And After Four Years, Three Months, and a Day, Crandall Finally Put Pictures in the Frame He (Once Upon a Time) Got on Clearance

I found this frame several years ago and said to myself, "Oh, those are the colors I want for Mt. Pleasant...a little sandy and an ocean sky." Of course, I've moved that frame to just about every room in the house still in its packaging only because I never got around to figuring out what I want to do. I've only painted two walls...the accent wall in my living room and the hallway upstairs. Of course, Chitunga painted his room (impatiently), but it is painted. I have an idea of what I want to do but I need someone like Cynde to visit to convince me I'm right. 

Anyway, yesterday in the readying for Abu, Dave, Kris, and Ishy's arrival, I threw away six pillows and bought six more, then printed out photos for the frame which I planned to hang upstairs, but it looked good in the living room so there it shall sit for a while

The Sealey-Wooleys are only in town for one night, as they had to drop Isaiah off in Hartford to do an internship with Blumenthal. Dave will be returning in a couple of weeks to lead the Who Do You Think You Are? literacy lab with Kim Herzog. I'm excited the two of them will be working together again.

It was steamy yesterday....pea-soup, thick air. Did get a walk in but it was miserable. Actually, that is not true. It felt good and I'm glad I got moving. I was just drenched afterwards

As for this morning, I have to figure out if I'll cook for tonight or not...it's supposed to be another ten degrees warmer this afternoon than it was yesterday. Phew. 

But all the beds were made fresh and that is always a good feeling. Nothing like bringing in guests to think a little harder about home life. I also have the twin set up in the dining room so everyone can be accommodated. Mt. Pleasant loves the summer guest!

A Celebratory Dinner for Shirley and Sharon at Cibus: Good Food, Nice Drinks, Great Company, and Even Better Desserts

I had scallops, others had steak, chicken, pork, and salmon, and we all tipped glasses to Sharon's birthday and Shirley's soon-to-be-departure to Florida to care for her mom and to attend her older sister's wedding. 

It was a muggy one. I was drenched moving materials from Canisius Hall to Dolan School of Business, but I wanted everything to be read for Abu and me on Monday morning, when the teachers and kids come. The first day is always the hardest as there are 101 questions and even more items that my peanut brain is not ready to process. 

I believe today is supposed to be rainy, but with humidity, and I should stock the house for summer eating, as I haven's grocery shopped in a while, and continue to eat leftovers (which doesn't happen when we eat out with friends. 

We watched the Europe soccer semi-finals, played with Ethan and Patrick a little, walked the dog, and decided to do a Friday night like it's supposed to be done...deliciously. 

Today, however, I put away three loads of laundry and try to get my head around the grants and where they stand after months of good spending. Probably best to spend the day indoors, but we shall see. 

I like long weekends...they offer so much more Flex Time. 

Easily One of the Best Purchases I Ever Made (Best Gifts I've Ever Given). Yesterday, I Used It as a Location to Remember Where My Glasses and Keys Were

Patrick and Stephanie hosted an afternoon 4th of July gathering. At the last minute, I through together a lemon pasta salad with materials I had around (making my own buttermilk) and it came out superb. I think it's the lemon juice. While bringing it into the kitchen, I saw that Patrick still had the antelope skeleton art piece I found on clearance for under $17. I was shocked. I wish they had more. The joy on his face the year he unwrapped it was marvelous and I know that Stephanie still wishes the damn thing would just disappear (like the leg lamp in a Christmas Story). 

It's just so damn beautiful. Every home needs one. 

I love barbecue food because it's a medley of everything and so many great meats. And it's in the afternoon, so I don't have to eat again at night.

I came home to do trash, to listen to the United States go wonky with their firework insanity. Actually, I just listened...imagined being bombed or ransacked or living somewhere where those were the sounds you heard all day and slept through. That is, living in war. Perhaps the tradition is one of fantasy and joy because we have NOT had to live with such sounds on a regular basis. For us, it's a play thing. Let's hope it remains for future generations to have such luxury to chow down a couple of hotdogs before running around a yard with sprinklers. We'll see if World History will remain or if new chapters will be written....England sure as hell is hanging on...we shall see.

I need to load up rooms on campus today, but also hope to maintain a total chill mode. I'm not doing anything unless it feels mentally right for a couple of days.

This will likely look like walks, organizing, cooking, and prepping for guests and Abu. It's summer, so the house gets a little livelier.

Happy Friday, Y'all. We could use an eating day everyday of the week like yesterday was.

Day 3: Just Like Ol' Times with Julie Roneson (Dr. Julie Roneson)...the Power of Writing with News Stories to Inspire How We Really Feel

The third day of the institute had moose, Layla's falafel, poetry, scripts, and a special demonstration with Julie Roneson, a teacher who has been with CWP since 2012 as a summer co-conspirator and change agent. She used the New York Times Learning Network to prompt us to think about reports that might catch our eyes and get us going (for me, it was this bizarre photograph of a supermodel walking down the runway as what looked like artistic broccoli. Why? I don't know. And that was my point. Who cares? If fashion wants to have vegetative attire and people want to look like a broccoli stalk, so be it. 

The next two days are without gathering, so I can catch my breath before 4 weeks of young people begin. Bring on the Literacy Labs.

I went to West Haven for fireworks, but departed before they went off. I wanted the barbecue before hand and mixing with company. I didn't want to mingle with the large crowds going ooo and aaaah as bombs burst in the air. Haven't been a fan of fireworks since taking the Sudanese guys to a show in Louisville and the noise scaring the hell out of them (after all, they were boys when their homes were bombed, so they experienced the real thing....trauma).

I'm riding out today simply to catch my breath and slow my brain down. These summer courses mean teach all day and plan all night or plan all day and teach all night. I'm hoping it won't be this pace once the kids arrive.

Finally, prayers up for Drew Dearstine. The loss is sad, as most of them are. I used to laugh that my grandparents kept taps on obituaries, like my mom sometimes does, too. As you get older, it happens a lot more and it's hard not to see the luck of those of us who have lived longer lives. As the inevitable occurs more regularly, it gets even heavier on the head. My sisters are past the age the neighborhood adults were when they were looking over the rugrats of our generation. I can only think about the children and grandchildren when bad news comes to each and every home. It weighs on the heart, but also plays tricks on the brain of embracing every second while we have them, because they are definitely not guaranteed. 

May the 4th be with you.

Funny What a Piece of Art Can Do...Peter Anton's JUST DESSERTS Exhibit on Campus Serves as One of Our Writing Workshops Yesterday

I took the teacher-leaders to the Walsh Gallery yesterday to see the exhibit of gigantic, hand-crafted desserts and told them to sketch one and start writing...see where it takes you. They all got to work and I became fixated on this one Pop Tart. I don't recall eating Pop Tarts as a kid, but I saw the commercials. I've always been an a.m. cereal guy. I like oats in milk. 

What I started writing about was something that I never have written about...a memory from Junior year that came quickly and faded fast, but really punched me in the stomach. It doesn't really have to do with Pop Tarts, but it does, because we were adolescent, young, set free, and stupid. Actually, I was...with a few of the other guys. We were asked to be student ambassadors for the Northstars marching band because they were competing in a national show that didn't let adults bring equipment onto the field. They needed to recruit a bunch of guys and they did...most of them on lacrosse teams, football teams, baseball teams, etc. who were dating girls in the Dance Ensemble. I roomed with three of them and, for the most part, while the band practiced we were told we could stay in our rooms, which we did, but also this is where the mischief began. I noticed  coolers the adults had were full of alcohol and they left them outside of their rooms without supervision. I took one, and the guys and I were set for evening fun while we played Pitch and smoked cigars (nasty things those are...but there was a store around the corner and we bought some). We also bought a couple of dirty magazines, one of them called Cherry Poptart. We pretended we were grown ups for the weekend, did what we were supposed to for the band, but when left to our own disposal, we were idiots, including taping pictures from the magazine all over the hotel elevator. We laughed our asses off. 

We were never caught, though. It was a fun trip...part of the stupidity of adolescence. It was a group of guys in their senior year and me, a junior (I had my incidence in 9th grade, and stuck to the straight and narrow after that). This was a rare, spontaneous weekend, and because I always worked and I took off for the long weekend to do the band gig, I thought, "Why not? Live it up." Because I was a year younger, I wanted to seem cool so when the coolers presented themselves without parental policing, it was a no-brainer. And I was hit to the older guys.

I think I put the story out of my mind because of the luck thing - we really did get away with it all - but mores because one of the guys was this lacrosse player....super popular and a twin whose sister was equally as popular. We bonded briefly that weekend and I figured when we returned I'd probably never see him again. A year's difference -- the juniors vs. the seniors -- makes all the difference. Two weeks later, he, his twin sister, and another brother died in a house fire. It devastated the school, so much so they shut it down until after the holiday break. We were sent home (which almost got me arrested, but that is another story from being young and stupid)

I've always been sort of numb about this story, because I knew the kid, but I didn't really know the kid...just briefly...a blip on the radar. I learned more about him when we returned to school and he lost his life. He was so loved and cherished by the senior class. In my young mind, I didn't realize life could be taken so young...so quickly...without any meaning.

When the year ended, yearbooks came out, and at my school that was always a big deal...there were close to 2,500 kids in the building, 10th-12th grade. One of the highlights, always, was to read senior memories, and figure out if you could decipher any the secrets shared in the brief notes. In Josh's memories...this kid I only knew for one weekend...wrote, "Crazy Crandall - Cherry Poptarts" or something like that. I was trying to figure out how he included this memory in the short time between our return from Michigan and his tragic departure. 

I think I packaged the story up and tucked it away without really sharing it with anyone because it was so intense at the time. He truly was loved by so many, and I was just this dorky kid with a box cut. These older kids were just stuck with me in their hotel room. I had the weekend off and was bored. The history followed and we had a blast.

Then the tragedy. 

I think of this often. 18 years old...an age I taught for many, many years, and I definitely never shared this story with my students (unless the Michigan hotel party and porn was left out). 36 years later, I'm thinking of all the life that has come my way, and all the life he and his siblings were denied. It is something, Private Ryan. Earn this. I hope the life I've lived makes up for those lives cut too short.

Yup. Art. It can trigger stories out of nowhere, especially a Poptart. Youth is wasted on the young.

And the Summer CWP Programs Have Begun...Always Wonderful to Kick Things Off with the Teachers

It was a successful first day, 11 of us...writing. Elementary, Middle, High School, ESL, and even sports teachers and coaches. Ralph Fletcher is always a wonderful first-day friend, and planting seeds in the power of writer's notebooks is a gift...as is pedagogy (Luke, 2008). It's a democratic collective and I was impressed on the willingness of all to take chances, share, participate, and tend to whatever they hope my germinate this summer. 

A highlight, of course, was author Sonya Huber, who can lead a workshop like no other. She is a Queen of taking a small idea and exploding it into all the brilliant ways it can be turned into an essay and exploration of communication and life. 

Six hours of workshops and sharing, belonging and care (as William and Jessica provided in a workshop they led in the morning). 

My writer's notebook has already been loaded with 20 pages of thinking, and I'm ready to add more to it today...that is the power of teachers teaching teachers and the National Writing Project way. 

At night, I also hosted Stefania and Max for dinner to begin cooking up ideas for two weeks of Little Lab for Big Imaginations. The best part of the work is the willingness to find absolute joy in everything we do. My intention was to share all the writing that was plugged onto paper today, but there's too much other work needing to get done so I have to be brief. 

Here's to all the educators of the world who give up their summers to return to school for more learning. Teaching is a profession that is lifelong...a commitment to the work of the next generation that is immeasurable. I'm so excited to be part of it where I can. 

Gambled Some Upon My Return with Campus Life, Teacher Institutes, and Young Adult Literacy Labs...Much Needed to be Done To Be Ready

Returning from CNY seems non-eventful, except I hit storms from Binghamton to Liberty, drove out of them, then learned storms were coming to Stratford and southern Connecticut. When I got out of the car it was super hot...oppressive air...and then Alexa and my phone were going nuts with storm warnings. I looked at the radar and decided I could chance a campus visit to get things set up.

Before I left for Syracuse, I knew I had to be super organized so when I returned I could instantly drive things to campus classrooms. Everything was lined by the door and in the dining room. I also spent extra hours on campus getting everything organized in my office, so when I returned from Syracuse I could easily move things from that space to the summer classrooms. 

That saying, "Your lack of planning doesn't constitute my emergency," is not how I operate. I wanted to attend my nephew's graduation and to see my family, so I worked extra hard before I left knowing the chaos I would return to. But I had a plan. 

What I didn't plan on were the storms. It was a downpour in Stratford when I left, but I saw this crazy lull in the clouds over Fairfield from 3 to 3:30 so I packed up my car and drove it to campus and got everything indoors before it let lose....I set it up for an hour, and then knew there'd be another lull for 20 minutes and drove and packed up my office. Needed an umbrella when entering, but it was dry on the way out. I got all those materials into the building. I unpacked for another hour....

....ah, but when I left the building it was monsoon and I was drenched walking to my car. The good news is all the materials are stored in the building for tomorrow's programs. I'll like arrive 2 hours before they begin so I can make sure everything is in place for the teachers and students. 

I drove home in a river, but by the time I made it to my driveway, there was another lull....just enough time to grill mushrooms and a hamburger before the 2nd round of storms came through.

Phew. That was a laborious day. I'm just counting my blessings that I the foresight to get everything ready to go before I left for Syracuse. I need to sneak the lil' breaks in where I can get them (trust me, I did much of the computer work while visiting) but knew the physical stuff needed a logical plan. And that's what I did.

But now to teach. Hello, Monday. I know most are on holiday this weekend, but we're taking off!

It's July!