Scattershot

Frozen mangoes and an official goodbye

Here is what I started writing about several weeks ago: how I was spinning around a dance floor recently to a lively polka, and my partner and I hit a patch of water someone had spilled. BOOM! Down we went, with me smacking my head hard on the floor. Immediately, a large goose egg started emerging, and someone went to her home next door and retrieved a half bag of frozen mangoes, which I then held on my head for the rest of the evening.

As I was writing about this, however, I found myself thinking, “Really, Cheri? This is all you have to write about? Frozen magnoes on your head?” I realized then that it is time to sign off this blog. I do this with some regret, as I’ve enjoyed writing, and I’ve enjoyed communicating with so many of you who have commented about something I’ve written. I’m sure I’ll probably come up with some brilliant topics after I close down my site, but I find myself mostly motivated to write other things now, rather than this blog.

I started the blog, kicking and screaming, because my Cottonwood Press web person at the time insisted that I needed a bigger web “presence.” She wanted me to write only about education, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to come up with the three entries she recommended per week. That’s why I came up with the name “Scattershot” and the idea that I’d write about education, creativity, humor, life, all kinds of “stuff.”

And I did. 634 entries since spring of 2007. Yikes. I can't say that they improved my web presence, but I found that I enjoyed how they made me pay more attention to the world around me, as I was always in need of topics.

It’s time to move on and stop paying the monthly blog site fee, since I write so rarely. Over the next couple of weeks, I’m copying all the entries into a Word document, and I’m also going to see if there is a way to archive them on one of my other sites, www.CherylMillerThurston.com or www.ScattershotEntertainment.com. After that, Scattershot will disappear.

So, this is a blog goodbye and a big “thank you!” to everyone who has bothered to read me over the years. If any of you ever need to contact me in the future, you can always email “info” at either ScattershotEntertainment.com or CherylMillerThurston.com. (I’m advised not to post my personal email on a web site page, but if you have it, you’re welcome to use it as well.) I’m also on Facebook.

Again, thank you!

Three women go to a movie

My new hair stylist is into the “zen” of my hair and letting it do what it wants, which is curl and be undisciplined. Although straight hair is definitely the fashion, I’m glad that at least one movie star of a certain age has a mop of curly hair. “You’ve seen Blythe Danner in the ads for the movie I'll See You in My Dreams, haven’t you?” I asked the stylist.

      She hadn’t. She is young. “Who is Blythe Danner?”

      “You know, an older actress, mother of…” I couldn’t remember her daughter’s name, but I remembered the daughter’s child’s name. The name of a fruit. Really. “Apple. Her daughter is Apple’s mom.”

      “Gwyneth Paltrow.”

      “Yes. Blythe Danner is Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom, and she has curly hair.”

      “Oh.” She went back to communing with my hair. Conversation over.

      Cut to two days later, when two friends and I went to see I''ll See You In My Dreams. As we sat talking before the movie, a woman I don't know sat down next to us, leaned over, looked at me, and said, “I’ve seen this movie before. You look just like Blythe Danner!”

      I don’t, of course. The hair fooled her, but who doesn’t like to be compared to a movie star? I was happy.

      We watched the movie. Afterward, our discussion began. One friend said, “I guess this shows you that a woman doesn’t have to be interesting to get a man.”

      I smiled. “She really wasn’t very interesting….and did you notice how much wine she drank?”

      Another friend looked sad. “Yes. And her life reminded me of mine—not very interesting.” This from one of the most interesting, active women I have ever known. We assured her she was crazy.

      Then I went on to one of my most insightful observations. “Why did they sit on that boat eating in the European style—fork in the left hand, knife in the right? Everyone eats that way in movies.”

      “Really?”

      “Yes. It drives me crazy. No one I know eats like that except friends who actually grew up in Europe.”

      “It’s like padding into the kitchen,” one friend said.

      “Huh?”

      “In a book, if someone goes into the kitchen, they never walk. They pad. They always pad into the kitchen.”

      “Really? I’ve never noticed that.”

      “Yes. The other day I was reading something, and I was so happy when a character just walked into the kitchen. But then, a chapter later, she padded. What’s with all this padding?”          

      “I’ll have to watch.”

      “So back to the movie. What did the Sam Elliott character see in the Blythe Danner character?”

      “I’d go out with Sam Elliott.”

      “Irrelevant. What did he see in her?”

      “Well, she was likable, I guess.” We all paused, trying to think of more.

      “Well, she had great hair!” I said.

      Okay, I didn’t really say that. I did think it, though.

      And I thought it again later when the three of us padded into the kitchen for glasses of wine.

Brain blips and mikes

Most of us have had moments when our brains temporarily abandon us. We turn north to go to work when really we need to go to the supermarket down south. We can’t remember the name of the curly-haired guy who starred in Blazing Saddles but we are sure his name starts with an “L”—only to find that the “L” is in the middle of Gene Wilder’s name when we finally remember it. Or, like my husband and I last weekend, we forget something ridiculous. We had decided to stop at that supermarket that is like Whole Foods but isn’t and whose name, I was sure, involved a fruit. It wasn’t until we drove up to the store that, because of the large sign, we finally remembered: Sprouts. I have no idea where the fruit idea came from.

My brain outdid itself on a recent trip to New York City. Three friends and I were at a performance of the play “Hand to God.” (You may have heard of this show recently. Evidently an audience member climbed onto the stage before the show to plug his cell phone charger into one of the “plugs” on the church basement set.) The show is about a timid teenager who is part of a puppet ministry and who has many good reasons to be quite angry about life. His puppet, Tyrone, takes over and becomes the voice of the boy’s anger. Tyrone is outrageous, profane, and quite physical. He is also laugh-out-loud funny. The actor with the puppet makes no effort at ventriloquism. He simply speaks the lines for both his character and Tyrone’s, and he is quite brilliant.

I noticed during the show that it was sometimes a bit hard to hear all the dialogue, even though we were sitting pretty close to the stage. I wondered why the actors seemingly weren’t miked. With a tiny bit of smugness because I have had experience with microphones and stages, I turned to my friends at intermission and told them I’d figured out why they weren’t using mikes. “It would be just too difficult to mike a puppet, the way he moves around so much and is so physical.”

My friend JoLynn gave me a long look. “Cheri, you do know Tyrone isn’t real????”

It took me a moment. The actor was the only one who would need a mike. Of course. 

Sigh. I’ll never live that one down.

But embarrassment is not why I almost didn’t write this story. It was because of the pesky abbreviation of the word “microphone.” I simply can’t bear to write it as “mic,” even though that spelling is common, especially, as one person put it, “in audio and engineering circles.”  “Mike” seems to be the preferred spelling in most dictionaries, but Grammar Girl writes that she always uses “mic.” But what happens when you want a past tense verb? “Miced” looks decidedly weird and much like it might involve rodents. I went online to research the matter.

Well, my goodness. People certainly have quite passionate opinions on this matter. My favorite examination of the issue is in a blog post called “Mike, dammit,” by Samuel Bayer. He's on my side, and he gives lengthy and well-researched reasons for his stance. Word nerds, take a look. You won’t believe how much he has to say on the matter and how much angry readers have to say back.

I’m sticking with Bayer. Tyrone was not miked because Tyrone is not real.

 

Fifty shades of green

I just returned from seven days of cleaning—a lot of cleaning. Six bedrooms, four bathrooms, two kitchens, two dining areas, two living rooms, a pool room, a ping pong/laundry room, a number of closets and cabinets…Mattress covers, bed skirts, comforter covers, and bedspreads to wash for 12 beds…Six thousand windows to wash (okay, maybe it only seemed like six thousand). I did all this while my husband cut and sectioned dead trees, stacked wood, hauled away dead brush, repaired flicker holes in the building, refinished tables, built a stile, and gathered up 100 feet of barbed wire to recycle.

My husband has been one of the owners of a large, remote mountain place we call the Lodge since long before I met him. Since he retired, he has taken over the maintenance of the place. It needs to be thoroughly cleaned once a year, but it’s hard to find someone to do that work in such an out-of-the way area. This year I thought, “Why not pay me?” I could use the money to help defray the cost of my ridiculously expensive annual trip to New York City at the end of the month, to immerse myself in musical theater.

So that’s why I cleaned for seven days. Ed and I are both exhausted, and yet…to my surprise, we had a really nice time. It felt good to do hard, physical work that had an end in sight. At home, trying to deep clean just one room is overwhelming, with stuff from daily life everywhere. I went to my dresser recently to clean it and started with my “Things I Never Use Drawer.”

It occurred to me that perhaps, just perhaps, I shouldn’t have a “Things I Never Use Drawer,” so I decided to purge. I found two belts I never wear, but I realized they would be perfect with a silk tunic—if I ever actually get a silk tunic. I found empty jewelry boxes that snap shut—previously containing gifts from my husband. I should get rid of those, but, really, they might come in handy packing jewelry for a short trip or for gifts for someone else, even though I haven’t used any of them for five or six years now. I found a bag of rhinestone jewelry that I collected for a one-minute appearance on stage in a show 12 years ago. I could get rid of it, but who knows when rhinestones might come in handy again? And the rice pack for heating when my back hurts….well I have another, better rice pack, but I probably should keep this one for a spare.

Needless to say, I still have my Things I Never Use Drawer.

At the Lodge, though, drawers are empty. Cupboards are filled with things everyone uses. There are no knickknacks. Cleaning had a clear END in sight; I just had to plug away toward reaching that end. Working toward it was strangely rewarding. I spend so much time “in my head”—writing, editing, reading, coming up with ideas. This was a nice change.

But the best part was that whenever I looked out of those six thousand windows I had to wash, I saw at least fifty shades of green, my favorite color. There was the friendly lime-ish green of the aspen leaves, the heavy, deep green of the pines—even deeper when the mountains cast a shadow on them. There was the sage green of (surprise!) the sage, the various greens of box elder and willow and ground cover, and the sparkling green of the timothy grass when the sun hit it. Honestly, it was so beautiful that it took my breath away, again and again.

And a few walks into that rainbow of green, when the day’s work was done—even better.

 

Black and white and gray all over

It’s easy to say that we all know the difference between right and wrong, but do we? Think of the school cheating scandal in Atlanta. When I first heard of it, I shook my head and thought, “Wrong. These people were wrong to cheat.”

And then, six months ago, I read an article in New Yorker magazine that I have not been able to get out of my mind. It’s very long, but it’s an interesting, thoughtful, and shocking piece. I highly recommend that you take the time to read it. It's called "Wrong Answer," by Rachel Aviv.

I’ll give a very brief summary. The article focuses on Damany Lewis, a former math teacher, and the school where he taught, Parks Middle School, which is located in a rundown Atlanta neighborhood. When Lewis first went to work there, armed robberies and rapes in the area were common, along with drugs, and most kids lived near or below the poverty line. The school was a mess. The building was run down, filled with litter, and things were so out of control that kids urinated in trash cans.

In 2001 a new principal was hired, and he focused “nearly as much on building a sense of community as he did on academics: he renovated the school, hired guidance counselors” and “provided computer classes to parents, who had been so removed from their children’s academic lives that it was a struggle to get them to sign progress reports.” With the help of a program called Project Grad, funded by donors to the district, the school set up after school programs and hired tutors. The school was featured in a 2004 documentary called “Expect the Best” and was described as “a model of what a good school can and should be.”

But then there were those absurd requirements of No Child Left Behind, requiring 100% of students to be proficient in math and reading by 2014. The school’s scores kept improving, but they were never high enough to make “adequate yearly progress.” Another new principal came on board, and the superintendent increased pressure, setting performance targets even more rigorous than those of NCLB. Teacher evaluations were linked to test scores, and principals warned that their schools had to meet targets within three years, or they would be fired. The superintendent “repeated the mantra ‘No exceptions and no excuses,’” and she made good on her threats. Eventually 90% of the principals lost their jobs.

“Data” began ruling everything. Step by step progress wasn’t good enough. More than half of the kids at Parks were performing below grade level, and there was no way they were going to meet the targets set for them. If they didn’t meet them, the school would be closed.

I’m jumping over a lot here, but I’ll get to the point. One year, Damany Lewis, by all accounts an outstanding and beloved teacher, broke into the testing room and erased a few incorrect answers, enough for the school to meet its goals.

And thus began the spiral. The next year the school “had to score even higher to surpass its falsely achieved scores from the previous year.” The superintendent required scores to rise by nearly 3% annually. More and more teachers became involved in correcting tests so that the school would meet the goals set for it.

Eventually, the gig was up. In early 2010, the Government Office of Student Achievement found one in five of the district schools showed evidence of cheating—forty-four schools in all.

When teachers were investigated, it was clear that “most teachers thought they were committing a victimless crime. They didn’t see value in the test, so they didn’t see they were devaluing the kids by cheating,” said one lawyer who sat in on the interviews. "Cheating was just a door they had to pass through in order to focus on issues that seemed more relevant to their students’ lives.” It was clear to teachers that test scores were not the way to solve the problems in these kids’ lives, yet they were told, “No excuse can or will be accepted.” As Damany Lewis said, “Cheating was just something we did in April, when the tests were in the building.”

Twelve teachers and administrators were eventually charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, which is generally used against criminal organizations like the Mafia. In April of 2015, eleven of the educators were found guilty of racketeering charges. According to the Los Angeles Times, the judge “had urged the convicted educators to accept an offer from prosecutors that would have allowed them to avoid extensive time behind bars in exchange for taking responsibility, apologizing and waiving their right to appeal. Only two accepted.” The judge then sentenced the rest to prison, reserving his harshest punishment for the three highest ranking educators. They each received seven years in prison, 13 years of probation and a $25,000 fine—later reduced to three years in prison and seven years of probation, with a $10,000 fine and 2,000 hours of community service.

This story makes the “wrongness” of cheating a lot less clear to me. Is cheating any worse than setting impossible standards that no one can ever meet? Is cheating any worse than using data, only data, to determine everything about a school, its teachers, and its students?

When “rules” are violated by so many, as they were in Atlanta, you have to wonder if maybe it is the rules that are the problem, not the people. I look at news clips of those educators being sentenced to jail, and I am disgusted—not so much at their cheating as at a system that set them and their students up for failure.

Read the article.

 

Difficult dad

My brothers and sisters and I are trying to figure out a way to celebrate my dad's 90th birthday this summer. It's not easy.

The man still farms with my brother, drives, lives on his own, and is as bull-headed as ever. We know that he will tell us he doesn't want a party and that if we have one, he won't go. Then, depending on his mood, he actually might not.

He is a difficult man. This absolutely true account of a phone conversation I had with him sums him up pretty well:

Dad: My leg has been driving me crazy. It hurts so bad I am having a hell of a time walking around the fields to irrigate.

Me: That doesn't sound good. How long has it been bothering you?

Dad: Oh, a few years now.

Me: A few YEARS? You need to go to a doctor!

Dad: Oh, I went to the doctor yesterday.

Me: (relieved) Well, great! What did he say about your leg?

Dad: Nothing. I didn't tell him about it.

Me: WHAT? Why not?????

Dad: Well, it's none of his goddam business!

That's my dad. Impossible.

As I am writing this, I am sitting with an ice pack on my foot. Ever since I went snowshoeing a couple of months ago, I've had pain in the top of my left foot. I ice it and take Advil, but it still hurts. 

And something just occurred to me. When I was at the doctor's office this morning for a routine checkup, did I happen to mention this foot problem to my doctor? Um, no...I thought about it, but I figured she wouldn't really be able to tell me anything. I didn't want to waste my time...

Maybe the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Sigh.

Woo-woo

Through an incredibly long and circuitous path related to a project I'm working on, yesterday I got in touch with a woman I don't know in Chicago, via email. We instantly hit it off.

Isn't it strange how it's possible to get a feel for a person simply from reading their words on a screen? Someone else yesterday had turned me off with his words on a screen, even though there was nothing at all offensive in the words. There was just something there that made me not quite like the guy.

In a flurry of emails with the Chicago woman, she said, "...let’s just believe we’ll be creatively inspired to come up with what works for both of us. It’s very 'woo-woo,' but I’ve come to believe in 'woo-woo.'

She had me at "woo-woo." I knew exactly what she meant. I am a big believer in woo-woo, too, though I may never have used those exact words to describe a "vibe" or connection that you can't really explain. (Then again, I actually may have...)

A wise woman many years ago taught me to just accept the fact that I am a person who operates out of my "gut." I need to do what feels right, even if it's not logical, even if it makes no sense to anyone else on earth. It took me many, many years to understand that all the analysis and logic in the world won't help me with a decision unless the right feeling is there first.

That's not to say I abandon common sense. Once I jump into what may seem like a crazy-ish project, I use the sensible side of my brain to see it through. I'm not completely wackadoo.

But to want take something on? If the woo-woo is there, I'm in!

Playing (?) dumb

There have been some occasions in my life when I have found “playing dumb” to be useful. A it turns out, my approach might not be as dumb as it sounds. More on that in a minute.

Anyone who is at all active on Facebook knows that some pretty ridiculous posts often appear—posts that express outrage and ask us to re-post them so that the rest of the Facebook world will be outraged as well. It is frustrating to read some of these when even a moment’s reflection and a teensy bit of logic demonstrate them to be false.

One that appeared recently was a request to boycott Pepsi because the company’s new cans were printing the Pledge of Allegiance with a picture of the Empire State Building, but leaving out the words “under God.”

Come on now. Really? A company whose business is to sell stuff to the public would choose to offend a hefty percentage of that public by leaving out “under God”? I seriously doubted it. I decided to go to Snopes.com to check it out.

The truth? Fourteen years ago, after the terrorist attacks of 9-11, Dr. Pepper, not Pepsi, printed a can picturing the Statue of Liberty under the words “One nation…indivisible.” So, yes, they left out the words “under God,” but they also left out the other 28 words in the Pledge. And the point was that they were demonstrating patriotism and unity, not undercutting religion.

In the probably futile approach that I often use to prevent the spread of nonsense, I commented that the post was untrue and gave a link to the Snopes.com entry. The person who posted the piece would have none of it. “Snopes has lied to me before,” he said. He wanted to be outraged. Facts didn't matter.

So back to playing dumb. A few times in my life, when confronted with something ridiculous, I have adopted a neutral attitude and asked questions about why the people believed as they did. In a sense, I played dumb. Instead of becoming defensive or arguing, the people often seemed surprised that I was actually listening—which I was. In several cases, they actually seemed to soften their position and become a bit more reasonable as we talked.

A number of studies point out that providing evidence that they are wrong actually makes people less likely to change their position. Their belief becomes even stronger in the face of evidence to the contrary. An interesting YouTube video based on information from some of the studies points out that the best way to have people examine their position is to ask them to explain that position in detail. Often we think we know a lot about something but when pressed for details discover that we don’t. Being asked for details can sometimes help a person see that they might need more information. 

So maybe a better approach to the Pepsi guy, instead of pointing out that he was wrong, might have been for me to play dumb and ask some questions, like “Wow. Where did you see this can? I haven’t seen one. Can you send me a picture?” Or “When did you buy one of these cans?” or “I wonder why Pepsi would do something like that. What do you think?”

Maybe.

Or maybe I should have just clicked “hide” and ignored the guy. Who knows?

 

Zebra print

For my birthday, my sister made me a fleece zebra print hat and scarf. Now “zebra” is not my animal print of choice. (I think she was getting back at me for the elephant socks I gave her for her birthday). However, one day last week I decided to wear the hat and scarf even though zebra is really out of my comfort level.

What persuaded me to be brave was the book I just finished, Women in Clothes, by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton, and 639 others. Yes, 639 others. According to the cover, the material in the book is a “conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities—famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old—on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives.” The editors sent a survey of over 50 questions designed to prompt women to think about their personal style. There is a huge variety of material in the book, some of it more interesting than others, but one theme stands out to me: Women with style don’t necessarily have great taste. What they have is attitude. They seem to be able to put any crazy thing together and then wear it as if it is fabulous.

So, even though I am a person who doesn't wear zebra prints, I decided to act like I am a person who wears zebra prints. I decided to just pretend I look fabulous in it. I put on my hat and scarf, and then I noticed my husband looking at me and raising an eyebrow. This is a man who never comments on anything I wear, unless I ask, but he said, “Well, that sure is a different look.” I don’t think he meant it in a good way.

Still, I persevered. “I can do this,” I thought. I was on my way to the kindergarten class where I volunteer, and I imagined the kids running up to me and saying, “I love your hat, Miss Cheri!” After all, giraffe print is kind of a big deal in that class, so I was sure they would notice zebra print immediately and be excited about my new duds.

They didn't. They weren't. No one said a thing.

“Maybe I’m not a person who can wear zebra after all,” I thought. But after class, I soldiered on. “The hat and the scarf together may be a bit much,” I thought. “I’ll wear just the hat into the grocery store, without the scarf.” I did. No comments. I wore it to Office Depot. No comments. Now this lack of comment was noticeable to me only because whenever I wear one of my two black hats or my lime green fleece ear warmers, people in stores quite often say something complimentary. I don’t know why, as none of the three are particularly memorable. The hats are black knit or black fleece and the ear warmers are just, well, ear warmers, only green. If people so often comment on these dull hats but don’t on the wild zebra hat, what does that silence mean? Hmmmm. I was rapidly losing my ability to pretend I belonged in zebra. “Maybe I just don’t have the panache to pull it off,” I thought.

But then I got out of the car at home and the construction worker next door yelled across the fence at me. “Cool hat!” he said.

I felt so much better.

Me in zebra:

 

A doll for Don

Tomorrow my good friend and loyal Scattershot reader, Don, turns 80. How in the heck is that possible?

I met Don a lifetime ago, when I was a first year teacher in town and he was the hippie-ish new principal of an alternative school, having just moved from California with his wife Nancy and their three kids. It quickly became apparent to me that Don was—and is—a character. He makes me laugh. He is goofy. He is funny. He is so not what anyone in the world thinks of as “elderly.”

Don always addresses me in emails as “Madame Darling” because I once remarked how strange it is to me to hear someone call a spouse or a child “darling”; no one in my life ever once called me “darling” —until Don took up the cause.  

He always names his cars: Vanna White, for example, or my favorite, Jesus Chrysler.

Years ago, he bought an enormous doll at an antique show and named her Audrey Rose. Audrey Rose would appear posed with his other children in family photographs, and I can’t even begin to describe the silliness surrounding Audrey Rose over the years. After the kids grew up and left home, he confessed to selling Audrey Rose at a garage sale. Many of us have still not forgiven the callousness of that action. She was family!

With his degrees in history and his voracious reading, Don is fiercely and passionately opinionated and will go on delightful and often surprising but well-informed rants. Sometimes, what you think he might think is not what he thinks at all. You never can tell with Don.

When I was going through a rough time in life years ago and would return from criticism-filled visits to my hometown, I would call Don and Nancy and say, “Can I come over and have you be nice to me?”

“Yes!” they would say, and then they would be ridiculously complimentary about everything I did: 

“Oh, you pour that tea so beautifully!”

“My, what lovely socks you have on!”

“You made a great selection from that plate of cookies. Perfect!”

I would laugh, and I always wound up feeling better.

Don drops by books he knows I’ll enjoy. He actually reads books that I suggest to him. He travels widely and always has quirky stories about people and places he sees. He has the loudest, most infectious laugh I've ever heard. 

Last but not least, he stands with me in my insistence that the accordion is an unfairly maligned instrument. In fact, in the ultimate show of solidarity, Don even bought a pretty little accordion a number of years ago and actually learned to play it. What a guy!

But a normal kind of guy? No. A normal kind of guy might ask for something like Broncos tickets or a case of beer for his birthday. Don, however, saw pictures of the dolls I made for Christmas presents for my granddaughter and her two cousins, and he insisted that he wants one, too, for his birthday.

Well, I can’t disappoint one of my oldest and most cherished friends in the world. Here is a picture of Don's doll. And I can't help but wonder if it's meant to replace dear Audrey Rose.

Like I said, he’s not exactly normal—and I'm glad of it. Happy birthday to Don!