Letter to the McCullough principal

I wrote the following letter to the McCullough principal. Unsurprisingly, it had no impact. Nevertheless, it's probably worth republishing here.


"I have been advised that Michelle Foldetta has chosen to resign as the Highland Girls director after the administration chose not to back her in a disciplinary incident involving a student. I cannot help but think that if you choose this path, abrogating both the disciplinary process and individual responsibility, and accept the resignation of Ms. Foldetta, McCullough will be less for it. Here’s why:

I have a shirt hanging in my closet. It’s a work shirt that I had embroidered to say “Highland Girl Dad.” Although I ostensibly had it made to support the daughter at her events when she was a Highland Girl, I always liked the shirt because it spoke of something larger, and I really felt a connection to the program.

Back then, I joked in the family’s Christmas letter about the girls being lectured by Ms. Foldetta as they stretched, on not hugging boys in the hall, on which was the proper fork to use in what situation etc. I mused that perhaps the practice was widespread, that there would be an entire generation of Jr. High school athletes who all learned proper etiquette as they stretched, and could always remember the correct fork. A friend of the daughter who ran track, upon reading that passage in the letter, looked up and said “No, not so much.” Too bad for the track team.

If you have watched the Highland Girls, and by extension the Highsteppers, you know that the style of dance they pursue is exacting, rigorous, and precise. It emphasizes unity and strength over flash. It is old-school. The style is born of tradition, but also embodied in the directors of both squads. To have these high expectations and standards of behavior during such a chaotic time of life as Jr. High school was absolutely golden for the daughter. She will always be, in some sense, a Highland Girl, and that is a direct reflection of the work of Ms. Foldetta.

This is the bottom line for me: the only teachers, coaches, and mentors who ever contributed to my development in any area were the ones who expected something from me, and held me to a standard. Not everybody chooses to exercise the discretion they are given in order to fulfill a vision of what others can be. I remember the professor who called me out for a lack of intellectual rigor and care far more than the many who told me I was doing great, mainly because he was invested enough in my development as a graduate student to do so.

We seem to live in an era in which uniqueness and specialness is valued less and less. Highland Girls, under the direction of Ms. Foldetta, is one of the things that makes McCullough special. I’m sure that you will always have a drill team of one sort or another, whoever the director may be. Without Ms. Foldetta, however, the Highland Girls will not have the potential to make such an impact on the girls’ lives at such a crucial time."

R.I.P. Peter Lenz

I need to preface this by saying that I did not see the actual collision. I should also say that eyewitness accounts are a strange thing, and mine may differ a bit from some news accounts – that doesn’t speak to the truth or falsity of anything, just they’re different. The truth is usually somewhere in between.

I was on the asphalt behind the South Vista Section 5 grandstand, helping my buddy look for something he’d let slip through the grandstands. It was a few minutes before the start of one of the support races, the Moriwaki Honda spec series – it was the warm-up lap, so I had a couple of minutes before the green flag dropped.

Collective crowd reactions are always powerful – when a few hundred, or a thousand people all do something at once, it commands attention. So when an entire grandstand of people goes “WHOA!” you look up. The screen across the track didn’t show anything, so I showed my ticket and climbed the couple of stairs to the landing in front of the bleachers.

There were two bikes down on track, and two riders had gone down. One was up and walking away, the other lying slightly crumpled against the curbing that runs down the track, 50 yards beyond the turn four exit.

He’s not moving.

First, some of the track personnel arrived, carrying a sling stretcher and a grey medical box. They kneeled, starting to check him out. An older couple who I think were the grandparents of the eventual second place finisher asked me,

“Is this real or are they just practicing?”

“It’s for real,” I replied. “Two riders collided.”

He’s still not moving.

By then, the second rider had been led away and the bikes had been pushed off. More track personnel arrived, carrying a backboard. Then one of those Cushman’s with the ATV wheels showed up with a gurney in the back. They unloaded the gurney. One of the medical personnel had trouble getting her end to lock up; a strap had caught one of the wheels.

He’s still not moving.

They lift him on the gurney. Somewhere in between the back board and the gurney, they had put an ambu bag on him and started chest compressions. The announcer is still spouting inanities about how they’ll get started soon, wonders aloud why Lenz hasn’t returned to the grid. I just wanted him to shut up.

F&^k.

The ambulance arrives and they load him in, still doing CPR. I know that the hospital is only a couple of minutes away. The whole episode seems like an eternity, although it was probably less than 10 minutes.

The race does start, and the 12-16 year olds do some great racing. Some are truly fast – I expect I’ll see the kid who won in the top ranks of the sport some day. I keep checking my phone to see if there’s any news. Eventually, the Indianapolis Star is the first to report that he had died.

F&^k.

The thing is, we always expect them to get up. Even when they’re truly injured, we expect a weak thumbs-up as they’re being loaded on the gurney, and the crowd cheers.

Except Peter Lenz never got up.

Now the tough part…

I imagine there’s going to be a lot said about how he should have never been out there, that the very idea of a 12-16 year age bracket in motor racing is ludicrous. One thing, though – if someone is going to be at the top levels of motorsport in their twenties, when their reflexes and physical conditioning are at their peak, that’s when they have to be on track in some sort of lower-tier series.

Practical considerations aside, I happened to see a panel of four or five of the kids discussing their life as racers in the vendor area on Saturday. Lenz may have been among them, I don’t know. They responded to the announcer’s questions of whether it was difficult to keep up with their chores and other responsibilities. I remember one responding that they were having a house built, so they had been in their motorhome and race trailer for the last for months, so it was pretty easy to keep it tidy. The kids all seemed bright and engaging, and it was apparent that they were racers. To the core. Some things you do because you have to. Some things you do because you have some ability to do so. And some things you do because you absolutely love to, and would rather be doing nothing else. Each of these kids absolutely exuded that.

I’m not really sure there’s a point to this. I guess the best I can say is that if you happen to give any thought to Ayrton Senna, or Dale Earnhardt, or Jeremy Lusk, spare a thought for Peter Lenz too – he was another racer who was cut down before he could really show the world what he had.

The difference between boys and girls Part IV.

So I’m on my way to work and the phone rings – Kill Hannah – Lips Like Morphine – must be Jan. The tone of the voice on the other end of the line is accusing. Uh-oh.

“There’s a dead deer in the flowerbed.” Like I put it there or something. “You must have seen it when you left.”

“Ummm…guess I missed it.”

So the proper authorities were notified, the deer was disposed of, we kind of tried not to mention it in front of the boy and the daughter and actually succeeded for a few days. Then, of course, we mentioned it in passing.

The daughter was horrified, of course.

“A deer? Dead? What happened?”

The boy, his attention momentarily captured, looked up briefly from his book on the couch.

“Did Whiskers or Cory get it?”

So I didn't get a shirt

So I went to a show earlier at the House of Blues – All Time Low, We The Kings, Hey Monday, and Friday Night Boys – and I didn’t buy a shirt. I fully intended to buy a shirt, I really did. But ultimately, I didn’t. I took the Daughter and her friend. I bought the Daughter three shirts – All Time Low, We The Kings, and Hey Monday. The Daughter’s Friend got two. Each band had their own merch table, so I shepherded them from line to line, making sure they got shirts. Then I carried them for the duration of the show.

There may be some questions about why I was at the show at all, since I’m a little older than the target audience for these bands. Probably, most of the kids there thought I was chaperoning. That wasn’t how it went down, though - my buddy Toph found We The Kings and put me on to them early, then I asked for the CD and received it for Father’s Day. The Daughter immediately put it on her ipod and played it 3 times a day, adopting them – whether or not I introduced the band into the house, they became hers. I guess music kind of works like dogs or cats in that way.

So yeah, I guess ultimately I was more there for her than for me, and getting a shirt for her just pushed the thoughts of my getting one out of the way. It still doesn’t mean I was chaperoning.

So it seems I'm German - what do I do now?

I’ve always had an affinity for things Scottish. Bagpipes? Check. Whiskey? Check. Haggis? Well, maybe not so much. This works out well – I am Clan Comyn, MacNiven sept. I am related to the clan chief, fist-pump at the sight of a lion rampant with a dagger in his paw proper, and am entitled to wear the strap and buckle. I even have red hair. Yeah!!!

Except it turns out I’m German. Crap.

How did this happen? Well, my mother was Googling my recently deceased uncle’s name, and it came up. As did my father’s name, and my name, on somebody’s genealogy site. Whoa. So my mother emails the guy and he kindly sends several hundred pages of a Family Tree Maker export. After reading this, I can trace my lineage through my father, and his father, back nine generations to Johann Abt Walrath, who emigrated to New York from Germany in the late 17^th century. Hmmm…

So what happened? Well, my father’s father’s lineage had always been described as English. This description had come courtesy of my father’s mother, who apparently decided that English was better than German, and, since she was generally not to be contradicted – Presto! English. Seems that the Germans were out of fashion from about 1939-1945. Go figure.

So, no problem, right? After all, you get your heritage from a number of ancestors. Except that I look like my father. A lot. And, if you look at the photo of his father from the early part of the 20^th century, it turns out we both look a lot like him. Which means we’re German.

So far, this has only evidenced itself in a love of beer and an occasional affinity for BMW’s. In fact, I have several Jewish friends. I have no idea how this is going to play out…

Wish You Were Here

Pink Floyd is not one of my favorite bands, and I pretty much don't listen to their stuff of my own volition. I did see them on tour and it was a great show. Regardless of how much or little I like them, they were a great band.

In contrast, Rockstar: Supernova was not a great show. There was one moment, though - one of the contestants sing Wish You Were Here, by Pink Floyd. It wasn't the rendition that made it great, though - they cut over to Jason Newsted at one point, and he was wiping away tears. 99% percent of the audience probably thought it was a little odd.

This is the thing - every musician who has ever played that song, even if it was just in rehearsal, had someone they were thinking of when they played it. Gilmour and Waters wrote the song about  Syd Barrett, lost to drugs and madness.

I don't know who Jason Newsted lost, but when my band plays the song, I play it for my father.

New Blog

This my new blog. It lacks a theme, focus, or content. Hopefully, that will change, but I can be less than motivated sometimes.