So my kids go to two different locations every morning. The 4-year-old (Erik) is going to a Catholic preschool for in-person masked-up learning, and the 1-year-old (Desi) is goes to his nanny. More often than not I have been picking them up with the bicycle and the little chariot thing that they ride in. Sometimes it's the only time I get outside, and I figure life is going really, really suck when it starts getting cold out soon. Also, there are times where it's my only exercise for the day. It's about 8 miles there and back, and that's no easy task when you're pulling all that weight. 

I got some of it down to a science. One thing that has been working out great is using one of those exercise belt/fanny pack deals with the water bottle holsters. I found one that will fit my mammoth phone, my Costanza wallet, my janitor style keys, and a Covid mask or two. I never feel good about stuff in my pockets when I'm biking. And then one trick I figured out is I could get a wire from my phone to a speaker tucked into one of the water bottle holsters, with that water bottle at home. Voila! Except when the 4-year-old wants to tell me about random things along the way so I have to pause the jams - such as jeeps and muscle cars that he has spotted on the road. 

There are those days where Erik starts screaming because Desi is pinching him, but then there are other days where they're nice and quiet, I look back there, and Erik is holding Desi's hand. And that's just the best. 

Within the span of one day, I learned just how poorly educated some inner city children are through these two situations:

1. The kids were reading Ray Bradbury's "All Summer In a Day," a story in which there are children living on the planet Venus, where it rains every day and the sun never comes out.  One girl, Margaret is fascinated by the sun and spends all her time thinking about it, but the other asshole kids thought it would be funny to lock her in the closet.  And while in the closet she misses that one time the sun actually made an appearance.  Moral of the story: Kids are fricking mean.  Even on other planets.

So back to Chicago, one girl in the class asks, "So are there really schools on Venus?"

The girl that asked this is in the 7th grade, so roughly 13-years-old.  I had to just answer the question and let her no that there isn't any life on Venus or on any other planet other than Earth in our solar system.  But you know, it's good she asked because now she knows.  It's totally not her fault that her parents somehow raised her thinking there are schools on the planet Venus.

2. Some 5th graders (around 10-years-old) were talking about the movie "Friday."  I said to them that it's wild that a movie from 1995 is still popular with them.  One girl said, "No, it's not from 1995.  Then why is it in color?"

Wow.  She actually thinks all movies made before roughly 2000 were black and white.

Again, the only way to handle this is to just clear that up for her without making anyone feel stupid.  They're just kids, after all.  Both pretty great kids that just need more people around them being better examples, making them read, and having conversations with them about things other than reality television.

There's still hope, people.  Maybe we just need to be more progressive like those schools on Venus . . .

Vote Early and Vote Often For the Reverend.

I like to think that I have always had some influence over people with the use of my charm and wit.  This dates back to the time in the 5th grade where our class had an election to vote in the primary election for the president of the United States.  During the weeks of campaigning, we made posters to hang up and tried to get others to vote for our guy, mine being Jesse Jackson.  I'm not sure why I chose him for my horse in this race, but I guess I have always just liked Black people.  If it is proof you are looking for, I had a Black Cabbage Patch Doll and my favorite G.I. Joe was Roadblock.

Looking back, it was rather racist that being the Black G.I. Joe, he rapped his dialog.

After the votes had all been added up, our teacher asked us why so many of us voted that way, and the students couldn't really put it into words.  I kicked back in my chair, folded my hands behind my head and smiled, loving what I had created.

"I need that 11-year-old white kid vote!"

I have always used my influence for good instead of evil, and I have had mixed results over the years, but perhaps my greatest achievement will always be convincing 20 to 30 upper-middle class, suburban 11-year-old white kids with conservative parents to vote for the Reverend Jesse Jackson. 

Friday afternoon was just about the nicest day of the year in Chicago, and I thought I would ride my bike down the lakefront to coach first base for a friend’s elementary boys softball game. The kids were all friendly and having a good time, but one thing was clear: there are a lot of city kids who don’t know the rules of baseball. As a child of suburbia, we had all the rules down pat by the end of the 2nd or 3rd grade. With these kids, it was nearly impossible to teach most of them that you can overrun first base, or run through the bag, as we used to say. They were slamming on the breaks and nearly falling down as a result. Taking a lead off was also confusing for them, and we were getting picked off of first like all day long. They would usually get back to the base on time when the pitcher threw over there, but sometimes they would start their lead off again while the first baseman still had the ball, and they would promptly get tagged out. One kid got out to a couple steps for his lead off, turned to ask me a question, and failed to see that the pitcher was throwing over there to pick him off, which he did. We were all having a laugh, but not at all at his expense, and the kid was laughing at himself too. More important than whether or not they look like the Yankees out there is that students are getting outside, they’re being exposed to a new game that they may end up enjoying, and they are part of a team.

I got talking to the other school’s coach, and he said they only have seven eighth graders in their entire school. They had to put a fifth grader in the lineup to round out the team, and he was small even for a fifth grader. I thought for sure he was a batboy until I saw him come up to the plate and beat out a pretty hard hit grounder. Most likely due to enrollment, they will be closed at the end of the year. Yes, if the numbers are way down than I’m sure in many ways it makes sense to move those kids into a neighboring school, but if it’s such a failing school in the eyes of the bureaucrats, than why is it that there was a parent spectator for just about every boy on that team, and meanwhile the school I was coaching had zero parents watching for a school over enrolled at close to fifteen hundred students? What I saw there did not appear to have the makings of a failing school; It was a loving and supportive community with terrific kids and coaches who really cared. Their coach told me that it took him four seasons to win their first game, so if that doesn’t show commitment, I don’t know what does. Hell, they beat us something like seventeen to six.

To put in all that time, energy, and hard work day after day as a member of that staff only to have it all suddenly shut down on you has got to be hard to take, especially considering that the people who make the decisions about that building don’t know the first thing about the staff, parents, or kids in it – they just know about the data. Their coach said that the school is across from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s house. Chicago’s mayor seems big on closing down schools, but I think he should have taken in this ballgame on Friday to put a few faces to the numbers. After all, there are a lot of parents out there quite happy with their children’s public education, and they can’t all afford private schools, especially the ones Rahm’s kids attend.