized behaviors in a current relationship that met the criteria for emotional abuse. It was a realization that happened because of the intersection between literature and real life.

I doubt McMinn County teachers are drilling down on the nudity and swearing in “Maus,” and I doubt their students are titillated by cartoon drawings, situated as they are within a non-fiction horror story and guided to an understanding by professional educators.

Take any passage of almost any book, story or play out of context and you could question its suitability. Stitch all those passages together and you could reach the troubling – and erroneous – conclusion that U.S. schools are awash in blood, gore and smut.

The Tennessee board reached a similar mistaken conclusion about “Maus.” Let this be a lesson to all voters to elect sensible people to boards of education, candidates who support high-quality literature and don’t just go looking for dirty pictures and words.

Or, at the very least, board members who will read an entire book before deciding to ban it.

Everyday Olympic events for the rest of us

This first ran in The Alliance Review last July for the Summer Olympics, but works just as well for the Winter Games. 

Tired of the usual Olympic events? Try these lesser-known competitions:

The Scoop — Schillig is in good form today. He’s got the dog on a leash in one hand, the pooper-scooper bag in the other. He goes down for the canine deposit, but the bag’s covering only three of his fingers. He’s bending, bending, got it! Nothing left behind in the grass! It’s a clean grab, but that open finger — what a mess! The sacrifices these athletes make for their sport!

Propane Estimation — The US team has no idea how much fuel is left in that tank with a tray full of hot dogs and hamburgers to grill and a table full of hungry people. It’s going to be close. The flames are sputtering — they just went out! That burger’s no better than rare! All the spare tanks are empty too! What a tragedy! Looks like a fourth-place finish.

The Multitask — Team USA is texting while weaving their cart through the store, talking on speakerphone and snagging a six-pack of craft beer off the top shelf. Yikes! They just sideswiped an old man on a scooter — that’ll cost them precious seconds. Looks like the Canadians are going to make it to the checkout first! Wait, they were distracted by the candy bars. Team USA just sent the text and coasted to the register. That’s good for the gold!

Straight Arrow — Schillig is back for his second event. The goal here is to keep his mowing lines straight with no deviations and no swerving into the neighbor’s lawn. Oh, no! He has the blade set too low; the mower is clogging. Geez, the belt just snapped — for the third time this summer! Those repairs will cost almost as much as the mower itself. What a disappointing finish. Look, he’s crying tears of frustration. What a pity.

Couch Hypocrisy — This is a sedentary event, with the winners determined by how ridiculously they can complain. There’s a lot of griping on the court, but mostly low quality. Hold on! That jerk is criticizing elite gymnast Simone Biles for withdrawing from competition — and the last time he did anything athletic was a split when he slipped on ice taking out the trash. Oh, yeah, that’s podium-worthy hypocrisy there! I’d say he’s sewn up the gold with that performance!

Suitcase Stuffing — Vacation is only hours away and clothes are still in the washer and dryer. Team USA already has the suitcase filled, and they haven’t even added the toiletries. And how are they ever gonna get shoes in there? Where’s the carry-on? What, it’s already exceeded the airline’s weight limit? O, the humanity!

QAnon Conspiracies —Alien lizards in the government? That’s so 2019! No way they’ll medal with that hoary theory. Biden and Harris arrested and Trump reinstated as president on Aug. 13? But wouldn’t that make Pelosi president? That’s even more far-fetched than reptiles in the Capitol! The entire team is disqualified. That’s OK, they didn’t believe the Olympics were really happening anyway, just that they were being faked from a Hollywood soundstage. The entire event is scratched!

Pate Pass — It’s Schillig’s third and final event. Which competitor can reflect the most light? Schillig has an edge here: The poor guy is completely bald. It looks like he oiled his head with vegetable shortening. Here comes the sun from behind the cloud, Schillig races onto the field, the rays are striking that chromedome, bouncing off and … Holy moly, he just incinerated the judges’ eyes, right through their sunglasses! That’s good not only for the gold, but for a new world record! Team USA! Team USA!

Self-checkout lanes are a test of love

Want a great test for the strength of your marriage?

Try the self-checkout lanes at your favorite grocery store.

The do-it-yourself checkout option began for those with more confidence than items in their cart, for those stalwart customers who believed they could scan and pay faster on their own than by placing their trust in employees who run registers for a living.

Eventually, when both technology and customers proved capable (and when it became obvious that a UPC scanner, unlike an hourly employee, would never ask for bathroom breaks or cost-of-living increases), employers started replacing traditional checkouts with more DIY stations.

I generally avoid such lanes. If I have to wait in line a few more minutes for a traditional cashier, I rejoice. The break allows me to play on my phone (“Word Cookies” is my current BFF), see whatever Lady Gaga or the Kardashians are up to the covers of various tabloids, or just stare into space, tapping my foot to the elevator-muzak version of “Stairway to Heaven.”

My wife, however, believes differently.

This is where the marriage test comes into play.

She will ask, ever so sweetly, if I really want to wait in line, pointing to the sole open register among twenty-six lanes at our local Big Box Emporium, where an octogenarian customer methodically unloads a year’s worth of mac-and-cheese and Mucinex for the septuagenarian employee who drags each item slowly across the scanner, while somewhere in the distance a dog howls plaintively and grass grows in graveyards.

Wouldn’t it be ever-so-much better, my wife keens, if we used the self-checkout lane? We can be out long before we would even reach the conveyor belt in the traditional lane.

This is a dangerous offer. In the early days of self-checkouts, we naively sojourned there, but my wife’s just-take-charge attitude, coupled with my disdain for criticism, led to serious fights when she accused me of bagging too quickly and I accused her of scanning too slowly. We soon ended up with a cart half-filled with paid and unpaid items (and no idea which half was which) and a flashing light above the register, calling attention to the fact that we were, in fact, too stupid to self-pay.

But this was years ago. Now, we have brokered a certain measure of peace at the self-checkout, mostly because we have learned to specialize. Under our new, assembly-line system, my wife takes items out of the cart, I scan and bag them, and she puts the bags into a second cart, one which we procure solely for the purpose of maintaining our equanimity.

Still, though, I recognize this is a dangerous time for our marriage, and that I’m always just one can of peas or box of corn flakes away from a major meltdown.

So when she asks which line I prefer, I always counter with the same question: “How strong is our marriage today?”

Her answer is always the same: “I think we can do this. I’ll be good.”

I make no such promises, but I usually am. I’d like to believe I’ve matured in the same way DIY technology has.

Some couples go to expensive therapists. Others take part in trust-falls or play the gratitude game or go on long weekend retreats to reconnect. My wife and I just go to Walmart — save money, live better, strengthen your marriage. If that’s not the store’s motto, it should be.

Anyway, in a few years, we’ll be arguing about who has to pick up the groceries on the front porch after the drone has dropped them there.

Thanks to technology, this too shall pass.

This was originally published in The Alliance Review in May 2017. In the five years since, I have become more comfortable with self-checkout lines, to the point of preferring them over lines with a traditional cashier. Go figure. Also, the drone on the porch thing is closer to reality in some places, huh? 

The Circle of Life injures a real-life cat

People ask my wife and me how we’re doing as empty nesters.

Better than the cat, I respond, because he’s suffered a concussion as a result of our daughter’s departure.

It happened during a rousing reenactment of Disney’s “Lion King.” (Hey, what does YOUR family do for kicks?)

You know the scene where the ugly monkey hoists lion cub Simba into the air while the “Circle of Life” plays? The song uses a lot of authentic dialect (“Ingonyama nengw’ enamabala,” it repeats), but in our house we sing, “Wing-ah-nada! Hey! Wing-ah-nada!” Roughly translated, this means “We don’t know the words. Hey! We really don’t know the words!”

My wife was playing the monkey (not often I get a free pass for saying THAT) and lifted Oliver the cat into the air, chanting our homemade lyrics to much acclaim, right up to the point where she forgot that the ceiling fan was turned on, making the soundtrack more like “Wing-ah-nada! Hey! Wing-ah-THUMP!”

Dazed, Oliver stumbled under a bed, likely seeing stars. Although as an indoor cat, he doesn’t know what stars look like, so maybe he saw dancing clumps of kitty litter or pink salmon hairballs instead.

The whole Lion King reenactment was a tribute to our daughter, who often raised cats to the ceiling to worship at the altar of her dread lord, Walt Disney – long may he remain cryogenically frozen in the sewers beneath the Magic Kingdom! But she never ground up an animal in the fan blades.

Before you call the Humane Society to report animal cruelty, be advised that because we own four cats and a dog, the SPCA already has a branch office in the basement, which irritates me because their employees use all the hot water before I get a shower.

We believe the cat is concussed – is that a real word? Spell check didn’t reject it – because of his odd behavior later in the week. Maybe we can chalk it up to his confusion at having to sleep alone at the foot of the bed he used to share with my daughter before she selfishly decided to go to college, make something of herself and not spend the rest of her life sponging off her parents in the technological wonderland she calls her bedroom.

(Really, what sort of punishment is it to send kids to their rooms that are tricked out with high-speed Internet connections, mp3 players stuffed with music, and cable TV? “You’re forcing me to watch ‘America’s Next Top Model’ on a 19-inch screen? I hate you, Dad, I hate you!”)

So Oliver is sleeping solo, and he is so starved for human contact (or so confused from his scrambled egg brain beating) that he actually deigned to rub against me – me, the guy he usually runs from like poison because I’m on “eye booger” patrol, charged with the unenviable task of wiping dried black stuff out of his tear ducts with a warm washcloth. If you want to endear yourself to a cat, that’s not the way to do it.

When he rubbed against me, a move I took for approval, I petted him and told him things would be OK. He hissed at me and ran off. It was a high-water mark in our relationship.

Nevertheless, I’m feeling so kindly disposed toward him that I’m looking for a cat-sized football helmet. Because my wife is getting that look – the one that means she’s missing our daughter – so it won’t be long before she’ll take another stroll down memory lane with a “Circle of Life” encore.

Don’t judge her too harshly. It’s the empty nest syndrome again. I just hope she uses a stuffed animal this time, or that the SPCA guy in the basement gets all the fan blades taken down before the next King of the Jungle is christened.

I'm not sure when this originally appeared in The Alliance Review, but I'd guess it was around 2010 or so.