$40

Reason is a human activity. God is infinite and I cannot describe that. So I do not personify God by declaring that he has a “reason” for doing anything. I will be judged by what is in my heart and how I treat circumstances, people, and God. It’s not important why stuff happens. What you do next is important. 

Howeverrrrr, something happened to me that screams things DO happen for a reason. It didn’t change my beliefs but it’s in my heart to this day and reminds me that God is everything. 

In October of 1987, our family was in a pit. All our lives we had prepared well for the possibility of such a pit so it was more about despair than desperation. Nonetheless it was a world-on-your-shoulders-scared-shitless feeling. We were both unemployed, both seriously ill, living in the back room of her parents’ house, one child, eight months pregnant, and stone cold broke. The first bright spot on the way back up was a part time job at Sears. It paid above minimum wage, twenty hours a week, and a night shift that would not interfere with substitute teaching. Thank you, Jesus. 

Within two weeks we moved into an apartment and a few weeks after that decided it was time to tithe something. However, I was only getting ten days of substitute teaching a month and had nothing to cut out. I said to Sandy let’s pick a small goal and have faith. Having a carrot on the stick, even a small carrot, would at least get something started. We came up with $40 a month. That was only 4% of our income but we had to start somewhere. I prayed about it all day. 

That night at the shift change there it was on my desk, a pink slip, an actual pink slip telling me to report to the conference room. There were several new hires all holding the same slip. I was so disappointed, not frantic or stressed, just very disappointed. This was the perfect second job and everything had been looking up. The manager said, “Sears is raising its minimum wage. No one else is affected by the increase so you are strictly forbidden to tell co-workers. Your pay is being raised fifty cents an hour.” The four function school teacher calculator in my head from all that grade averaging told me the monthly increase before he even finished his sentence. It was…..wait for it……$40.

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. - James Thurber

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. - unknown

Consider what each soil will bear, and what each refuses. - Virgil

The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes. - Galileo Galilei

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition. - William Arthur Ward

Coming Home

Some sailors in the squadron ran their households while on sea duty as if they were only gone for the weekend….writing a check for the light bill from 12,000 miles away. The rest of the family men had to put certain things out of our mind or it would greatly affect our performance and safety. We prepared our affairs, possessions, and loved ones before we left and then just let them go. Wives essentially became single mothers. We thought about them in a sort of helpless manner avoiding the details about what might be happening back home. This was a time when wives had a great need to express those details. Coming home after six or nine months was a shock to our system....an abrupt end to this emotional and perceptual freeze-frame. Our wives had different hairstyles, our babies turned toddlers strained to remember this man, someone else had repaired our cars, and the furniture was out of place. Yet we were very much the same person in the same place we had been before we left. We had counted the days, remembering what we were returning to, only to find that life had pressed on while our memories were stuck in a time capsule….and for a while….a little homesick even after we returned.

The worst things: To be in bed and sleep not, to want for someone who comes not, to try to please and please not. - Egyptian Proverb

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night. - Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901-1978)

Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes. - Jim Carrey

Oh yes we did.

They were the most lovable bunch of kids ever. I taught all three grade levels my year at Boerne Middle School (’83-’84). My one sixth grade class and homeroom was a crazy mix, including ESL students, all boys, that didn’t know a lick of English. They were the children of undocumented migrant workers whom ranchers paid $2 for a 12 hour day. Made my blood boil. They were tiny, the darkest brown, sat in the back, hunched over, and only looked sideways to giggle at each other. The rules in their world were to never look white people in the face and never speak to them. Just do what they’re told. When I spoke to them they just looked down until I went away. Not much science learning. Sometimes they giggled too much. My room buddy, Sam Champion, had a real human skull on our desk that was wired back together and hinged at the jaw and cranium. His name was Charlie or Carlos. When the giggling got to be too much I put my hand in the back of Carlos like a puppet and flapped his jaw while saying in an old witch’s voice, “¡Callete!” That was all it took to restore order in the back row for about a week. You couldn’t help but love those little boys. 

The rest of the crew was a real mix of personalities. There was a boy suffering from a liver or kidney problem that made his skin yellow. He had the most positive attitude about everything. Very infectious. The attitude I mean. I don’t remember his name but he needs one for the sake of this story. We’ll call him Louie. My favorite student was a tall girl named Rachel Reibe. She was so confident, talkative and lived to debate anything with me. Even when she ran her ship aground, she just backed it up and stoked the furnaces. She was friendly and sincere. I loved seeing her come through the door. She gave me a sort-of-selfie of us at field day. Rare.

Field day at the end of the year was all about sporting events and much to my chagrin, the teams were the homerooms. Ugh. I would say we spent the day getting clobbered but it was worse than that as I tried to explain how the games were played and who was supposed to do what. Not only was English a barrier for many, they had never played or even heard of most of the games. The rest of the team didn’t have much more experience and even less physical coordination. We had fun but the final game was the biggest challenge. 

It was supposed to be softball but I am fairly certain we had to use a hard baseball. We were up to bat first. No one got any lumber on the ball so we just put kids on base and let them run with the pitch. There would be two or three kids on a single base holding hands or they would take off running, for no reason, in the wrong direction. So we switched them to the field. Not a single kid had brought a glove. Most of them didn't own one. I didn’t want any of them missing out so I spread their skinny little butts all over the field like oleo on toast. If the other team hit a grounder, our players just watched the ball roll between them. If it came toward them they scootched away. I finally convinced them to pick the ball up but instead of throwing it they ran to their best friend and handed it to them. By now the score was a zillion to nothing in the bottom of the first. I was ready to pack it in when Louie begged me to let him play. I had not put him on the field because he was four feet tall and seriously fragile. I would not be the teacher that got Louie hit in the face with a line drive. I said OK, but just one out. The batter was right handed so I put Louie on the opposite side between first and second. Jiminy, why didn’t I put him in the outfield? The batter hit a screaming one hop grounder right at Louie’s face. Then something happened we never could have imagined. He whipped off his oversized baseball hat, fielded the ball with it, and threw it to first base. The batter never took a step. I shouted, “We won! We won!” and the team took up the chant. They tried to pick up Louie to carry him off which scared me way more than the ground ball. As we ran away to tell the rest of the school I could hear our opponent exclaiming, “Hey! We were winning 28 to nothing!”. But no….we won. Oh yes we did.

What I am looking for is a blessing not in disguise. - Jerome K. Jerome

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else. - Margaret Mead

When it's nice, do it twice.

I had no idea that whole chickens are often sold with the organs returned to the cavity….gizzards, livers, whatever. We were grilling for Sandy’s family on the back porch. I flipped the raw gizzards to our dog, Nova. Isn’t that what you do with them?  You can’t pay me to eat organ meat. I burned everything else. I have never been any good with grills. It was the first and probably the last time we had the family cookout at our place. But we had fun as usual.

Sandy, Butch, and I went somewhere in the brown Ford pick-up. Butch rode shotgun and Nova sat on the floorboard with his head on Sandy’s lap. Just as we were driving under the freeway, Nova calmly refunded his lunch. Sandy was wearing shorts and her legs were closed so it made this slimy pool of up-chuck with a team of gizzards doing the back stroke. She screamed and Butch joined her. I said, “Cover your face and don’t open your legs! We are right in front of a gas station with a water hose.” Butch was out the window up to his armpits gasping for air. In the twenty seconds it took me to turn in and jump out, Nova slurped up every gizzard and every drop of barf with his tongue darting in and out of her legs. All she could do was howl with her hands over her face. I think Nova was starting to howl with her. I looked in the cab but it was over. There was Sandy all clean and shiny with dog lick, Butch still moaning, and Nova wagging his tail.

Dogs are a hoot.

Never have more children than you have car windows. - Erma Bombeck

Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else. - Will Rogers

Say What?

In forty nine years as a student and teacher I never said a cuss word in the classroom. It’s simple, really….I never heard a single curse word out of my parents, Boy Scout leaders, Methodist leaders, community center leaders, teachers, or neighborhood parents. As for children back then, things like cussing was reserved for the locker room when adults were not looking. Even as Mr. Collie cussed at Dan or Joe in my absence he addressed me with extreme civility. The enlisted Navy required every third word to be the F word but by then I could turn it on or off at will. To this day I’ve never heard Sandy or the girls cuss even once.

So, what happened that spring day in 1982? It was not a cuss word but it was vulgar. It was a doozie. I took a class of ninth graders down to the empty cafeteria for a demonstration on the wide open linoleum floor. In those days there were very few designated learning disabilities, a term itself not widely used. This class was in the catch all category of “slow learners”. I was squatting down attempting to demonstrate and simplify a science principle when I looked up and only the girls were watching. The boys’ heads were on swivels...like dogs at the park that had to sniff everything. We had discussed that problem so many times that I just sighed and said, “We’re going back upstairs. You guys are just jackin’ off!” My gut clinched when I heard the words come out of my mouth. Their eyes were as big as saucers as they snapped to attention. In the pregnant pause that followed I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. Then from the back row came a timid male voice saying, “Mr. DeBord, I’m not jacking off.” Did not see that one coming. It took everything I had not to crack up as I replied, “Then pay attention!” And they did.

I’m sure the reason they shaped up was because that was probably the kind of last chance language they heard at home when they had gone too far. As for that anonymous ninth grader....well....I have to assume that somewhere in his past he was caught red handed.

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. - George Carlin

What did he say?

At Trinity Methodist, my smallish to medium sized church over in Leon Valley, we decided to raise money for a wireless head set. Our sanctuary was partly in the round so the pastor, if he ditched the pulpit, had to look several directions and swing the microphone cord like a nightclub act. It frequently tangled with his cumbersome robe. The excited lay leaders raised the funds, installed it and everyone was there on the morning of its unveiling. The pastor beamed at the congregation, opened his mouth, and blared at top volume "You mother fuckers get out of my sight! You stupid assholes are always showing up on Sunday! Just go home!" He stood there motionless, mouth agape, his face frozen in a terrified expression. Children covered their mouths, adults sucked air, and the elderly tapped their hearing aids loudly asking, "What did he say?” The blue spew continued while lay leaders leapt to their feet and clamored to shut the system off. The men had chosen the wrong channel and a trucker on Interstate 10 was abusing the airwaves on his citizen band. Apparently, he was not a fan of Sunday drivers. I am positive I will never again witness such perfect timing. Old Nick wins one for the visiting team.

I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die. - unknown

Teaching the Refugees

An excerpt from "Teaching the Refugees" - They were educated and possessed unrivaled work ethics. Every convenience store on Gessner was clerked by a South Vietnamese doctor, lawyer, or professor now working for minimum wage. Everyone in the family worked. Within a few years they bought the businesses. Many in the community hated them because of the war or their success or just because. 

I was given refugee children without a hint of support from the district. Our two languages may as well have been Martian and Venusian. Their names were short with few letters but still I could not sound them out properly. Many of them were Roman Catholic so I looked for Biblical names that we could both pronounce. On their first day, I pointed at the student and slowly tried simple names with a “what do you think?” expression after each. The first name they repeated with a smile became their new unofficial moniker. I passed these on to their other teachers which made it easier to discuss their progress. They never spoke a word, raised a hand, caused a problem, or asked for help. The only thing they did was make perfect 100% grades on everything! They carried small paperback Vietnamese-English dictionaries and furiously turned the pages as I spoke or wrote on the board. Most of the class paid little attention to the situation but I had one student who was the poster child for all the ignorance and prejudice toward the refugees. He made comments using a vernacular that could only have come from his parents at the dinner table. He never worked at learning so on test days his regret turned to resentment and anger. During the silence of one exam, he pointed at “Ruth” and bellowed, “Why do they get to look up words during a test? That’s not fair.” I walked over to his desk with heavy copies of a dictionary and science textbook, dropped them onto his table with a thump and said, “Knock yourself out. Nothing would thrill me more than to see you look up an answer.”

I doubt we taught them as much as they taught us. I learned that as happy as they were to be alive and have this opportunity, this was not what they dreamed of. They had been violently displaced and silently mourned the life and loved ones they had lost.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. - Albert Einstein

Oh Dark Thirty

Veterans Day should be more significant to me. The nation has turned troop recognition into a past time but for me it seems strangely impersonal. We were treated differently when I served. We rarely wore our uniforms in public. No one here today knew me then. No one knows my rating or in which branch I served. Only one person all day, a student, addressed me as a veteran even though I was wearing a large ribbon with the word on it. No friend or relative, not even my ex-wife who was my partner in service, dropped a note of recognition. And I can’t think of a decent word to say about my VA treatment. All that said, I don't mind. Tracking Soviet nuclear subs is not what I remember the most. What lives with me is how the experience changed my personal life. Some are good (living abroad), some are bad (discovering epilepsy), some are ugly (standing night watch on the suicide ward on Treasure Island), and some are most curious. Concerning the latter, when I get up early for work and leave the house before there is any morning light, a small part of my guts are back at RTC Orlando. I smell something that is not there...the peculiar odor of the metal paint pens used to stencil our clothing, ditty, and sea bags. My head is a bit heavy as if I pulled the middle watch....wandering alone in the cool, dark air without much direction, waiting for eight bells.

So I guess Veterans Day for some is all about serving our country. At various times today I felt that. But when the alarm goes off every morning at "oh dark thirty" it's way more personal.

"Tattoo, Tattoo, lights out in five minutes." - (uncredited voice)