Commence Reacting, Coronavirus Class of 2020

Thank you for that warm introduction, Dr. Principalperson. And thank you for your bravery. Some would consider it pretentious of non-medical professionals such as yourself to still want to be addressed as “doctor” during these pandemic times.

What did you say, Dr. P? Huh?

Oh, seems I’ve muted everyone’s microphones for my portion of the Zoom graduation ceremony.

See that, my dearest beleaguered faculty, our hardest-working custodial staff, and most of all, you -- The Coronavirus Class of 2020. The ability to click a button and shut up your alleged superiors is just one feature of COVID-19 life that’s not too shabby.

Now let us ponder that phrase: “alleged superiors.”

To Each Generation of Students Comes the Need to Walkout

I’ve been asking my children about the National School Walkout planned for Wednesday, and they don’t seem excited about it — my questions or this demonstration. 

There’s much debate among their peers about what the walkout aims to achieve, they said, and there’s much more resignation that, regardless, it will achieve nothing. 

Lucky for them, I’ve got experience as a successful high school protester.

A Higher Education in Going Broke

These graduates spent so much on their education that they could not even afford pants. (Photo by Melissa Johnson on Unsplash)

You’ve undoubtedly heard about the rising costs of higher education in the United States.

As the parent of “rising” high school senior and a man with a "falling" income who is fresh from a two-day, three-university, 600-mile tour of prospective Northeastern institutions, I CANNOT say this is true.

Only because the astronomical price tags have left me completely speechless.

Worst Commencement Speech Advice Ever

Another year of high school commencement ceremonies cometh and goeth, and againth I was not asked to speak at any of them.

Graduates, count your blessings.

I say this because, unlike the school benefactors and politicians whose words you didn't pay attention to because of your preoccupation in learning the whereabouts of the nearest keg party, I would have brought to your lectern one vital thing: experience. (And also the knowledge that it's a lectern and NOT a podium, but that's another speech.)

Nobody Expects the Spanish Imposition

Parents tread a thin line between success and failure at raising their children, and rare is the time when your own kid inks that line as clearly as our daughter Li’l Diva did.

This tale, like so many we were supposed to learn in school but cheated only ourselves by simply poring over the Cliff Notes, begins in medias res with a shocking discovery. Enter my wife -- concerned look, furrowed brow, a question tinged with accused failure on her lips.

"Have you ever had the drug talk with your daughter?" Note the girl is mine. Possession is nine-tenths the other parent's in troubled times.

To Whom It Concerns at My Son's New Middle School

If you do not find Excitable’s name on your sixth-grade class list, it's not for lack of trying.

I attempted to register him at least two and a half times.

And in two languages.

When the forms arrived in our mail this spring, I diligently verified the home address and phone numbers printed on them as instructed. They were correct, according to the phone book, as that's where I needed to check since I received the forms for someone else's boy at a different school.

In all fairness, the school also sent me a form with the right information on it. Behind the other boy's sheet I found one addressed to my son. In Spanish.

But that's why we have Google Translate.

A Very Saxy Interlude

When it came time for Excitable to select an instrument to learn at school this year, his initially mentioned an interest in the flute.

This would have been awesome if he had previously shown any interest in my dusty stack of Jetho Tull vinyl in the corner of our basement, or at least in this key scene in one of my all-time favorite movies:

Truth be told, his only interest came from knowing his sister had played flute in elementary school and that she might be able to help him fake his way through it.

Well, as long as it wasn’t the screech of the violin, I could live with it. However, I thought I’d drop one sly hint on someone else’s behalf.

“Your mom,” I said, “would LOVE it if you tried to learn the saxophone.”

My Son, The Dancing Machine

Our city’s afterschool program holds a year-end event to celebrate the children, raise funds and give thanks for another 9 months without one of its supervisors being carted off in a straight jacket. This is good.

Unfortunately, there is also a “show.”

The kids in each elementary school’s program put on a skit. Some years the skits relate to a theme like cultural diversity, saving the environment or the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (we have lots of corporate financiers in these here parts). The subject doesn’t really matter because the show usually takes place in an auditorium as cavernous as Sarah Palin’s brain cavity. In addition, the auditorium features minimal on-stage sound amplification and an audience consisting of a horde of baby brothers and sisters screaming for Sippy Cups while their parents whisper loudly to one another, "What are they saying up there?”

This year’s show was just as inscrutable, especially the section featuring the Things. We believe it had something to do with fire prevention and MC Hammer.

The highlight of this incoherentness was our son, Thing 2, shaking his booty like his 9-year-old life depended on it. Let’s go to the videotape:

Apparently, the boy is born to boogie. While emptying his backpack one night, My Love and I found a “birthday book” his classmates had put together for him. These are just four of the comments:

 

NOTE: These are all from girls. Uncool’s son has got it goin’ on!

Then there was the report card conference I had with his teacher. The boy is an excellent student, good classmate and “quite the dancer,” she said. “And he’s so serious about it.”

When asked about his passion for the disco floor, Thing 2 declined comment for this post. Instead, he thought he’d just show you:

(Sorry. YouTube won’t let me embed the video because it uses a licensed song, so go to http://youtu.be/HBpVmdtCjxA to view it.)

The Graduate

She hastens down the aisle to Vivaldi. Joins in the chorus of voices singing In My Life and Lean on Me, her eyes and head swiveling with impatience.

Her name is called. She stands and I resist yelling her name to show her how proud I am in front of the hundreds of others there because it will only embarrass her at the moment and me in the reassessment.

She’s not the star pupil, not by grace of her report card or test scores or attitude or ambition, but she’s as bright and luminescent as they come to me even when she greets my “Morning, Sunshine!” with a grunt or answers an inquiry about how something went with her default adjective: “good.”

She is the third to last student to leave the elementary school stage, the ironic end for one always in a hurry to finish every assignment every given to her.She refuses to pause and pose whenever I get near. In nearly every photo, she’s a blur.

Much like these six years gone by.

Congratulations, Thing 1. Please, take your time.

+ + +

As of this morning, our family needs less than $650 to meet our fundraising goal of $20,000 to help The Cure JM Foundation in its mission to find better treatments and a cure for juvenile myositis, the potentially devastating autoimmune disease Thing 1 continues to battle. Please be consider giving a small charitable, tax-free donation to help our daughter’s cause.

Visit our FirstGiving fundraising page to donate online by credit card or to find instructions on how to donate by mail-in check.

Thank you, all.

The Last First Day

Dear Little Girl I Used to Know,

You just started your first day of fifth grade. I know that in six hours this peace enveloping me at home for the first time in two months will again be pervaded by the forced studio laughter of the Disney Channel or the bubblegum reverberating from your boombox, but it will be different even though they are the same sounds we shared together all summer.

Today is your last first day of elementary school. You’ll have many more first days, academically speaking. There’s middle school and high school, definitely. Maybe a first day of college if I can ever convince you that reading is, while boring from the prospective of a 10-year-old fueled by the swooning pleas of Justin Beiber, still pretty essential to getting somewhere beyond definitively average.

But this was the last first day that I will ever walk you through those doors and into that alternative reality of homeroom.

The last one at which I’d personally hand your teacher a note about why your need sunscreen and a hat when outdoors while trying to quickly explain what sets you apart from all the other kids medically but pretty much not in any other detectable way.

The last one where you’d really be a little girl in more than just my memories. You and I and Mom all know this.

Middle school, sweetie, it changes a kid. Girls, especially. The meanest classmates I ever had were in middle school and most of them were girls. They say girls mature faster; I say they grow up too soon for their own good. We boys, we like to stay boys well past our due date. That, you’ll learn, can be a good thing. Within reason.

I wish I had a photo from your first day of preschool after we moved here. You were so excited to be with kids your own age again after two years of hanging around with nannies and nurses and doctors. You were only supposed to be in preschool for half a day, to get you acclimated to your new surroundings, but when I came to pick you up, you asked if you really had to leave all your new best friends in your whole wide 5-year-old world. So you stayed. Your brother, he cried when he saw me a few minutes later and pleaded to come home for lunch and a comforting heap of Nick Jr.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen you all pudgy faced and stuffed with the wonder you readily ate out of the everydayness of life. Remember that Disney Princess backpack from kindergarten? You transported a zillion paintings and drawings and scribblings home with you in that pink and purple nylon time capsule. You said you wanted to be an art teacher. I said even art teachers need to learn to read. You shrugged and Crayola-ed on.

This moment from the first day of first grade might have be the happiest you had all year. Through some quirk, not one of your 20-odd kindergarten classmates ended up in your new class. A bully refused daily to let you play “Family,” telling you you couldn’t even be the family’s dog. In class, several other kids always required too much of the teachers’ attention. You suffered for it. We laid on your bed one night way too late into the school year and you cried – one of the only half dozen times you ever cried from something other than physical pain. You hated school. Hated those kids. You didn’t fit in and you didn’t know why. I wish I had a better answer for you then. Or now.

Your brother joined you the next year. It was a battle of bad haircuts. His too short, yours all kinky because you wanted to sleep in tight braids so you could look all frilly for your debut in second grade. With a little extra help from teachers this year and some friendly faces in the desks next to yours, this was when things started to click for you.

And that bully? When you saw him on the playground, you put him in his place by chasing him around under the threat of being kissed. I laughed when you told me this then, but sweet thing, this was the first time you struck fear in my heart for the teen years ahead.

But note the crossed arms in the photo. The rebellion had begun.In third grade, you became the teachers’ pet. It made you confident. Maybe a bit too confident.

By the next year, while your brother still needed to physically push Mom and me out of his second-grade classroom to make him feel empowered about the whole going-to-school thing, you wanted us out of sight as soon as possible. You stopped kissing me goodbye when I’d drop you off at the side door in the morning this year. Some days, I couldn’t even get you to kiss our dog goodbye.

I knew it would happen. I knew it would hurt. I understand it, though, and I’m over it. That doesn’t mean I still can’t miss the way it used to be.

And here we are. We had to bargain with you for this last photo. Mom promised not to talk to anyone once inside the school and I promised not to cross the homeroom threshold.

We have officially become the enemy that loves you from a distance so your friends won’t see and that loves you quietly so the world won’t hear.

Loathe us publicly as you must, remember we are still your parents and we are always there for you, our sweet little Pumpkin Head: then, now and forever.

Daddy

The Law of School Supplies and Demand

One thing excited me most about the start of the school year as a child: new supplies.

Oh, the days of eager anticipation they created. I'd stare at the plastic coating on my pristine Mead Trapper Keeper, occasionally opening that then-cutting-edge Velcro closure with a rrrrrip that awoke visions of organizational and academic excellence to come.

Sigh.

Surprisingly, I didn't get beat up much as a kid.

If you want to try this approach to psyching up Junior for another year of our public education system failing to close the racial and socio-economically achievement gap . . . then you've already flunked! Peak school supply shopping season occurred in July. The retail world has been stocking up for Halloween for a week now.

Well, maybe you can make do with what remains in the clearance bins:

BACKPACKS
The most essential of all school supplies is the backpack, known in parenting circles as "the black hole into which nothing of substance escapes." Notes from the teacher, book reports, warnings about plague outbreaks -- at one time or another, someone will neatly place all of these items into your child's backpack. Yet when anyone looks inside only the following will be found: rotted fruit, Silly Bandz, crumpled art projects, Captain Underpants comics and several reams of individually folded loose-leaf sheets bearing illegible handwriting and/or drawings of, if you have a boy, flatulent dinosaurs or, for those with girls, incontinent puppies. (OK, that might actually be a rainbow instead of urine but it’s hard to tell. I blame government's lack of support for the arts.)

TIP: Find a backpack sturdy enough to withstand the inevitable and fruitless (unless you are actually seeking rotted fruit) shaking and prodding that will occur when trying to figure out the mystical sucking power of this time-space anomaly.

TIP: Avoid trendy styles. Your kid may beg for a Jonas Brothers pull-along in September, but come February, she'll be dying for something Justin Bieber-ish. You'll never go wrong buying items in solid colors or bearing geometric patterns. Also good are timeless cartoon characters, such as SpongeBob Squarepants, Scooby-Doo or Sarah Palin.

LUNCHBOXES
A panic broke out a few years back when someone found many popular soft vinyl lunchboxes contained lead. A manufacturer's claim that it added the lead to protect passersby from the mercury present in tuna fish sandwiches carried no weight.

Parents met opposition from conservation groups when switching to plastic bags (wastes oil!) or paper ones (kills trees!). They responded by making their kids buy the cafeteria's offerings. Then this past spring, ABC-TV aired footage on Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution of the chip and cheese sludge served in a West Virginia elementary school. American parents shrugged and said, "Meh -- what's a little lead?"

TIP: Look for a lunchbox lined with nylon or a non-PVC material, such as reinforced concrete. As with backpacks, seek styles that never go out of fashion. My favorites here are always classic cartoon characters. Nothing will satisfy a child more than opening an insulated bag plastered with the likeness of Glenn Beck and finding bologna.

HAND SANITIZER/BABY WIPES/PAPER TOWELS
If you don't have a school-aged child, then right now you are scratching your head. So am I. Why are you reading this far down?

Cleaning supplies have been the rage in recent years, what with outbreaks of swine flu, avian flu and underfunded school supply budgets. You won't find a shortage of any of these items in the store. However, you will tire of teachers' weekly reminders (assuming they are not placed in your child's backpack) of the need for your little one to bring in more of these cleansers to deal with the germ-riddled, mouth-breathers they take of your hands for six hours a day.

TIP: Save money on these items, not to mention clothing, by outfitting your child in a hazmat suit and gas mask. Buy a size up to allow for growth during the school year.

TIP: Better yet, consider home schooling.

* * *

Holy shiitakes, Padma! Cure JM is now No. 3 among organizations vying for a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant. We need to move up just one more spot and stay there through August to win that money for research into Thing 1’s juvenile myositis.

Please continue to vote every day (up to three times – by text, Facebook and a unique e-mail sign in) and blog, tweet and Facebook all you can to help us win.

Technorati Tags: school,education,Justin Bieber

Genuine

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
- Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams

I never knew Robert D'Aquila, the high school principal who died unexpectedly earlier this month at age 56. I only knew him as Mr. D'Aquila, the math teacher from my high school in the mid-1980s.

In the four years I spent at Stamford Catholic High School, he was never "the popular teacher" or "the cool teacher." Those types came and went during my time served. But he was always there, always paying attention and always quietly helping. That's what some of my classmates and I remember most about him as we reminisced via Facebook a few weeks ago.

Sean Barry wrote that he especially remembered the "pretty well rust-eaten" car his teacher -- and for a few years, neighbor -- drove during those years.

"I realize now how grand a gesture that car was," said Sean, a teacher and writer living in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Genuine teachers, the selfless, self-effacing, committed kind, are those who drive a car like that not from neglect, but from a sense of priority. What mattered to Bob was his school and his students. The rest appropriately would take care of itself."

Alan Chapell recalled the first meeting he had with Mr. D’Aquila while he was taking summer school classes in 1984 to try to get into Stamford Catholic after "literally failing out” of another local high school. After Alan had a run-in with another teacher and was kicked out of class, Mr. D'Aquila confronted him.

"He said, ‘When they decide whether they're going to accept you to SCHS, they're probably going to ask me what you were like in summer school. And I'm going to have to be honest. So, it's really up to you.' No drama. No judgments. Just an honest assessment that empowered me to decide my own future," wrote Alan, who credits Mr. D'Aquila for helping him boost his math SAT score enough to get accepted into the University of Connecticut. Alan graduated, went on to get a law degree, and now heads his own company in New York City that consults with interactive media companies on public policy issues.

"He was easily the best math teacher I have ever had," wrote Deborah Anzalone Esposito, whose father Joe Anzalone was the varsity football coach during most of our tenure. "He explained concepts very thoroughly and precisely without ever getting annoyed with the class for `not getting it.' He would simply smirk and go through it again."

Now a social studies teacher at a middle school in Seymour, Conn., Deb credits Mr. D'Aquila as being one of the people who most inspired her career choice.

"When I was a senior, he simply wrote (in my yearbook), ‘It's been a pleasure,' because I used to always tell him that he was my favorite teacher," she added.

As for me, I have three distinct memories of Mr. D'Aquila from my Green and Gold days.

I remember him always being the person operating the clock at our home basketball games: freshman to varsity, boys and girls.

I remember that whenever our Math Analysis class discovered that he had made a mistake in the calculations he chalked out on the blackboard, he would take a good hard look at his work then say, "Good! I did that to see if you were paying attention."

Finally, I remember one teacher, one of those more popular and cool ones that we students flocked to, telling a few of us how lucky we all were to have Mr. D'Aquila at our school. "He could easily get a job with IBM or GTE and be making real money," the teacher said, "but he chooses to be here because he believes in education and he believes in all of you. That's a gift."

For that gift, Mr. D'Aquila, many of your former students owe you a lifetime of thank-you cards.

* * *

What teacher do you remember most and why?

(photo: Dru Nadler / Stamford Advocate)

Avenging “Revenge – The Musical!”

Only hours after I take schools to task for putting parents through endlessly lame band concerts, plays and choir shows and I have already found salvation!

First graders belting out a reworked version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"!

Followed up with a rendition of The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” that would make Joe Strummer sit up in his grave and say, “Wot? That’s a rocker, mate!”

See and hear it all over at “The Greatest First Grade Program of All Time” on The Blog o’ Cheese. (The link now works. Sorry!)

The only thing it’s missing? Muppets:

The Muppets: Boheminan Rhapsody

Kudos to Cheeseboy for teaching his students some awesome tunes and to my blogger bud Everyday Goddess to pointing it out to me.

My Son, The Literal-Minded Math Genius

When it comes to telling me about her day at school, Thing 1 stays fairly tight-lipped because, as dictated by Angst and the Art of Pre-Teen Disgruntlement, that’s the proven way to produce a grunting sound most appropriate to respond to any inquiries by a parental unit.

Still, the unsolicited information spilling forth from her the other day did not put me into immediate Code Blue cardiac arrest. That’s because it involved tattling on her little brother.

“Thing 2 one came into my classroom today,” she said between handfuls of lime-flavored tortilla chips. “His teacher had to come get him out. He started crying. Is he in trouble? You should punish him. Now. Chop chop.”

In the basement, Thing 2 lay sprawled on the couch, thumbs spastically waging another violent Pokémon overthrow on his Nintendo DS.

“So, Thing 2, son,” I said as I tried not to inhale the stench rising from the dirt-encrusted shreddings masquerading as his socks. “What were you doing over in your sister’s classroom today.”

“We were doing math and I got all the answers right, so Ms. Kowalsky said I was so smart I should skip the next grade and go right to fourth.”

“And that’s what you did. You walked out of your second grade class and went down the hall to Thing 1’s class.”

“Yeeeees,” he said over the beeps, blips and electronic death wails.

This was a serious step up. During our parent-teacher conference in March, his teacher told me she usually only told him to “get out of here and go right to third grade.”

Which, of course, he also would do.

“You know, dude, she’s kidding you, right? It’s a joke.”

“No. It’s NOT!” He lowered the DS and made … eye contact.

“Yes, it is. C’mon, why would you want to skip all the way up to fourth grade aside from the fact you’d finally be among kids closer to your own gargantuan height.”

“Because I already know everything,” he said before setting his jaw and roaring with a steam engine’s force of conviction, “and I WANT TO MOVE ON WITH MY LIFE!”

Son, my, son. So big of body, big of brain and short of patience. Some day, you’ll want to reverse all the clocks whose hands you have whirled forward with childish haste, but you won’t be able to.

If you’re lucky, though, you may be able to slow them down just a tick or two.

In the meantime, I hope what I can teach you about long division and complex fractions will do the trick.

The Cops Are Onto Me

Remember my strategy for dealing with scofflaw drivers along the route The Things’ walk to school?

You don’t? Click that link above and read.

Too lazy to do that? OK, a hint – it’s brown and steaming and NOT made by Uncle Ben. Unless, of course, Uncle Ben is what I rename my dog.

Several people who do remember have asked whether I’ve had to employ my solution to these red-light runners, and the answer is happily (or sadly if you are a fan of high-concept comedy): “no.”

I’d like to take credit for improving the driving habits of my fellow residents. However, the truth is that the intersection in question has been partially closed for most of the time since September because our city is installing …

… wait for it …

sewers.

Alanis Morissette needs to write a new verse to “Ironic.” Donchathink?

This road closure came complete with an off-duty cop standing at the intersection as well as the standard florescent orange barrels, saw horses and “THIS ROAD CLOSED, MORON!” signs across the street entrance because, in my hometown, drivers tend to be nonbelievers.

And asshats.

This development, while making getting crosstown a bit of a hassle, had the upside eliminating the most dangerous of the two intersections on the Things literal path to higher education. As a result, I even started to let The Things walk to school unescorted. *sniff* They grow up so fast!

But wait!

There’s more.

One morning during early September, I decided to drive the kids over to school since I had some stuff to do around town that most definitely did not involve a strip club and a taco truck despite the body similarities between me and that guy on the grainy security footage. Anyhow, as we approached the exit from our neighborhood, we were waved through by the officer the private school across from us hires to mitigate the morning rush of crazed commuters, parents and school buses.

Except it wasn’t Officer Jim, who has been working that corner for at least the six years since we moved into the neighborhood.

As I made the turn, I slowed and rolled down the window to ask whether this new guy was replacing Officer Jim or just filling in.

The officer said Jim was in training that week and would be back on Monday.

Then he spies the Things in the back of the Minivan of Manliness, eyeballs me, and says:

“Are you the guy who wrote that thing about the traffic and cutting of school crossing guards around here?”

“Um, yeah. That was me,” I said, smiling nervously and with a bit of shock because I’m not accustomed to being recognized and the man did have a service weapon at his side.

“We got a good laugh at that one down at the station,” he said. “You’re right. The drivers on this road are out of their ever-lovin’ minds.”

+ + +

THE THING 1 FUND

You’ll be seeing a FirstGiving widget on my blog and – Google technology willing -- in the feed for the next few weeks. My Love and I are participating in the Austin, Texas, marathon next month (she’s running, I’m sweeping up water cups discarded by the runners) to raise funds for Cure JM Foundation, the nonprofit that supports research into Juvenile Myositis -- the rare autoimmune disease our beloved Thing 1 has lived with since age 2.

Cure JM is a small, all-volunteer organization so nearly every cent it collects goes straight to do good such as pay for research fellowships or buy laboratory equipment for the handful of doctors and scientists who study this disease.

If you’d like to support us and you have any money left over from the holidays and all your generous donations to Anissa’s family and Haitian relief  -- even if its just $5 -- click the widget’s orange button or go to directly to our FirstGiving page.

Thanks.

 

Never Cross Me in a School Zone

Drivers -- you are on notice. 

Slow down. Put down the iPhone. Stop for all reds and do not even THINK about making that illegal turn.

I offer this advice because the local public schools are back in session tomorrow. That means that once again I will be serving as security detail for my two children as they walk the one mile to and from classes. 

Moreover, be warned Ye Who Fail to Obey the Rules of the Road in School Zones, I will be armed.

That was not my original plan, but it became necessary two summers ago when the city decided it could no longer afford the $11 and change an hour it paid each of the crossing guards who manned the two intersections along the route to school.

I say "the city" because in two years I have been unable to determine exactly who pulled the plug on Fred and Ethel, the two friendly elderly guards who had patrolled our walkways and whose real names were not nearly as comical. 

When I called the school system to protest, the person who answered the phone said I really needed to take this up with the Police Department. 

The police told me I should bring the matter to the city Board of Representatives. 

The reps sent me back to the schools.

They all lead me straight to the bottle. 

Pepto, Jim Beam; rinse, repeat.

Cost-cutting aside, these officials did offer some logic (before passing the buck) as to why our route was now a local version of the unsecured Iraqi Red Zone:

• An off-duty police officer, paid by a private school along the way, usually manned one of the same intersections as the guards. 
• The other intersection had a pedestrian crossing light that could, in theory, halt all traffic.
• School-zone speed limit signs with flashing lights and radar readings to get drivers to slow down had also just been installed. 
• Finally, I was told, there just weren't enough schoolchildren who walked that route to merit the roughly $95 a day paid the two guards.

This all looks good on paper to the powers that be, but then again, on paper Bernie Madoff made many people look like millionaires. 

Here's how Tuesday will most likely play out in real life: 

At least half of the electronic school-zone signs will be off or malfunctioning because they have rarely all worked properly since being installed. (I've seen older versions of the same signs functioning correctly in other parts of town. Did my hometown get a deal on upgrading to Vista when it should have stuck with XP?)

The police officer won't be there because the private school doesn't start classes for another week. (Ah, it's good to be a member of the leisure class.) Even so, he only works mornings, not the afternoon walk home.

And while the pedestrian crossing signal works just fine at the other intersection, chances are at least one southbound driver will fail to heed the "No Turn on Red" sign and make a hasty, blind turn into that crosswalk -- just like the woman in the SUV who was yakking on her cell phone did two years ago on that first walk I took to school with my kids.

She missed me by about 6 inches that day. But next time, I won't miss her.


This is because on these walks, I now bring our dog. Our dog, I should note, tends to unburden his intestines of the previous night's meal right before that intersection.

So, scofflaws, this year if I witness you failing to obey traffic regulations at Newfield Avenue and Newfield Drive, check your roof racks when you reach your destination. In a plastic bag, tied by a single granny knot, you will find a meaningful reminder of your ignorance.

Could You Use It in a Sentence for Me?

For an hour or so once a week, I volunteer in my son's first-grade class. I'm supposed to be helping these 5- and 6-year-olds become better readers, but often it's about me escaping with my sanity intact and without the virus du jour.

Sometimes, though, the assignment just clicks. Like the other week, my task was to have the kiddies cut out letters printed on a piece of paper, scramble them up on the table and put them together so they made words ending with long vowel sounds.

Words like "grow."

And "day."

"How about this?" asked one of my prodigies. "Is this a good word?"

"Hmm," I said. "Let me get a ruling on that one from your teacher. … Mrs. S, is this acceptable?"

She looked at it and smiled.

"Yes. That's fine. Like Santa says, 'Ho, ho, ho!'"

The Joy of Proficiency

For past two springs, the mailman has brought a copy of a copy of a copy of a letter from the local school system.

The original names and dates on it are always whited out and the new ones are scrawled in by hand, but each time the message is always the same:

Your daughter needs to go to summer school.

That letter won't come this year, though, because according to Thing 1's last report card her reading skills are now, and I quote, "proficient."

It's been a long struggle for my little girl. It's been even more of a struggle for me.

Reading and writing, for whatever reason, came quite easily for me as a child (though poor typing, lazy spelling and the difficulty of proofing my own work continue to do me in as an adult). It shouldn't have, according to today's parenting experts, because I seem to recall spending most of my preschool days watching Gilligan and Maxwell Smart, wearing knees out on my pants from playing Hot Wheels and sitting in a beauty parlor for hours every week, drinking tea with too much Coffee-Mate in it while my Mom got her hair done.

So flash forward three decades or so and there's me, lying in bed next to Thing 1, getting verbally and physically exasperated. We'd read the same book every night for a week and every night, she'd read some word like "going" on the first line of a page, then struggle to pronounce it the next six times it appeared in the story.

We tried flash cards. Hit and miss.

We tried Hooked on Phonics. This drove us both nuts with the annoying repetitive songs and whatnot. After a few tries, we hide it in the living room closet. (However, it may work for you! Buy it used from me now on Amazon -- kindergarten and first-grade editions!)

Eventually, she was sent to summer school. Three hours a day for four weeks. Thing 1 told me that they talked a lot about feelings and civic responsibility in class. The school assures me that was part of the curriculum and that she was not accidentally mixed into a juvenile delinquent rehab class. I still have doubts.

The turning point came last year in second grade, for several reasons I think.

One, she had a couple of her best buds in class to share the pain of learning. For whatever reason, she ended up with only one of the 25 kids from her kindergarten class in first grade. Given her shyness around new people, that just added to battle. The bully who wouldn't assign her a role in the playground pretend games didn't help either. (Ed. Note: Thing 1 says she now handles this boy by chasing him around the playground threatening to kiss him.)

Two, her second-grade teacher was a good one who had a firm hand on the class. She needed it with a couple of those kids, whom I had to physically stop from trying to maim a squirrel with their bare hands on a field trip once.

Third, we hired one of the other teachers at school to tutor Thing 1 once a week. I think the extra attention -- alone with an adult who knows how to teach as opposed to a dad who, at this point, knows mostly how to go "Aarrrrrrgh! Why don't you get this?" -- helped her turn the corner.

And now, she is "proficient."

Papa's proud of you, girl.

Though he's also glad you're not that much better at reading, given the incident I'm posting about Tuesday on Dadcentric.com. See y'all there.

She's Not Testy Over Standardized Tests

Some people have test anxiety. My daughter, however, sees it as opportunity to indulge in her favorite pastime -- mass accumulation of stuff.

I learned this the other day when, upon the drive home from school, Thing 1 pledged her love to the Connecticut Mastery Test. The CMT, for those of you out of state and/or without children, is the major standardized test for elementary and middle school students in the Nutmeg State, a nickname for Connecticut that most kids don't know today because it won't appear in the form of a question on the CMTs. This is good because, frankly, it's a stupid nickname. "The Place in the Northeast Where the Natives Don't Have a Funny Accent State" -- now at least that would makes sense.

How well a school district's students do on the CMT forms the basis of its educational reputation. Fairly or not, this partially explains why in some circles our town's public schools are thought of as highly as those "how to operate your remote control" channels on cable and DirecTV. To make matters worse, schools that don't improve their test scores can eventually lose important federal funding because, darn it, this is America -- we can only support so many flawed industries and lost causes. Besides, when was the last time your kid donated to a re-election campaign, huh?

All school year, my third-grader has deluged me with reams of notices from school explaining the CMT, offering test-taking strategies and inviting me to forums explaining why I should pay attention to these notices telling me to pay attention. Naturally, I round-filed them all, instead opting to convince Thing 1 to shut off yet another "Hannah Montana" rerun and study her vocabulary words so, for once, she could ace her weekly spelling test.

My priorities, not surprisingly, were all wrong.

A teacher told me that even though the CMT now has a section requiring a written essay, the two things test evaluators don't take into account are spelling and handwriting. These people obviously had the same rigorous training as the ones who gave me a passing grade on the scrawl known as my 20th Century American History final in college, which was taken with a raging Jägermeister-and-Keystone-induced hangover. (Ed. note: Excessive drinking is not a state-approved CMT study strategy for students, but it is optional for teachers, administrators and parents once testing concludes.)

Anyway, I'm sure she'll do OK. Thing 1 been fed a steady diet of CMT strategies since kindergarten. For example, the walls of her school are lined with vaguely Orwellian slogans such as "Show what you know," "Rename = Title; Brief = Short" and "No. 2 pencils good; No. 4 pencils bad." Also, knowing my girl, I am pretty sure she viewed hours of filling in bubbles on an optical scan sheet as something akin to a government-sanctioned art class.

"Why are you so happy about taking the CMTs?" I asked.

"We have no homework for the whole two weeks during the test," she said. "And every day before the test, I get a new pencil and eraser!"

My expectations are now set. Test evaluators, if you are reading this, be kind. Her answers may be wrong, but they will be done in the neatest, blackest, most precisely filled-in bubbles in the state.

Moreover, please note how, when you look at them from afar, they form a perfect smiley face.

As The Scalp Itches

"Dad," Thing 2's voice whimpers from the answering machine, "my head is really itchy and it won't stop. Can you come pick me up? Call me back at school."

You, undoubtedly, have read or heard about parents who develop momentary superhuman strength to be able to free their trapped children by dead lifting tractor-trailers or Thomas Pynchon novels. Yet in this instance, I am simply unable to simultaneously grab the receiver before my boy hangs up and Google "lice."

After a good guttural scream normally reserved for Mets' bullpen collapses and phone calls from my Mom (after she's been put on mute, of course), I ring the school. Meanwhile, images like these flood my computer screen:

 

I immediately regret not washing down breakfast with the surplus holiday eggnog I found in the basement fridge.

(Have you developed phantom itches yet? Don't worry, you will. Keep reading.)

The school receptionist says Thing 2 has left the office. Nice. My boy is undoubtedly rubbing his creepy crawly head against every finger painting and essay on Martin Luther King Jr. on display in the hallways at this moment.

Maybe this will make it easier for me to beg out of the spring bake sale?

"Could you track him down and have him call me back. Kinda important," I tell to her.

I run upstairs and strip the sheets off the bed. My bed. The one the little parasite-toter staggered into about 3 a.m. I hope I have bleach. Or a gallon of Tabasco. Could I Ben Gay the bastards?

The phone rings.

"Dad …"

"Little Dude, don't move," I say. "Do. Not. Move. Do not touch anything or anybody. I will be there in five minutes."

When I arrive, he's seated in the front office. He's wearing a Corbin Blue concert T-shirt, coat on his lap, Spider-Man backpack at his feet, his face red and glowing with sweat.

But he's very, deathly, still.

"Grab your stuff. Quickly."

We make it to the Minivan of Manliness, missing the villagers wielding torches and cans of Raid.

"Dad, why is there a garbage bag on my car seat?"

"Hold on," I say, "I've got one for you to slip over your entire body."

Once home, I consider dangling him by the ankles into the icy heap remaining on my porch from other day's snowfall. That is not a recommended treatment for lice, but Thing 2 doesn't know that and it would definitely improve my disposition.

Instead, I sit him down at the kitchen counter, fire up a 500-watt halogen light from my workshop and start scrutinizing every strand of hair on his oversize blond head.

Nothing.

Not a flake of dandruff nor even a stray green clover or blue moon marshmallow from breakfast.

"Does your head itch anymore?"

"No. It feels fine."

"What the Donavon Frankenreiter? Was this all a scam so you could come home early and play more Nintendo DS?"

"Noooo!"

Then it hits me.

"When was the last time you showered?"

"I don't know."

"Were you at recess right before your head started itching?"

"Yes."

I take him upstairs and start the shower. While I fetch the shampoo and conditioner, Mr. Monk will fill you in:

Now, smelling of coconut Sauvé, I help Thing 2 towel dry. I kneel and look him squarely in the eye.

"Dude, I don't want you to be the stinky kid at school that no one plays with and everyone makes fun of. You need to shower at least twice a week. And, for crying out loud, we've had this talk before, put on clean underwear and socks every morning. Recycling is not an option for underclothes."

"OK, Dad. I love you."

He didn't say the last three words. But I'm hoping he'll realize the need to someday.