It's been a while since I wrote a web log and I cancelled my Facebook
and need another, hopefully more productive, use of my internet time.
Why not write about cancelling the Facebooks?! Hey Hey! Makes sense
right...? Yeah I didn't think so either.
So I grew
up in a time when it seemed like MANY people didn't realize the long
term damage that television could do, and everyone (at least everyone
around me) watched hours and hours of TV or sat in front of the Nintendo
for hours trying to beat Super Mario Brothers. Today we have ten times
the TV (meaning there's 10 times the material on TV on hundreds more
channels), video games that kick WAY more ass than Mario Bros., and
there's the addition of portable computers and internet. I grew up with a
screen and I bought into it!
Except now I'm a parent. In my college
studies (education major) and internet research into the effects of all
this screen time (neurotic first-time parent), I've discovered that it's
actually kind of bad for people, and especially children 0-2, to spend
time in front of a screen. Any screen. Dammit... I mean I always knew
that parking your kid in front of the TV instead of spending time with
them was bad parenting, but now there's research that finds
statistically significant differences in children that watch tv and
children that don't. OK. Since children mimic their parents, I guess I'm
going to have allow myself much less screen time than I did prior to
being a parent. Got it, and with Sam, my first, I did it. I hardly watch
TV at all anymore and I can't remember anytime since he was born where
someone asked "Hey did you see the movie ____?!" That I haven't been
able to answer "Nope, I'm a parent..."
Well Sam is almost
4 now and we allow MAX 3 hours of screen time a day, and if it gets to
that point, we start to feel a little guilty. Usually it's Sunday's when
I'm watching football, and if Daddy gets screen time, it's only fair
that Sam does too... Right? Here's the problem though, my daughter
Noelle is now 14 weeks(ish) and she can turn her head to the "pretty
flashy thing" that we keep in the corner, or to the folding screen that
Mommy and Daddy spend a lot of time looking at... and here's where I get
into my main theme of this blog, Social Networking.
Since
my TV has been commandeered by Barney, The Wiggles, Fireman Sam, Bob
the Builder, Kipper, Lil' Bill, and the Wonder Pets (among others). I've
found that I'll sit with Sam and poke around on Facebook. Now from the
beginning of MySpace and Facebook I've always felt a tinge of creepiness
and narcissism about what we're really doing and/or posting. If you're
the type of person to post constantly, the assumption is that someone's
going to read yours posts right? If you're not the constant poster type,
then you're just perusing other people's lives and pictures and stuff
right? Here's an example for you. A couple years ago I was training for
and running the Portland Marathon. I had runkeeper posting to Facebook
and people were commenting and making training suggestions and I had a
friend in Minnesota that I was "cybertraining" with and we would keep
each other honest. That was great! I was keeping in touch with people
long distances away, and we were challenging each other and keeping each
other accountable (you only ran 15 miles!? DUDE!! SUCK IT UP!!!) After I
ran the marathon, I kept posting workouts for a while, but as I was
doing one of my runs, I thought to myself "why the hell am I still
posting these workouts?! Nobody friggin' cares..." and I stopped. Then I
started thinking about ALL my posts like that... Does anyone really
care that Sam just pooped in the toilet for the first time? Does anyone
really care about my Monday morning quarter back-ing? Does anyone really
look at my pictures? Why the hell are they looking at my pictures
anyway? My wife doesn't like it when I say this, but I'm not that
pretty...
Anyway, this has been going on for a while
and then of course the recent political shitstorm that has infested
America, and the innumerable instances of, "someone on the internet is
wrong and I have to correct them" posts about politics or sports or
education or whatever. It seems like I haven't had positive interaction
on Facebook with anyone in quite a while. More than a year if I were to
guess... I mean yeah I chat with people every now and then, and that's
kinda' cool, but in general, I'm just wasting time sitting with Sam
while he watches whatever annoying pseudo-educational show he's into
that week (Dora is the WORST SHOW EVER... sidebar over...) and arguing
with ridiculous political assertions, with no prospect of influencing
anyone ever. Why am I kicking this dead horse, I say? I should shut off the TV and my computer and wrestle with the kid, or make a mess with something. Boys like that stuff!
"Dude,
what does all of this have to do with social networking?!" You ask?
Well, I'm glad you asked! One real quick thing here though for some
context... A few months ago Tina and I discovered Mark Gungor and his
video "Laugh Your Way To a Better Marriage." If you're in a
relationship, or planning on getting into one, you should watch this.
It's good. I mention it because one of the subjects that he addresses in
this video is internet pornography (awkward!). Mr. Gungor is a
pastor/counselor (I'm not a religious dude at all, it's still good, he
doesn't get preachy or try to do any recruiting) and has seen porn ruin
many relationships and seen many people substitute porn for real the
relationships in front of them. I don't want to dwell on porn because it
is awkward, I'm not accomplished enough of a writer to actually dig
into this subject, but you can check out Mark Gungors' website, or for
another perspective, look here: www.postmasculine.com and take a gander
at the message board about all the men who gave up porn and got back
their lives. I bring up this fairly awkward subject matter because both
of those sources posit that internet porn is ruining peoples' ability to
function as half of a couple. Obviously that's a huge generalization,
not everybody who looks at nudie pics has problems functioning in their
half of a relationship, but I think you get the idea... People out there are replacing intimate relationships with computer (screen) relationships.
I
would hypothesize (reference to Dinosaur Train there!) that Facebook
and social networking is doing the same thing to real communities that
porn is doing to relationships, in that it makes us think that we are
doing something communal, when we're really not. We're still interacting
with a screen!
Like I said with porn, Facebook isn't
causing complete destruction. Not everyone that uses Facebook has
problems functioning and avoids contact with real humans. The one thing
that I have noticed on Facebook is that people don't act like they do
face to face. For me that's the real evidence to what I'm saying here.
I've gotten into what would be knock down drag out fights on Facebook,
that I would NEVER get into with someone standing in front of me. I've
also had complete strangers on Facebook be unnecessarily rude to me for
no particular reason, and I'm not talking about teenagers, I mean people
in their 60's and 70's who absolutely know better.
I'm
not suggesting we give up all of our technology, and I'm not going to
leave my Facebook down forever (just until after elections), but I think
we need to take a step back from the screens and realize what's going
on around us. Interacting with people through a screen takes away so
much of the humanity of the interaction. Watching real live actors do
their thing and do it well has so much more power and meaning than
watching the Bachelorette or Walking Dead. Hearing and feeling a live
professional musical performance has so much more humanity to it than an
album, mp3, m4a, or whatever. Putting up tents and having a potluck in
the pouring rain with your neighbors has so much more meaning than my
homebrewers community on Facebook. That's real communal interaction.
When I start up my Facebook again, I think I'm going to attempt to use it only as a tool for keeping track of people, but not necessarily for keeping in touch. A
tool for scheduling and communication, but not as my sole interaction
with other humans, maybe not even a significant portion of my
interactions!
Shut off the screens people (after
you read my completely amateur blog first though!), and go climb a
mountain and play in the rain. Do something!
Friday, October 19, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Adult life
So while not technically graduated, I was full time student teaching and for all intents and purposes, a college graduated adult on my own. I was at Nathan Hale during the day as if I were teaching, and then I would work nights serving tables at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Rich Sumstad was my cooperating teacher and probably one of the MOST influential people in my life because of the ways he influenced my teaching philosophy, music performance philosophy, getting me my first (and still best!) teaching job, and, of course, introducing me to my wife! Student teaching was a bit of a wake up call, but I survived and I even got to go to Hawaii for a week for free!
I had to leave the UW Medical Center because the schedule didn't really work with student teaching, I asked Mike if they were hiring at the Old Spaghetti Factory, and I got a serving job there. I averaged about $120 a shift and 4 shifts a week. About $2000 a month in tips and maybe $500 in regular pay. The problem is that your tips are cash, give a 22 year old cash, what do you think is going to happen? Yep. I bought booze. I won a scholarship from my last year in the Husky Marching Band saved my butt! I owed my roommate/landlady about $2000 for rent! So I was finishing college, student teaching, serving tables, and applying for teaching jobs. Busy busy busy!
My first job offer was a job Rich recommended me for, Mercer Middle School in South Seattle. I got it (I was the only viable applicant), and I added cleaning that hott mess of a classroom to my list of daily things to do. I could spend a lot of time describing my first year of teaching. A lot. I'll try to make it mercifully short and give details in later postings maybe... My first school, Asa Mercer Middle School, was on Beacon Hill in South Seattle. Down the street a little ways was Garfield High School, home to 4 time Essentially Ellington Jazz Festival Winner GHS Jazz Band. My principal was excited about getting a decent music program based on what she saw at Washington Middle School down the road (they played better than a lot of high schools in Washington State), and saw the same potential in the kids at Mercer. It was a title I school that was actually diverse. I say that because a lot of times a school will claim diversity when it has a population of 80% Black and 20% other, or 60% white, 15% Asian, and 25% Hispanic/Black/Native. That's not really diversity. One Pakistani kid doesn't make your school diverse. Mercer, at the time, was about (I'm not giving specific numbers because it was a LONG time ago, and while that information is available, I'm not going to look it up), 20% Black, 20% Hispanic, 20% Asian (Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, and even a little Japanese) 10% White, 10% Pacific Islander, 10% Native American, and 10% other (Arabic, Ethiopian, Eritrean...). My friends, THAT is diversity.
My immediate predecessor from the year prior was an older gentlemen that was not at all prepared for the rigors of teaching 6-8 graders, it was disastrous and there was a lot of broken mess that I cleaned up from him. The last consistent music teacher there had been there for 18 years and I don't believe he had done ANY music organization and/or cleaning his entire time there. So needless to say, it was a difficult start. I was a first year teacher in a seriously challenging situation with little to no information on what the situation with the students actually was. I had to train the support staff how to do their jobs for me, and not the way the guy who had been there for the last 18 years did it. It's hard to be 22 years old and telling experienced adults how to do their job differently when they've been doing it for decades... To put this in perspective, my first Sunday night after the year started, I cried like a 3 year old that doesn't get ice cream (that's Sam's most recent tantrum that I can think of...). The only thing I can relate it to is the 2nd week of basic training when I was done in-processing, I was getting about 4 hours of sleep a night, and I was getting "smoked" about 18 of the other 20 hours of the day. Your thoughts aren't about anything except how stupid you were to make this decision and how it's not worth the pain you're enduring to get to the end-stage. The difference is the pain at Basic was physical. My first year teaching, it was emotional. Much worse in my opinion. More on Basic later...
9/11/2001 was during my second week and I seriously considered joining up to get out of my teaching contract. I met Tina and that stopped that proverbial train.
Anyway, I spent two years at Mercer. I have a lot more memories of that place, and after the first few months they're mostly good. Most students I have on my Facebook are students from Mercer. I liked them and they liked me (in general). I didn't know how good I had it there and if I had stayed, my life would be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY different.
I also had a SWEET gig playing trumpet for a Mexican Dance band "Banda del Sol." $100 per gig and 2-4 gigs a month. Cash. I was playing trumpet a lot (Banda del Sol and elsewhere), had a full time teaching gig, had 3 or 4 private trumpet students. I met Tina at the end of January that first year at Mercer. At first she didn't want to date me because of religious differences, so we "not dated" for about 3 months until she admitted that we were having enough fun to make it "official." That's a fun story that I'll save for a marriage blog! I moved away from my college apartment back into an apartment with Mike during the summer of '01. The second year at Mercer was FAR less traumatic, and I was determined to not become a statistic of failed teachers... oh the irony... Tina got a job (it was MY job, but I wanted her to hang around...luvya sweety!) at Ingraham High school. She later got laid off and Tina and I decided that we were going to move to Chicago for no reason than an adventure as a couple, and to see if we could make it in the big time!
August 9th 2003. Tina's Mom claims that's our "real" marriage date... I can see that... It's the day we finished packing and left for Chicago.
So Chicago. Wow. I might have to make a separate blog about our story in Chicago, but here's a summary I guess...
We got there on the 14th. I was scared poopless about living somewhere completely new with no job or friends. I recommend that everyone take a risk like this at some point in their life... Anyway, this move and the move back financially cost us tens of thousands of dollars that later set us back behind many of our friends that didn't spend their hard earned money on moving, but you can't buy experience. So on to the story!
We didn't have jobs. We couldn't get teaching jobs because our teaching certificates (sent last May) hadn't processed into Illinois yet (5 months. 5 friggin' months. Even the Army isn't that slow) and we didn't have Illinois identification so couldn't get other types of jobs. So Tina tried starting a Mary Kay business, I worked on getting our paperwork for living in Illinois squared away and we both played Playstation 2 for about 3 hours every morning... and we racked up a credit card bill! Tina met Michelle at a Mary Kay meeting and we met her then boyfriend Edd, so we found our Chicago friends. Let the Bourbon and Ginger Ale flow like water! She also found the Chicago archdiocese for the Catholic church and started singing for their volunteer group. I somehow or another got our paperwork fixed and got two jobs as a cashier at Albertsons and a host at Olive Garden and started playing with community bands in the area. I found a bald Italian guy with a bad toupee that could push our paper work through the system (funny how that worked in Chicago eh?) so we finally got jobs in Chicago public schools. I started at Steinmetz Academic Center in January as a building sub, and Tina got a gig in the Calumet Park district at Burr Oak Elementary school. Both of us were in for extremely rude awakenings on how horrible schools can actually be. SAC had weekly shoot outs (Friday's off campus usually), constant gang violence, and extremely harsh conditions in the school. We both got hired on full time for our second year there, Tina moved into Chicago Public Schools at Mather High School, and I got into Steinmetz as a full time music teacher instead of just a building substitute ("just" wow...I saw some pretty horrible stuff as "just" a sub). So both of us had some extreme experiences with the worst type of administrators in education, we both left those schools. I got "laid off" and Tina told them to "F" off. We applied for jobs in both Illinois and Washington and whoever got whatever job first is where we went. Tina got a job in Longview, WA at Mt. Solo middle school. We were moving home!
So! Back in Washington now, but in Clark county Washington in August of 2005. We moved into Mike's HUGE house in Woodland, WA and stayed there until November. Tina was getting ready for the school year to start in Longview and I was looking for any teaching job out there. I got a job in Vancouver public schools teaching all choir at three different schools. Boy was I in for it... But first, Tina was not happy at Mike's and wanted out as soon as possible. I understood why, but I wish we had waited a little longer... it was the height of the housing market and we just couldn't afford a decent place in a location we liked. We ended up buying a piece of crap house in Battle Ground, WA.
The next 5 years of our lives is a damn emotional roller coaster. Some great and amazing things happened for us, but mostly our house was depressing, my job was soul sucking, and Tina's commute was grueling. The house is the shortest story, I'll start with that one. It was on a 1/4 acre lot which sounds great, until you have to mow it weekly in the spring. There was new roofing on the house, but the flashing underneath wasn't replaced and it was moldy. I saw this when we did our inspection and the real estate agent said "it's the Pacific Northwest, EVERY house has some mold. You don't want that on record." Which sounded kinda' sketchy, and it was we found out later... We put in new flooring and found that at some point there was SERIOUS water damage, and mold in the floors. After we replaced the flooring we started all getting sick from mold spores we had unknowingly stirred up. When I left Vancouver schools, the housing market had just crashed and we tried to work out something with the bank, but they weren't willing to work with us so we stopped making payments. That got their attention! In the end, we got out of the house with a Deed-in-Lieu of foreclosure. There's someone living in the house already, and they're doing some cool stuff, so it worked out well for everyone (including the bank) I think. There's a lot more details to this story, maybe it too needs it's own post...we'll see how that works out!
My first year in Vancouver School District (VSD) was teaching choir at Fort Vancouver High School, McLoughlin Middle School, and Jason Lee Middle School. While there I met a man named Bob Thompson, who changed my life! The words "National Guard Band" rolled off his tongue and I said "tell me more about this National Guard Band" I'd mentioned earlier that I wanted to join the military, but it wasn't the right opportunity, this was! Anyway, my second year in VSD was choir at Fort again, drive to Alki middle school to teach beginning band, drive back to Fort to teach 6th period band. This was a BRUTAL schedule. I went to Basic Combat Training in April of that year (2007) and I was almost relieved to be gone. I got back from BCT just before the school year ended and poked my head in once (40 pounds lighter) and saw that my sub had done well, and that everything was still intact, but I should've known when I walked through the door and was NOT excited that I should've left then, but I didn't. I finished my Masters in Music Education at Northwestern that summer, which after BCT was extremely difficult (going from not moving or talking unless told, to presenting my projects and questions to Dr. Janet Barret... whew!!!)
My third year I believe was retaliation from my district for going to BCT. I was teaching TWO high schools, band at Columbia River and band and choir at Fort Vancouver. River had a competitive marching band, and I was completely set up for failure. I did it because VSD had some significant stipends and no one was really checking on if we followed them. They did after that year!!! =) Mostly because of me, but I paid off a LOT of students loans that year =) I knew I was set up for failure so I did well enough to consider it a success. I had just finished BCT AND my master's program, did they really think they were going to throw me a challenge and watch me back down?! Hell no!!! But I didn't make any friends there either... I've run into the boosters president in town since then and she won't even make eye contact with me. I'm not sure why, but ok... 4th year in VSD I FINALLY got a reasonable schedule. Band, choir, and guitar at Fort and choir at McLoughlin. I started making it rain. At least in choir... the band was falling apart. My predecessor at Fort I respect a ton, but he babied them a little (but was successful!). I had more realistic expectations and was not successful. Also, the guitar class I taught based on a project I did at my masters program on teaching the way popular musicians learn. The district didn't like that. I didn't give a flying turd that they didn't like it, and told them (not my best choice). My 5th and final year in VSD I had the same schedule, and I was hanging around with the 8th grade band at Mac a lot my 4th year, so I was starting to get some good kids back in, but there were only 23 of 'em. Nothing kills morale like a small band where only half the kids can play. I started doing creative stuff like having guitar kids join band and making it into a funk band kind of thing, a really big horn section... =) I had some serious plans to make Fort an example of the future of music education and an example of success in a difficult low-income school. I had plans and ambitions! Then they cut the guitar class from the curriculum of the entire district. I had EIGHTY KIDS signed up for the next year. EIGHTY!!!!!!!! That was it. I tried to deploy so I could take a year off, but it didn't work out so I just resigned. I'd had enough. I'll talk more specifically about that some other day too...
One of the best moments in my life did happen while we were in the Clark county phase of our lives, Tina and I had our first child Samuel Allen Sterne on November 19th 2008. It really is the best thing ever. Parents complain, like Soldiers do, because there's lots to complain about, but in reality, we wouldn't have it any different. Well... most parents (and some Soldiers).
After I left VSD, I tried to go active duty as a bandsmen, couldn't do it, tried to commission as an infantry officer, couldn't do it, tried to re-class to a combat arms NCO position, didn't do it in time because I stopped making house payments. Army won't take you if you have outstanding debt. But it all turned out well when I got and Active Duty position in the Oregon National Guard. It's a good job! I won't be here the rest of my life, it's basically being a secretary... (but it's in the Army and we don't call it that, so it's ok for tough guys to do it...but I've seen what school secretaries do, and I'm doing THAT now). We'll see though!
This concludes the Bio portion of this blog. If all two of you read through all of it, I owe you beer. And if you're not saying this, I am "Thank Gawd THAT'S over!"
I had to leave the UW Medical Center because the schedule didn't really work with student teaching, I asked Mike if they were hiring at the Old Spaghetti Factory, and I got a serving job there. I averaged about $120 a shift and 4 shifts a week. About $2000 a month in tips and maybe $500 in regular pay. The problem is that your tips are cash, give a 22 year old cash, what do you think is going to happen? Yep. I bought booze. I won a scholarship from my last year in the Husky Marching Band saved my butt! I owed my roommate/landlady about $2000 for rent! So I was finishing college, student teaching, serving tables, and applying for teaching jobs. Busy busy busy!
My first job offer was a job Rich recommended me for, Mercer Middle School in South Seattle. I got it (I was the only viable applicant), and I added cleaning that hott mess of a classroom to my list of daily things to do. I could spend a lot of time describing my first year of teaching. A lot. I'll try to make it mercifully short and give details in later postings maybe... My first school, Asa Mercer Middle School, was on Beacon Hill in South Seattle. Down the street a little ways was Garfield High School, home to 4 time Essentially Ellington Jazz Festival Winner GHS Jazz Band. My principal was excited about getting a decent music program based on what she saw at Washington Middle School down the road (they played better than a lot of high schools in Washington State), and saw the same potential in the kids at Mercer. It was a title I school that was actually diverse. I say that because a lot of times a school will claim diversity when it has a population of 80% Black and 20% other, or 60% white, 15% Asian, and 25% Hispanic/Black/Native. That's not really diversity. One Pakistani kid doesn't make your school diverse. Mercer, at the time, was about (I'm not giving specific numbers because it was a LONG time ago, and while that information is available, I'm not going to look it up), 20% Black, 20% Hispanic, 20% Asian (Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, and even a little Japanese) 10% White, 10% Pacific Islander, 10% Native American, and 10% other (Arabic, Ethiopian, Eritrean...). My friends, THAT is diversity.
My immediate predecessor from the year prior was an older gentlemen that was not at all prepared for the rigors of teaching 6-8 graders, it was disastrous and there was a lot of broken mess that I cleaned up from him. The last consistent music teacher there had been there for 18 years and I don't believe he had done ANY music organization and/or cleaning his entire time there. So needless to say, it was a difficult start. I was a first year teacher in a seriously challenging situation with little to no information on what the situation with the students actually was. I had to train the support staff how to do their jobs for me, and not the way the guy who had been there for the last 18 years did it. It's hard to be 22 years old and telling experienced adults how to do their job differently when they've been doing it for decades... To put this in perspective, my first Sunday night after the year started, I cried like a 3 year old that doesn't get ice cream (that's Sam's most recent tantrum that I can think of...). The only thing I can relate it to is the 2nd week of basic training when I was done in-processing, I was getting about 4 hours of sleep a night, and I was getting "smoked" about 18 of the other 20 hours of the day. Your thoughts aren't about anything except how stupid you were to make this decision and how it's not worth the pain you're enduring to get to the end-stage. The difference is the pain at Basic was physical. My first year teaching, it was emotional. Much worse in my opinion. More on Basic later...
9/11/2001 was during my second week and I seriously considered joining up to get out of my teaching contract. I met Tina and that stopped that proverbial train.
Anyway, I spent two years at Mercer. I have a lot more memories of that place, and after the first few months they're mostly good. Most students I have on my Facebook are students from Mercer. I liked them and they liked me (in general). I didn't know how good I had it there and if I had stayed, my life would be VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY different.
I also had a SWEET gig playing trumpet for a Mexican Dance band "Banda del Sol." $100 per gig and 2-4 gigs a month. Cash. I was playing trumpet a lot (Banda del Sol and elsewhere), had a full time teaching gig, had 3 or 4 private trumpet students. I met Tina at the end of January that first year at Mercer. At first she didn't want to date me because of religious differences, so we "not dated" for about 3 months until she admitted that we were having enough fun to make it "official." That's a fun story that I'll save for a marriage blog! I moved away from my college apartment back into an apartment with Mike during the summer of '01. The second year at Mercer was FAR less traumatic, and I was determined to not become a statistic of failed teachers... oh the irony... Tina got a job (it was MY job, but I wanted her to hang around...luvya sweety!) at Ingraham High school. She later got laid off and Tina and I decided that we were going to move to Chicago for no reason than an adventure as a couple, and to see if we could make it in the big time!
August 9th 2003. Tina's Mom claims that's our "real" marriage date... I can see that... It's the day we finished packing and left for Chicago.
So Chicago. Wow. I might have to make a separate blog about our story in Chicago, but here's a summary I guess...
We got there on the 14th. I was scared poopless about living somewhere completely new with no job or friends. I recommend that everyone take a risk like this at some point in their life... Anyway, this move and the move back financially cost us tens of thousands of dollars that later set us back behind many of our friends that didn't spend their hard earned money on moving, but you can't buy experience. So on to the story!
We didn't have jobs. We couldn't get teaching jobs because our teaching certificates (sent last May) hadn't processed into Illinois yet (5 months. 5 friggin' months. Even the Army isn't that slow) and we didn't have Illinois identification so couldn't get other types of jobs. So Tina tried starting a Mary Kay business, I worked on getting our paperwork for living in Illinois squared away and we both played Playstation 2 for about 3 hours every morning... and we racked up a credit card bill! Tina met Michelle at a Mary Kay meeting and we met her then boyfriend Edd, so we found our Chicago friends. Let the Bourbon and Ginger Ale flow like water! She also found the Chicago archdiocese for the Catholic church and started singing for their volunteer group. I somehow or another got our paperwork fixed and got two jobs as a cashier at Albertsons and a host at Olive Garden and started playing with community bands in the area. I found a bald Italian guy with a bad toupee that could push our paper work through the system (funny how that worked in Chicago eh?) so we finally got jobs in Chicago public schools. I started at Steinmetz Academic Center in January as a building sub, and Tina got a gig in the Calumet Park district at Burr Oak Elementary school. Both of us were in for extremely rude awakenings on how horrible schools can actually be. SAC had weekly shoot outs (Friday's off campus usually), constant gang violence, and extremely harsh conditions in the school. We both got hired on full time for our second year there, Tina moved into Chicago Public Schools at Mather High School, and I got into Steinmetz as a full time music teacher instead of just a building substitute ("just" wow...I saw some pretty horrible stuff as "just" a sub). So both of us had some extreme experiences with the worst type of administrators in education, we both left those schools. I got "laid off" and Tina told them to "F" off. We applied for jobs in both Illinois and Washington and whoever got whatever job first is where we went. Tina got a job in Longview, WA at Mt. Solo middle school. We were moving home!
So! Back in Washington now, but in Clark county Washington in August of 2005. We moved into Mike's HUGE house in Woodland, WA and stayed there until November. Tina was getting ready for the school year to start in Longview and I was looking for any teaching job out there. I got a job in Vancouver public schools teaching all choir at three different schools. Boy was I in for it... But first, Tina was not happy at Mike's and wanted out as soon as possible. I understood why, but I wish we had waited a little longer... it was the height of the housing market and we just couldn't afford a decent place in a location we liked. We ended up buying a piece of crap house in Battle Ground, WA.
The next 5 years of our lives is a damn emotional roller coaster. Some great and amazing things happened for us, but mostly our house was depressing, my job was soul sucking, and Tina's commute was grueling. The house is the shortest story, I'll start with that one. It was on a 1/4 acre lot which sounds great, until you have to mow it weekly in the spring. There was new roofing on the house, but the flashing underneath wasn't replaced and it was moldy. I saw this when we did our inspection and the real estate agent said "it's the Pacific Northwest, EVERY house has some mold. You don't want that on record." Which sounded kinda' sketchy, and it was we found out later... We put in new flooring and found that at some point there was SERIOUS water damage, and mold in the floors. After we replaced the flooring we started all getting sick from mold spores we had unknowingly stirred up. When I left Vancouver schools, the housing market had just crashed and we tried to work out something with the bank, but they weren't willing to work with us so we stopped making payments. That got their attention! In the end, we got out of the house with a Deed-in-Lieu of foreclosure. There's someone living in the house already, and they're doing some cool stuff, so it worked out well for everyone (including the bank) I think. There's a lot more details to this story, maybe it too needs it's own post...we'll see how that works out!
My first year in Vancouver School District (VSD) was teaching choir at Fort Vancouver High School, McLoughlin Middle School, and Jason Lee Middle School. While there I met a man named Bob Thompson, who changed my life! The words "National Guard Band" rolled off his tongue and I said "tell me more about this National Guard Band" I'd mentioned earlier that I wanted to join the military, but it wasn't the right opportunity, this was! Anyway, my second year in VSD was choir at Fort again, drive to Alki middle school to teach beginning band, drive back to Fort to teach 6th period band. This was a BRUTAL schedule. I went to Basic Combat Training in April of that year (2007) and I was almost relieved to be gone. I got back from BCT just before the school year ended and poked my head in once (40 pounds lighter) and saw that my sub had done well, and that everything was still intact, but I should've known when I walked through the door and was NOT excited that I should've left then, but I didn't. I finished my Masters in Music Education at Northwestern that summer, which after BCT was extremely difficult (going from not moving or talking unless told, to presenting my projects and questions to Dr. Janet Barret... whew!!!)
My third year I believe was retaliation from my district for going to BCT. I was teaching TWO high schools, band at Columbia River and band and choir at Fort Vancouver. River had a competitive marching band, and I was completely set up for failure. I did it because VSD had some significant stipends and no one was really checking on if we followed them. They did after that year!!! =) Mostly because of me, but I paid off a LOT of students loans that year =) I knew I was set up for failure so I did well enough to consider it a success. I had just finished BCT AND my master's program, did they really think they were going to throw me a challenge and watch me back down?! Hell no!!! But I didn't make any friends there either... I've run into the boosters president in town since then and she won't even make eye contact with me. I'm not sure why, but ok... 4th year in VSD I FINALLY got a reasonable schedule. Band, choir, and guitar at Fort and choir at McLoughlin. I started making it rain. At least in choir... the band was falling apart. My predecessor at Fort I respect a ton, but he babied them a little (but was successful!). I had more realistic expectations and was not successful. Also, the guitar class I taught based on a project I did at my masters program on teaching the way popular musicians learn. The district didn't like that. I didn't give a flying turd that they didn't like it, and told them (not my best choice). My 5th and final year in VSD I had the same schedule, and I was hanging around with the 8th grade band at Mac a lot my 4th year, so I was starting to get some good kids back in, but there were only 23 of 'em. Nothing kills morale like a small band where only half the kids can play. I started doing creative stuff like having guitar kids join band and making it into a funk band kind of thing, a really big horn section... =) I had some serious plans to make Fort an example of the future of music education and an example of success in a difficult low-income school. I had plans and ambitions! Then they cut the guitar class from the curriculum of the entire district. I had EIGHTY KIDS signed up for the next year. EIGHTY!!!!!!!! That was it. I tried to deploy so I could take a year off, but it didn't work out so I just resigned. I'd had enough. I'll talk more specifically about that some other day too...
One of the best moments in my life did happen while we were in the Clark county phase of our lives, Tina and I had our first child Samuel Allen Sterne on November 19th 2008. It really is the best thing ever. Parents complain, like Soldiers do, because there's lots to complain about, but in reality, we wouldn't have it any different. Well... most parents (and some Soldiers).
After I left VSD, I tried to go active duty as a bandsmen, couldn't do it, tried to commission as an infantry officer, couldn't do it, tried to re-class to a combat arms NCO position, didn't do it in time because I stopped making house payments. Army won't take you if you have outstanding debt. But it all turned out well when I got and Active Duty position in the Oregon National Guard. It's a good job! I won't be here the rest of my life, it's basically being a secretary... (but it's in the Army and we don't call it that, so it's ok for tough guys to do it...but I've seen what school secretaries do, and I'm doing THAT now). We'll see though!
This concludes the Bio portion of this blog. If all two of you read through all of it, I owe you beer. And if you're not saying this, I am "Thank Gawd THAT'S over!"
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Me, College
Ahhhh college....
So I finished high school and did the Beatles Tour with the Cascades. That summer was very intense and forming on my young mind. I read somewhere that the two most influential times in a persons life are their first two years of life, and then their college years when they move away from their parents. I took my opportunity full force!! I got back from tour and worked full time for almost 2 months until the Fall quarter started, that was good for me! It solidified my assertion that I didn't want to (yet) be working full time. College saved my butt! My first experience of college was the Husky Marching Band. I went to pre-school drills, AKA band camp, and learned traditional marching style. I already knew how to march pretty well, so this was not difficult to adapt to, but the other social aspect was a completely new thing to me. I wasn't a drinker, and it seemed like partying was a big part of it. I had some trust issues based on my childhood experiences and these weren't people I would trust myself getting trashed with... Anyway, Husky band didn't turn out to be the super intense marching experience that I expected. I thought college has smarter people, it'll be way better than Drum Corps because of that. Nope. I did however meet what I thought was going to be the girl of my dreams, she didn't agree... If she reads this, she knows who she is. Hi! =) The equal sign and end parentheses was specifically for you, because I know how much you like it as a grammatical tool.
So I had a little experience with college having done running start, and I knew a big part of what I was going to do included music, so I started music theory and history classes and then built the rest of my schedule around that. Which made for some craaaazy class schedules! I auditioned for the jazz bands but didn't get in, and my goal for that quarter was to make my trumpet teacher (also the jazz band director) Roy Cummings tell me that he wished he had put me in the jazz program instead of this other person that was particularly unpleasant... I did meet that goal, and when I told him of my goal, he handed me my major declaration packet. Music Ed. I didn't waste ANY time declaring the major and didn't waver once the whole time I was there. I could do an entire blog (and I'm sure you've noticed I write long ones...) about Roy, and I might do that sometime. Huge influence on me. Anyway... Winter quarter that year I got into jazz band, and Spring quarter I got into Wind Ensemble. My first piece in Wind Ensemble was Grainger's "Power of Rome and a Christian Heart." I talked in an earlier blog about musical experiences... woah... So my freshman year I had already decided my career path, and I was well on my way to getting there. First year music theory and history, I had (including running start credits) one of 5 years of my college "path" done, and with frequent visits to my advisor, I had the rest of 'em planned out.
College is a lot about the new people you meet, growing and making mistakes (like drinking and doing things you regret), stretching your mind, gaining skills, and easing into the adult world with more coping mechanisms than your average high school grad. I had all of these experiences, but I feel like I did miss out on some things. I lived off campus with my grandma in Shoreline. It was WAAY cheaper, and did often allow for some separation that gave me thinking room, but it also discluded me from a lot of social things that are common. I didn't go to many raging parties, I didn't meet very many people outside of the school of music, and I didn't have the dorm experience that most people have. Would my life now really be that different if I had? Who knows, but it is something I will recommend that Sam (and the younger sibling) do when they go to college.
That summer the Cascades took a year off of tour. I was still very involved. Back then the Corps still met at the Bingo hall, which happened to be down the street from my grandparents house. So I went to board meetings! The only person there that was old enough (by that I mean young enough) to march. I mostly just sat there and kept my mouth shut, but I was involved. Other than Cascades Board meetings, I found a job at another oil change store on 125th and Aurora. That where I learned about the potential for dishonesty in car repair. I was considering not doing Husky Band again, but it was a great excuse to end that summer with that employer.
Sophomore year I did marching band again, but as I said, grudgingly. My first year I played mellophone (marching french horn) because the director heard that I played mello in drum corps and he wanted a stronger mello section. I was not doing that again. I played trumpet, and I went to the trumpet section. The second year, knew what to expect more, but it still didn't really give me what I wanted in the marching band experience, but I finished the season, and even did basketball band that year ($20 a game! The only way for me to see basketball is for you to pay ME). So with marching band, I got into the first jazz band that fall, and then wind ensemble, and practicing, I was playing trumpet about 8-12 hours a day... ahh the good 'ole days... What I wouldn't give for that now!!! Winter quarter I started playing lead in the second band (which was a sort of promotion, 4th trumpet in the first band to 1st in the second) and I was doing my classes, I had started working for the UW medical center my freshman year, and I got a new position with a nice pay raise so I was working a lot too. Busy Busy Busy!!
That summer the Cascades came back with the Chicago show. This year was a serious let down for me for many reasons... I was now one of the few "super vets," the other super vets weren't music majors (weren't yet, for Mike) so I felt more so than I had in the past that I could do a better job than the people that were currently running things, at least in the music department. The younger members just thought we were all old, crusty, and trying to relive our glory days. They had little actual respect for us and it personally drove me crazy. At one point I even thought about filling a hole with the Santa Clara Vanguard and bailing on my peeps, but I didn't in the end. I also had one of my first longer-than-3-months relationships as a sophomore, and I was away from that. THAT was tough. 'Nuff said on that!
Back home in August, worked at the UWMC for a month ($$$$) and this year, I was done with marching band for a while. With my job, I felt comfortable enough to move out and onto campus. I rented a room on the bottom floor of a house with Mike. The top floor was all girls =) Sounds fun huh? Nope! I was trying to be a good boy that year seeing the way those girls (and Mike) behaved made being good hard. That's ok tough. I said in an earlier blog that girls are yucky! I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa were a little bit relieved to have their house back too!
I played lead in the second jazz band, wind ensemble, and started doing brass ensemble stuff. I was improving really fast, and winter quarter, I kind of hit a wall. Roy saw it in my trumpet playing, but really it was a lack of understanding and context for music in all aspects. I had contracted drum corps disease... all I could think of was technique and how to play trumpet, and not why play music or to what end. I started to drift a little bit. I took mallet percussion lessons, stopped practicing trumpet so much, got kicked down to third in the second jazz band, and spring quarter I didn't make the wind ensemble. At the very least it was a good opportunity to fulfill my choral credit with the University Singers... whew! If I had only known that I needed a few more years of choral training then... oy ve... The good thing about my junior year was finding the brass ensemble thing (Gabrielli Guerrilas, a good joke if you're a music geek like me!). Reading music FINALLY clicked in my brain. A whole new world opened up to me! Now if I could just figure out how to play musically, I could start to treat my drum corps disease.
That summer I worked at the Medical Specialties clinic. Good stuff. $$$. I could have marched one more year of drum corps, I even tried out for Santa Clara Vanguard, and made lead soprano (first trumpet), but mentally and emotionally, I had aged out. I was done with that crap, and it turned out for the better too! I didn't work full time, and I took 15 credits of summer school which ensured that I actually graduated in 5 years and not 6, like most music ed majors do. Again, whew!
Senior year #1. I finally got back into the 1st jazz band with a BAD ASS trumpet section. Man that was awesome and we did some damn cool shit. Ahhh college... I was still not very musical though, and I wanted a treatment for my drum corps disease, welp, I asked for it, and I got it. Roy Cummings, my trumpet and Jazz Band teacher, a very caring, loving, supportive, and guiding person in my life, a recovering alcoholic, and a recovering asshole, died of a major heart attack the first day of Winter Quarter in 2000. At his memorial service 2 weeks later, we played a big band arrangement of "Can't Stop Loving You," by Ray Charles. This was my first non-marching musical experience, I could argue that it was my first actual "musical" experience. The hardest lesson for me to learn, how emotion plays into music, and what the purpose of music really is, was still taught by Roy and it came in the form of his passing. I went through a lot of crap as a kid, but this was my first experience with death. Today, I'm not the best trumpet player in the world, not by a long shot, but I am a damned good musician. I attribute that to Roy.
That seems like it should be the end of this chapter of the story, but real life doesn't work like that... I finished the year in the first jazz band with a couple different directors. I started my music ed classes, and met Christy in the music library. I learned so much about my budding musicality from Christy, I will cherish that. The way she would question me on why I thought the things I did was awesome! Thank you for that Christy. I also had the opportunity to study trumpet with Allen Vizzutti for the last 3 quarters I was at UW. That opportunity was too good to pass up, and it was life altering. Vizzutti told me that he thought I had what it would take to make it as a trumpet professional. I didn't necessarily want to do that, I wanted to be in charge, but knowing it is enough for me and my confidence. My growth and personality on campus was noticed. The Husky Band director asked me to audition to be section leader for the trumpet section for the next (my last) school year. I was floored by this suggestion, but I did. I got the position and I was back for my third year of Husky band next year and my final year of college (by the way, Mike had convinced me drinking wasn't that bad, and I had learned how to party college style, so marching band could be different for me now...). Wow. The Wind Ensemble director was also taking a sabbatical next fall, the teaching assitants asked me to be the principal for the Wind Ensemble! Holy Crap! But to finish this first year, I had found my musicianship, I found my confidence, music ed classes were going great! I felt good about moving forward, and I was looking forward to getting out there and doing it. One year left...
My final year! I ran the Husky trumpets. I wasn't well liked, but I didn't really care. They saw me as a deserter who came back with no knowledge of what the trumpets were about now. My thought was, I'm better than you. Shut up. =) At the end of the year, we got most improved section and I got a scholarship for most musical band member of the year. Praise Bob for that! I was 3 months behind on my rent (oh I was living with dream girl back from freshman year, platonic-ally, of course, in Wallingford)!!! But the point was, I did a good job, even if the peeps didn't like me. Good training for my future career... I got my part-time student teaching assignment at McKnight Middle school down the street from the housing projects I grew up in (that was weird!). My cooperating teacher had kidney failure at one point, and I had 2 weeks of teaching on my own!! I didn't have to do it, but I did two weeks there all day, all by myself. That was a HUGE wake up call. Spring quarter I met Rich Sumstad and student taught at Nathan Hale High School in the Seattle School district. He was a former student of Roy, a former Marine, and an awesome teacher. I had to quit my job at the UWMC because working hours were generally the same as teaching hours, and I just couldn't bring myself to go to the clinic after a day of teaching. Brutal. I got a job at the Spaghetti factory waiting tables! That was some gooooood times!
I feel like full time student teaching with Rich is really the end of my college life. I knew I was done and going to graduate, I wasn't in any ensembles at school for the first time since my freshman year, and I felt ready. So I think the adult life blog should start with Rich and I at Nathan Hale high school. Time to be a grown up! As if I hadn't already grown up... psh!
So I finished high school and did the Beatles Tour with the Cascades. That summer was very intense and forming on my young mind. I read somewhere that the two most influential times in a persons life are their first two years of life, and then their college years when they move away from their parents. I took my opportunity full force!! I got back from tour and worked full time for almost 2 months until the Fall quarter started, that was good for me! It solidified my assertion that I didn't want to (yet) be working full time. College saved my butt! My first experience of college was the Husky Marching Band. I went to pre-school drills, AKA band camp, and learned traditional marching style. I already knew how to march pretty well, so this was not difficult to adapt to, but the other social aspect was a completely new thing to me. I wasn't a drinker, and it seemed like partying was a big part of it. I had some trust issues based on my childhood experiences and these weren't people I would trust myself getting trashed with... Anyway, Husky band didn't turn out to be the super intense marching experience that I expected. I thought college has smarter people, it'll be way better than Drum Corps because of that. Nope. I did however meet what I thought was going to be the girl of my dreams, she didn't agree... If she reads this, she knows who she is. Hi! =) The equal sign and end parentheses was specifically for you, because I know how much you like it as a grammatical tool.
So I had a little experience with college having done running start, and I knew a big part of what I was going to do included music, so I started music theory and history classes and then built the rest of my schedule around that. Which made for some craaaazy class schedules! I auditioned for the jazz bands but didn't get in, and my goal for that quarter was to make my trumpet teacher (also the jazz band director) Roy Cummings tell me that he wished he had put me in the jazz program instead of this other person that was particularly unpleasant... I did meet that goal, and when I told him of my goal, he handed me my major declaration packet. Music Ed. I didn't waste ANY time declaring the major and didn't waver once the whole time I was there. I could do an entire blog (and I'm sure you've noticed I write long ones...) about Roy, and I might do that sometime. Huge influence on me. Anyway... Winter quarter that year I got into jazz band, and Spring quarter I got into Wind Ensemble. My first piece in Wind Ensemble was Grainger's "Power of Rome and a Christian Heart." I talked in an earlier blog about musical experiences... woah... So my freshman year I had already decided my career path, and I was well on my way to getting there. First year music theory and history, I had (including running start credits) one of 5 years of my college "path" done, and with frequent visits to my advisor, I had the rest of 'em planned out.
College is a lot about the new people you meet, growing and making mistakes (like drinking and doing things you regret), stretching your mind, gaining skills, and easing into the adult world with more coping mechanisms than your average high school grad. I had all of these experiences, but I feel like I did miss out on some things. I lived off campus with my grandma in Shoreline. It was WAAY cheaper, and did often allow for some separation that gave me thinking room, but it also discluded me from a lot of social things that are common. I didn't go to many raging parties, I didn't meet very many people outside of the school of music, and I didn't have the dorm experience that most people have. Would my life now really be that different if I had? Who knows, but it is something I will recommend that Sam (and the younger sibling) do when they go to college.
That summer the Cascades took a year off of tour. I was still very involved. Back then the Corps still met at the Bingo hall, which happened to be down the street from my grandparents house. So I went to board meetings! The only person there that was old enough (by that I mean young enough) to march. I mostly just sat there and kept my mouth shut, but I was involved. Other than Cascades Board meetings, I found a job at another oil change store on 125th and Aurora. That where I learned about the potential for dishonesty in car repair. I was considering not doing Husky Band again, but it was a great excuse to end that summer with that employer.
Sophomore year I did marching band again, but as I said, grudgingly. My first year I played mellophone (marching french horn) because the director heard that I played mello in drum corps and he wanted a stronger mello section. I was not doing that again. I played trumpet, and I went to the trumpet section. The second year, knew what to expect more, but it still didn't really give me what I wanted in the marching band experience, but I finished the season, and even did basketball band that year ($20 a game! The only way for me to see basketball is for you to pay ME). So with marching band, I got into the first jazz band that fall, and then wind ensemble, and practicing, I was playing trumpet about 8-12 hours a day... ahh the good 'ole days... What I wouldn't give for that now!!! Winter quarter I started playing lead in the second band (which was a sort of promotion, 4th trumpet in the first band to 1st in the second) and I was doing my classes, I had started working for the UW medical center my freshman year, and I got a new position with a nice pay raise so I was working a lot too. Busy Busy Busy!!
That summer the Cascades came back with the Chicago show. This year was a serious let down for me for many reasons... I was now one of the few "super vets," the other super vets weren't music majors (weren't yet, for Mike) so I felt more so than I had in the past that I could do a better job than the people that were currently running things, at least in the music department. The younger members just thought we were all old, crusty, and trying to relive our glory days. They had little actual respect for us and it personally drove me crazy. At one point I even thought about filling a hole with the Santa Clara Vanguard and bailing on my peeps, but I didn't in the end. I also had one of my first longer-than-3-months relationships as a sophomore, and I was away from that. THAT was tough. 'Nuff said on that!
Back home in August, worked at the UWMC for a month ($$$$) and this year, I was done with marching band for a while. With my job, I felt comfortable enough to move out and onto campus. I rented a room on the bottom floor of a house with Mike. The top floor was all girls =) Sounds fun huh? Nope! I was trying to be a good boy that year seeing the way those girls (and Mike) behaved made being good hard. That's ok tough. I said in an earlier blog that girls are yucky! I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa were a little bit relieved to have their house back too!
I played lead in the second jazz band, wind ensemble, and started doing brass ensemble stuff. I was improving really fast, and winter quarter, I kind of hit a wall. Roy saw it in my trumpet playing, but really it was a lack of understanding and context for music in all aspects. I had contracted drum corps disease... all I could think of was technique and how to play trumpet, and not why play music or to what end. I started to drift a little bit. I took mallet percussion lessons, stopped practicing trumpet so much, got kicked down to third in the second jazz band, and spring quarter I didn't make the wind ensemble. At the very least it was a good opportunity to fulfill my choral credit with the University Singers... whew! If I had only known that I needed a few more years of choral training then... oy ve... The good thing about my junior year was finding the brass ensemble thing (Gabrielli Guerrilas, a good joke if you're a music geek like me!). Reading music FINALLY clicked in my brain. A whole new world opened up to me! Now if I could just figure out how to play musically, I could start to treat my drum corps disease.
That summer I worked at the Medical Specialties clinic. Good stuff. $$$. I could have marched one more year of drum corps, I even tried out for Santa Clara Vanguard, and made lead soprano (first trumpet), but mentally and emotionally, I had aged out. I was done with that crap, and it turned out for the better too! I didn't work full time, and I took 15 credits of summer school which ensured that I actually graduated in 5 years and not 6, like most music ed majors do. Again, whew!
Senior year #1. I finally got back into the 1st jazz band with a BAD ASS trumpet section. Man that was awesome and we did some damn cool shit. Ahhh college... I was still not very musical though, and I wanted a treatment for my drum corps disease, welp, I asked for it, and I got it. Roy Cummings, my trumpet and Jazz Band teacher, a very caring, loving, supportive, and guiding person in my life, a recovering alcoholic, and a recovering asshole, died of a major heart attack the first day of Winter Quarter in 2000. At his memorial service 2 weeks later, we played a big band arrangement of "Can't Stop Loving You," by Ray Charles. This was my first non-marching musical experience, I could argue that it was my first actual "musical" experience. The hardest lesson for me to learn, how emotion plays into music, and what the purpose of music really is, was still taught by Roy and it came in the form of his passing. I went through a lot of crap as a kid, but this was my first experience with death. Today, I'm not the best trumpet player in the world, not by a long shot, but I am a damned good musician. I attribute that to Roy.
That seems like it should be the end of this chapter of the story, but real life doesn't work like that... I finished the year in the first jazz band with a couple different directors. I started my music ed classes, and met Christy in the music library. I learned so much about my budding musicality from Christy, I will cherish that. The way she would question me on why I thought the things I did was awesome! Thank you for that Christy. I also had the opportunity to study trumpet with Allen Vizzutti for the last 3 quarters I was at UW. That opportunity was too good to pass up, and it was life altering. Vizzutti told me that he thought I had what it would take to make it as a trumpet professional. I didn't necessarily want to do that, I wanted to be in charge, but knowing it is enough for me and my confidence. My growth and personality on campus was noticed. The Husky Band director asked me to audition to be section leader for the trumpet section for the next (my last) school year. I was floored by this suggestion, but I did. I got the position and I was back for my third year of Husky band next year and my final year of college (by the way, Mike had convinced me drinking wasn't that bad, and I had learned how to party college style, so marching band could be different for me now...). Wow. The Wind Ensemble director was also taking a sabbatical next fall, the teaching assitants asked me to be the principal for the Wind Ensemble! Holy Crap! But to finish this first year, I had found my musicianship, I found my confidence, music ed classes were going great! I felt good about moving forward, and I was looking forward to getting out there and doing it. One year left...
My final year! I ran the Husky trumpets. I wasn't well liked, but I didn't really care. They saw me as a deserter who came back with no knowledge of what the trumpets were about now. My thought was, I'm better than you. Shut up. =) At the end of the year, we got most improved section and I got a scholarship for most musical band member of the year. Praise Bob for that! I was 3 months behind on my rent (oh I was living with dream girl back from freshman year, platonic-ally, of course, in Wallingford)!!! But the point was, I did a good job, even if the peeps didn't like me. Good training for my future career... I got my part-time student teaching assignment at McKnight Middle school down the street from the housing projects I grew up in (that was weird!). My cooperating teacher had kidney failure at one point, and I had 2 weeks of teaching on my own!! I didn't have to do it, but I did two weeks there all day, all by myself. That was a HUGE wake up call. Spring quarter I met Rich Sumstad and student taught at Nathan Hale High School in the Seattle School district. He was a former student of Roy, a former Marine, and an awesome teacher. I had to quit my job at the UWMC because working hours were generally the same as teaching hours, and I just couldn't bring myself to go to the clinic after a day of teaching. Brutal. I got a job at the Spaghetti factory waiting tables! That was some gooooood times!
I feel like full time student teaching with Rich is really the end of my college life. I knew I was done and going to graduate, I wasn't in any ensembles at school for the first time since my freshman year, and I felt ready. So I think the adult life blog should start with Rich and I at Nathan Hale high school. Time to be a grown up! As if I hadn't already grown up... psh!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Teaching
So I actually did write a Mindbarf on "me" part 5, but it was crap. I'm not motivated to finish that story yet... In fact, I had intended to write on things in order of precedence in my life (after the bio of course...). Which would be, family things (Tina, Sam, the littlun forthcoming...), music, teaching, religion, and then after that I was just gonna coast and write MUCH shorter essays and thoughts on whatever the hell came to mind... But at this damn Army course this is pissing me off right now, and dammit, I'm going to write on it.
I recently read this book called Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term fulfillment, by George Leonard. It's a quick, easy read (sorry the citation is not correct APA format...whatever, I don't HAVE to do that now), but lends some perspective and thought on society and our laziness. His specific experience was with Aikido, a martial art, and the process of learning Aikido. Getting the basic concepts, getting the intermediate concepts, putting them into use in a martial situation (in combat, or in a bar fight if you will...), then more advanced concepts that are all completely and absolutely dependent on how well you did your basics. If you did not do a good job on basics, then your advanced concepts will suffer significantly. I see this in music now, clear as day. It's so obvious to me that I sometimes wonder WTF people are thinking when they don't practice their basics. Actually, the thought goes more like this, "If you want an example of what happens when you don't practice your basics, HELLO!!! HERE I AM!!!" I'll probably write on that later when I talk about music specifically, I don't want to get distracted too much (that's why I'm not writing part 5 yet, I don't really know how I want to present the normal part of my life in such a way that someone will actually read it, and not just because you're nice people that like me and feel that you should read it for me, that's like beginning band concerts...you go because it's your kids, not because of the musical experience! Here I am digressing again...), and music, obviously, distracts me quite well.
So Mr. Leonard wrote about Aikido, we'll come back to him... I'm currently learning how to play racquetball. Mostly because I'm sick of running and doing workouts because I have to maintain Army standards. I want to have some fun to do! Running on your own with no specific goals (or goals that you say "screw that" after 2 weeks, I'm sure I'll have more to say on that someday) gets tedious and boring. Really, I just need to run another marathon, but parenting is more important right now. ANYWAY!! Focus Tyson! I'm learning racquetball and I've been playing at a different location these past few weeks than I normally play, with people I'm not normally around. What I mean to say with that, is that I don't give a ladybugs turd what they think about me, imma be gone in 5 days now! Back to where I don't want to make an ass out of myself! =) So while I'm in this new location, I'm asking for tips, drills, and advice on what these racquetball bad asses see me doing wrong.
Okay. Teachers! Did you see it? I asked for 1) Factual information: How is this game played? 2) Technical information: How do I play this game and win? Meaning techniques, and 3) What am I doing wrong, or what do I do consistently that you took advantage of that I should fix. A great conductor told me this in much simpler terms than that: Analyze, Diagnose, Prescribe. Analyze: this piece sounds like poo in this part (speaking of a piece of music). Diagnose: It sounds like poo because the flutes are out of tune. Prescribe: Give the flutes several different options for playing more in tune (or if you follow musician jokes...shoot one!).
You may be wondering why I even talked about Mr. Leonard now right? (you don't have the patience to be taught do you!? Haha!!) Well, if you don't know how to keep an audience in suspense, I'll tell you in a second...
So as I'm playing with the racquetball studs of Yakima, they have drills they tell me about. They can tell me what they did to get better, but none of them can really put into words what it is they saw me doing that the could take advantage of to win. I figured out my racquetball "nemesis" in town here won't tell me because it's how he beats me, but he's a teacher too... But out of town, even when I asked, they couldn't tell me. There was no analysis. In music, you get private instruction so you can have an expert on your instrument tell you what specifically you are doing that will inhibit you in the future, and what you should fix if you want to get better and maybe eventually work in this field. Granted, I wasn't paying these people like I paid my trumpet teachers, but I honestly don't think they knew what I meant when I was asking them if they saw something that I could do, and I wasn't going to push it with people I didn't know.
All this to say that I think that the vast majority of people don't understand the difficulty and action of delivering instruction. George Leonard didn't! (There it is haha!!) He wrote about mastery of anything, but when he talked about instruction, he talked about finding a teacher that could work with you individually and personality would mesh, and blah blah blah... Mr. Leonard, that is in fact, NOT GOOD TEACHING!
Public secondary school professional teachers, in general, have to see on average 100 to 300 kids a day. Obviously it can go lower, and it can also go higher (but not much). It is impossible to match a personality to every one of those kids. It is still possible to deliver them instruction in such a way that they will gain knowledge and skills that they may have not wanted at all.
I would argue that delivering instruction is a skill that takes mastery. It takes practice. It takes patience, it takes more introspective honesty than ANY other profession (even music!). If you're not honest with yourself about your faults especially, kids will eat you up. They will disrespect you, they will be defiant because you can't deal with yourself and are not worthy to deal with them, and you get paid like crap for it! (I knew about the pay going into teaching, so I have no intention of dwelling on it, but if the salary was commiserate with the training and stress, you would see MANY more excellent teachers in for the long haul).
Teaching well, and doing it for 3 decades is near impossible. You know those "bad" teachers that we're hearing so much about? They didn't start that way. If they started poorly, they would have left after 1 or 2 years. In fact, about half new teachers do that anyway. Bad teachers (off topic real quick, I watched the Cameron Diaz movie of the same name, I wanted to Falcon Punch the people that made that movie. F. U.) are teachers that did wonderful things early in their career, then eventually figured out a reason not to do that much work. They didn't get paid more every time they reached a kid that no one else could, their friend from college was working a corporate gig making 3 times as much and they got weekends off, a principal found a reason to harass them (that's my story), parents that are incapable of listening to an objective, professional, adult about their child, and on and on. The point is, if someone gets 10 years in, and find that they can half ass it and get the same pay, the path of least resistance my friends... I was on that path. I left. I miss the act of teaching A LOT. Especially when I'm at an Army training and the instructors are HORRIBLE. Nice people, but they couldn't teach a dog to shit in a park. But I don't miss the adults. You ever met a person that says "trust me" a lot? Do you trust them when they say that? I don't. In teaching, if someone says "it's what's best for the kids." Generally, it's what's best for their career, and not the kids. If you want to keep your teaching job, generally you shouldn't call them out on their decisions... Hold teachers accountable, but not principals... bad idea folks... Thus, I now work for the Army.
In summary, teaching is an art and profession that most people don't understand and are incapable of actually doing to the degree of a pro (that's why they're pro's people!! Do you send ME in to play QB for the Seahwaks?! HELL NO!!!). I have racquetball and Army instructors as my immediate evidence, and finally, don't piss off your bosses, they'll make your life hell. =) A happy post today! Anyone got that sarcasm font yet?
I recently read this book called Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term fulfillment, by George Leonard. It's a quick, easy read (sorry the citation is not correct APA format...whatever, I don't HAVE to do that now), but lends some perspective and thought on society and our laziness. His specific experience was with Aikido, a martial art, and the process of learning Aikido. Getting the basic concepts, getting the intermediate concepts, putting them into use in a martial situation (in combat, or in a bar fight if you will...), then more advanced concepts that are all completely and absolutely dependent on how well you did your basics. If you did not do a good job on basics, then your advanced concepts will suffer significantly. I see this in music now, clear as day. It's so obvious to me that I sometimes wonder WTF people are thinking when they don't practice their basics. Actually, the thought goes more like this, "If you want an example of what happens when you don't practice your basics, HELLO!!! HERE I AM!!!" I'll probably write on that later when I talk about music specifically, I don't want to get distracted too much (that's why I'm not writing part 5 yet, I don't really know how I want to present the normal part of my life in such a way that someone will actually read it, and not just because you're nice people that like me and feel that you should read it for me, that's like beginning band concerts...you go because it's your kids, not because of the musical experience! Here I am digressing again...), and music, obviously, distracts me quite well.
So Mr. Leonard wrote about Aikido, we'll come back to him... I'm currently learning how to play racquetball. Mostly because I'm sick of running and doing workouts because I have to maintain Army standards. I want to have some fun to do! Running on your own with no specific goals (or goals that you say "screw that" after 2 weeks, I'm sure I'll have more to say on that someday) gets tedious and boring. Really, I just need to run another marathon, but parenting is more important right now. ANYWAY!! Focus Tyson! I'm learning racquetball and I've been playing at a different location these past few weeks than I normally play, with people I'm not normally around. What I mean to say with that, is that I don't give a ladybugs turd what they think about me, imma be gone in 5 days now! Back to where I don't want to make an ass out of myself! =) So while I'm in this new location, I'm asking for tips, drills, and advice on what these racquetball bad asses see me doing wrong.
Okay. Teachers! Did you see it? I asked for 1) Factual information: How is this game played? 2) Technical information: How do I play this game and win? Meaning techniques, and 3) What am I doing wrong, or what do I do consistently that you took advantage of that I should fix. A great conductor told me this in much simpler terms than that: Analyze, Diagnose, Prescribe. Analyze: this piece sounds like poo in this part (speaking of a piece of music). Diagnose: It sounds like poo because the flutes are out of tune. Prescribe: Give the flutes several different options for playing more in tune (or if you follow musician jokes...shoot one!).
You may be wondering why I even talked about Mr. Leonard now right? (you don't have the patience to be taught do you!? Haha!!) Well, if you don't know how to keep an audience in suspense, I'll tell you in a second...
So as I'm playing with the racquetball studs of Yakima, they have drills they tell me about. They can tell me what they did to get better, but none of them can really put into words what it is they saw me doing that the could take advantage of to win. I figured out my racquetball "nemesis" in town here won't tell me because it's how he beats me, but he's a teacher too... But out of town, even when I asked, they couldn't tell me. There was no analysis. In music, you get private instruction so you can have an expert on your instrument tell you what specifically you are doing that will inhibit you in the future, and what you should fix if you want to get better and maybe eventually work in this field. Granted, I wasn't paying these people like I paid my trumpet teachers, but I honestly don't think they knew what I meant when I was asking them if they saw something that I could do, and I wasn't going to push it with people I didn't know.
All this to say that I think that the vast majority of people don't understand the difficulty and action of delivering instruction. George Leonard didn't! (There it is haha!!) He wrote about mastery of anything, but when he talked about instruction, he talked about finding a teacher that could work with you individually and personality would mesh, and blah blah blah... Mr. Leonard, that is in fact, NOT GOOD TEACHING!
Public secondary school professional teachers, in general, have to see on average 100 to 300 kids a day. Obviously it can go lower, and it can also go higher (but not much). It is impossible to match a personality to every one of those kids. It is still possible to deliver them instruction in such a way that they will gain knowledge and skills that they may have not wanted at all.
I would argue that delivering instruction is a skill that takes mastery. It takes practice. It takes patience, it takes more introspective honesty than ANY other profession (even music!). If you're not honest with yourself about your faults especially, kids will eat you up. They will disrespect you, they will be defiant because you can't deal with yourself and are not worthy to deal with them, and you get paid like crap for it! (I knew about the pay going into teaching, so I have no intention of dwelling on it, but if the salary was commiserate with the training and stress, you would see MANY more excellent teachers in for the long haul).
Teaching well, and doing it for 3 decades is near impossible. You know those "bad" teachers that we're hearing so much about? They didn't start that way. If they started poorly, they would have left after 1 or 2 years. In fact, about half new teachers do that anyway. Bad teachers (off topic real quick, I watched the Cameron Diaz movie of the same name, I wanted to Falcon Punch the people that made that movie. F. U.) are teachers that did wonderful things early in their career, then eventually figured out a reason not to do that much work. They didn't get paid more every time they reached a kid that no one else could, their friend from college was working a corporate gig making 3 times as much and they got weekends off, a principal found a reason to harass them (that's my story), parents that are incapable of listening to an objective, professional, adult about their child, and on and on. The point is, if someone gets 10 years in, and find that they can half ass it and get the same pay, the path of least resistance my friends... I was on that path. I left. I miss the act of teaching A LOT. Especially when I'm at an Army training and the instructors are HORRIBLE. Nice people, but they couldn't teach a dog to shit in a park. But I don't miss the adults. You ever met a person that says "trust me" a lot? Do you trust them when they say that? I don't. In teaching, if someone says "it's what's best for the kids." Generally, it's what's best for their career, and not the kids. If you want to keep your teaching job, generally you shouldn't call them out on their decisions... Hold teachers accountable, but not principals... bad idea folks... Thus, I now work for the Army.
In summary, teaching is an art and profession that most people don't understand and are incapable of actually doing to the degree of a pro (that's why they're pro's people!! Do you send ME in to play QB for the Seahwaks?! HELL NO!!!). I have racquetball and Army instructors as my immediate evidence, and finally, don't piss off your bosses, they'll make your life hell. =) A happy post today! Anyone got that sarcasm font yet?
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Me (high school)
So I've procrastinated, wrote, deleted it, and procrastinated it again... The rest of my life just isn't that entertaining, but as I've said, I'm doing this for my own purposes and to try to kinda' jog my memory and notate what I do remember.
By the time I get to jr high/high school life was pretty normal. As I've procrastinated I've thought about how I want to go through the later bits of my life... (if a family of idiots from Jersey can get a reality show, mine isn't THAT boring...) I think the most effective way of doing this "for historical purposes" (by that I mean it's the easiest way to write...) is to just go through by school year and summer and tell my best stories from that year. With that said, here we go!
8th grade - Don't remember much, band band band. Get in trouble with Lonnie. We'd drink a 6 pack of Jolt Cola at lunch before band. Freeman LOVED us. Maybe... We locked his daughter in one of the instrument cages at one point, so maybe he didn't. Lonnie also made it a point to drop his tuba mouthpiece every concert. As a band teacher now, I'd want to punch Lonnie. Sometimes I want to punch him anyway. Hi Lonnie (as if he'd read this much of my BS)! Anyway, we broke into a concession stand that year thinking we were gonna raid the candy. Someone saw us and called the cops, Lonnie talked us out of it and we ended up not stealing anything, and not getting in trouble. Probably a good thing... whew!
Summer of 8th grade I worked at a Horse ranch for my Dad's cousin Andy in June. Cleaning horse stalls, feeding horses cleaning after the cows that were used to train the horses (it was a cutting horse ranch if you know what that is. If you don't, google it cause I ain't gonna 'splain it). Cows are friggin' disgusting. Their pen got up to my hips deep in their shit. Yuck. Anyway... I spent most of July at Anderson Island in the Puget Sound at my Aunt Tonja and Uncle Jeff's cabin. Good times. Girls. Wow. Girls in bathing suits. Oyve. Anyway...girls are gross... =) I learned to water ski, knee board, had some fun on the 4th (although Uncle Jeff didn't let me blow stuff up like I did in Renton!) and in all, good times were had. I was less awkward with girls after that summer, that's for sure...
9th grade - This was still Jr high in Marysville at the time. Again, not much to do in the Ville... I did wrestling, baseball, and band. I tried cross country, but didn't like it. I've since gotten into running a bit more, but as a 14 year old, running sucked. Probably the most important thing that year was meeting a gentleman names Rod Stubbs. He came by our school recruiting for the Seattle Cascades Drum and Bugle Corps. I won't go into that too much now, that's a post all in itself! But I will give a summary as we go...
That summer was my first with the (then) Crashcades. We did a field show based on the Musical "Showboat." Ooooold maan Riiveeeer...." Whatever! A crappy marching field show meant I got to get away from home for 2 1/2 months (while life was normal, it wasn't pleasant by any means... for more on that see my sisters blog...True Accounts of a Single-Mom). I grew up a lot that summer and learned a lot about playing music, and trumpet. Foremost being that high notes are cool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UxdCqOWVcA .
10th grade - So this was my first year at Marysville-Pilchuck High School. Once again, band band band. I did do other things, Spanish Club. I guess that counts as other stuff right? I did do baseball and wrestling, but I wasn't that into it. Drum corps kinda' made me think "If I could just do band all day, that'd be cool" and I started getting my trumpet player attitude of "Wow, if I were in charge, I could do way better." Not of my band director, he was great, still is! More in the drum corps scene, and honestly, I probably could've done better...but I loved it, so I kept with it. I kinda' got sick of high school that year and applied for Running Start through Everett Community College. I also had my first real girlfriend, Heidi A.. We started "going out" in October or so, and she dumped me on an all night New Years teen party thing sponsored by a church. At 10pm. The event ended at 7am. Not my best New Years Eve... ahhh teenage love! Anyway, I met other girls that year too. So that summer (1994)the Cascade's show was "La Vien Rose" The best part of the show was the car wash scene, well, it was supposed to be a carousel... but our execution was less than stellar. I also auditioned for the jazz band at MPHS. I figured it was the best was to get better at trumpet for drum corps. Our jazz band at the time was one of the best in the state of Washington. Up there with Garfield and Roosevelt, and I was right, I got better at trumpeting! Fun Fun!
11th Grade - I started college that year. I didn't waste any time! My first quarter was chemistry and algebra. I learned that 1:30 is a bad time for me to take a class. I could NOT stay awake. I ended up having to withdraw that class. Chemistry I BARELY squeaked by with a D. Learning how college works early (I still didn't figure it out until my 3rd summer at Northwestern)! I only took one class the next quarter, I should explain too that I was only going to college part time so I could stay in band. I've had kids try and drop out of band to do running start as a band director now... I tell them this story =) Sometimes it keeps 'em in, sometimes it doesn't. But it always makes them think I'm a bigger band geek. Close Enough. I'd go to morning classes at MP then walk off campus (wave to the security guard who let me go, that worked in my favor as a senior!) and catch a bus to ECC, then hang around campus listening to music (Miles Davis Bitches Brew!) in the library or attempting to do homework, usually failing miserably at the HW. I took night classes there so I would be on campus for 5-6 hours. Another way of getting away from home for long periods of time...
Anyway, hangin' out on a community college campus got old pretty fast for a 16 year old, but Dad wouldn't let me drive until I had a job. In April of that year I got sick of the Community Transit (CT) and found a job at McDonalds. Ironic if you know me and how anti big corporation I am now, but I hadda get a job! Unfortunately, that also meant I had to cut my hair... the best way I attracted girls. Bummer! Eventually, I had to shave it all off anyway...but that's YEARS away still. So I started juggling work, drum corps, high school band, college, and dating! I was pretty happy with what I was doing back then, but looking back now as a parent, it was cake...
That summer (95 if you're following), was the beginning of the beginning for the Cascades. We were growing up and moving out of the little kid crap. Elton John was the beginning of the "Butt Rock" years for them. I honestly think the Cascades should've kept that going as their "thing," there's SO much opportunity there, but whatever. When I suggested that as a 20 year old, I was told "That concept is pretty limiting" by someone who lacked any creativity whatsoever. That was when I wrote 'em off and decided college was a higher priority. I digress! I also decided I wanted a little more responsibility playing and I got a solo (actually trio, but close enough). Good times! Every year with them made me want "it" more. It, I know now, was musical experience. I eventually achieved that goal, I'm still a junky but it's a lot harder to come by these days. My expectations are a little higher I guess.
SENIOR YEAR!!!!
I went from 4th trumpet to lead trumpet in jazz band, I wasn't ready for it, but there wasn't any other choice. Every festival that year the clinician that worked with us said "and who's the lead trumpet? You're almost there!" Again, looking back, I achieved a LOT in a short period of time, but as my wife would tell you, I'm not the most patient with myself, and I wanted to be Arturo Sandoval NOW!! Still working on that... I was the back up date for all the drum corps girls so I went to about 5 homecomings and 4 proms. That jazz band tux came in quite handy that's for sure! I even went to my own prom!! Which was kinda' weird actually, I was at MP for band and spanish. I didn't actually know anyone outside of those classes at school. So anyway, I skipped my first class that year, but it was after I got my final grade from my final class (junior english, I though I covered that with an english class at ECC, but it didn't, so I took it as a senior). That's when knowing the security gurad came in handy...once. So many people I know that got caught by him watched me drive by and wave... They were pissed! Anyway, what else is there to say. Senior year...I didn't party (if you read parts 1-4 of me, I'd seen enough of that for a while) so I didn't really belong anywhere, and high school was not the end of my education, not by a long shot! OH THAT!! So I applied at the University of Washington a week late, which meant I had to write an essay and why I should be accepted (later that became their SOP, but it wasn't for my year...). I got my letter while working at Precision Tune (an oil change place on state street) and Toni dropped it off for me. That was a HUGE relief because it was the only school I applied for!! WHEW!
Graduation! Mr. Hawke stepped aside as I passed the band and told me to conduct. Procession of the Nobles is in 3. I didn't know that then... oh boy... =)
So that summer was the Beatles summer for the Cascades. It was a hot mess at the beginning of the season, but something clicked that summer. We all got it together and achieved something new. Music! So fun!!! The ballad for that summer is now the corps song. Imagine. We made a peace sign and halted for some ridiculous amount of beats... cheesy, and awesome. It was a good summer for me personally too. I had a girlfriend on tour for once. 'Nuff said there! I was 18, graduated high school, ready for college, had the best summer of my life, and it was time for moving on! That Alice Cooper song comes to mind...
Next up. College! GO DAWGZ!!!!
By the time I get to jr high/high school life was pretty normal. As I've procrastinated I've thought about how I want to go through the later bits of my life... (if a family of idiots from Jersey can get a reality show, mine isn't THAT boring...) I think the most effective way of doing this "for historical purposes" (by that I mean it's the easiest way to write...) is to just go through by school year and summer and tell my best stories from that year. With that said, here we go!
8th grade - Don't remember much, band band band. Get in trouble with Lonnie. We'd drink a 6 pack of Jolt Cola at lunch before band. Freeman LOVED us. Maybe... We locked his daughter in one of the instrument cages at one point, so maybe he didn't. Lonnie also made it a point to drop his tuba mouthpiece every concert. As a band teacher now, I'd want to punch Lonnie. Sometimes I want to punch him anyway. Hi Lonnie (as if he'd read this much of my BS)! Anyway, we broke into a concession stand that year thinking we were gonna raid the candy. Someone saw us and called the cops, Lonnie talked us out of it and we ended up not stealing anything, and not getting in trouble. Probably a good thing... whew!
Summer of 8th grade I worked at a Horse ranch for my Dad's cousin Andy in June. Cleaning horse stalls, feeding horses cleaning after the cows that were used to train the horses (it was a cutting horse ranch if you know what that is. If you don't, google it cause I ain't gonna 'splain it). Cows are friggin' disgusting. Their pen got up to my hips deep in their shit. Yuck. Anyway... I spent most of July at Anderson Island in the Puget Sound at my Aunt Tonja and Uncle Jeff's cabin. Good times. Girls. Wow. Girls in bathing suits. Oyve. Anyway...girls are gross... =) I learned to water ski, knee board, had some fun on the 4th (although Uncle Jeff didn't let me blow stuff up like I did in Renton!) and in all, good times were had. I was less awkward with girls after that summer, that's for sure...
9th grade - This was still Jr high in Marysville at the time. Again, not much to do in the Ville... I did wrestling, baseball, and band. I tried cross country, but didn't like it. I've since gotten into running a bit more, but as a 14 year old, running sucked. Probably the most important thing that year was meeting a gentleman names Rod Stubbs. He came by our school recruiting for the Seattle Cascades Drum and Bugle Corps. I won't go into that too much now, that's a post all in itself! But I will give a summary as we go...
That summer was my first with the (then) Crashcades. We did a field show based on the Musical "Showboat." Ooooold maan Riiveeeer...." Whatever! A crappy marching field show meant I got to get away from home for 2 1/2 months (while life was normal, it wasn't pleasant by any means... for more on that see my sisters blog...True Accounts of a Single-Mom). I grew up a lot that summer and learned a lot about playing music, and trumpet. Foremost being that high notes are cool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UxdCqOWVcA .
10th grade - So this was my first year at Marysville-Pilchuck High School. Once again, band band band. I did do other things, Spanish Club. I guess that counts as other stuff right? I did do baseball and wrestling, but I wasn't that into it. Drum corps kinda' made me think "If I could just do band all day, that'd be cool" and I started getting my trumpet player attitude of "Wow, if I were in charge, I could do way better." Not of my band director, he was great, still is! More in the drum corps scene, and honestly, I probably could've done better...but I loved it, so I kept with it. I kinda' got sick of high school that year and applied for Running Start through Everett Community College. I also had my first real girlfriend, Heidi A.. We started "going out" in October or so, and she dumped me on an all night New Years teen party thing sponsored by a church. At 10pm. The event ended at 7am. Not my best New Years Eve... ahhh teenage love! Anyway, I met other girls that year too. So that summer (1994)the Cascade's show was "La Vien Rose" The best part of the show was the car wash scene, well, it was supposed to be a carousel... but our execution was less than stellar. I also auditioned for the jazz band at MPHS. I figured it was the best was to get better at trumpet for drum corps. Our jazz band at the time was one of the best in the state of Washington. Up there with Garfield and Roosevelt, and I was right, I got better at trumpeting! Fun Fun!
11th Grade - I started college that year. I didn't waste any time! My first quarter was chemistry and algebra. I learned that 1:30 is a bad time for me to take a class. I could NOT stay awake. I ended up having to withdraw that class. Chemistry I BARELY squeaked by with a D. Learning how college works early (I still didn't figure it out until my 3rd summer at Northwestern)! I only took one class the next quarter, I should explain too that I was only going to college part time so I could stay in band. I've had kids try and drop out of band to do running start as a band director now... I tell them this story =) Sometimes it keeps 'em in, sometimes it doesn't. But it always makes them think I'm a bigger band geek. Close Enough. I'd go to morning classes at MP then walk off campus (wave to the security guard who let me go, that worked in my favor as a senior!) and catch a bus to ECC, then hang around campus listening to music (Miles Davis Bitches Brew!) in the library or attempting to do homework, usually failing miserably at the HW. I took night classes there so I would be on campus for 5-6 hours. Another way of getting away from home for long periods of time...
Anyway, hangin' out on a community college campus got old pretty fast for a 16 year old, but Dad wouldn't let me drive until I had a job. In April of that year I got sick of the Community Transit (CT) and found a job at McDonalds. Ironic if you know me and how anti big corporation I am now, but I hadda get a job! Unfortunately, that also meant I had to cut my hair... the best way I attracted girls. Bummer! Eventually, I had to shave it all off anyway...but that's YEARS away still. So I started juggling work, drum corps, high school band, college, and dating! I was pretty happy with what I was doing back then, but looking back now as a parent, it was cake...
That summer (95 if you're following), was the beginning of the beginning for the Cascades. We were growing up and moving out of the little kid crap. Elton John was the beginning of the "Butt Rock" years for them. I honestly think the Cascades should've kept that going as their "thing," there's SO much opportunity there, but whatever. When I suggested that as a 20 year old, I was told "That concept is pretty limiting" by someone who lacked any creativity whatsoever. That was when I wrote 'em off and decided college was a higher priority. I digress! I also decided I wanted a little more responsibility playing and I got a solo (actually trio, but close enough). Good times! Every year with them made me want "it" more. It, I know now, was musical experience. I eventually achieved that goal, I'm still a junky but it's a lot harder to come by these days. My expectations are a little higher I guess.
SENIOR YEAR!!!!
I went from 4th trumpet to lead trumpet in jazz band, I wasn't ready for it, but there wasn't any other choice. Every festival that year the clinician that worked with us said "and who's the lead trumpet? You're almost there!" Again, looking back, I achieved a LOT in a short period of time, but as my wife would tell you, I'm not the most patient with myself, and I wanted to be Arturo Sandoval NOW!! Still working on that... I was the back up date for all the drum corps girls so I went to about 5 homecomings and 4 proms. That jazz band tux came in quite handy that's for sure! I even went to my own prom!! Which was kinda' weird actually, I was at MP for band and spanish. I didn't actually know anyone outside of those classes at school. So anyway, I skipped my first class that year, but it was after I got my final grade from my final class (junior english, I though I covered that with an english class at ECC, but it didn't, so I took it as a senior). That's when knowing the security gurad came in handy...once. So many people I know that got caught by him watched me drive by and wave... They were pissed! Anyway, what else is there to say. Senior year...I didn't party (if you read parts 1-4 of me, I'd seen enough of that for a while) so I didn't really belong anywhere, and high school was not the end of my education, not by a long shot! OH THAT!! So I applied at the University of Washington a week late, which meant I had to write an essay and why I should be accepted (later that became their SOP, but it wasn't for my year...). I got my letter while working at Precision Tune (an oil change place on state street) and Toni dropped it off for me. That was a HUGE relief because it was the only school I applied for!! WHEW!
Graduation! Mr. Hawke stepped aside as I passed the band and told me to conduct. Procession of the Nobles is in 3. I didn't know that then... oh boy... =)
So that summer was the Beatles summer for the Cascades. It was a hot mess at the beginning of the season, but something clicked that summer. We all got it together and achieved something new. Music! So fun!!! The ballad for that summer is now the corps song. Imagine. We made a peace sign and halted for some ridiculous amount of beats... cheesy, and awesome. It was a good summer for me personally too. I had a girlfriend on tour for once. 'Nuff said there! I was 18, graduated high school, ready for college, had the best summer of my life, and it was time for moving on! That Alice Cooper song comes to mind...
Next up. College! GO DAWGZ!!!!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Me (part 4 now? Good Grief!)
I finished my last day of 6th grade at Ridgecrest elementary with I fight. There was this kid there that I was kinda' friends with, but he kind of annoyed me. We've all had those friends... I brought my skateboard to school and he said "Wouldn't it be cool if you could velcro your shoes to your board." I knew what he meant, but he'd been bugging me for the last few months, and I already knew that I could push his buttons and that I could beat him. So I said "____ that's dumb, and you're stupid." He took the bait and we had a fight. Like I said, I already knew I could beat him... I learned a lot being a white kid in the projects, foremost is don't fight with a kid you can't beat. Or his friends! Anyway, principals office on the last day! "Waddya gonna do boss? Send me home now? Ok!" I never said any of that to the principal's face, but that's what I was thinking, and I'm pretty sure he knew it and still couldn't do anything... He sent me back to class. Damn. =)
So we (Heidi and I) packed up (I actually had to make my bed at Grandma's, so I did it one last time), and went back to live with Dad and Toni up in Marysille, WA, the "Ville." That summer was the most boring summer of my life. We had just moved and I had moved so many times that I had given up on making friends, and I was a 7th grader. 7th graders are mutants. So I was a mutant in a new place with new social rules (again). I found the library, read a lot, rode my bike a lot, and found a creek to go wet my feet in. By September, I was a little more prepared for the middle school experience than I was the first two weeks of school in 6th grade (at the same school). Worst of all... Those glasses. ----->
The haircut is only horrid now, it was in style in the Ville back then (doesn't mean it SHOULD have been, but it was), but the glasses. Oyve. Thanks Heidi for posting that on the Facebooks... I am comfortable nothing else like that will show up these days...
So 7th grade started a more normal part of life for me and Heidi. Dad and Toni were a little more prepared to be responsible parents. They were buying a house now, they were engaged (it didn't happen until that dorky ass kid was 17, but it was a little more serious now), they had steady work. In short, they saw the writing on the wall, and grew up (assisted by the motivation that Grandma and Grandpa were the mortgage holders on their house, and could essentially make their lives pretty crappy. Some people need a little more help, i.e., coercion, to grow up). That doesn't mean there wasn't still lots of problems... I'm a smart kid. The experiences I had prior to 7th grade forced me to be more mature than most 12 year olds, and the way I dealt with it, if I may be a bit of a trumpet player for a second (meaning I'm pretty proud of it), was better than the vast majority of other 12 year olds. I'm saying this because Dad's general philosophy of parenting at the time was this: "Tyson, don't do that." Me: "Why? You do?" Dad: "Do as I say, not as I do." Me: "That's no fair, and it's not right." Dad: "I'm the parent, I'll tell you what's right. Don't do that." Usually he got pretty angry when this conversation and it's thousands of variations happened, and I'm sure there are a lot of Heidi's colleagues out there that would poop bricks if they saw him in action back then, but here's the background. Before I moved to Chicago, Dad and I went fishing for a weekend and had a heart to heart (he fell out of the boat into alpine lake water too, that was Freaking. Hilarious.). He confessed to me that he screwed a lot of stuff up as a parent, including in Marysville. In his head, he was doing for me what he wanted for himself as a teenager, boundaries, structure, discipline, and a swift kick in the ass to get him motivated. What I got out of that was that he thought he was raising himself. Remember that point, "raising himself," we'll come back to that... I want to also be crystal clear that he never resorted to any physical abuse. Ever. A wise person once told me that all parents do the best they can at any given time. That doesn't mean it's good. It simply means that was the best they were capable of at the time. Dad and I are actually pretty close now. I'll leave that for another post (blog, whatever) another day...
Remember I said something about Dad thinking he was raising himself? Well, Toni did that too. She superimposed how she behaved as a child/teenager on Heidi. Now, Heidi, that's your story and I don't want to steal your thunder if you get to the point where you write your story, but I do need to say that this, eventually, did not work out well.
So through these secondary school years, things were mostly normal. Yeah Dad was overzealous and yeah Toni felt jealous of her step-daugher, but they cared and did the best they could at the time. They were focused more on being parents than they were in Richmond Beach, and they were getting better at it. As an adult, I especially feel for Toni. She never had children of her own and to this day, I don't think she understands the care that's necessary from day 1. I'm not supposed to have that sort of knowledge that one of my parents does. It doesn't seem right... But it is what it is. Toni got us when I was 10 and Heidi 5 and these days, she doesn't really know what to do with Sam when we're up there.
So I'm going to get back to the bio part of this bio... About this time, let's go ahead and say 8th grade now... I started to really get into band. It was close though! I spent the summer of 7th grade with my Dad's cousin Andy at a horse training ranch in Monroe. It was fun, I got pretty strong (for a scrawny 12 year old), I got paid for cleaning horse stalls, and I could have easily slipped into that scene. Something else came up though...I'll get there in a paragraph or two. Most of the popular kids in band were figuring out it was hard to be good and dropping out for easier things like sports. I got new glasses (and then broke 'em goofing around in PE and had to wear prescription sunglasses for the next two years, but they were still better than that damn picture!) and I started actually meeting people in all my new normal activities. In particular there was Boy Scouts... I didn't really make many friends in my troop, but I do remember seeing another new kid (this was back in 7th) at Marysville Middle school with one of those red wool boy scout coats. I asked him what troop he was in and was he new at MMS. He was new, and his old troop was in Everett. His name was Lonnie. We actually were Beavis and Butthead. It was that bad. I think this is going to turn into a part 5...jeebus...So much happened before Lonnie and I started causing trouble, mostly for ourselves...
The summer after 8th grade Heidi and I spent a few weeks with Mom. She had been living with my Uncle Tony and Aunt Tonja. They were keeping Mom on the straight and narrow. They had (have actually, it's still there) a "cabin" on Anderson island. It's in quotes because it was a brand spanky new house on a lake. Frikkin' Rad. Mom took us out there. This my first summer of "Oh! Girls! WOAH GIRLS ARE COOL." It was about that bad. I think I was getting more normal. Except for those damn sunglasses...
In 9th grade I broke my glasses for team try outs for baseball when I threw off the catchers mask. I didn't make the team because I missed a day of try-outs. That got Dad motivated to FINALLY get me contacts. After two years of being called "shades" by everyone in the damn school. That was attention no middle school kid EVER wants. That year, I also discovered Drum & Bugle Corps. Now it was on. I found what I was going to do. The Seattle Cascades was when I discovered what I wanted to do in life. Lucky for me, I was 14 when i found it. I remember my first camp at the Bingo hall in Shoreline. The building housed about 150 old people that smoked like chimney's that were on fire every weeknight, and then we went in on the weekends to play brass instruments. Nice. As and adult and music educator I look back on this and say WTF WERE YOU THINKING to the adults that were leading the group. I also remember an instructor telling us we were going to learn to march backwards. I said "why do we need to march backwards?" He got this look of "Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into by taking this job." That was good times! Seattle Cascades 1993 "Showboat!"
I'm getting into the normal stuff now, so it's probably not as interesting =) I don't care! It was my life and I'm writing it for myself and my kids! I have to keep that in mind so I don't make my autobiography into a crappy soap opera... My recollections of my life. It's also easier to joke about and make fun of when it's not so damn serious! I said I wasn't going to write a book...I think I did lie. Next stop, high school... ah crap... Girls. =)
So we (Heidi and I) packed up (I actually had to make my bed at Grandma's, so I did it one last time), and went back to live with Dad and Toni up in Marysille, WA, the "Ville." That summer was the most boring summer of my life. We had just moved and I had moved so many times that I had given up on making friends, and I was a 7th grader. 7th graders are mutants. So I was a mutant in a new place with new social rules (again). I found the library, read a lot, rode my bike a lot, and found a creek to go wet my feet in. By September, I was a little more prepared for the middle school experience than I was the first two weeks of school in 6th grade (at the same school). Worst of all... Those glasses. ----->
The haircut is only horrid now, it was in style in the Ville back then (doesn't mean it SHOULD have been, but it was), but the glasses. Oyve. Thanks Heidi for posting that on the Facebooks... I am comfortable nothing else like that will show up these days...So 7th grade started a more normal part of life for me and Heidi. Dad and Toni were a little more prepared to be responsible parents. They were buying a house now, they were engaged (it didn't happen until that dorky ass kid was 17, but it was a little more serious now), they had steady work. In short, they saw the writing on the wall, and grew up (assisted by the motivation that Grandma and Grandpa were the mortgage holders on their house, and could essentially make their lives pretty crappy. Some people need a little more help, i.e., coercion, to grow up). That doesn't mean there wasn't still lots of problems... I'm a smart kid. The experiences I had prior to 7th grade forced me to be more mature than most 12 year olds, and the way I dealt with it, if I may be a bit of a trumpet player for a second (meaning I'm pretty proud of it), was better than the vast majority of other 12 year olds. I'm saying this because Dad's general philosophy of parenting at the time was this: "Tyson, don't do that." Me: "Why? You do?" Dad: "Do as I say, not as I do." Me: "That's no fair, and it's not right." Dad: "I'm the parent, I'll tell you what's right. Don't do that." Usually he got pretty angry when this conversation and it's thousands of variations happened, and I'm sure there are a lot of Heidi's colleagues out there that would poop bricks if they saw him in action back then, but here's the background. Before I moved to Chicago, Dad and I went fishing for a weekend and had a heart to heart (he fell out of the boat into alpine lake water too, that was Freaking. Hilarious.). He confessed to me that he screwed a lot of stuff up as a parent, including in Marysville. In his head, he was doing for me what he wanted for himself as a teenager, boundaries, structure, discipline, and a swift kick in the ass to get him motivated. What I got out of that was that he thought he was raising himself. Remember that point, "raising himself," we'll come back to that... I want to also be crystal clear that he never resorted to any physical abuse. Ever. A wise person once told me that all parents do the best they can at any given time. That doesn't mean it's good. It simply means that was the best they were capable of at the time. Dad and I are actually pretty close now. I'll leave that for another post (blog, whatever) another day...
Remember I said something about Dad thinking he was raising himself? Well, Toni did that too. She superimposed how she behaved as a child/teenager on Heidi. Now, Heidi, that's your story and I don't want to steal your thunder if you get to the point where you write your story, but I do need to say that this, eventually, did not work out well.
So through these secondary school years, things were mostly normal. Yeah Dad was overzealous and yeah Toni felt jealous of her step-daugher, but they cared and did the best they could at the time. They were focused more on being parents than they were in Richmond Beach, and they were getting better at it. As an adult, I especially feel for Toni. She never had children of her own and to this day, I don't think she understands the care that's necessary from day 1. I'm not supposed to have that sort of knowledge that one of my parents does. It doesn't seem right... But it is what it is. Toni got us when I was 10 and Heidi 5 and these days, she doesn't really know what to do with Sam when we're up there.
So I'm going to get back to the bio part of this bio... About this time, let's go ahead and say 8th grade now... I started to really get into band. It was close though! I spent the summer of 7th grade with my Dad's cousin Andy at a horse training ranch in Monroe. It was fun, I got pretty strong (for a scrawny 12 year old), I got paid for cleaning horse stalls, and I could have easily slipped into that scene. Something else came up though...I'll get there in a paragraph or two. Most of the popular kids in band were figuring out it was hard to be good and dropping out for easier things like sports. I got new glasses (and then broke 'em goofing around in PE and had to wear prescription sunglasses for the next two years, but they were still better than that damn picture!) and I started actually meeting people in all my new normal activities. In particular there was Boy Scouts... I didn't really make many friends in my troop, but I do remember seeing another new kid (this was back in 7th) at Marysville Middle school with one of those red wool boy scout coats. I asked him what troop he was in and was he new at MMS. He was new, and his old troop was in Everett. His name was Lonnie. We actually were Beavis and Butthead. It was that bad. I think this is going to turn into a part 5...jeebus...So much happened before Lonnie and I started causing trouble, mostly for ourselves...
The summer after 8th grade Heidi and I spent a few weeks with Mom. She had been living with my Uncle Tony and Aunt Tonja. They were keeping Mom on the straight and narrow. They had (have actually, it's still there) a "cabin" on Anderson island. It's in quotes because it was a brand spanky new house on a lake. Frikkin' Rad. Mom took us out there. This my first summer of "Oh! Girls! WOAH GIRLS ARE COOL." It was about that bad. I think I was getting more normal. Except for those damn sunglasses...
In 9th grade I broke my glasses for team try outs for baseball when I threw off the catchers mask. I didn't make the team because I missed a day of try-outs. That got Dad motivated to FINALLY get me contacts. After two years of being called "shades" by everyone in the damn school. That was attention no middle school kid EVER wants. That year, I also discovered Drum & Bugle Corps. Now it was on. I found what I was going to do. The Seattle Cascades was when I discovered what I wanted to do in life. Lucky for me, I was 14 when i found it. I remember my first camp at the Bingo hall in Shoreline. The building housed about 150 old people that smoked like chimney's that were on fire every weeknight, and then we went in on the weekends to play brass instruments. Nice. As and adult and music educator I look back on this and say WTF WERE YOU THINKING to the adults that were leading the group. I also remember an instructor telling us we were going to learn to march backwards. I said "why do we need to march backwards?" He got this look of "Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into by taking this job." That was good times! Seattle Cascades 1993 "Showboat!"
I'm getting into the normal stuff now, so it's probably not as interesting =) I don't care! It was my life and I'm writing it for myself and my kids! I have to keep that in mind so I don't make my autobiography into a crappy soap opera... My recollections of my life. It's also easier to joke about and make fun of when it's not so damn serious! I said I wasn't going to write a book...I think I did lie. Next stop, high school... ah crap... Girls. =)
Me (part 3)
Ok I said I wasn't going to ACTUALLY write a book, but maybe I lied... So my Mom drops us off with Dad and Toni in August of '88. The next year I was in 5th grade. I have to honestly say that I have NO idea how things went for Heidi that year, because it was pretty horrible for me. In Renton, I had figured out to not get made fun off, I had figured out who and when to fight (and who to NOT fight), where to stay away from, and all those things you learn as a kid, but don't really realize you know. Street smarts is what I'm saying. So Dad lived in Richmond Beach and my school was Syre Elementary in the Shoreline school district. So the first syllable of my neighborhood, it was "Rich." I went from a pretty rough neighborhood, to normal, intact, well to do, upper middle class kids. They acted fairly different, to say the least. I did NOT fit in well. Even my teacher had problems with me, and even not knowing how to adjust, I was a smart kid. I didn't like him much either, but not because he was generally a bad person, but because he didn't know what to do with a ghetto kid. Dude needed some professional development as we say in the teaching field! That's all, and I can forgive that. The kids there however, were ruthless!! I got made fun of for new things, learned about gossip (and not in a good way), got suspended once for my potty mouth, had other kids parents ban me from their house... etc etc... but honestly, I was confused as hell why I was getting in all this trouble! It was all bizniss as usual for me...
So school was traumatic, but that's the same for every kid. At home with Dad, it wasn't much different. So imagine if you will that you have two kids that you do love, but don't get to see very much. Then imagine that you find them on your doorstep one morning. It's a little different than seeing them every other weekend. Dad and Toni were NOT prepared. Our house was a 2 bedroom shack, with half the house made from the bodies of two buses. At one point later that school year, Dad was in the living room doing some re-modelling, we were in our room. He yells "TYSON, HEIDI GET OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW!!!" We run through the living room and he's on a ladder holding the ceiling up!!! We got out of the house. He came after the ceiling fell down, NOT on him. Whew! But that's the house we were in... Back to when we got there... Dad had a dealer friend living in the back room, and Dad kind of had to kick him out, so Heidi and I could have a room. I'm not sure exactly the sorts of activities that Dad and Toni were up to, they hid it a bit better than Mom did, but I'm suspicious that it still involved drugs. Dad pretty quickly decided that if he had his kids, he should probably stop dealing and bringing that danger around us, to his credit he did at the end of the school year.
On the path to being parents there were still mistakes that Dad and Toni made. Toni is also a very passionate person who has some childhood issues of outright physical abuse from her step dad. The way she deals with her problems, at least back then, was not the healthiest and the way her and my Dad fought (and still fight!) make's me REALLY uncomfortable. The added stress of two kids that they were expecting in a year or two did not help them. It was a responsibility they weren't ready for. There was one time Heidi and I went to see "The Land Before Time" at a movie theater a couple miles down the street. We went by ourselves and when the movie was over we were supposed to call on the pay phone and dad would come get us. We did that. No answer. Again. No answer. We snuck into "Ernest Saves Christmas" I thought Dad would be mad that I hadn't called and finally come get us. No answer. We watched Land Before Time again. Phone was of the hook. Ernest again, off the hook. I can't remember what finally happened, but obviously, we did get home. I think I called my Grandma Pam (paternal Grandma) and she sent Grandpa Danny to sober Dad up. I'm betting it wasn't a pleasant conversation...
Near the end of the school year, Dad got a bug in his bonnet about not having us grow up around gangs. Like I said a few paragraphs ago, I realize now as an adult that he was starting to make an effort to get us away from his past life. I thought it was silly at the time, my cousins dealt with gangs in Renton, there weren't any (at the time) in Shoreline... "What's Dad all weird about" (maybe his drug buddies? Maybe?)? Whatever the case, we moved to Marysville, WA. Dad bought a house that was pretty trashed and we cleaned and fixed it up quick. So in Marysville, I found that white trash is not very different from ghetto, they just speak a different language and listen to different (but just as crappy) music. Oh! I forgot! It might not seem important yet, but Syre had a GREAT beginning band program. Praise Bob.
Anyway, school starts in the "Ville." 6th grade at Marysville Middle School for me, Kindergarten at Shoultes elementary for Heids. Toni had a trip planned to see her friend in Florence, OR the second weekend of September. It seemed like the pressure was on for Dad to not screw up a weekend with us alone. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) he did, screw it up that is. Grandma Pam told us if anything happened to give her a call. So Friday when Dad didn't come home, I did.
So this is where I started to learn that things hadn't been right for me and Heidi for a LONG time. Grandma came up and made a big deal about Dad being gone, about us moving again, and about how I've done a good job with Heidi. She made us "Kid Coffee" and brought us back to her house. In retrospect, I think this was the opportunity she had been waiting for for a few years. Her and Grandpa Danny had given Dad an ultimatum to get his shit together in this move, and if he didn't, she would be taking us for the school year. What's ironic about this whole story is that when I got up in the morning and went out into the backyard (for whatever reason a kid would do that...) I found Dad sleeping on a hammock in Grandma's backyard. I went back in and told Grandma that I found Dad in the backyard. I've never actually made my Grandma angry, but I bet she "ripped off his arm and beat him with the bloody end of it." That was her joke way of saying she was gonna let someone have it. I think Dad got there that day. Proverbially, of course... So Heidi and I lived with Grandma Pam for a year. We had easy rules (Grandma tells me now that I was afraid to break any rules at all because I thought she might get rid of us, probably pretty accurate), we had consistent bedtimes, a routine, schedules... no chaos is what I'm saying. Grandma tells me I finally felt comfortable enough to get in trouble (like any normal 12 year old) around February. Whatever the case, Dad finally had the time and motivation to get his shit together and prepare mentally and financially to be a parent, and we moved back in with him in July. Toni didn't know what she was in for, still. So it was a little bit more difficult with her, but I'm getting ahead of myself now.
Back to Marysville we go!
So school was traumatic, but that's the same for every kid. At home with Dad, it wasn't much different. So imagine if you will that you have two kids that you do love, but don't get to see very much. Then imagine that you find them on your doorstep one morning. It's a little different than seeing them every other weekend. Dad and Toni were NOT prepared. Our house was a 2 bedroom shack, with half the house made from the bodies of two buses. At one point later that school year, Dad was in the living room doing some re-modelling, we were in our room. He yells "TYSON, HEIDI GET OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW!!!" We run through the living room and he's on a ladder holding the ceiling up!!! We got out of the house. He came after the ceiling fell down, NOT on him. Whew! But that's the house we were in... Back to when we got there... Dad had a dealer friend living in the back room, and Dad kind of had to kick him out, so Heidi and I could have a room. I'm not sure exactly the sorts of activities that Dad and Toni were up to, they hid it a bit better than Mom did, but I'm suspicious that it still involved drugs. Dad pretty quickly decided that if he had his kids, he should probably stop dealing and bringing that danger around us, to his credit he did at the end of the school year.
On the path to being parents there were still mistakes that Dad and Toni made. Toni is also a very passionate person who has some childhood issues of outright physical abuse from her step dad. The way she deals with her problems, at least back then, was not the healthiest and the way her and my Dad fought (and still fight!) make's me REALLY uncomfortable. The added stress of two kids that they were expecting in a year or two did not help them. It was a responsibility they weren't ready for. There was one time Heidi and I went to see "The Land Before Time" at a movie theater a couple miles down the street. We went by ourselves and when the movie was over we were supposed to call on the pay phone and dad would come get us. We did that. No answer. Again. No answer. We snuck into "Ernest Saves Christmas" I thought Dad would be mad that I hadn't called and finally come get us. No answer. We watched Land Before Time again. Phone was of the hook. Ernest again, off the hook. I can't remember what finally happened, but obviously, we did get home. I think I called my Grandma Pam (paternal Grandma) and she sent Grandpa Danny to sober Dad up. I'm betting it wasn't a pleasant conversation...
Near the end of the school year, Dad got a bug in his bonnet about not having us grow up around gangs. Like I said a few paragraphs ago, I realize now as an adult that he was starting to make an effort to get us away from his past life. I thought it was silly at the time, my cousins dealt with gangs in Renton, there weren't any (at the time) in Shoreline... "What's Dad all weird about" (maybe his drug buddies? Maybe?)? Whatever the case, we moved to Marysville, WA. Dad bought a house that was pretty trashed and we cleaned and fixed it up quick. So in Marysville, I found that white trash is not very different from ghetto, they just speak a different language and listen to different (but just as crappy) music. Oh! I forgot! It might not seem important yet, but Syre had a GREAT beginning band program. Praise Bob.
Anyway, school starts in the "Ville." 6th grade at Marysville Middle School for me, Kindergarten at Shoultes elementary for Heids. Toni had a trip planned to see her friend in Florence, OR the second weekend of September. It seemed like the pressure was on for Dad to not screw up a weekend with us alone. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) he did, screw it up that is. Grandma Pam told us if anything happened to give her a call. So Friday when Dad didn't come home, I did.
So this is where I started to learn that things hadn't been right for me and Heidi for a LONG time. Grandma came up and made a big deal about Dad being gone, about us moving again, and about how I've done a good job with Heidi. She made us "Kid Coffee" and brought us back to her house. In retrospect, I think this was the opportunity she had been waiting for for a few years. Her and Grandpa Danny had given Dad an ultimatum to get his shit together in this move, and if he didn't, she would be taking us for the school year. What's ironic about this whole story is that when I got up in the morning and went out into the backyard (for whatever reason a kid would do that...) I found Dad sleeping on a hammock in Grandma's backyard. I went back in and told Grandma that I found Dad in the backyard. I've never actually made my Grandma angry, but I bet she "ripped off his arm and beat him with the bloody end of it." That was her joke way of saying she was gonna let someone have it. I think Dad got there that day. Proverbially, of course... So Heidi and I lived with Grandma Pam for a year. We had easy rules (Grandma tells me now that I was afraid to break any rules at all because I thought she might get rid of us, probably pretty accurate), we had consistent bedtimes, a routine, schedules... no chaos is what I'm saying. Grandma tells me I finally felt comfortable enough to get in trouble (like any normal 12 year old) around February. Whatever the case, Dad finally had the time and motivation to get his shit together and prepare mentally and financially to be a parent, and we moved back in with him in July. Toni didn't know what she was in for, still. So it was a little bit more difficult with her, but I'm getting ahead of myself now.
Back to Marysville we go!
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