Of Lunar Modules and Papaya Trees

There are very few street addresses that I cannot remember from our childhood. The address on Goode Street is one them. We had just moved that summer from 3939-C Montague Street at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Dad had gotten promoted to warrant officer, and they sent us to new quarters on the other side of the post.

I had just finished 5^th grade at Hale Kula Elementary, the school we traveled to each day in a cattle bus. And I had not yet started my epic 6^th  grade year with Mr. Waite at the newly built Solomon Elementary. My little brother, Keith, made the transition with me as he started second grade. This year marked the first year since I started first grade that my sister, Marcia, and I were not at the same school; she was off to Wheeler Junior High at Wheeler Air Force Base. And my big brother, Carl, was headed to Leilehua High School.

Mr. Waite taught us words like “propaganda” and read us Lord of the Flies. I don’t think I knew the word “liberal” or the expression “bleeding heart” in those days. In our experimental classroom, each week began with one-on-one contract sessions with Mr. Waite. We worked out what we would study and what we would accomplish for the week. Each week ended with the whole class going outside to shoot off model rockets and to measure the height they reached by using a protractor and trigonometry. Sometimes we would burn things with magnifying glasses.

That summer I had not yet met Ted (Theodore Scott Joseph Silva, Jr.), who would become my best friend for 6^th grade. I had not yet started the school newspaper with Ted and his brothers Rick and Chuck. I don’t remember their four year old brother’s name (Benjy, maybe), but he once asked me if ALL of me was brown. I think he used the word “wiener.” The Silvas were Catholic, which meant they went to Catholic chapel and to catechism. We attended Protestant chapel and Sunday School. Ted and I stayed after school many days to “rap” with Mr. Waite. We were nerdy sponges eager to soak up whatever indoctrinating propaganda he wanted to spill. After the sessions, we walked home together. I would stop at Ted’s house and hang a few minutes with him and his brothers before continuing on to our house on Goode Street. When that year ended, we moved to Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Ted enrolled at Punahou Academy, which would later become my alma mater.

But this was the summer before all of that, and we were settling into our new digs. I was mostly an inside kid, I think I had already stopped playing "Army" or "cowboys and Indians" with my brothers. I was content to work jigsaw puzzles or make plastic models using that model glue that was not yet an age-restricted controlled substance. I had built all manner of cars, planes, and ships. The aircraft carrier was my favorite. For a while. This was before I knew what a lunar module was. As much as I loved the inside, sometimes, probably because Mom made me, I would play outside. Usually by myself. I preferred it.

We had been hearing a lot about NASA’s plans to land on the moon. I was too much of a homebody to aspire to be an astronaut, but I was fascinated by them. I admired them. John Glenn was a hero when we lived in Ohio. And this summer we had already heard the names of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. I don’t really remember the launch, and I don’t remember if we knew specifically when the landing was supposed to be.

But it was an outside day. I had shimmied up the papaya tree that grew in the front yard of our number-not-remembered house on Goode Street. I believe Dad is the one who called me down from the tree. He knew I wouldn’t want to miss it. I climbed down and rushed in the house. It was July 20, 1969. It was my 11^th birthday. It was Apollo 11. The Eagle had landed!

Apollo 11 became a touchpoint in my life. I don’t think about astronauts much anymore; I have other heroes. But that was a hopeful time. Probably helped instill a hopeful attitude that I have needed to draw on at many periods in the ensuing 50 years. Times have changed. But it looks like they still make the plastic model of the lunar module. And I’m old enough to buy the glue.

New Story Festival Austin Reflections #1

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Registration

Laura wanted me to take a picture of my name tag as soon as I got through registration. After walking across campus and receiving directions upon request, I found the registration line. The festival opening was still 2 hours off at 7:00 pm. I was happy to be early. The registration line was two people wide and maybe ten people long. As we approached the front, we could see two ballpoint pen signs designating the two lines as “Will Call” and “Will Call or Cash.” It took about fifteen minutes for them to get through the first eight people in my “Will Call or Cash” line.

Hannah, the young woman in front of me, approached and announced that she was a volunteer. “Oh,” said the registrar, “I don’t do volunteers. You’ll have to get in the other line.” Hannah dutifully stepped out of line, and I approached. “I’m a presenter,” I said. “Same thing,” said the registrar, “I don’t do presenters.” I looked up and saw that Hannah had walked to the end of the now longer “Will Call” line.

“Wait a minute,” I said to the registrar, “Does she really have to go all the way back there after waiting in this line for fifteen minutes?” The registrar shrugged her shoulders and looked at her work partner. They both looked dumbfounded. I repeated my question. Yes, I was picking a fight at a festival that promoted “community, creativity and the common good.”

Finally the “Will Call” registrar asked Person #1 in her line if Hannah could step in front. Person #1 said “Sure.” Person #2 said “No problem.” So Hannah got to the front of the “Will Call” line. Someone—I don’t remember who—then spoke up for me: “So where should he be in line?” Hannah answered, “He was right behind me, so…” I looked at Persons #1 and 2, and they nodded their heads.

So I got in line behind Hannah. I re-iterated that I was a presenter; I was so eager to get a name tag with a special ribbon or something. It took a while for the worker to find my name and confirm that I was paid up. Once she did, she simply said, “Okay, go get a swag bag. You’re good.” No ribbon, no name tag. In fact, only the exhibitors and volunteers (not including presenters) received name tags. So no picture for Laura.

Fourth Sunday of Advent: A Home for Peace

Reflections from my book, 

Home for Christmas: Youth Study Edition

So I am officially part of the genealogy craze. Well, sort of. A friend who is into those searches volunteered to do some work for my wife, who is trying to find a lost sister. The friend offered to pay to have both my DNA and my wife’s tested, through one of the popular ancestry search companies. We were surprised by some of the results, namely that I don’t have the Native American ancestry that I’d always been told I have. It’s all a craze now, but genealogies are nothing new. Even without the Internet, databases, and DNA, folks have been documenting and researching genealogies throughout human history.

In the Bible, the Book of Numbers is largely about counting people and documenting who came from whom. Throughout the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles we learn about the same things: Who was the father of whom? And then the books of Matthew and Luke trace the ancestry of Jesus of Nazareth. In ancient Palestine, that practice mainly involved tracing the men, not women, in Jesus’s line. But Matthew adds four women. And to some readers, these four are unusual choices.

Tamar is in the line. Tamar was the twice-widowed, and once-jilted Canaanite woman who ended up sleeping with her father-in-law and producing children. Tamar is a great grandmother of Jesus.

Rahab is in the line. Rahab is known for harboring spies and lying about it. Rahab is later mentioned as an example of faith and obedience. Rahab is great grandmother of Jesus.

Bathsheba is in the line. Bathsheba is known not so much for what she does, but for what others did. Kind David saw her one day, sent for her, seduced her and then had her husband killed, so that he could have Bathsheba for himself. Bathsheba is a mother to King Solomon and great grandmother of Jesus.

And Ruth is in the line. The story of Ruth and Naomi is the story of home on the run. Like me and my family, Ruth could not define “home” by a building or even a place. Her circumstances wouldn’t let her. Here’s what happened as recorded in the Bible book of Ruth, which could just as easily be called The Book of Naomi:

Naomi was from Bethlehem, the same town that Jesus would be born in centuries later. Naomi was married to Elimelech. When a famine hit Bethlehem and the surrounding areas, Naomi, Elimelech and their two sons set out as refugees in Moab. The Moabites were not always friendly to the Israelites. There was history. But Naomi, Elimelech and their sons settled there to escape that famine.

We don’t know how long they lived in Moab before Elimelech died. But we know that when he died his sons took Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth. Then the sons died, leaving Naomi, Orpah and Ruth all as widows. Naomi decided to go home to Bethlehem, and she wisely suggested—really ordered—her daughters-in-law to go back to their homes, each to their “mother’s house.” As Naomi explained it, “You can go back home, and you are young enough to find a new husband.” Orpah thought that made sense, but Ruth did not agree. She argued with her mother-in-law, and eventually said now-famous words: “Wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” (Ruth 1:16, CEB)

She was saying, “My home is not where I come from, my home is not where I currently reside, my home is with my loved ones. And right now, Naomi, my home is with you.”

The homeboys and homegirls of Homeboys Industries can share that sentiment. Father Gregory Boyle likes to talk about “the power of radical kinship.” Former gang enemies have banded together and bonded into a family. Marcus found that family at Homeboy.

Once he started gang-banging in junior high school, Marcus never wanted to go home. He felt there was nothing for him. Often there was no food for him, and he felt like there was not much home. The father that he idolized had been shot when Marcus was eight. Already hope was dead. Once he began with gangs and drugs in junior high, it wasn’t long before Marcus was arrested. He found himself incarcerated for six years. When he came out, it took him awhile to take friends’ advice and check out Homeboys. But once he did, he felt at home. He felt like he had a family. He felt at peace.

 

From Jingle All the Way

A Home for Peace (Addendum)

I Googled it. It turns out there actually is a list of the most memorable fights in Christmas movies. I was looking for one in particular, but I stumbled upon a bunch. “Elf” has a fight. So does “A Christmas Story,” “Scrooged,” “Home Alone” and “Christmas with the Kranks.” Even that classic black and white film, like “It’s a Wonderful Life” features a fight scene. But the scene I was looking for shows up in 1996’s “Jingle All the Way.” In it, two rival fathers, workaholic Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and stressed out postal worker Myron Larabee (Sinbad), both want to get a Turbo-Man action figure for their respective sons.  It’s Christmas Eve, and both men are on a last-minute shopping spree. When you Google “Jingle All the Way fight scene,” what comes up first is a pretty violent scene when Schwarzenegger’s character gets into a brawl with a bunch of Santas. The movie is all fueled by the pressures of the holiday season. And it sounds familiar to us because so much of the season can be full of tension. Some of the tension can be avoidable, like by taking away the emphasis on getting things or by limiting the number of activities that have to fit into the season.

But other tensions are just there. They come from relationships broken or strained, or from bad memories or from hard-to-let-go-of expectations. It’s might sound a little strange that we emphasize the peace of the season just as those tensions are the hottest.

For many folks at Homeboy Industries, the seasonal conflict might be heightened by a history that has had no peace. The sweet peaceful home pictures that many portray around this time do not reflect the reality of these Homegirls and Homeboys. They have memories of anything but peace. There are memories of gang warfare, of insecure homes, of unstable relationships. Add those memories to the stress of the season, and the mixture can be volatile.

But at Homeboy, many have come to embrace peace. Some rival gangbangers have become best friends. Many from difficult homes have found family and home. Some who were away from their family members have been re-united.

For all of us, it is tempting to get caught up in the tensions and forget the season. But in every week of this season, on every day, in every moment, we can decide to embrace the peace as we anticipate the coming of the Prince of Peace.