Haggerty school career day and me

I was recently invited to talk about my journalism career with Mrs. Cathy Cutting's fifth-grade class at Haggerty Elementary School.

They're nice people there at Haggerty. I received a cheery hello from the school secretary Stephanie Karlinski, and I chatted with Principal Aleisa Pitt for a few moments, before walking down the long hallway toward Mrs. Cutting's classroom.

Haggerty school will close in June, one of two elementary schools in the district slated to close, and students, teachers and staff will find themselves elsewhere come September. Probably a few already know where they're headed, but when you break up a team that is several hundred people working together each day toward a clear, shared goal, it will take a little while to get up that head of steam again. But I have no doubt that they'll do it, as will the team at Elwell School.

As I arrived in the classroom about 10 minutes early, I was warmly greeted by teacher and students. I walked to the front of the classroom, and began talking about myself. My wife has gently suggested to me more than once that I am a bit loquacious about myself , and particularly about my reporting job, so I was enjoying myself.

I brought business cards and a few copies of The View to illustrate what I do, and told the kids about writing, fairness in reporting, and working hard to get it right. I told them about my younger days and my interest in reading and words, and my short-lived experience as the fair-haired child at Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary in Syracuse, N.Y., as the school's best speller for three years running.

The students asked questions, and then we set to work on their assignment. I had taken a column that I wrote a few weeks ago about preparing to visit my two-year-old grandson Noah, and the amount of stuff that Amma (my wife Jan) and Pa (me) bring to Noah.

I had introduced into the column about 20 spelling and grammar errors. I read one paragraph at a time, and the kids raised their hands, ready to identify my mistakes. They did very well. I had highlighted for myself most of the errors, but they found about five more that I had missed.

Hands shot up throughout the classroom. Many students raised their hands more than once, and it was great fun working with them. After the exercise, I talked a bit more, they asked another question or two, and I took my leave. They applauded and thanked me.

As I walked to the parking lot to return home, I was on Cloud Nine. But that's the way it is when I visit these schools. It's usually not about me so much, as it is about the mission and the very human faces who push each other each day to get a little better, to learn a little more. It is, in  a word, thrilling.

Now let's see if they (or you) can find any errors in this blog post.

When the story comes to you

Journalists are told they shouldn't become part of the story. That practice is at times violated, but the guideline stands.

Until recently, the only time I as a reporter became personally involved with a public issue was several years ago, when a subdivision developer sought approval for plans to build a subdivision on Haggerty Road, in a parcel across from Riggs Road known as the Horste property.

I rose from the audience to ask that the water and sewer management system in the sub be carefully designed and maintained to ensure that pollutants would not flow into Woods Creek, located just to the north of the sub. I live in a home west of the planned subdivision, and Woods Creek flows through my backyard. It can be beautiful at times.

But it floods a few times each year. A heavy rain, a winter thaw, and the at-times luscious valley that runs between homes on Riggs and Fret Roads becomes flooded, and it takes a few days for the waters to recede.

Word is that FEMA, the federal agency that helps manage natural disasters, took an updated look recently at areas at risk of flooding in Wayne County, and declared 529 properties in Van Buren Township at risk.

There is a map of Van Buren Township with colors showing where the areas are, and the areas in red are where the highest risks of flooding affecting a primary residence are, according to FEMA's admittedly cursory look.

I was sitting in yesterday's Van Buren Township work study meeting, when the reporter beside me wondered whether the tiny red dot on the map along Woods Creek represented my home. Red's not good in this scheme; it's not necessarily gloom and doom, but it invites a bit of concern. Does FEMA think my home is at risk of flooding?

Currently, it's hard to say. The map is tiny, and it's hard to sort out what's what. Last night, my wife concluded that the red dot was just west of us. We shall see. I'm getting a digital copy of the map for a better look, and we'll go from there. Not that I have much choice.

Finding Casablanca

I watched the 1942 movie "Casablanca" for maybe the tenth time on Thursday. My TiVo has a feature that allows you to find TV shows by actor, and among a pretty long list of my favorites is Humphrey Bogart. I admired the lifestyle, his long marriage to Lauren Bacall. He looked great in a suit. He appeared to have fun with his life.

Casablanca is a great movie. It is a superb movie for its pace, particularly because nothing noteworthy happens during the movie.

The movie keeps you off balance throughout. It's like an open marketplace, and everyone is dealing, trying to snare an advantage for themselves. Will the letters of transit be obtained? Will Rick get back with Ilsa?

There's a pending sense of doom in the movie, and with good reason: it is 1942, and for the United States it is the worst year of World War II. The outcome of the war was not at all clear at the time. The Nazis and the Japanese seemed to be unstoppable, their armies sweeping across Europe, Africa and the Pacific Ocean. The conquering Nazis had already goosestepped into Paris, confident, cruel.

The dialogue is snappy and clever. The protagonists are multidimensional, with a generous helping of self-interest and a willingness to cheat to achieve their ends.

Beautiful Ilsa had an affair with Rick while a married woman? Those eyes of Bergman's are luminous. Only Elizabeth Taylor, for me, matched Bergman's beauty.

In the end, the good guys win - sort of. Husband and wife fly off to continue the struggle, and Rick decides to carry on the fight with the Nazis. But unlike Rhett Butler who joined a lost cause toward the end of the Civil War, Bogie stands tall despite his disappointment, and walks off into the airport fog with Captain Renault, vowing to fight on.

Each of the characters is flawed, at times deeply so, and yet each, except the Nazis, is redeemed in some manner. It's quite the movie, for a myriad of reasons.

Everything in its proper place

It's interesting to observe our own selves and others with respect to the very daily chore of putting things away. Like so many things in our lives, it's a habit that may be developed over a long period, or it may be something inborn, and a bit hard to explain.

I'm an example of habit-driven discipline, where you pick things up because you know the consequences of too much indolence.

My grandson Noah, on the other hand, it appears to be part of his young constitution. Don't get me wrong - the living room can at times look like a toy storm had just passed through, and I think sometimes that he would be content to leave it if he were distracted by something else. And I think that's about right for someone his age.

But when he's reminded to pick up his toys, he becomes purposeful and goes about it fairly efficiently.

And it's amusing to see this neatness in others. It differs by degree, and it's always interesting to compare, and to wonder about the motivation. As I washed my hands in my bathroom this morning, there were on the shelf were the Stridex pads that I keep there, and atop them were three tiny containers: two of wetting drops to lubricate contact lenses, the other a little sample of skin lotion for my poison ivy.

The three of them were neatly arranged on the top of the jar as if they belonged there. They were in their place. And I thought, it's our cleaning lady, someone who has just the right touch around the house, taking these stray things lying around and arranging them in a sensible way.

It's a little like Stonehenge - you come upon it, and you wonder very briefly how it happened. And you think, ah Diane. There are many good things that she does around our place, but among my favorites is her creativity with taking LaVaute household detritus and making sometimes-artful sense of it. Thanks, Diane.

A retirement secret

Most lives are filled with change: birth (duh!), infancy, childhood, the teen years, young adulthood, school, jobs, dating, marriage, raising children and so on. Others, not so much: separation, illness, death. Sorry.

Among the big changes is retirement. It's a word that means many things, depending on the individual. The involuntary image in my mind is that of a gray-haired kindly old man or woman, perhaps putzing around the house, or fishing or golfing, or playing with their grandchildren.

No image is fully satisfying, because retirement, for those lucky enough to experience it, is played out in countless ways, none the same as the other.

For me, it has many benefits: I get to continue doing something that I love, partly because I prepared for it before I retired, and I have an amazing amount of flexibility in my daily schedule. Sans the responsibility of children at home, I have vastly more control over my life. Free choice is good.

Some advantages are more personally and emotionally stirring than others, a bit quirky, even. One of my favorite things this time of year is the steady advance through spring toward summer. I let the dogs out this morning, and the weather, at a chill 28 degrees, was bracing. The layer of frost visibly blanketing much of the lawn was a delightful visual surprise, and I looked to see that the tulips had survived. Jury's still out on that.

One of my favorite things, oddly, is crossing the road to go to the mailbox. The brief walk fills me with anticipation, and a vibe that is superb and extraordinary.

When I think about friends vacationing in warmer climes, I have to admit I'm jealous of the vibrant sunlight, the sparkling water in the pool, the freedom from most cares, the umbrella drinks or ice-cold beer.

But I wouldn't trade my opportunity to walk to the mailbox each day, not for a week in the Caribbean. Hooray for retirement.

My favorite thing

I watched a CBS Sunday Morning program report on Jim Abbott, the baseball pitcher who succeeded past his wildest dreams in baseball, despite the absence of a right hand. A great story if there ever was one.

Toward the end of the program, during a book signing, Abbott is playing catch with a young boy who is also missing a hand. Abbott is coaching the young man to throw properly, and the kid was making progress.

And I thought, I love to do that stuff. I love to coach the young, be it sports, knowledge, behavior, whatever. Progress may be slow, but each attempt brings with it improvement. Add a little positive reinforcement, continuing focus and, voila! Eventually, you have the results you wanted.

Sometimes, the road is long. I remember well an incident many years in which a child who had initially been acclimated to a swimming pool lost it on the second lesson. My wife and I never did figure out why. And we couldn't get a decent answer from the child, who was less than one year old at the time.

My wife Jan and I made the decision that we would continue to go to the pool for the rest of the swimming lessons. And it got worse well before it got better. Tears and crying attended our sessions each week.

During the last swimming lesson, however, we achieved success way beyond our hopes at that point. The child came around during the lesson, had a ball in the swimming pool with us, and went on to swim some years later on the the Tigers swim club that operated at the time.

Jan and I have been working with my grandson Noah to catch and to throw a ball. We've been very pleased with his progress, and I think he has fun with it. I have a tennis ball that I've kept away from dog slobber that I bring when we visit, and he's doing very well.

I look forward to it. Practice makes perfect, and it's easy when you're having fun. And there is little that compares with the joys of coaching young people.

Ebb and Flow

I was returning to my seat when I saw the daylight streaming through the windows. I walked toward them, and looked down on the parking lot.

It was filled with vehicles; some were double-parked. There were people walking from cars, toward cars, a hive of activity on a sunny Friday.

They had come to spend a few moments with Jesus, on the day that he was crucified and died. Inside, as the Good Friday service began, it was as crowded as a weekend Mass.

The liturgy and the faithful on that day ebb and flow. It's quite unique. St. Thomas conducts a blood drive throughout the day; a "live" Stations of the Cross is performed by the youth group, and the Good Friday service itself begins at 1:30 p.m.

People come and go, very unlike an ordinary weekend Mass. The priests, at the beginning of the liturgy, prostrate themselves in front of the altar, literally lying face down on the ground in the midst of the faithful.

The choir today, which must be over 30 people shoehorned into their normal space, is dressed in bright red and is fully prepared. We listen to hymns that we listen to each Good Friday, and the significance of where we are, and what we've done, grows for me with each passing year.

It's as if God has bestowed a special gift on me, allowing me to discover quite by accident this special secret, this place that I return to each year, and that I seem to derive more from each year. Jan is beside me, as she has been for over three decades now, and life, despite the message of the day, is good. It's good to be back.

Violins, horns, a bass guitar and several other unusual instruments complement the choir, in one mournful song after another. It's as if I've begun a descent into Mordor. I can't yet anticipate the joy of Easter, except as relief to this sadness.

As the liturgy ends at 3 p.m., I think, there's a lot of work to do in this world, and I wonder about my role. I don't know where this journey will end. Shoot, I don't even know where it begins.

But I'm ready to go one step at a time, forward. Happy Easter.