Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Stephen King's "Mile 81"--Spoiler Warning


I have a NOOK. I really like it, and use it a lot. The other day when I was NOOK book shopping for myself, I came upon the e-Book, "Mile 81" by Mr. King. It only cost $2.99, so I bought it, downloaded it, and soon discovered that it really should have been called an e-Short Story. It's only 36 or 37 pages long with really big print. The book claims to be 52 pages long, but that includes a half dozen introductory pages, and a 7 or 8 page preview of his newest novel at the end.

SPOILER WARNING: If you think you might read "Mile 81," then read no farther. I'm about to give the plot away. O.K. The title of this work refers to an abandoned rest stop near the Mile 81 milepost on I-95 in Maine. A 10 year old boy named Pete, left alone to play by his older brother, decides to go explore it, because he has heard it is a place the big kids hang out and do things. He bikes off on this adventure carrying among other things some Oreos and a heavy duty magnifying glass, with which he enjoys setting things on fire. On his way to the rest stop, Pete finds half a bottle of vodka. Gaining access to the interior of the place, he finds drug paraphernalia, dirty mattresses used for you know what, and a poster of Justin Beiber that has been serving as a dartboard. Sadly, the boy is unimpressed by this stuff. Actually, I was unimpressed, too. So, he takes three hits on the vodka bottle, becomes drunk and falls asleep. I probably should have done the same thing.

Outside, a non-descript, filthy muddy station wagon, windows so foul you can't see inside, crashes through the orange cones blocking the entrance and stops in front of the rest stop. Suffice it to say that it is a person-eating car. It eats in a very short time, a good samaritan, a religious fanatic, a grossly overweight lesbian, a suburban mom and dad, and a cop. Left alive are the mom and dad's kids, a three year-old boy named Blakie and a six year-old girl named Rachel, who are relatively traumatized. Actually they're in pretty darn good shape for the bloodshed they've just witnessed. Inside the rest stop, our hungover, ten year-old hero wakes up and hears a strange noise. He comes out, witnesses a bit of the cop being eaten, and immediately surmises that this car thing is from outer space. You gotta hand it to him. He also knows how to get rid of it. He burns its rear end with his super magnifier, and whoosh, the car monster flies off, cursing in alienese, to outer space. Is Pete thrilled that he has saved many earthlings from being eaten up? A little. But he's more worried that his parents will smell the vodka on his breath, so in the story's concluding moment he bends down to little Rachel, who should be curled up in the fetal position in deep shock because she had witnessed her parents getting devoured, and breathes in her face and asks if she smells anything. Somehow wise beyond her years, she "actually smiled," and told him, "You'll be okay. . .maybe get some mints or something before you go home." "I was thinking Teaberry Gum," Pete said. "Yeah," Rachel said. "That'll work." These are the final words of the story. Talk about one cold little tyke.


Having just reread my plot summary, I think that maybe my retelling makes it sound better than it is. No, it doesn't. It's bad. It's kind of dumb, and like so much recent Stephen King, it's derivative. Let's count the previous King elements: 1. brave little boy on an expedition ("The Body aka "Stand by Me), kids burning things up (FIRESTARTER), killer car (Christine), alien thing (THE TOMMYKNOCKERS), cute little kids in jeopardy (THE SHINING and many more) plus a liberal dose of pop culture like Justin Beiber and Teaberry Gum. I tried to find reason behind the story, which read like one of the spooky spoofs that King created in his pre-Graphic novel "Creep Show." I tried to figure out a thematic plan for the people devoured by the car and could find none, and I was sorely disappointed because. . .

. . .a few years back Stephen King was my #1 modern writing hero. I loved the stories he told, the depth of his description, his great true-to-the ear dialogue, and the sense of place he gave to his part of the world, Maine 'SALEM'S LOT is my all time favorite horror novel. I think that at the least THE SHINING and "The Body" from DIFFERENT SEASONS transcend the horror genre into the realm of "serious literature," whatever that may be.

Despite my sadness, I await Christmas morning with great excitement because I hope to receive King's new novel, "11/22/63," which tells the story of a man from our time, who travels back to 1963 to prevent the assassination of JFK. I've heard good things about it. Let me repeat that I can't wait for this book, and I have dropped enough hints to dent the floor, so I'm pretty sure it will be lurking under the tree. I want very much to love it, to be whisked back to the days when everything that Stephen King, or Richard Bachman for that matter, wrote pleased me thoroughly in that can't-put-this-book-down way that great reads can provide. Last year, I got his novella collection FULL DARK, NO STARS and ended up skimming most of it, it was so cheerless, dark, and uninterestingly ironic.

I always give Stephen King another chance. . .and always will, I think. I look forward to Christmas morning and my new King novel, unless, of course, Santa gets eaten by that crazy flying alien station wagon. Now, that sounds like a good idea for a story.




Saturday, November 12, 2011

"Zombies 'R' Us"

Zombies ‘R’ Us

This is the first five chapters of a young adult novel that I am getting close to finishing. Anyone who might read and comment would be appreciated.


by Greg Ellstrom


One


I woke up that morning at least ten minutes late. God, I hate morning. My friggin’ alarm hadn’t gone off, and my mom had only called me once before she left for work. So I tumbled out of bed, happy that I had gone to sleep with my jeans and sneakers still on and only had to put on a fresh t-shirt.

In the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. God, I looked like a friggin’ zombie. It was my own fault for stayin’ up to two in the friggin’ morning playing Resident Evil on my XBox.

My phone beeped in my pocket. I pulled it out and clicked it on. It was a text message from my best friend Walt. It said: “u suk!” I laughed and texted back “u 2 u mudda.” That would get him laughing. Then I brushed my teeth so I wouldn’t have halitosis and attempted to comb my hair. That, of course, was a friggin’ joke. My hair was a pile of brown, out of control curls. What the heck! My girlfriend Marty liked it that way.

Let me tell you about Marty. Seeing her is the one good thing about getting up. She is so hot! She has long reddish-blond hair and dark eyes and a wide smile that melts me every time I see her. Her body was made for lowride jeans and halter tops, even though she hardly ever wore those kinds of clothes. Because, you see, my Marty, full name Martha Wright, is a lady, and always dresses like one, and talks like one, and acts like one. She doesn’t like me to say friggin’, even.


2

My phone, beeped and I grabbed it off the top of the toilet. It was a text from Marty which said, “i luv u.” “me 2 u,” I texted back. How did I. . . how did Jake O’Toole get so lucky to have such a girlfriend? I checked myself out in the mirror again and shook my head. I don’t know how ‘cause I looked like a friggin’ zombie.

My mom had left 5 bucks, a bagel, and a note on the kitchen counter for me. The note said: “I had to leave early this morning, honey. Big sales meeting to get ready for. I hope you woke up in time to make it to school. Love, Mom.” I read the note, scarfed down the bagel, jammed the five into my pocket, and headed out the door.

I walk to school. It’s only like a quarter of a mile, and as my sneakers beat their way down the sidewalk, I thought about my mom. She’s friggin’ fantastic. She works like 50 hours a week selling insurance to people who probably don’t want it, but she never complains. Not much anyway. And she takes great care of me and hardly ever treats me like a kid. My dad left about 5 years ago when I was only 12. Did you ever hear of a “Dear John” letter? They were like from World War II or something. When a soldier got a letter from his wife or girlfriend saying that she was leaving him, it was called a “Dear John.” Well, my dad was in the Army Reserves, and he fell in love with his friggin’ sergeant. Can you believe that? At least the sergeant was a woman. Anyway, my mom got a Dear John phone call from Dad when he was at summer reserve training. He married his sergeant, too. He’s deployed now, and I worry a lot about him, but he really pisses me off.

I strode into the high school lobby and all my friends were leaning against the wall waiting for me. Walt Carlson, whose been my best buddy since like second grade,

3

was holding hands with his girlfriend Carly Thomas. Walt’s about 6’1” which is like 3 inches taller than me, but I outweigh him. Walt’s really skinny and dresses like a skater. Baggy pants, baggy hoodies, and a chain from his belt to his wallet. I don’t dress like that. I just dress kind of. . .normal. T-shirts and jeans, like I said before.

Carly is really cute. She’s tiny, like 4’11” or something, which makes her look really weird standing next to stretched out Walt. She has dark hair, which she wears short and cut kind of raggedy. She usually wears really dark red lipstick. I think she’d like to wear black lipstick and be a goth, but being a goth is nowhere in the little hick town where we live.

“Hey, man,” I said.

“Hey,” Walt said, and we pounded fists.

“Hi Carly,” I said, and she smiled. She has a really sweet smile. Then I turned to Marty.

She looked amazing. She looked like she was a private school girl or something, wearing a short plaid skirt with a white blouse, and a short blue jacket kind of thing. The only thing that blew off the private school picture was her feet. No knee socks and saddle shoes for my girl. She had on flip-flops covered with rhinestones and her toenails were painted day-glo pink. Like I said before, Marty is a lady. And smokin’!!

“Hi, Marty,” I said and kissed her gently on the lips.

“Hi, Jacob,” she smiled back and looked into my bloodshot eyes. “How late were you up last night?”

“Two.”

4

“Playing videogames?”

“Yeh.”

“You’re crazy,” she said, but in a real nice way, and she smiled.

“I’m friggin’ addicted.”

“Don’t say friggin’,” she scolded me, again with a smile.

“Oh, right. I forgot about the friggin’ ban.”

Her eyes widened. God, her eyes were gorgeous.

“That’s the ban on saying ‘friggin’,’ I mean.”

“Hi, Jake,” Kaitlyn said. She had pushed her backpack up against the lobby wall and was sitting on it. Kaitlyn is Marty’s little sister. She’s just a freshman, and the rest of us are juniors, but we let her hang out with us anyway. She’s pretty, too, with reddish blonde hair like Marty’s and a nice body for a 14 year old. But her eyes are always kind of frightened and kind of sad. For some reason Kaitlyn is a little troubled by the world. That’s another reason we let her hang out with us.

“Hi, Kait,” I smiled down at her. “Happy Tuesday.” Then I turned and looked at the rest of the mob pouring into the lobby of Carriageville High School. “We better hit our lockers,” I said and took Marty’s hand. Together the five of us moved through the crowd. In school there’s safety in numbers. It was us against the world.


Two

Marty and I have 3rd period study hall, so we go to the library/media center to study, because you can’t get any studying done in study hall. Also, in the library we can sit across from each other, and Marty can stretch out her long legs and rest her feet on my lap. Enough said about that!

I do all my studying in school. I avoid doing schoolwork at home at all cost. Right now I’m third in my class of 127 students. Not bad for a non-studier. I’m lucky. I have a sticky brain. Most everything we learn in class sticks there waiting to be unstuck when test time comes.

I was doing my chemistry, which was really simple because it was only the third week of school, and chemistry made me think about what I had mentioned before. Not Marty’s feet on my lap. That’s body chemistry for sure, but rather about how I felt like my friends and I were 5 against the world.

The chemistry of our school is pretty simple. Although it’s a little school in a hick town, you need to be part of a group, a human chemical compound. Your friends are like the elements or the atoms or whatever. You work together with your friends to keep the reactions under control. If you don’t have friends to help you keep things under control, life in a high school can really suck.

As I was thinking about that stuff, Bob Krauss came in the door. Friggin’ great! If I continued to think chemically, then Bob was a big fat electron who bounces all around, bumping into the reactions that are going on in school and messing them up. I mean he’s the epitome of bully. Pretty good word, huh? I read somewhere that the worst high school bullies weren’t jocks anymore, but on-line cyber-bullies. Well Bob’s a throwback then. He’s one big, mean S.O.B., who thinks he’s my friend because we’re both on the wrestling team. He isn’t my friend. I quickly looked down at my chem notes, but I knew he’d seen us. He lumbered over to our table.

“Hey, Jake,” he said, towering over us. Bob is like 6’2” and weighs over 275 pounds. I know his weight for sure, because he wrestles the 275 lb. weight class on our team, and he’s always suckin’ weight before matches. He was talking to me, but looking at Marty’s chest. Marty didn’t even raise her eyes as he towered above us.

“Hey, Flop,” I said. “Flop” was the nickname which Bob allowed people to use. Behind his back, people called him Blob and Slob. Very quietly.

“I forgot my lunch money. Can I borrow 2 bucks?”

“Nope,” I said.

“How come?

“Because you never friggin’ pay me back.”

Marty glared at me.

“Come on. I gotta eat lunch.”

“Forget it, Flop.”

“How about you, Marty?” Flop leered. “Will you loan me two bucks?”

“No, Bob,” Marty said without looking up.

“Yer little sister’s hot.” He continued to leer.

Marty slowly raised her eyes. They were deep, deep brown and intense. “Stay away from Kaitlyn, Flop,” she said, her teeth set tightly.

Flop giggled, a moronic sort of bear-giggle, and wandered off. Marty continued to follow him with her intense eyes. “Drop dead, Flop,” she whispered and went back to studying.

I just watched her for a couple minutes. God, I loved her. She was so friggin’ cool!


Three

Lunch! I love lunch, and my mom knows it, which was why she left me 5 bucks every morning. That day I had two slices of pepperoni pizza, a large pile of french fries, an ice cream sandwich, and three milks. At school cafeteria prices, my total came in well under my 5 dollar maximum.

I was sitting with Marty in 6th period lunch. She had brought her own sandwich, but bought a plate of french fries for herself. I mean I love her, but I wasn’t going to share my fries.

“What kind of sandwich?” I asked.

“Lettuce,” she nodded, demurely chewing the first bite.

“A lettuce sandwich and mega-french fries?”

“Kind of schizophrenic, huh?” she smiled and dipped a fry into a cup of ketchup.

Like I said before, Marty has a great body, but she’s not one of these twig-sized, anorexic, bones-poking-out-of-her-cheeks, high fashion model kind of girls. Marty has just the right amount of flesh on her. Like me, she likes to eat.

She looked at my food-covered tray and shook her head. “You eat so much!”

“And don’t gain a pound. I’m one lucky dude. Great metabolism.”

“Don’t say dude,” she smiled.

“I’ll put it on the list with ‘friggin’,” I said then noticed that Marty wasn’t looking at me. She was looking across the cafeteria. My eyes turned to follow hers. At the end of the row of tables, a new kid was standing. When you go to a school with only about 500 kids, you can pick a new kid out right away. The new kid was looking around in a kind of shy way, and you could tell he didn’t know where he should sit.

“It’s so sad. . .being new and not having any friends,” she said.

“He looks like he’s Mexican,” I offered, watching the kid try to figure out where he’d be welcome.

“Latino,” Marty replied, still watching the new guy. “I think that’s what Mexican-American people like to be called. We should ask him to sit with. . .,” Marty started. “Oh.” Then the kid moved from his spot where he’d been looking like the deer in the headlights and headed to an empty table across the room. Marty watched him all the way. “I saw him talking to Kaitlyn after second this morning,” she said.

“Really?” I raised my eyes from my feast.

“Kaitlyn was smiling.”

“Hey,” I said. “That’s unusual.”

“I know,” Marty answered and bit her lip.

Marty and I talk about everything. I mean almost everything. Real personal stuff, but for some reason I’d never felt right about asking about Kaitlyn and how come her little sis was so scared and so down a lot of the time. I decided that was the time to ask.

“How come Kait’s that way?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Kind of sad all the time. Kind of afraid of stuff. Hardly ever smiling.”

“She smiles at you,” Marty said. “She really likes you. She says she trusts your eyes?”

“That’s good to know.”

“Watch out for her. O.K., Jake?” Marty said, a french fry poised before her lips.

“Always,” I said.

We stuffed ourselves for another minute or so, until I said, “So, how come Kait is the way she is?”

Marty looked toward the ceiling, her eyes getting a little misty. Woops, I thought. “Not now,” she said and her voice sounded a little squeaky. “I’ll tell you some time.”


Four

Even thought it isn’t wrestling season, Walt and I work out after school 2 or 3 days a week. At least Tuesday and Thursday, anyway. If we don’t show ourselves in the gym or the weight room once in awhile out of season, Bozo goes nuts and makes our lives miserable.

Bozo is our wrestling coach, and his real name is Laverne Bonzo if you can believe that. He’s old, like in his middle 50’s and he’s a retro P.E. teacher, and not retro in a good way. Bozo is the kind of P.E. teacher who’s in all those old movies. The kind of guy with the buzz cut and the gym pants with stripes on the sides and the special coaching shoes. And he’s psychotic about calisthenics, won’t let us refer to gym as physical education, and refuses to let any of his classes do the cool stuff the young P.E. teachers do like swing dancing and cross country skiing.

What really pisses Bozo off is that all gym classes are co-ed. He’d like it the old way so he could just beat on guys. So if you’re in Bozo’s class, you know the guys are going to be doing guy stuff on one side of the gym and the girls are going to be hittiing around a badminton birdie on the other side of the gym.

Bozo’s something of a perv, too. He loves to hand the girls the badminton birdie and say, “here’s the shuttlecock, ladies.” He just loves saying the cock part to them. Bozo doesn’t laugh very often, and never at jokes that kids make, except one day in gym class, Flop said to him, “Hey, coach, let’s play basketball. We’ll play shirts and skins, and the girls will be skins.” Bozo roared with laughter at that.

So why do I wrestle for a coach whose a perverted, throwback loser? For one thing, I’m good at it. And though practice is really friggin’ hard, the matches are friggin’ hard but fun. But mostly it’s because of what I said before. You really need something to define yourself in our school. Something to be part of. Something to make you a little different from the rest of the zombies walking around. So Walt and I are wrestlers.

That afternoon, Walt and I said good-bye to the girls, then went out and jogged a couple of miles on the track. Then we came into the weight room and worked free weights for half an hour. Finally, we went into the gym, threw a mat down onto the floor, and practiced takedowns and escapes and reversals and stuff. Walt wrestles 160, and I wrestle 171., so were pretty well-matched. I’m more compact and maybe a little stronger, but Walt’s got me on lankiness and agility. We knew if Bozo happened to peek in, he’d be thrilled as heck to see us wrestling, and it’s always good to be on Bozo’s good side.

But instead of Bozo peeking in, I looked up from the mat to see the new kid watching us from the door. Walt had me in some kind of scissors hold which would probably be illegal in a match, and I said, “O.K. Let me up”

“I’m too much for ya, huh?” Walt grunted happily and farted just to be obnoxious.

“Geez, let me out,” I moaned, and he relaxed, and I rolled away. “You smell like a friggin’ sewer, Carlson.”

“Yeh, I know,” Walt grinned.

I got to my feet, wiped the sweat from my brow, and walked toward the kid at the door. “Hey,” I said. “How ya doin’?”

“Hey,” the kid said back and nodded. He was a good-sized guy. Probably about 6 foot and 190 pounds. He had a dark complexion, really black hair that fell over his eyebrows, and eyes that were even darker than Marty’s. He looked like he was a Latino, if that’s the right word, just like Marty had said.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my sweatpants and offered him my hand. “I’m Jake,” I said.

He thought about that for a second, then half-smiled, and offered his hand back to me. “Carl. . .I’m Carl,” he sort of stuttered.

I pointed to Walt who was still sitting on the mat, waving his arms at us, trying to fan his obnoxious fart fumes in our direction. “That disgusting pig is named Walt.”

“Hey,” Walt said.

“Hey,” Carl replied.

“You wrestle?” I asked.

He thought about that for another second. “No. I box a little.”

“Cool,” Walt offered.

“You’re new here.” I didn’t ask. It was a statement.

“New today.”

“Sucks being new?”

“It’s a bitch.”

“How come you wandered into the gym?” Walt wondered, still at his spot on the mat.

“I had to stay after to do some stuff in the counseling center,” Carl explained, “and when I got done I had missed the 3:00 bus, so I had to hang around until the 4:00 bus.”

Walt laughed. “There isn’t a 4:00 bus.”

“What? Some kid in the lobby told me there was a late bus at 4:00.”

“Some kid in the lobby was playin’ with you?” I explained. “The late bus doesn’t come until 5:30.”

“Crap,” Carl grimaced and looked at his watch. “I gotta wait an hour and 40 minutes.”

“Where do you live, Carl?” Walt asked.

“I live out off of Fly Road.”

Walt did a kip to his feet. “We’ll give you a ride home,” he smiled.

And that was the way we met the new kid.


Fivew

“So,” Carl explained, “my dad is Haitian and my mom is Mexican-American. She was born in Texas, and that’s where I live most of the year. Mom’s a bookkeeper in Brownsville. She stays home, but my dad has always been a seasonal farm worker, and he loves to come up North every summer to work, and I come with him, because I can make some money, and it’s too damn hot in Texas. We always go back home right around Labor Day, but my dad got hurt the last week of August.” The three of us were tooling down Fly Road. Walt was driving his black and rust ‘95 Grand Am. I was riding shotgun, and Carl was in the back seat. He was explaining why he was enrolling at Carriageville High, almost 3 weeks after school had started.

“What happened to your dad?” I asked.

“He got tossed off a tractor and broke his pelvis.”

“Ouch,” Walt said.

“He’s all screwed up, and there’s no way he can drive 2,000 miles home in our pickup. So Mr. Siracci, who owns the farm we work on, is letting us stay in one of his trailers until dad is well enough to drive back to Texas.. Mr. Siracci is a good guy, and he feels bad about dad getting hurt.”

“So you’re not like an illegal alien or something?” Walt asked.

“No,” Carl laughed. “I’m legal man. I was born in the U.S.”

“God, Carlson, you are a moron,” I said, and Carl laughed some more in the back seat.

“I wouldn’t have started school at all,” he went on, “but my mom has been bitching at me over the phone for the last two weeks. My aunt, too. Gotta get your education. Gotta get your education.”

I turned around and looked at the new kid. “How long before you’ll head back to Texas do you think?”

Carl shrugged. “Maybe a month.”

“You can hang with us until then,” I said.

Carl smiled and nodded. “Thanks, you guys.”

“You met Kait today.”

Carl looked puzzled.

“Kaitlyn Wright,” I went on. “About 5’ 4”. Big brown eyes. Reddish blond hair.”

“Oh, yeh.” Carl grinned. “Kaitlyn. She’s sweet.”

I liked the fact that he called Kait sweet, not hot or smokin’ or sexy or something. “She’s my girlfriend Marty’s little sister. Marty saw you guys talking together.”

Poor Carl looked puzzled again.

“I’d seen you before just now in the gym,” I explained. “Marty and I saw you at lunch today.”

“God, I was really lookin’ like the new kid then.”

“You were a babe in the woods,” I laughed.

“Turn at the next right,” Carl said and pointed at the windshield.

Walt slowed, turned right, and we headed down a bumpy dirt road. Not too far down it, we came upon an old double wide trailer, sitting up on cinderblocks.

“Home sweet home,” Carl said, and Walt pulled up in front.

Walt’s Grand Am is a 2 door so I popped my door and leaned forward so Carl could get out. Walt was leaning out his window and looking the other way. As Carl climbed out, Walt turned and said, “what’s that water down there?”

I turned and looked and saw that at the bottom of a path that wound down a hill covered with scrub brush was what looked like a big pond.

“That’s the quarry,” Carl said from outside the car. “Haven’t you guys ever been down to the quarry.”

“The quarry,” I said, “I heard about it, but never knew exactly where it was.”

“In Carriageville, going to the quarry is like getting into a car with a stranger ,” Walt explained. “From the time you can understand what your mom’s talkin’ about, you’re told to not to go near it, ‘cause you’ll drown.”

“Plus it’s not like we hang out in cow pastures 5 miles from the village,” I added.

“It’s a cool place,” Carl shrugged. “Wanna see it?”

“Damn straight I do,” Walt said and climbed out of the car, and I followed. Then we both followed Carl down the hillside. It wasn’t very far to the quarry. Maybe 200 yards, and when we got there, what we saw was pretty awesome. The old quarry was about a quarter mile across and surrounded by rocky outcroppings. The water was almost black and looked cold and really deep. But the most awesome thing we saw was the absolutely naked lady standing on one of the rocky points. She was tall and built, with long-black hair, and like I said, as naked as a friggin’ newborn. Then she dove into the water. She hardly made any splash going in.

“Holy crap,” Walt said.

“That’s my Tante,” Carl smiled.

“What?”

“Mi tia . . .I mean my aunt. . .my Tante Marie.”

“She’s amazing,” Walt said softly.

The three of us kept staring at the quarry. In a couple seconds, Carl’s aunt’s head broke the surface. She glared, and the three of us spun around and hurried up the hill.

“She’s a bruja,” Carl went on as we headed toward the trailer.

“What?” I asked.

“She’s a bruja. . .a witch!”


Friday, August 26, 2011

The Acceptable Meal Planner


For breakfast each day I eat one container of low-fat yogurt, one whole grain bagel with peanut butter, and a container of coffee, iced or warm, depending on the weather. This is basically an "it's good for ya" breakfast. I'm not big on yogurt; it's only O.K., but it's "good for ya." Whole grain bagels are "good for ya" but taste a lot like roof shingles no matter what is spread on them. Coffee's not particularly "good for ya," but I love it. So, flavor and food value considered, this is an acceptable breakfast for me.

Now that I am back to blogging, I decided it would be an interesting blog topic to figure a formula of sorts with which to judge an "acceptable" meal. My two criteria for an acceptable meal are decency of taste and decency of nutritional/health value. I feel that a scale of 1 to 10 is acceptably accurate with 10 being the best in either taste or nutrition. So if I give yogurt a 5 on flavor and a 8 on nutrition, by multiplying those numbers, I rate a cup of ACTIVIA or whatever brand I might choose, with a 40. A peanut-buttered whole grain bagel receives a 4 and 8, creating a 32 rating. The coffee receives a 9 on flavor and a 2 for food value, creating an 18 rating. I must state that these rating are totally subjective and must be decided upon by the person rating his or her meal. So an acceptable meal of three items for me can be rated at 40+32+18 which equals 90.

I decided to test my lunch today with this formula. Often I have "Cheerios" for lunch, but today was special. I had an amazing meal. I had one slice cold pizza, one 8 oz. glass of skim milk, and one beautiful peach. Working backward, I judge the peach at 9 and 8 totaling 72, the milk gets a 9 and a 6 because of the sodium in milk. for 54, and the pizza gets 9 and a 2, for an 18. My lunch total was 144. A score of 144 marks a meal for me as way more than acceptable flavor wise and acceptable nutritionally.

ERGO, a meal scoring in the 80-100 area will be acceptable but uninspiring for me, and a meal in the 150 to 170 range is outstanding and still acceptably healthy. Subjectivity remains the key to this formula. Let me outline an absolutely horrible meal for me. It would have to begin with broccoli. Broccoli, so I am told, is wonderful for one. If it's so damn wonderful then I will grant it the only nutritional "10" in all of my food rating, but I'll also give it the only "1" for flavor. I hate what it tastes like, and I hate its texture, and no matter what you do with it still tastes like its got dirt on it. That's a "10" for broccoli. For the main course, I choose that flavorless free range chicken the health gurus rave about it. It gets a 3 for taste and and 8 for nutrition, totaling 24. For a beverage, I will have a glass of white wine. I know wine has its health benefits, so it gets 5 for nutrition and 3 for flavor, totaling 15. So a perfectly disgusting but extremely healthy meal for me totals "49." Strangely, if I had the delightful lunch of pizza, Buffalo wings, and draft beer, I would award the pizza with 18, the wings with the same 9 and 2, and the draft beer with an 8 and 3 for 24. The total of this delightful meal is "60," very close to my disgusting meal total. For another person the rating could be completely different. I've heard many people claim to love broccoli and white wine. I don't know how anyone could love that tough, stick-in-your-throat bird, but I can imagine a person of a different palate rating my disgusto meal with 200 points or more.

Try this test on your own meals being completely subjective to your taste buds. The lesson to be learned is old and wise: "Moderation in all things." You have to balance the flavor with the food value. I often wonder though, why God didn't make things that are good for you taste better.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Teacher Dreams


Earlier today I read on my FB wall a comment by a current teacher about the imminent arrival of the "teacher dream." These dreams often recur in the waning days of August but can come at any time of the years. Those who have experienced the famous college dream, in which the dreamer is taking a final test for a class which they never attended, can appreciate the terror of "teacher dream." The college dream can be hair raising, and it's one of those dreams that even though you are aware it is a dream, you just can't make yourself wake up from it. Now the college dream is burned into our subconscious by 4 years of study. Just imagine, then, non-teachers, how deeply a dream can burrow into that part of your brain where such things are stored, when you have been toiling at it for 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, or even 33 years.

Three of my standard and recurring "teacher dreams" for your consideration:
1. The Where's My Damn Classroom Dream: I am wandering the halls of school trying to find the classroom that I misplaced somewhere. Everywhere I turn is another familiar hall, but for some reason, not the one I am looking for. I pass my fellow teachers in these halls and I swear they are looking meet as if they know that I am not where I am supposed to be. If I ever find the room in my dream, then all hell is breaking loose inside upon my arrival.
2. The Bad Kids Dream: In this dream, I am teaching and not a single kid is paying attention to what I am saying. They aren't kids who I know or have ever taught before. They're a bunch of mystery snots! And no matter how I scream or rant, they barely look at me. I had one of my favorite variations of the Bad (Good) Kid Dream when I was still teaching. In the dream, I arrived late to a class in Room 209 in the high school. It contained 30 wonderful students, who I was crazy about. I walked into the room, and they were huddled around the windows looking out. One of them turned to me and said soberly, "We didn't like the man who came in here to see you. So we threw him out the window." I raced to window, pushing through the throng, and looked down the one story to the sidewalk where the man's battered body rested. The body was surrounded by police and firemen. One of the cops looked up and said, "God, he must have fallen 20 stories!" This statement shocked me awake before I could thank my class for protecting me from the "man" or figure how he could fall 20 stories from a 2 story building.
3. The Extracurricular Dream: Mine, of course, involves the plays and musicals. It's always the same. It's 45 minutes to curtain, and we haven't rehearsed once. In some, I am just then handing out the scripts. I, of course, am beside myself with worry, but in every replay of the dream, my student actors always tell me, "Don't worry, Mr. Ellstrom. It'll be fine. We'll make it up as we go along."

Guess what active teachers! Retiring doesn't retire the teacher dreams. Linda and I still have at least one teacher dream each every month, and it has been nine years since we retired. Teaching is such an all-encompassing, 24/7 kind of profession, with so much emotional investment, that it continues to remind you of what you did for all those years in a sort of comic/ironic way.

I saw a clip on Yahoo of a libertarian TV commentator asking Matt Damon if he thought that teacher's didn't care or worry about their jobs after 3 years because they had been granted tenure. The esteemed Mr. Damon bit her head off and her cameraman's head as well. Tenure making things easier!? Tenure has no effect on degree of difficulty. Some people just don't frickin' get how hard and wonderful the job of teaching is! How teachers lose sleep because they fret when their students do poorly and lose sleep because they are elated when their students do well. And when they do fall asleep, their dreams continue to remind them of the stress of their cherished job.

I wonder if people from libertarian TV stations have commentator dreams! Or cameraman dreams.



Saturday, August 13, 2011

My Favorite Fanatic or In Defense of Fanaticism

Thomas Paine
"damned be his name,
and lasting his shame"

Post debt ceiling crisis, the U.S. continues to ride a financial roller coaster, and I continue to feel that the actions of the tea party legislators and other strict conservatives and their refusals to compromise were wrong. Still, I hope that the methods these fanatics chose will eventually aid in a positive change. Many people won't agree with my labeling of the tea party as a fanatical group. Well, to me a fanatic is someone who closes his ears to everyone and who refuses to compromise. A fanatic, despite a firestorm of criticism, rolls on as he or she sees fit. Actually, when stated that way, there is the suggestion of nobility in fanaticism.

The anti-war and the civil rights movements were certainly aided by the efforts of fanatics. The loose cannons of the 60's and 70's irritated people but forced them to look at problems they would rather have avoided. Their fanatical acts often kept their causes in the headlines and on the nightly news. As a result the thinking of many Americans, young and old, was altered.

The United States exists in great part because of the mind and pen of my favorite fanatic, Thomas Paine. Not only was Paine a founding father but a founding fanatic, as well. Between 1776 and 1807, he wrote four pamphlets, "Common Sense" in 1776, designed to stir Americans to revolution; "The Crisis" in 1777, to raise the spirits of American soldiers; "The Rights of Man" in 1791 and 1792, in support of the French Revolution and against monarchies; and "The Age of Reason" in 1794, and '95, and 1807, a three part attack on the church of the time. Of Paine's "Common Sense," John Adams wrote, "Without the pen of the author of 'Common Sense,' the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain." His words stirred and moved people and nations. It was Paine who said in "The Crisis," "These are the times that try men's souls." Of the importance of the American revolution to the world, he wrote in "Common Sense," "The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth . . . 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now." So powerful were his words, that in the colonies, people wanted to give credit for them to Franklin or Jefferson or Adams. Adams readily admitted that he wasn't capable of writing with such heart and strength.

Paine's words not only inspired, but they also angered virtually everyone in power at the time. Having gone back to England from where he had emigrated, he wrote "The Rights of Man," a pamphlet designed to rail against the criticism of the French Revolution. As a result, he became even more hated by the British monarchy and would have been arrested if he hadn't fled to France. The British tried him in absentia, anyway, and found him guilty. Then, despite his authorship of "The Rights of Man," he was arrested in France for not supporting the execution of Louis the XVI. While in prison, he worked on "The Age of Reason," a pamphlet that he stated was not against God but against the profitability of the church. As a result he was in deep trouble with both the politicians and the clerics. Politics and religion are the two things you don't discuss at dinner, but the fanatic Paine dove into both wherever his voice could be heard.

He might have lost his head to Monsieur l'Guillotine if not for the intervention in 1794 of James Monroe, America's Ambassador to France, but it was not until 1802, that he returned to America on the invitation of Thomas Jefferson. But America, the country he had worked so hard to create, did not welcome him. His great achievements were all but eradicated because of his anti-religious views. He was virtually friendless.

There is a wonderful play called "Tom Paine" written by Paul Foster that I and probably a few hundred other people have seen. I saw it twice, in fact, in the summer of 1970. In his experimental drama, Foster posits other reasons that people chose to hold Paine in distaste. He, like so many great writers, liked his liquor too much. He wasn't very good looking, and personal hygiene wasn't a priority for him. Also, unlike most of the other Founding Fathers, he was not a man of wealth. Paine was a bastard and the son of a bastard corset-maker. When upon returning to the country he had helped birth, he tried to vote and was summarily turned away. He died in 1809 in New York City and few people attended his funeral.

I am now back to my original thought: that perhaps the fanaticism of the tea party movement will eventually help shape a better America. It's kind of ironic to discuss them in the same essay with Thomas Paine, though, because way back in the 1790's, Paine endorsed, among other non-tea party things, a worldwide peace organization and a system of social security.

A caveat for tea party members and others who would change the world through fanaticism: As I mentioned before, Paine was found guilty in absentia for his treasonous behavior in England. When he died the British wanted his bones back. In the final speech in Foster's play, the audience is told, "with iron hammers they broke the stone above his head, and dug up his very bones and they shoveled them into a sack and they threw them aboard a ship bound for London to hang upside down before the jeering mobs. And when they were done, the raw stuff that moved the pen, were thrown into the street. And nobody knows where they are today. So went Tom Paine who shook continents awake."

Some information from USHISTORY.com.


Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Texas Forever


On the website TV WITHOUT PITY, a columnist said, "How do you summarize perfection?" in reference to the NBC series FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. People who made it a requirement to be seated at the 5o yard line every Friday to follow the amazing people of Dylan, Texas, who came to life in the five seasons of FNL, must agree. I wouldn't begin to attempt a summary of the stories of the Dylan Panthers, who begot the East Dylan Lions, of the lives of Coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tammy, of Tim Riggins, Jason Street, Lila and Buddy Garriety, Matt Saracen, Julie Taylor, Landon, Tyra, Bobby, Vince, Smash, and so many more. I do believe that the concluding episode, which aired last Friday, was as perfect an act of TV closure as I can imagine. When at the end of the special hour and half finale, Vince threw a "Hail Mary" up into the lights, it spiraled down and reminded us that compromise is a must in marriage, that marriage should be about spending your life with your best friend, that forgiveness is good and essential, that dreams can be made of timber and cement on a Texas hillside and put together with nails, beer and brotherly love, that there comes a time that you must put away the great moments of the past and start fresh in a different kind of uniform, that you just might fall in love with somebody when you're both 5 years old and still be in love when you both turn 20, that hard work is rewarded, and sometimes you really do earn what you deserved. That is only a small part of the list of important things that one can learn from watching FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, a TV show that transcended the good movie and great book, that it was based on, to become for me the best damn show since THE SOPRANOS, which was the best damn show since HILL STREET BLUES. FNL offered the best damn ending, although THE SOPRANOS came pretty close. Let's hoist a Lone Star. Texas Forever!!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Passing of a Student and Friend


This dismal April day seems fitting to mourn the passing of my student and friend, Sasha Shuebrooke. A member of the CHS Class of 2000, Sasha was good and bright and brave. I found out about Sasha's death in a troubling way. I saw her birthday notice on the left column of my FACEBOOK home page and clicked on it. As I typed a short birthday wish, I looked down the page of other birthday wishes and soon realized that most were wishing Sasha well and hoping she was happy "with the angels" or "wherever you may be." I knew without asking what this meant, but I sent off a message to the person directly below my entry on Sasha's wall. In minutes, he responded, sadly informing me that Sasha had died in early December, 2010. Later, I received an e-mail from her mom explaining more of the circumstances of her death.

Now, a bright spring day would be right for celebrating Sasha's life. A day with sun and a breeze and the smells of flowers and summer! Sasha was so intelligent and creative! A poet! A dancer! A caring person who was great fun to talk with! And Sasha was very brave. Since high school, her life had taken her to New England, to Australia, to Washington, D.C., to northern California, I believe, and finally to San Diego. In her new courageous life, Sasha was a different person, yet, she was the same.

A few years ago, Sasha took a new name. She became Gavi Reichen, and more recently, S.G. Reichen, I guess to keep the name "Sasha" in play. We kept in touch through the years, first with e-mails and then by FACEBOOK, so, I was aware of the interesting turns her life took. I filled out a couple of employment recommendations for her over the years as she searched for the right field to fit her terrific brain and terrific personality. Her high school friends will recall that Sasha always had health problems. Those problems stuck with her, and, in fact, were in a way responsible for her death. Complications from Sasha's disease brought her untimely end.

A memory disturbs me because of my inaction. Probably a year ago, Sasha wrote to me the simple statement, "You don't know how much your friendship means to me." I wrote back to her that our friendship was important to me, too, and that we needed to get together the next time she was in the area. We had said that more than once over the years, but that reunion never happened. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw Sasha.

So be wary of life's easily committed sins of omission. And if you remember Sasha, you might say a prayer for her wonderful, special soul.




Monday, April 18, 2011

Two Questions: "Was the girl from JD grounded from cellphone use?" and "Is there climate change in hell?"




Last Tuesday, Linda and I went to the SU/Cornell lax tilt. How's that for journalistic brevity? If you follow lacrosse, you will know it was a debacle, with Cornell triumphing 11 to 6. When the game is bad, one needs occasionally to people watch. In the row in front of us sat a high school girl with her dad. She was from JD: it said so on her jacket, and when they sat down, I figured she would soon get out her phone and start texting. Miraculously, it didn't happen. She watched the entire game with her father. They talked to each other. They ate nachos. Not once did either rely on anything electronic for communication. Being an outspoken opponent of texting disease, I was so happy. I wanted to say to them, "You two are great! You still talk to each other and have fun." I didn't for fear they would think I was a little weird. . .Two days pass and I am talking to Todd Sorensen, an FMHS history teacher, about something technological, and I mention this nice encounter to him. He says, "She was probably grounded from her phone." The idealist in me shouted, "No," but the cynic wondered if Todd could be right.

We were coming home from Schenectady yesterday, and, in Madison County, hit a terrible sleet storm. It was awful, truly hellacious, which made me ponder the ecological question , "Is there climate change in hell?" I have no answer, but my favorite poet Robert Frost, hinted around the possibility in his wonderful verse "Fire and Ice."

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
--Robert Frost

Love the way the man could get you thinking with so few syllables.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

In case you missed this in the newspapers. . .


I wrote this to celebrate community cooperation, and it was in the POST STANDARD, COURIER, and OD.

A project begun five years ago received a tremendous financial impetus in late November of 2010. It was then that the Village of Chittenango and the Village Trail Committee, which is a municipal entity, received news that a grant had been reserved by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation for the trail committee’s use. The grant has created great excitement in Chittenango and has highlighted the good things that happen when citizens, civic committees, and service clubs work together.

The work of the Chittenango Neighborhood Trail Committee had already begun when, in late 2007, the Chittenango Lions Club was approached with a special proposition involving a piece of property along Dyke Road. It so happend that the trail committee would eventually need access to Valley Acres to realize its plan to connect the village neighborhoods with downtown. And what has occurred in the years since then, seems to be a combination of “kismet” and “serendipity,” fate and good fortune.

This good fortune began when Chris Kendall, Canastota Lion and attorney, approached the Chittenango Lions Club with a proposal. The finger of land that runs north and south from Sun Chevy’s car lot to Valley Acres was owned by the Shapiro family, who Kendall represented. The family wanted to donate the land, bordered on the west by Dyke Road, and the east by Chittenango Creek to the Village of Chittenango. But, the Shapiro Trust wanted a civic organization such as the Lions to take stewardship of the land to guarantee it would be used for the public good. After lengthy consideration, the Lions decided to take on the responsibility and began discussing uses for the rather inhospitable piece of property. On July 22, 2008, a Lions Club committee led by Lions Jim English and Steve Kinne, including Lions Dick Sullivan, Nelson Smith, Pete Owens and Mike Lynch approached the village board and presented the Lions plan of stewardship of the Shapiro land. Mayor Ronny Goeler and the board voted their support of the development of the property at that meeting.

Two years passed and the Neighborhood Trail System grew. At a meeting in the spring of 2010, the Lions and representatives of the Trail Commitee discussed joint usage of the land. Donna Lynch and Bill Nickal of the Trail committee explained that in October of 2010, the first phase of the trail system from Kirschenheiter Park to the trailhead in the village, would be officially dedicated. The next step was to wind the trail to Valley Acres, and the best way to go was through Shapiro tract. The Lions Club agreed that it was a fine idea. In fact, it almost seemed fated.

At the Chittenango Lions first meeting of the 2010-2011 Lions Club year, Lion Kinne announced that the village in cooperation with the Lions had officially “acquired” the Shapiro property. The village trail committee and the Lions Club would work together to see that it was used as “part of the village’s Master Plan for parks, green spaces, and connection of neighborhoods via a system of trails.” The property would be developed as a botanical park and arboretum, focusing on education and providing opportunites for recreation. Very importantly, Lion Kinne’s announcement included the fact that, “Within this park, a southern extension of the Neighborhood Creek Walk Trail will be built to connect Valley Acres to downtown.”

To add to the excitement was the announcement that the Lions and Trail Committee would be partnering with the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s School of Landscape Architecture in creating possible designs for the Dyke Road area. The landscape architecture faculty had chosen the Chittenango project because one of the major foci of the school’s curriculum is community design. Morrisville College’s Landscaping program also wanted to be involved in the project.

Meetings were held with the ESF students during the fall of 2010 at the Sullivan Free Library and the American Legion Hall. The meetings were open and citizen input was requested by the students and the civic groups involved. Sixty people attended the public forum, a real show of community support.

Most recently has come the great news that the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation had presented a $200,000 matching funds grant to the project titled: “Dyke Road Spur of the Chittenango Creek Walk.” Thanks to the grant writing ability of Elizabeth Bough Martin of the Village Trail Committee, funds will be available to develop this virtually unused piece of property.

It should be mentioned that the trail system has had other benefactors as well. A parcel of land has been generously donated by Philip and Phyllis Buchanan. Also, Robert Hall and Richard Clark have offered land they own to the village, and Stephen Davie has

additionally promised a permanent easement for the trail system.

Is it a mixture of ”kismet” and “serendipity” or is it just proof of the old statement that “sometimes things just work out.” However, one may choose to look at it, the trail system and the Dyke Road Project are evidence of the wonderful things that can happen when citizens, civic organizations, and government work together.


Monday, January 3, 2011

A Perfectly Poopy First Day of the New Year! Or. . .Why the Pooper Scooper is One of Man's Greatest Inventions!


Man, the first day of 2011 was really terrific. Few things will make me look to the future with a greater sense of promise than a first day of the year that starts with sun and with that January thaw feel in the air. The day's sweetness called me outside to vacuum the seats and floor of my car, picking up the dirt, dog hair, and dropped bits of kibble that nearly had made the carpet invisible. I was still a bit high from the Orange victory in the Pinstripe Bowl. I mean I felt bad for the saluting kid, but, what are you gonna do? Somebody's got to win, and the Orange aren't giving it back. I used that gridiron high to propel myself around the garage as I swept and shoveled the dirt and bits of paper, leaves and dog hair that had settled on the floor. I admit that the afternoon did bring rain, but we were off to the Dome to watch Boeheim's boys kick Irish butt, a truly beautiful thing to see! Then we went home to a terrific dinner and a relaxing evening.

Still, I have yet to mention another important activity that January 1, 2011, afforded for me and why I included "Perfectly Poopy" in my title. Well, anyone who owns a 95 pound Labrador Retriever knows what awaits them in their yard when the snow melts. A virtual minefield of doggy doo! An elephant graveyard of excrement! So much, in fact, that it is difficult to believe that it all came out of one animal. If, perish the thought, the snow cover lasts from December to late March, then the panorama of poop that spreads out before you and your pooper scooper is mind boggling. That's why a thaw at the beginning of January is so necessary. The first of the year afforded me a chance to remove a month and a half or so worth of poop. It took more than a half hour to pick up, and filled the bottom of a garbage can about 14 or 15 inches deep. It weighed. . .I don't want to guess how much it weighed. But the effort was so worth it because when March rolls around I'll have that much less (fill in the parentheses with your favorite term) to deal with.