Running with Old Glory

Not everyone loves America.  I was reminded of this fact just yesterday while out for my weekly run with Team RWB.


Team RWB is an organization that uses exercise and social interaction to help veterans reintegrate into civilian life.  I've been a volunteer with this group for the past several years, and during that time I've devoted most Saturday mornings to biking, hiking or running with veterans.  (I'm the chunky old one in the picture.  Don't tell anyone, but being with Team RWB allows this fat old lady to hang out with some incredibly fit and beautiful young people, so it's of immense benefit to me.)

Yesterday, as we do many Saturdays, we were running along the bosque trail. And, as usual, we were wearing our red shirts and carrying Old Glory.  Many people we pass salute, or call out some encouragement.  But yesterday, one woman passed us and offered us a single-finger salute.  Half an hour or so later she passed us going the other direction and her companion cursed us.  It was very upsetting to all of us, especially the corpsman who really wanted to hunt these two women down and have a little talk with them.  Disrespecting us is one thing.  Disrespecting the flag he's fought for is quite another.

I am pretty sure the two women were not US citizens.  Because of its altitude, dry air and temperate climate, Albuquerque is a hub for the international running community.  I encounter the Japanese women's marathon team almost every time I do an early morning run up on Tramway Boulevard.  I frequently get passed by Kenyans up on the foothills trails.  These two women were definitely elite runners: long and lean and very, very fast.  They were dark skinned, but didn't look Kenyan.  I am guessing they were from Northern Africa somewhere.  I am also guessing that, while they are willing to come to America to train, their perception of the U.S. and its military is less than positive, and I am sad about that.

It saddens me to think that Americans are thought of as bullies or greedy imperialists.  Even here in America, some people argue that the United States engages in war for purely selfish reasons.  We've all heard it: ideas like the only reason the U.S. went into Iraq was to keep the price of oil low, or that we are intent on forcing the world into our own mold and we will use as much force as necessary to attain that goal.  And while I won't deny that our government makes policies in our own best interest, (what country doesn't?) I do think such accusations ignore the immense amount of money and effort America expends to alieviate suffering and hardship in the world.  As in Haiti and the Philippines, we are often among the first into areas devastated by natural disaster.  We are by nature a generous people, and we don't like to see people hurting.


SPOILER ALERT!  IF YOU HAVEN'T READ CODE: ELEPHANTS ON THE MOON YET YOU MIGHT WANT TO STOP HERE TO AVOID LEARNING SOMETHING CRUCIAL TO THE PLOT.


But not all disasters are natural in nature, and Americans have been known to want to help out in political and human-caused disasters as well.  When the United States was slow to enter into the fight against Hitler in World War II, my favorite High School teacher went to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Army.  He was one of the inspirations for the fictitious Seamus Maloney who, like many real Americans, did the same in World War I, and then again in the Spanish Civil War. (He was also the person who gave me a copy of T.S. Elliot's The Waste Land and encouraged me to keep writing.)  None of the American servicemen or women I've spoken to who were in Iraq say they went there to protect their gasoline tank.  Many tell me they went because Saddam Hussein was mistreating the minorities within his borders or, since Hussein's demise, to protect one Iraqi group from another.  


There are many who would argue with me, but I continue to believe that the American spirit is one of generosity and goodness.  We despise bullies and human suffering and will do everything within our power to suppress the one and alleviate the other.  And if that means we must enter the fight, we will do so, not because of what we will get out of it ourselves, but because we believe it is the right thing to do.


And so, in spite of middle finger salutes, I will continue to run with service members and with Old Glory.  And I will run proud.

Happy New Year!

 

 

The beginning of a year is like a doorway, the entrance into the new.

Most people celebrate the New Year in the middle of winter.  January, named after Janus, the Roman doorkeeper god whose two faced looked both into the past and into the future is a bleak month in most of the western world.  It is a time of darkness and cold.  I suppose by starting the new year at its climatically worst point, there is nowhere to go but up, and so starting in January offers the celebrant the promise of good times ahead.  My husband calls December 21st, the winter solstice, the happiest day of the year because he anticipates how the days are going to get progressively longer and warmer.   

But not everyone celebrates New Year in the middle of winter.  My Asian students celebrated the New Year a little later, in mid January or February, when here in the Southwest the days are mild and there is a hint on the coming spring season in the air. Thai New Year is in April.  Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashhanna, is in the fall, this year on September 24th, while the Moslem New Year, Hijri, is October 25th.  

For me, late August is the real beginning of the year, because that is when the school year begins.

I loved the smells associated with back to school when I was a child.  The warm, lush smell of new crayons.  The tang of new aluminum lunch boxes and thick, dusky chalk smells.  I loved the spirals filled with smooth, clean paper, the pencils that were all the same length - and all capped with pristine pink erasers!  The new school year held promises of knowledge revealed, of skills attained, of stories told.  I couldn't wait.

At least, that's how I felt about most of my classes.  I loved language arts and English.  I adored social studies and history.  Most of my science classes were all right and some were downright fascinating.  But math?  I hated math.

I am not quite sure how early I began to realize that I was behind in math.  My first memory of feeling inadequate is from the fourth grade.  I remember the class forming into two rows, with the teacher at the front of the class holding a set of multiplication flash cards.  I remember her holding up a card and the students at the front of the two lines shouting out an answer in rapid succession, then going to the back of the line.  

I remember my palms sweating and the sick feeling of dread in my stomach as I inched toward my doom, and I remember shouting out an answer - a second behind the other student, and the relief of going to the back of the line.  And I remember hoping that the teacher would never discover that I didn't know the answer, but was quick to parrot the other student.  I didn't know my times tables.  I was deeply ashamed of my lack and determined that no one would ever know. I lived in fear of someone discovering that I was a fraud, of pointing a finger and shouting about how stupid I was.

Now that I am a teacher, I still feel the thrill of new classes.  I look at the faces of my new students and I see some who, like me, are in awe of the promise of a new school year.  The prospect of new knowledge excites them.  They yearn to learn, and their bright expressions of hope and joy are a delight to see.  

But I also see some who are trying valiantly to hide a secret terror.  They are afraid that I will find them lacking.  They are afraid that I will call them out as frauds and fakes.  And they are determined to hide their inadequacies so deeply that no one will ever find them out.

I look forward to meeting my new students.  I hope that they will enjoy my class.  I hope that we'll have fun and we'll learn some neat new skills and facts and ideas.  But as Janus does, I also look back, to the frightened child who was terrified of math.  I promise to remember her when I look into the eyes of a student and find fear.  And I promise to never point a finger and never call a student stupid.

So here's to a new school year full of the hope of learning!