Archive for January 2022

A friend recently told me about “The Privilege Walk.” The typical college classroom version of this activity involves between 10-40 participants. Throughout the privilege walk, the following statements are read by the facilitator and the participants are asked to take a step forward or backward based on their responses. This activity forces participants to confront…

Happy Days debuted 48 years ago today. It ran from 1974 through 1984. I watched it in re-runs as a kid and enjoyed the hell out of it. I thought about maybe introducing the kids to the show, then it occurred to me: Watching Richie Cunningham and the Fonz navigate a world absent of pandemic,…

Charlie, who despises swearing more than anyone I have ever met, said, “The worst movie I could ever imagine would be A Young Boy’s First Introduction to Swearing.”   Not a bad title for a film.   I’m not exactly known for my swearing, nor is Elysha, but Charlie’s opposition borders on fanatic.   I…

Every day, there is another story about the death of an anti-vaccination advocate to COVID-19.   Quite literally every day. Websites are dedicated to tracking these deaths, and not a day goes by that another name is not added to their list of anti-vaxxers who have succumbed to COVID-19.   The list is exceedingly long,…

Teaching, like many other professions, has become a lot more difficult in the midst of this pandemic, for a number of reasons. Forgive the following frank talk. Teachers spend 6-7 hours a day in a room filled with human beings, many of whom are unvaccinated and don’t exactly wear their masks with total efficacy. The…

In an episode of Ted Lasso that Elysha and I watched this week, Ted was placed in hotel room 5150. In response, Ted and Beard made a Van Halen joke. Later in the episode, a woman referred to Ted Lasso as Magnum PI. In the Marvel movie The Eternals, a character made a reference to…

Elysha and I have a teenager today. Clara turns 13 years old at 11:50 AM. When your baby is born, there is no telling who they will grow up to be. You have hopes that they will be happy and healthy, but everything else is an unknown. You just have to wait and hope and…

A beautiful little thing happened to me yesterday. I was sitting by the fire, sorting through a pile of children’s books, listening to The Moth’s podcast, when I heard my old friend Jon Jay Read’s voice begin to tell a story. Jon passed away a few years back, quite suddenly from heart failure, at an…

As a storyteller, I’ve been asked to do some unexpected things. I’ve served as the substitute minister for actual church services in actual churches in three different states. I’ve taught Santa Clauses to tell better stories to the children sitting on their laps for photos. I went to Canada to teach members of the Mohawk…

As requested by many, here is an update on my impressions of Ted Lasso through episode #5. Warning: Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t watched the show, though it feels me and Elysha are the only ones on the planet who haven’t yet. _____________________________________ The opening sequence is genius. A perfect metaphor of the show.…