Simply Brilliant: January 2005

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Rory showing Clory her form in Taekwondo.

Taekwondo -- Kicking Rory

The other night at taekwondo I kicked my 14 year old son, Rory, pretty hard. Rory is a black stripe--one half step away from black belt. Life in the dojang gets hard when you are at that level. The instructor wants to see if you really want your black belt. You do pushups for others mistakes and you get put in some tough situations. Last night the instructor called Rory to the middle of the mat. The rest of us were in a circle around the mat. Then one by one we each went out and sparred Rory. We had all our gear on--chest protectors, head gear, teeth guard, shin and forearm protectors. We wear this because we spar full contact.

Rory weighs only about 90 pounds. Most of the people he sparred were far heavier than him. It's not so bad at first when you go through a trial like that. You have enough energy. But by the second person you start to tire. Then the third person comes out. Then the fourth. And they attack and kick hard. Blackey gave Rory a couple of good boots to the head. That didn't look like much fun at all. Finally the instructor signals me to go out and he joins me. Poor Rory had two opponents at once and both of us outweighed him by 140 pounds at least. It was a bad situation for him. This was going to be bad for him no matter how well he fought.

The instructor and I pressed him hard. His kicks were ineffectual against our size. Then Rory screwed up. He was in the corner with the instructor coming in on one side and me on the other. He hesitated a moment too long and landed a side kick square in his stomach. It staggered him out of the ring and he bent over trying to get his breath. I had a conflict in feelings at that moment. He is my son and I love him very much. I don't want to hurt him (I've never touched him in his life in a disciplinary way). But he is too nice on the mat (when sparring). That is going to get him hurt. I tell him that he can be the nice kid when he is off the mat. In fact I want him to be the nice kid when he is off the mat, but when he is on the mat he needs to get mean. Taekwondo competition can be very serious and for that four minutes on the mat you have to be focused and kick with intent to intimidate (kick hard). I think that is why I didn't pull my kick more than I did. I want him to wake up to the situation and protect himself by fighting harder.

He was okay, but I saw the standing tears in his eyes. They weren't tears of hurt, but of the situational emotion. He came back in and fought another minute and even popped me in the head with a fist. I liked that. He is a wonderful kid--0ne of my favorite companions. We juggle together, throw boomerangs, make movies, play with yo yos. I just don't want him to get hurt on the mat and the best way to do that is to fight harder.

Clory, my eight year old daughter, also got called out on the mat. She is a red stripe and her trials are beginning. She had to fight everyone, too. She is all of forty pounds. She is quite skilled and in all of her previous sparring I have never seen her have to work very hard to come out on top. But she only fights cute little kids like her. But as she gets older her opponents will kick faster and harder. Since they are under 12 they aren't allowed to kick to the head in tournaments. Last night wasn't a tournament and they were allowed to kick to the head. The big guys definitely kicked lightly, but hard enough to get her attention. They tapped her in the head a few times trying to teach her to keep her hands up and block. One of the kids closer to her own size, but still bigger kicked her pretty hard, once in the head. She was so tired and this was the first time she had ever been pressed like that. She broke down in tears. The instructor called her over to give her a good talking too. Clory kept looking at me for help. It was so hard not to interrupt the instructor to comfort her. I had to walk to the other side of the room where her back was to me so she couldn't see me and I wouldn't be as tempted to say something. The instructor was great. He was firm with her, but he was gentle and caring too. She plopped down on the mat in defeat and tears as he talked. He lifted her back to her feet by the back of her Hogo and made her stand. By the time he was done with her she was ready to go back out on the mat and fight some more. He called the next fight off after just 15 seconds because she had proved to him she would keep trying. I knew the time was coming where she was going to have to go through a trial like this. It's all been so easy for her. But she has opponents out there who are going to knock her around and it's better to face up to that in a freindly dojang first instead of in a tournament against an uncaring opponent who just wants to knock you out.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Here are two of my eight. Lory and Jory. Actually her name is Autumn Laurel, but we just call her Guppy. That's what you get when you are born in a birthing tub.

Friday, January 21, 2005

Teenage Juggling

The other day I brought my 14 year old son to work with me. He didn’t actually come into my workplace; I dropped him off at the library. At noon I bought some lunch and met him at the library. We ate on the lawn in the shade of a poplar tree. My 14-year-old son is the third of my seven children and the third of my four sons. Although he has hit teenagedom he has not yet gone over to the dark side. He still seems to enjoy spending time with his dad. In spite of my middle-age geeserhood he shows no embarrassment when seen with me in public. This pleases me very much because he is a good-looking, intelligent boy who has many engaging pursuits and I would miss his company terribly should he ever decide that he didn’t have time for me.

While we ate lunch under the tree he sat close to me and rested his elbow on my knee as he worked on his beef and cheddar. I could feel the ease he felt with me and that made me intensely happy. We chatted about things in general and he cried “Slug Bug!” and slugged me when we saw an old Volkswagen Beetle drive by. He commented that he was a little chilly from the breeze that was blowing. He thought it was because of the cold lemonade he had just drunk. I know it was because he has no fat on his bones and thus, no insulation.

He and I had fought the night before. It wasn’t a verbal fight, but a physical fight. There was no anger involved. We were at our taekwondo class and it was sparring night. The instructor let him choose who he wanted to fight and he chose me. We had done some contact drills just before and I think he sensed weakness in me. I am 230 pounds and he is maybe 100 pounds. He should have been very frightened, but he wasn’t. I tried to increase the intimidation factor by announcing in WWF fashion that I was going to knock him down before the match ended. He just grinned. When the instructor started the match he whooped and hollered and let off several volleys of kicks and spins. I fought back, but it looked something like a bear taking swipes at a fly buzzing around his head. But then he made a mistake by pausing in the wrong place for a half-second too long—I landed a back kick that picked him up and set him down on his butt. Oh what a feeling! Everyone watching laughed and I turned to see him getting up off the floor . . . grinning. In the end he may have won on points, but I got my shot in. That was the first time I had ever sparred him and I felt a bonding through it.

After we ate we broke out the juggling equipment we had brought. This was the reason I had brought him to work in the first place—to have a full hour at noon to juggle with him. Juggling is one of his major interests in life presently. I don’t know how he got interested in it, but most of his discretionary income is spent on juggling related equipment. All the time he is asking me to come watch some juggling videos he has found on the internet or has purchased on DVD. His enthusiasm is so great that I have been inspired to learn what I can with him. He is much better than I am at any juggling endeavor, but he shows great patience and I struggle and learn. Although we each work on individual juggling tricks, it is the team tricks where we have the most fun. We like to juggle three and steal from each other. Today we finally learn to successfully pass to each other as we each juggle three. I am excited as a kid the first time we both keep juggling after we pass. He is happy too. Then we take five cubes and in full shower mode pass them between us. We bring our average time before failure up quite a ways and again I am excited.

My lunch time is up all too soon and I have to go back to work. My son stays at the library where he plays chess with the kids, juggles for anyone who wants to watch, and makes balloon figures for kids who are leaving the library. When I pick him up after work he is having a juggling discussion with a librarian. When he gets in the car he brings that unadulterated energy of youth with him as he tells me about how his afternoon went. I wish he would talk all the way during the hour drive home, but just fifteen minutes down the road he puts his seat back down and soon is sleeping with his mouth open. Sleeping or not he is still with me and I am happy. He will never really understand how he has taken one of my thousands of ordinary work days and made it extraordinary.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Beautiful Women

Yes, I still have the subject of women on the brain today. I'm still trying to figure out how they fit into today and eternity. Actually, today I was just thinking about I don't see many beautiful women around much. I see plenty of sexy women, but that is different from a beautiful woman. As far as women present themselve in public there seem to be four types (only a man could reduce it to so small a number): There is the grungy look, the plain look, the sexy look, and the beautiful look. The grungy look is ubiquitous--hip hugger jeans, flip flops, bare mid-driff, and ratty hair. The plain look is just as ubiquitous--just your everyday jeans or pants of some type and shirt or blouse. A respectable and comfortable--if not eye catching--look. Then there is the sexy look. The sexy look has many tones and colors depending on the attitude and intent of the wearer. But intrigues me most about a girl dressed in the "sexy look" category is that often they seem to think that either they are in the "beautiful" category or they aren't aware that that the "sexy" category and the "beautiful" different. The sexy category is any type of dress (clothes) that emphasizes the girl's sexuality and appeal to a man's hormones minus his brain (it doesn't take much). The "sexy" girl makes me want to whistle, yell "whoohooo", or make a rude comment. The beautiful look is the "woman out of the closet" look. It's the woman who dresses in a manner that says to any man, "I am a woman and totally happy to be so. I know that I am attractive, and smart, and capable of doing anything I want to do including being a woman. The sexy dress type doesn't say that. Or actually it might say that except that the "Do you want my body?" statement overrides everything else.

I saw a girl in the beautiful category out on the street the other day. She was in a dress (a very attractive, modest dress that hung to her knees and didn't release her bosoms to the open air). Her hair was long and shiny and hung down her back. She walked confidently and gracefully. "Wow" I thought. "Now there is a beautiful woman." I hadn't even seen her face, but her presentation said alot. She appeared to be a whole human being who would automatically speak to the more respectful and courteous side of my nature. Of course I really know nothing about her and what she is really like, but her "beautiful, confident in her womanhood" appearence sure was a great first impression.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Women Are Becoming More Like Men

Women have had long, hard fight through the centuries to gain equality with men. Seems like they are getting closer even though I still hear reports of glass ceilings and less pay for same work. I have no problem with equality for women (although that is very vague). I suppose women should have no more restrictions placed upon them than what men have. They should be able to choose the course in life they desire and they should get the same pay as male counterparts in the same field. Actually, these ideas seem like no brainers to me. I grew up with a mother who was a professional. She was a nurse. But she wasn't just any nurse, she was the supervisor of the Emergency Department at the regional hospital. She was very good. She managed all the other ER nurses and, whether or not they would agree, she managed the attending doctors too (they can be a little less than human sometimes). As a teenager I worked at the hospital and would often visit my mother in the ER. I saw her operate with complete grace and confidence under the most difficult circumstances when lives were on the line. After seeing her do her job it was nothing to me to see women go into space, become soldiers, and run companies. But I am not writing this to be a cheerleader for women's accomplishments. Instead, I am concerned that in order to obtain the right to achieve these accomplishments, women have had to become more like men and that is not necessarily good for humanity.

If you are acquainted with the Pre-Raphaelites (a group of painters in Victorian England) you have seen their paintings of ideal women. The women they painted seemed to exist in a state a step above the rest of humanity. They were untainted by earth and men seemed unworthy of them. The women portrayed in these paintings were the kind of women men would change their behavior for (if only while in their presence). Foul mouths would speak only worthy words or nothing at all. Men would fight to deny themselves their own comfort in order to be the one to make one of these women more comfortable. In the presence of these women, men would resolve to be better men! Oh that such women really existed! But even if in Victorian England such women didn't really exist (one of the models for some of these paintings was a prostitute), men tried to make them exist by restricting the lives and actions of women to certain boundaries. Today these restrictions seem ridiculouse and completely unfair. Women had to work hard to make the world of men understand that when it came down to it, women didn't want to be special--they wanted to be equal to men.

As women gained more equality with men they seemed to have to separate themselves from those things that make a woman distinct from a man. Of course they still differ physically and emotionally, but other than that they are now men (I'm speaking generally). It is as if one half of the human species has become extinct. When I drop my son off at school I see maleness everywhere. There goes a boy in jeans. Here comes a girl in jeans. It isn't just that the girl is wearing jeans, but it's that she would be embarrased to wear a dress to school or anywhere. One teenage acquaintance I have has told me in as many words and it is true that I haven't seen her in a dress once in the years I have known her. I'm fine with jeans for girls. They are comfortable and a girl has every right to dress comfortably. But why with this right have so many given up the right (in attitude anyway) to wear that symbol of womanhood--a dress--with pride and influence. A woman who knows how to wear a dress with confidence can have a powerful, if subtle, influence on the men in her world (and I don't mean with sexy dresses). But to become equal with men they dress like men maybe gaining some of the power of men, but giving up the power of woman.

True women in the past were expected to have higher morals than men in word and action. The atmosphere in a room would become cleaner when a woman walked in because men (decent men, anyway) would try to hold themselves to this higher standard in their presence. But women, in striving for equality with men, have had to decline this kind of treatment. Men are not expected to change any part of their behavior in the presence of a woman. In fact women have gone a step further in becoming equal by choosing to use the profanity men use and participate in the sexual escapades that was expected (unfortunately) only of men. While in the air force and in the civilian offices where I work now I have heard what look to be respectable women profane with the best (or worst) of the men. And on TV you can easily find shows like "College Girls Gone Wild" where seemingly respectable girls pull their tops off for the cameras. Because of the average woman coming down to a man's level, now nothing changes when a woman walks into the room. In becoming "equal" with men they have thrown off the lifting power they used to carry with them by the nature of their womanhood and a room full of men and women is just a room full of men. Perhaps this is a good thing for women, but it is sad for humanity.

My dream world would be a world where women are have all the rights that men have, but who remain women--not by virtue of their anatomy, but by virtue of their attitude. I have three daughters and four sons. I will teach my daughters that they can do anything they want to do--be a a pilot, a doctor, a CEO, a marine. But I will also teach them that they can be a something my sons can never be--a woman, wife, and mother--and as such have a power and influence in this world that is lost when a female becomes only a doctor, or only a pilot, or only a Senator.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Get A Life--Turn Off Your TV

I grew up with TV. Everyday after school it was Gilligan's Island, I Dream of Genie, Leave It To Beaver, and Hogan's Heros. There were the World of Disney Sunday Night Movies, Saturday morning cartoons and Science Fiction Theatre on Saturday afternoons. I don't know that much of this did me any good, but I know that it didn't do me any harm either. Eventually cable TV came on the market and my mother, always being one for the newest and best, signed up. It was HBO time. Now things changed. Those harmless, entertaining shows I watched (for I was a simple person) were replaced with foul language, violence, and nudity. So many things are stuck in my head now from my HBO days that I wish weren't there. However, I continued to watch TV and cable programs for years as programming got bolder and raunchier. I complained and berated the medium, but it never occurred to me to do anything else about it, even after I started having children.

Finally I am in my forties with seven children and it occurs to me that I don't have to have TV in my home. What a thought! It' s akin to saying we won't have sugar or carbohydrates or meat in our home (actually, we have all those still). Deciding to go without TV is like deciding to go on the big diet. It's a great idea, but nothing much comes of it. Well, we did it and it wasn't really that hard. Basically all I did was cancel the cable and never put up an antenna for local channels. We still have the TVs in our home (about four of them, I think), but you can't get much more that one, snowy channel. I thought my older kids would give me a hard time, but I kid you not when I say they they have never said one word about wanting to watch TV. My younger kids don't even remember ever seeing tv or cable shows. I don't understand this good behavior. When I mentioned that we don't have TV to one of my kids' cousins she exclaimed, "How do you live!?" Why my kids don't react the same way I don't know, but I won't question it. Actually it is my wife and I that have the TV delerium tremors. Even though it has been four years since we disconnected cable I will still get the shakes sometimes because I want so badly to watch a TV show. I grew up with it. It doesn't leave your blood quickly. I really miss Malcolm in the Middle, and King of the Hill. But recently I went to a friend's house to watch a DVD and I saw a little TV while there. I don't know what show I saw, but it was so vapid and stupid that I had no trouble remembering why we disconnected.

I am a big Internet fan and get all my world news and social information there. I also listen to the radio where I keep up with Hollywood's goings on. We discuss everything at the dinner table at night (although the noise level with seven kids is quite high and it's hard to discuss anything sometimes). From everything I hear about any tv or cable shows, I don't think I am missing a thing. I heard raves about the Sopranos. I have never seen one episode and yet I my life is busy and fulfilling. I accomplish so much without the TV. I have gotten a black belt in taekwondo, started an internet business, taken up digital photography, homeschool my kids, learned chess with my son, read several books with my family, learned to fly boomerangs, and so much more. And my kids are doing the same. I can't imagine that my life is any less for not having seen the Sopranos, or Survivor, or American Idol. And think of the tens of thousands of commercials I have missed! I feel like I am flipping the bird to the entire marketing world! Oh the joy! My kids are happy and as busy as I am. They speak their own language (not the collective langauge of Hollywood and certainly no profanity) and own their own mind. The thoughts they have have not been put in their heads by Hollywood writers abetted by TV stars.

I must admit that we do watch loads of movies--my kids many more than me. But with movies we are in full control of what we pick and don't have take what someone else picks for us. We don't do R rated movies and are careful about PG 13 (yes, you can have those restrictions and still see loads of entertaining and intelligent movies). We have a large DVD library (with too many VHSs).

Another interest note is that when my kids have their cousins and friends over they all have a ball. We will have cousins and friends come down for days at a time and they never seem to get bored even though tv and cable is a major part of their lives in their homes. At my home they play Rifts (imaginative, role-playing game), Dance Dance Revolution, computer games, fly boomerangs, fly kites, play Boggle, watch movies, and just talk. They seem to love to come to our place and we love to have them.

The whole "no TV" thing is succeeding for me. My children have shown no need for it and I am seeing them become individuals--happy, caring, involved kids who speak their own language and think their own thoughts and who find themselves interesting company.

Give it a try. First write down all the things you have always wanted to do, then cancel your cable and disconnect your TV antenna and go do those things. Your quality of life will probably improve.

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Well, hello.

I can't resist the opportunity to talk to the world. Although it isn't likely that anyone is going to find this blog except by accident, the possibility is there that anyone in the world could read my words. What an exhilerating possibility. I drive an hour to work in the morning and then an hour back home at night. I listen to the radio (mainly NPR). I have so many responses and opinions to the things I hear, but no one to tell them too. But now I have a place to announce my opinions to the world. It would be nice if someone read them with interest (or even just read them), but just having a place where others could read them will be enough to add some fun to my life. So stay tuned!

Simply Brilliant