First Day Of School

First Day Of School Picture - 2024

Since as long as I can remember I’ve had a “First Day Of School” (often with a picture); dating back to the fall of 1971 when I started attending.  I can recall waiting in our driveway for the school bus as a kindergartner - at the top of the hill, on an unnamed road North of Sparr (known at that time simply as “Rural Route #1”), waiting to travel the seemingly long way to Johannesburg Elementary on the north-side of a small Kindergarten-12th grade building.  I had attended preschool the year before that with my teacher Mrs. Driscoll.  The preschool met in the basement of Gaylord’s small St. Andrew's Episcopal Church with the unique chalet style roof; a good deterrent for our heavy snowfall in Northern Michigan.  Mom was the one who drove me into town that year, and although foundational, it was only a couple of times a week.

I started at Joburg Elementary School a month after turning 5; the birthday when I received my blue scooter that I’d ride down the grassy hill off our backyard - dragging it by the handle back to the top or leaving it at the bottom until someone helped me.  Over the next few years a couple of the neighbor kids would congregate at our driveway before school because my Dad had put in a tetherball court just back from the road.  That meant that the pole was a maple tree cut from the woods, fixed at the top with an eye bolt that the rope and ball hung from, which was a perfect remedy to while away the time as us kids waited to be picked up by the bus.

First Day Of School Picture - 1971

As I reflect back, I guess I’ve had a first day of school for most of my life; 54 years to be exact.  I’m not sure how the years slipped by like that!  It feels monumental, and yet overwhelming at the same time.  It’s kind of John Henry-esque.  I love John’s fortitude, his style, and the legacy he left.  He’s outright my favorite folk tale hero.  And while he wins against the machine in the well known ballad, he dies from that contest with his hammer in his hand.  I suppose I feel something like that.  For 18 of those 54 years I was a student; preschool through college.  And after a year of student teaching, getting married, and working for a lawn service (the last while sending out resumes with a cover letter), I was hired and taught in a 5th grade classroom for 35 years; all in the same K-8 district.

Right this minute the kids and teachers of that district are putting the final touches on their first week of school.  They’ve been using these first few days to reacquaint themselves with routines, introduce expectations, and begin to build healthy relationships that will catapult them into next week’s full 5 days and the school year ahead.  I know this because it’s ingrained in my make-up and DNA.  I could teach with my eyes blind folded and one arm tied behind my back, because I have done it for so long, I was good at it, and loved it to boot!

As for me right now?  I’m sitting on our back deck, under the eaves and close to the house, journaling my thoughts into this worn composition book.  Not because it’s in the shade, although that’s a plus even with the unseasonably cool weather we’re having right now, but because a spider has spun an intricate web between the other chairs, table, and collapsed umbrella.  For 35 years I’ve taught science, and today will not be the day I break one of my many mottos which stated, “Don’t kill it unless you plan on eating it.  If you don’t plan on eating it, don’t kill it!”  Those were words to live by as a teacher instructing 10 and 11 year olds, and especially when it’s a cross orbweaver spider!  So the arachnid is getting free reign of the table area right now, and I’m writing with this journal in my lap.  Good luck little fella.  May you snare a big juicy arthropod.  From the bits of dried exoskeletons on the tabletop, you’ve done just that over the last couple of days!

So yes, I’m retired now; whatever that means.  Those I began teaching with (the same teachers that started soon after the 3 one-room school houses combined) have been retired for some time now.  I’m simply joining them.  Again, I’m not sure how the years slipped by like that, but they have.  I consider myself a link between those who established our district and those who are now teaching and setting new standards to match the changing times.  I don’t mean that I’m stuck between the past and present.   I see myself as a combination of both; having started with chalkboards & the occasional use of calculators, and then moving to whiteboards & a computer lab, before settling on Smart Boards & one-to-one student Chromebooks.  There has always been a past that goes further back than whatever we can recall, and there will always be a present going forward beyond what we can imagine; for all of us.  The jump in technology in the span of years that I taught, however, has been astronomical.

If I gained a millimeter of jumping ability for everyone who has asked me how retirement is treating me (insert Mr. Rhines’ metric system speech number #124.8b), then I could easily tomahawk dunk by now!  I get it, you need a standard question to start a conversation.  It’s like asking an 18 year old, “How’s college going?”  Assuming they are going that route over entering the trades, signing up for the military, or diving into the job force.  My standard answer this summer has been, “I don’t know yet…”  I spent all of June dismantling my museum of a classroom.  The first part of July was time to travel; with my wife to visit family, and then camping in Northern Michigan with my cousins, before settling into jobs around the house.  I’m not sure where August went, other than writing thank you cards for retirement gifts.  I guess I was simply trying to search for a routine while getting regrounded in running and biking.  Part of that time was dealing with the guilt that rises from knowing that teachers were preparing for school and I wasn’t.  Or that I’m retired but, “still so young” - as if the sacrifices or “sell my soul” attitude I’ve had all these years while teaching, coaching, being the athletic director, working intramurals, mentoring, or co-leading our environmental club wasn’t enough of a reason.  Not to mention the preparation for the annual creek walk day, 5th grade camp, summer camps, or any number of various activities.  These were choices, not chores in the sense of obligations.  I grew up on a small farm, so I know what chores are, and I loved 95% of those too!  Minus weeding the garden in the hot sun, although it often had its rewards with a trip to the lake to cool off once my sisters and I stopped whining and finished the task.  It’s where I learned firsthand the whole idea of delayed gratification.  What I did at school was what I loved to do because I chose to do it; it provided some of my identity and purpose, as many people feel who have connected with their careers.  Whatever task I had decided to do at school involved everything I had; sometimes spread over the many activities, but something I could always hang my hat on with pride at the end of the day.

About now school is letting out and the staff is talking in the hallways; themselves excited about the coming weekend, and I have to wonder, “What now?”  I recently saw a sit down conversation between Oprah Winfrey and NBC’s meteorologist, Al Roker, who was about to turn 70 years old.  When contemplating time, getting older, and next steps, her advice to him was, “When you don’t know what to do, do nothing.” In other words, “Be still.”  Al replied as a network spokesperson by saying, “We don’t like dead air!”  Personally, that bell rang loud and true; right upside my head.

Colleagues from yesteryear suggested that I go do something last week as the students returned to school.  Since my wife was working and enjoying her job in the library at a nearby college, I took a solo trip Up North into Wisconsin to camp and fish; a couple of other passions I have.  For me, trips like that don’t lead to being still and doing nothing.  It seemed I was constantly moving, while burning energy.  That’s often how I like to relax.  Don’t get me wrong, there were times when I would sit and either observe nature around me or read from the two books I have going right now; Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and The Backyard Adventurer by Beau Miles.  The first book I bought at a cool, quaint, shop in Waco, Texas while visiting our daughter and son-in-law, and the second was given to me by my kids upon my retirement.  I guess I also relaxed the first night after setting up camp, when I woke up from only two hours of sleep to the light of a nearly full moon; listening to the barred owls calling in the hollow, coyotes laughing up on the ridges, and a family of raccoons trooping around my tent and picnic table foraging for anything I may have forgotten to store away back up in my Jeep - which fortunately I had not.  The second night of my stay I slept like the dead.

When I burned energy I was often cooking over an open fire (cutting and prepping food), trout fishing in a creek that bounces between bluffs of exposed Cambrian sandstone (in waders against the current), or running beautiful dirt trails (in what would otherwise be known as rugged terrain).  I wanted to journal while sitting outside my tent, but the process of what I deem as camping kept me from doing that this particular time, until I could return home and reflect.

I took my obligatory “First Day Of School” picture this year, but I’m standing on a gravel bar in the shade of a hemlock covered bluff (as opposed to standing beside the flag hanging on our home, or in front of the school).  At least I remembered to smile with my eyes open this year.  In 1989, my first year teaching, the photographer captured a picture of me with my eyes closed.  I didn’t care or know any better, so I didn’t participate in “retakes.”  Plus, those were the days when you waited for the film to be developed before we knew what digital photography really meant.  Consequently, I was not in that year’s class picture or school yearbook, except for one or two random shots and the one where I’m standing next to my first basketball team as their coach.  Suddenly I cared!  From then on, I always made sure my eyes were open; and I mean that literally and figuratively - as an awareness to what’s going on around me.

School, teaching, and living your passions in general, are meant to be relational.  It’s one way that we associate directly and make connections.  When I watch my favorite TV show, Alone, it’s what the contestants are always whittled down to…regardless of whether they are starving, injured, or pushing themselves to the utmost in order to win the whole shebang.  They eventually desire some degree of human contact; be it friends or family, past or present.  That applies to the most introverted hermit, to the most outgoing life of the party.  We all need relationships of some kind, which is why I love the irony in the multi-layer title Alone.  It’s also why I like the stories behind those first day of school pictures.

While I myself am going to miss many of the connections I have at school, I am looking forward to maintaining them, albeit under slightly different circumstances.  After a healthy break, I would entertain being a guest speaker or storybook reader at school, baking treats for the staff, attending an after school activity, or coming in for an occasional lunch simply to visit.  One of the retirees from the past used to come back to eat lunch with the staff in the teacher’s lounge whenever we had, “Government Chicken Day” (as he called it).  I always found that hilarious, but it made sense as well to periodically reconnect.

In the meantime, and as I’m redefining myself, I’ll follow the advice written by the authors in the books that I mentioned.  Kimmerer stated, “Mosses have a covenant with change; their destiny is linked to the vagaries of rain.  They shrink and shrivel while carefully laying the groundwork for their renewal.  They give me faith.” (37)  Maybe it’s because I taught science for 35 years, but I love that whole idea of preparing now for the unknown of the future.  We all do that, knowingly or unknowingly, because even NOT making a decision is a decision.  She simply chose to convey that through the idea of mosses.  And from Miles’ book, he wrote, “To slow down ever so slightly, realising that a story needs purpose, and purpose is built on the everyday and ordinary, is harder than it sounds given there’s so much of it… [This means that] smaller tales build within the bigger picture like muscle supported by bone.” (14)

All in all, the takeaways for this are to find something that can be therapeutic.  I chose reflecting in a journal to put some of the thoughts and feelings of my own education and years of educating into words; while contrasting that with my time in the outdoors.  Events and experiences that you have lived through are not the end all, but they are building blocks - in all their facets of being good, bad, or indifferent.

Oh, and remember to smile with your eyes open for that “First Day Of School” picture; wherever that may be and no matter what particular moment you are actually capturing.  There’s a story behind that snapshot.  I’ll remember that next week when I gather with my colleague-friends at the retiree breakfast.  Say Cheese!

See you along The Way…

The Secret Channel

 

It’s a secret sort of channel that momentarily breaks away from the main river. The water there runs crystal clear over sand & gravel, and briefly along a light colored, slippery bank of clay.  Eventually it shoots through a hundred and fifty foot raceway on its way back to the primary current.  It returns stage right in the midst of a shallow tailwater that’s layered with softball sized rocks.

The Clay Lined Bank

The rhythmic cadence of water spilling over a rotting log, and around a mounded gravel bar, helps drown out the chatter of bothersome uncertainties beyond this mini ecosystem.  The shade of canopy over the channel comes from the balsam along one side and the tag alder on the other; although the first and only bend has a clump of paper birch with 6 strong trunks and their fluttering leaves - opposite of an awesome white cedar and it’s flat, scalelike needles.  The cedar can act as either a seat or anchor for a well placed hammock.  It’s done both.

The Raceway - Around The Gravel Bar

Twenty years ago one of the cedars’ dead branches came home with me.  It’s what I annually cut into 2 to 3 inch chunks and split into 6 to 8 sections.  Those split plugs of cedar, from that shade tree on the channel, are what are offered up each time I head out onto water; of any kind, any where, for any reason - but most typically when I fish.  It’s offered and released with a prayer of thanks for the chance and opportunity to be a part of that particular setting while enjoying all that it has to provide.  It’s my version of a sage, sweetgrass, or tobacco bundle; a gift of gratitude.

Seclusive enough, the secret channel stays cool even on the hottest of days, galvanized by spring fed water and overhead shade.  The river itself isn’t visited very often, and when it is on hot days, the mouth of the secret channel stays stealthy and well hidden beyond a shallow, rippling, open area - on the other side of a rock dam and sexy little swimming hole.  The area where people sometimes swim isn’t as deep as it used to be but it still gets most of the river’s attention.  It’s a necessary distraction that inadvertently protects the channel.

That protection provides the perfect place to hide out after several days of memorable camping, fishing, and running.  More than that, the secret channel is a place to relax after burning so much energy; letting the water run over your feet, between your toes, and along your legs as you sit in a favorite chair plopped down and smack dab in the babbling water itself.  It’s a place to sit and let memories of the last few days, and last few years, simmer and permeate the very core of your inner being. The core; where chromosomed cells and the synapsed ends of nerves can be imprinted and branded in such a way that when you fish for hours against the current - alongside undercut bends, run the ridges overlooking the snaking blue ribbon of water, or submerge yourself in the liquid cold within its gravely troughs, the experience becomes a holistic journey that runs deep. In fact, those particular holistic journeys have the opportunity to run deep for as long as you circle the sun and allow your shadow to fall upon that chunk of Earth.

2024 Trip With The Cousins
Brian, Me, Sean, & Brad

Here in the secret channel you may doze, read, or write.  Heck, you may even stack a few flat rocks, or mold a cup from the white clay of the bank, until the current or sun returns such things back to their place of origin.

These are all foundational actions; actions that revitalize the soul of a person after a year of life and a week in the woods.  So that with a deep breath and content smile, under the canopied coolness of the secret channel, a person’s ready to do life for another year.

See you along The Way…

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CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF

THE TRICKLING, CLEAR WATER OF

THE SECRET CHANNEL:

A Perfectly Miserable Day

It’s Spring Break at our school this week.  So far it’s miserable weather.  It was a perfect time, however, for our dog Kora and I to head to the woods along moving water.  We hiked during an outright downpour through the woods until we met the river’s edge.  While doing so, we spooked out a barred owl from a low hanging tree limb just a mere 10 feet in front of us.  I hadn’t noticed him until he flew, as he must have held off for as long as possible to avoid flying in the rain.

I had thought of hiking into a different area, but the last time that I took Kora out she could hardly move for the next two days.  So this time I chose a shorter route that was still worth the effort.  We shared the food that I cooked over the small camp stove.  Typically I like to use a small open fire, but I wanted to go stealthy this time, plus everything in the woods is absolutely soaked right now.  Sledging in dry firewood seemed unnecessary, so I pulled out the little stove instead and it worked perfectly.

Kora’s tucked in beside me now on the quilted blanket I put down over the damp ground.  I pulled a corner of it around and on top of her because she was shaking after getting soaked.  She’s warming up now though, and actively watching and sniffing everything around us.  She’s my eyes while I journal.

CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF

ME JOURNALING AT THE RIVER'S EDGE:

Perhaps the soreness she had felt after last week’s hike was due to the terrain, and the fact that we haven’t been out for a while, although that’s never stopped her before - ever.  Perhaps it was because she’s getting a little older (she’s almost 10 years old), but she’s the picture of consistency when it comes to “getting out of Dodge” and going on an adventure.  Maybe it was due to the Lyme Disease she had as a puppy; now affecting her joints all of these years later.  I’m secretly hoping that this is not the cause, because otherwise, it could be like looking in a mirror.

I myself was just diagnosed last week with Lyme Disease.  Who knows when or where I got it.  The “how” comes from the deer tick, but I don’t really recall when I’ve had one on me; apparently I have though.  Kora had to have a series of treatments to deal with the effects of the disease.  I’m not sure what the ramifications of the disease will be for me.  It was only a week and a half ago when my wrist, ankles, knees, and shoulders began to ache and swell.  I went to the doctor a few days later for some blood work and now it’s a waiting game to see when I can get into a rheumatologist to figure it out.  No wonder it felt like I was slogging through mud when I had tried running two days in a row last weekend.  All I know at this point is that I, “didn’t get it recently”; which I’m taking to mean that I’ve apparently had it for a while.  These are some of the things I’m mulling around in my brain and thinking about while out in the woods today.

In the meantime, a mallard duck flew low along the river’s surface a while back and an eagle flew with the currents of air out over the opposite bank.  Two woods ducks cruised in squawking their “oo-week” call on the bend of the river just down from me.  I’m not sure where they went, but if they swam upstream next to Kora and me, they had no idea we were here hidden up on this bank.  The air is starting to get cooler as they predicted, and the breeze is picking up now that the rain has stopped.  It’s gearing up to reach 20+ miles per hour by this afternoon.  I rather liked the sound of the drops on the tarp I had strung up to protect us, but the wind traveling through the treetops is just as comforting.  Cardinals are calling from the large oaks around me while flickers and kingfishers announce their presence nearby.  Sandhill cranes rattle their sound as gray clouds race away to the east-northeast.  It’s what I guess Winnie The Pooh would call a “blustery day.”

I probably had some other chores to do this morning and I know I had some paperwork.  But I’ll vacuum, sweep, and get a couple loads of laundry in once I get home and dry; so that will at least be something.  I’ll need to get after those other things soon, but after the schedule I’ve had the last few months, I needed to get outside to reset.  Smelling damp, decaying leaves, seeing high moving water after almost 24 hours of heavy rain, and listening to the train engine roar of the wind through the rattling branches is well worth the cold beginning to sink into my hands and creep down through the layers into my inner core.

This outing will be the fuel to spur me forward as I finish out this school year.  A host of things have already been accomplished since last fall, but I still have some other things to rock out between now and this spring.

Virginia Bluebells Beginning To Emerge

A few weeks ago I had thought of canoeing and camping as I’ve done the last couple of years over Spring Break, but the weather this year would have been “tough sledding” - quite literally those first couple of days when we were covered with a layer of snow.  As it turned out, this outing is just what Kora and I needed.  Hiking in and setting up a base camp was doable and necessary for a day like today, and yet not so much work that when the time comes to pack it up that I can easily get it all down, onto my back, and trudge it in my pack to the old Silver Jeep.

To anyone else, today is a terrible day.  The skies are dark, the woods are drab of color, and the weather is gloomy.  It’s the kind of day that guarantees that you’ll have the forest and riverside all to yourself.  It’s what makes it a perfectly miserable day.

See you along The Way…

Kora - My Partner For Adventures!

Two For Two

It happened on two different days in two different months in two different types of weather.  Although the outcome of both were similar, the result of the outings were two different species of bass; so there was that.  I fished in two different bodies of water, using two different methods, creating two different memories.  So when you wind those facts up into a tight little ball, I guess you could say that I went, “Two For Two.”

The first outing was a brutally hot July summer day.  It was the kind of day that once the morning air burned off, seemed perfect to slide into a pair of old running shoes, slather down in sunscreen, throw some gear into a small backpack, and fish a local creek of moving water.

The cool water is moderately clear in that creek and the bed ranges from sand to gravel; with a few intermittent mucky spots where the water slows in swirling pools on its way to the larger Rock River.  It’s the kind of creek that keeps you guessing and honest in all of its various forms.

Within numerous bends that came in succession I caught a half dozen little small mouthed bass.  It was where the creek split around a pile of brush lodged atop a heap of gravel that I had my first fish of significant size.  It was also where I quietly crept over the gravel bar to the slower moving and deeper channel.  I cast my large spinner up into a nice looking pocket.   The pocket required some precision; one where I’d either come away with a snagged lure hooked in some hidden underwater structure, or lure a fish up from its perfect hiding spot.  Fortunately it was later.

The small mouthed bass jumped several times while racing to and fro within the confines of the channel.  I knelt down on the gravel bar where I had been standing and lifted out a chunky 14 ½” bass.  It was a mindful connection to hold onto such a beautifully marked fish.  I removed my backpack, lifted the fish in front of me, took several pictures, and released it back into the water.

On such a warm day, it was fun to wade and fish with minimal gear while pretending I was just a kid again.  I didn’t fish quite like this as a young boy, but it was definitely the same spirit of adventure, connection, and freedom that I had felt long ago that was spurring me on around each bend.

The next fish that made an impression on that hot day hit within a deep run on an outside bend.  I had cast up along a small point of rocky structure before having an immediate strike.  Right away I could feel the smallie’s strength and it took a little time to bring it up to my hand; aerial acrobatics resembling a big man’s belly flop competition rather than an olympic diving event!

A wide back of muscle from a lifetime spent in moving water graced my finger tips.  The smallie measured at a respectful 16” with camouflaged and mottled markings and I allowed myself a picture with the fish before easing it back into the creek.

My second outing was on a chilly October afternoon; 40 to 50 degrees cooler than that day in July.  I launched into a nearby lake in my trusty kayak.  The colors of the trees along the shoreline were picture perfect.  The leaves weren’t brilliant, but they weren’t drab either.  They were a blend of purple, orange, and yellow with the correct amount of blue sky and reflections to create an imprint on one’s memory.

Not far from the launch I worked a drop off.  Within the first 10 casts I had a solid hit that pulled drag while the fish dove deep.  I wrestled with my large hooped landing net that was weaved within the kayak’s bungee cords, and positioned myself to land the fish.  It’s quite a spectacle to balance a paddle in your lap, keep from being blown by the light wind into the shoreline, reel in a fish, all while trying to prepare a net!  Fortunately I lacked a crowd so any minor gaffe escaped a critical eye.

Once I brought the fish up to the starboard side of my kayak, I could see that it was a largemouth bass; with its distinct difference of light and dark markings on both sides of its lateral line.  However, it kept diving back into the murky depths and pulling drag with it, so it took a little bit of time to scoop it up into my net.  By then I was gently bumping against the rock lined shoreline.

Once I had the fish in my net, I gently removed the lure and held it up for a few pictures before sliding it into the water and watching it disappear below the shadow of my kayak.  It was my longest largemouth bass to date, measuring at 21 inches.  For that reason it was both rewarding and memorable.

After that experience I worked my way along the Northern shore just off the drop-off.  I caught a few smaller bass and a 17 ½” within this section before making my way into a smaller bay.  I fished that section of water hoping for a cruising bass or pike but was simply left to the Canadian geese and mallards who watched me with caution.

It was at that time that the sky began clouding over, the sun was tagging the horizon, and the temperature dropped even more.  I was beginning to become chilled, so I drifted down through the main channel of the lake towards the boat launch.  Doing so, I caught a nice 15” bass before losing another at the kayak and calling it a day; loading my gear back into my Jeep.

I had two different outings, on two different days, in two different environments, catching two different species of fish.  Although both adventures centered around water, which easily tugs at my soul, the different excursions melded into one as I went two for two.

See you along The Way…