Life According to Gilligan's Island

When I was coming up, life was simpler. There were two kinds of guys, those that liked Ginger and those that liked Mary Ann. We were simpler too. Gilligan's Island originally aired at night, but by the time my sister and I discovered the comic adventures of the seven eclectic castaways the show moved to syndication, airing in the afternoons.



Even when I was eight it seemed odd that the SS Minnow originating in Hawaii would be blown off course by a sudden tropical storm and lost at sea. The tourists aboard the Minnow that day were an unlikely group. A professor and a movie star. And what about the Howells? Why would such a wealthy couple patronize a decidedly rudimentary operation run by the Skipper and his "little buddy."

I always thought the professor was a Soviet spy and was trying to rendezvous with a submarine or something. Most of the plots were far less nefarious with the seven castaways always just missing salvation. Rock stars and cosmonauts all paid Gilligan's Island a visit with none of them assisting in a rescue. My favorite episode was the one in which Gilligan fabricated a pedal powered taxi. He drove the castaways back and forth on the island for apparently no compensation. If the show went on for more than three seasons, food would've gotten scarce, and things might have taken a turn for the dark side. You know more like a Lord of the Flies kind of thing. The Howells would've been the first to go.

Ginger was always made up like she was going to a movie premier, and Mary Ann routinely churned out coconut cream pies. I bought into the coconut part due to the island theme, but where did she get the cream? I think you need a refrigerator, not to mention a cow. Ginger and Mary Ann bunked together as did the Skipper and Gilligan. The Professor flew solo which I always figured gave him the best chance to hook up with one of the women. After three seasons it was bound to happen. Just look at Survivor: Marquesas. Rob and Amber paired off after two episodes. Heck after three years Mrs. Howell would start looking good.

So life is more complicated today. Sure some men like Ginger and others Mary Ann. There are also guys who like Gilligan. Still others are born in Ginger's body and want to be Gilligan. Some Mary Anns are questioning whether they want Gilligan or Ginger while others are perfectly fine with both. There are some men who are still in the closet like the Professor. Some people are shaped like the Skipper and get to talk at TEDx about body shaming and accepting yourself as you are. No one wants to be the Howells.

Through it all one question remains. If that white transistor radio with batteries that lasted for three years could pick up a signal, how far from civilization could the castaways really have been?

Editor's Note: Originally posted on April 13, 2017.

The Accidental Computer Scientist

Back in the mid 90s my wife, Christine, and I were living in a small one bedroom apartment. I toiled away all day on a Unix based mainframe terminal. She used a computer at work for scheduling, presentations and email. One day she announced that she really wanted a home computer. I resisted. This may seem odd today, but back then a personal computer was still a relatively new appliance. I spent all day in front of a screen doing numerical analysis. The last thing I wanted was to get one for our home, but Christine insisted,

"We need a home computer."

"For what?" I asked.

"Well, when we run out of syrup, you can logon and enter it in a grocery list," Christine answered thoughtfully.

Back then whenever anybody talked about personal computers, they would invariably mention the grocery list. In those days the biggest problem plaguing mankind was the lack of an adequate means of tracking staples. That and the hole in the ozone layer. No one ever said,

"With a home computer you'll be able shop online and stay in contact with all your friends."

All of that came much later. Printing out a grocery list via an expendable ink cartridge and consumable paper was the technological achievement of its day. As far as I recall no one on the planet ever actually made a grocery list on a computer.

Cabbage Patch

Eventually I relented. We went to a big box store where the purchasing was frenzied. People were buzzing about, scoffing up anything piled up on display. The last time I saw that kind of unfettered purchasing people were trying to get a Cabbage Patch doll. Caught up in the madness we dove in and surfaced with a Compaq Presario as our selection. Three thousand dollars later we were on our way home with several large boxes. We set up everything, piled a stack of manuals to one side then flipped the switch.

The boot up procedure involved a flashy presentation highlighting all the features of our new personal computer followed by the smug smiling face of Dennis Miller sauntering onto the tube screen. Dennis was sent in to walk us through the setup procedure. Not the old Dennis Miller with the gray goatee we have now. Back then we had the wavy haired fresh off Weekend Update young hopeful Dennis Miller who thought he would have a much more lucrative career in Hollywood post SNL. I always hated Dennis Miller. I thought he was a pompous asshole who tried to come off like an intellectual even though he graduated from a liberal arts school that no one ever heard of with a degree in journalism. Now, he was running his mouth on my new computer helping me set up AOL and configure the modem. I have no patience for this kind of thing especially when I am being directed by a smarmy pretentious asswipe.

Dennis Miller

Miller said things like,

"Hey, Cunningham. Andy Warhol called. You're at 14:55, and we're tickin' big-time here, Chachi."

What the hell does that mean? Anyway after some basic settings Miller starts pushing America Online which I decline. He said something like,

"So you don't care for AOL, babe? You don't mind being left behind by the techno tsunami like Mr. T after a long evening sleeping through Aida."

Dennis and I moved on to the modem. He had me enter simple things like the phone number and select pulse dialing, then he said,

"You're burning through this like a rabbit with a three day pass and front row tickets to the Ice Capades."

What's that supposed to mean? Miller laughed with an ingratiating priggish chuckle, then the modem test failed. As I struggled to get the device to work, Miller said,

"This is a little like watching Mohatma Gandhi arm wrestle the Dalai Lama for a signed picture of Lance Armstrong."

Huh? Dennis Miller based his career on being obtuse as if doing so makes up for excessive partying in college and selecting a major popular among potheads. The string tones of the modem echoed in our small apartment as we tried another test after changing a few settings. The modem failed yet again. Miller exclaimed,

"Looks like someone has to go back to geek school."
 

I began to wonder about the wisdom behind the management decision at Compaq to play a video of an insolent dickhead as a welcome to a product costing thousands of dollars. The desktop finally booted up, and I grabbed for the mouse. Next came the blue screen of death which I carefully read through because I thought it was more setup instructions.
 

The Blue Screen of Death

Now we spent a heap of money on a pile of electronics, and we were unable to configure the modem or gain access to the desktop. In desperation I called my internet provider which Christine set up in advance. They blamed both Compaq and Microsoft and in general were no help at all. I turned to Christine and said,

"Let's just put this whole thing back in the box and take it back."

"Give me a minute," she deflected.

"This is not us," I pleaded, "We like the outdoors!"

It was a beautiful sunny summer Saturday. I wanted to go to the park and play Frisbee or the beach and ride some waves. Christine, sensing mutiny, reached into the stack of books and pulled out a manual at random. Searching for a toll free number, she dialed the first one she found. Christine called the help line to Microsoft Network. A very skilled young man walked us through the proper procedure to get the modem working. When he finished, he asked,

"Now that you can get online you want to sign up?"

"Sign up for what?" I asked.

"MSN," he answered.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Microsoft Network."

"Thanks but no. You've been way more helpful than my internet provider."

If Christine would have pulled out the Windows manual and called their toll free number, they would have charged us $35 to get our brand new modem working. That would have got that thing on the curb in no time, but she inadvertently reached a guy from MSN who was trying to get us to subscribe, and I naively explained that he was way better than our internet provider. He got nothing for his efforts, and I got my new computer up an running with no help from Compaq, Dennis Miller or my internet provider. The only person who helped us was someone trying to hawk a membership to Microsoft Network.

Our new computer fatally crashed at least once a month requiring a full restore which forced us to sit through Dennis Miller's condescending advice every time. It was beyond painful. His monologue was as awkward as Elizabeth Warren explaining her Native American lineage. Eventually we gave that computer to our neighbor's daughter who was just starting college. Later propelled by the technology industry as well as our home PC we both went back to school for a masters degree in computer science. I published papers at leading software conferences. For a few years I taught masters level computer science courses at a local college.

Our oldest, Aidan, went to computer camp in the summer ever since middle school. Our dinner conversations often involve the finer aspects of software engineering. In a day and age when the vast number of college freshman are majoring in finance or psychology, he spends his time programming in Java, Python and C++. Recently, he was hired as a moderator for the discord server associated with the jazz band, Lucky Chops. He's sixteen and a junior in high school. We'll never know if Aidan would have discovered a talent for software development in eighth grade if on that fateful day Christine hadn't pulled that particular manual from the stack.

In truth I have become someone who hates technology. Having to cycle the power to devices to get them to work correctly really chaps my ass. We reboot computers, phones, televisions, the cable modem, the router, even the oven in the kitchen, all to clear some error code to get something working properly again. I had to cycle the power to our pool pump this morning to restore the temperature reading on my smart phone. Imagine that. I had to reboot my pool. Far from making my life more convenient, I have become a slave to technology.

And now that I said that, my last comment will likely trend on social media as culturally insensitive.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on April 4, 2017. 

I Hate the 70s

My son, Aidan, and I were walking to a nearby field to fly a kite. As we hiked I carried a folded delta wing close to my body. Aidan picked up that my head was on a swivel.

"What's the matter Dad?" He asked.

I soon realized my unfounded paranoia was causing him some concern. The reason I was on the lookout was because back in my day when I was walking somewhere to fly a kite if I encounter a long haired hippy type there was a good chance he would grab the kite from my hands and break it for no reason.

I grew up in the 70s not as a teenage participating in the drug fueled free love psychedelic tune in and drop out counterculture. I was a ten years old dealing with the aftermath of a society where most teenagers and many adults were routinely taking illicit recreational drugs. Having an older rebellious sister who was fully immersed into the whole 70s scene meant that all the sordid things of that decade were inside my house as well as prowling the streets outside. My other sister, Jeannine, and I huddled together in our kid world playing with Lincoln Logs and Hot Wheels surrounded by drugs, alcohol and satanic verses.

Whenever the music from the 70s comes on the radio, I overtly cringe. People think the music of that time was so far out, but I think of the many groovy beatings my friends and I took from the fun loving hippies of the time. Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa were all the cultural icons of the day. Many of these guys were so artistically challenged that they incorporated carnival theatrics to take the focus away from their poor musicianship. All these bozos were succeeded by the band, Kiss.
 

Kiss

While I disliked the others, I hated Kiss. They were a band formed by four former high school teachers who at least where sober enough to realize that musically they stunk so badly that they had to come up with characters to be successful. Gene Simmons was a demon. Ace Frehley was a spaceman. Paul Stanley was the starchild. The drummer, Peter Criss, became a cat. I can just imagine what Simons must have said when this was being sorted out,

"Look Pete. I'm the demon. Ace is the alien. You have to pick something cool."

"Like a cat?" Criss asks.

"I don't think we're on the same page here. I said something cool. Why not be a ninja?" Simmons offers.

"I want to be a kitty."

Then Paul Stanely says, "I'm gonna be the starchild."

"Am I the only one who get's this? You can't be a starchild if Ace is gonna be a spaceman."

"Well, if Pete can be a kitty, I want to be a bunny," Stanely asserts.

"You're not gonna to be no fucking bunny!" Simmons decrees.



David Cassidy

The part I could never figure out was why so many kids from the 70s related to satanic themes. Ozzy Osborne was the lead singer for Black Sabbath. A British heavy metal band was called Judas Priest, and of course, Kiss was sometimes touted as an acronym for "Knights in Satan's Service," but I suspect it really meant "keep it simple stupid." They all had their demonic songs which my older sister played endlessly. She transitioned from David Cassidy and the Partridge Family to Alice Cooper and his sixth album, Billion Dollar Babies. I heard that record countless times. I still recall the lyrics,


Alice Cooper

If I'm too rough tell me

I'm so scared your little head will come off in my hands

Billion Dollar Baby

Back in the 70s, Alice Cooper said that he didn't want to live past thirty. My older sister thought that was way cool. My father used to say,

"Let's see if he says that when he's twenty-nine and a half."

Cooper, whose real name is Vincent Furnier, is pushing seventy-five and enjoys golf. My older sister used to put on eye makeup like Alice Cooper and wear a white tuxedo she sewed herself, including a white top hat she made out of paper mache. She wore this get up to school and insisted that everyone including her teachers call her "Alice" even though that wasn't her real name.

As a kid in the 70s our parents would let us roam the neighborhood which was great when we were up to mischief but not so great when the hippies were wandering about. They concentrated at the top of the street where the local drug dealer set up a small yellow trailer advertising flowers. He never had any actual plants in the trailer which was chained to a payphone. The dude just leaned against the rig and made drug sales all day. The hippies close to this area didn't have time to mess with us kids. Going in they had a wad of cash. Going out a stash of illegal narcotics. Either way they were usually strung out and on a mission. We learned quickly that the time to worry about hippies was when they were stoned and wandering around aimlessly. It was never near the drug dealer because he wouldn't tolerate that kind of attention close to his operation.

The presence of the sole drug dealer at the top of the street was great news for Alice. She began frequenting the plant stand. When I came home from school if she was sleeping on the couch my mother would say,

"Be quiet. Alice is sleeping."

Slumber meant she took downers. If she was buzzing about the house doing laundry or folding clothes, then she took uppers. Speed or something. Jeannine and I knew to always stay clear of Alice when she was awake and high.
 

Pot would make hippies anything from jovial to paranoid. Recognizing the signs was the difference between being beat up or escaping with your kite. If a hippy was smiling, it usually meant he smoked marijuana and was going to be generally friendly. If he was jittery and agitated, then he took some narcotic, and one of us was going to catch a beating. For some reason a beard usually meant a pot smoker and a cheesy mustache was likely a hard drug user. Both had long hair bell bottoms, a jean jacket and often a drug themed T-shirt or that stupid Rolling Stones lips and tongue logo.

Sometimes we would get detained by some drugged out bully. If we had our bikes there was a chance we could out run them. One time on Monterey Drive a druggy grabbed onto the sissy bar on my bike. I broke free and darted for Cowesett Avenue, a busy road to this day. The hippy chased me as I darted into the street. A driver in a car slammed on the brakes, just missing me. I made it to the other side, my "plat" as we used to called it. I owe my life to an attentive driver who stopped in time. The hippie turned and sauntered by the drug dealer who casually walked up to the dude then beat him senseless.

This guy violated the one unwritten rule, making a commotion around the plant stand. The hippie collapsed on the ground in the fetal position while the drug dealer kicked in his head. It was simultaneously horrible and satisfying. I'd like to think that the dope dealer had a sense that it was wrong to chase a kid on a bike into a busy street, but that wasn't the case. He just didn't want the disruption to his business which would've occurred if the cops had to scrape a body, however small, off the pavement.

One day I was walking to Kmart with my friend, Mark, when this hippy came up to us saying,

"I knew someday I would kick your ass Mark."

He proceeded to hit Mark in the head. I punched him in the kidney because that's all I could reach. I got mine next. Mark and I were resolved to start weightlifting so we would bulk up and protect ourselves from the long haired freaky hippy types. I lobbied for a 110 pound concrete filled vinyl weight set for my next birthday. I bought a bench with my paper route money. It was more puberty than exercise, but before long I was buying another weight set because one wasn't enough. One thing about taking a beating, you get used to being hit and that gives you an advantage. The next time we crossed path with a hippy bent on pushing us around things went a little different.

I wish I could tell you that my experiences made me a better person who stood up for the weakest in our community, that I led the fight against bullying long before it trended on social media, but that didn't happen. Victims of bulling often become the next bullies. While I doled out my share, all of which I deeply regret, I never did so with the same enthusiasm of my tormentors. I'm sure that is no consolation to the people I hurt so badly.

In middle school my son, Aidan, reported countless incidents of bullying both against him as well as others. The backlash was excessive and often physical. He's tall and has a good reach. I've taught him how to defend himself, but I warned him never to use it.

"Why do you teach me how to fight then tell me not to hit anyone?" he asks.

I've explained that striking another student, even in defense, makes it harder to make your case to school officials. Recently a friend of mine suggested that all this anti-bullying agendas might be "making kids incapable of handling conflict." I thought about this for days, and I've come to the conclusion that the bullies are the ones who can't deal with conflict, not my son, who certainly can defend himself but chooses not to.

We flew the kite that day. It soared across the sky. The sound of it's long plastic tail fluttering in the wind was familiar and comforting. We both wondered how far we could pay out the string, and if it was tied to the spindle. It was thankfully. On the way back Aidan asked,

"Dad, did you ever win a fight?"

I was reluctant to answer. Not because I lost many and wanted to come off as a tough guy to my son. I was trying to frame my experiences without reliving the abuse I experienced in my youth. Eventually I answered,

"You know, I used to make my own kites. Once I made a box kite. It took me a month."

"Did it fly good?" Aidan asked.

I never knew how well it would have flown because a drugged out hippy broke it on the way to the field. The late afternoon sun cast shadows across the empty meadow. The wind had dissipated leaving the sound of the frogs in a nearby pond.

"It flew beautifully," I said.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on April 18, 2017.

Prime Suspect

Back in 1990 I was living in a rented house in the inner city with two dude bro roommates, Doug and Jim. Doug was tall and played beach volleyball. Jim was short and wrote software. My height was coincidently the average of my two roommates. One Friday night I was meeting Jim at a favorite watering hole. I had just enough time to work out at the gym, shower then drive to the bar. It would be close so I had to hurry. Little did I know that the events of this night would unfold in such a way that I would be accused of a crime I just couldn't have committed.

I knocked out my gym routine in record time, bolted into the locker room then prepped for the shower. As I headed for the communal pen that men shower in at gyms I looked back at my locker which was open with my pants hanging and my wallet in the back pocket clearly visible. The city I lived in hosted its share of criminal activity. Still yet, I was in a hurry so I decided to just leave my locker open even though the gym provided a means to secure it.

I chose a shower to the far corner. There was no one in the communal shower area so it didn't really matter where I went. Oddly a guy entered and chose the shower to my right on the adjacent wall. I thought this was odd and a bit of an intrusion. Let me explain a piece of unwritten bathroom etiquette to women who are collectively cursed with the inability to urinate standing up.

Upright Urinals

Presented with this choice to express your bladder one takes the urinal furthest away from the middle unless someone is already pumping the bilge. In such a case you take the urinal furthest from the one already in use. The same goes for showers. You never shower next to another dude unless there are no other showers available. The guy who came into the cooperative shower chose one on the adjacent wall facing me, that is, the shower closest to mine. He also elected to stand under his shower with his back to the wall which means his jambalaya was staring right at me. By now your probably thinking that I'm a paranoid nutjob. Maybe I am, but I was buck naked in public with a nude stranger watching me while he attempted to bust off a number three in the shower.

I decided to fleetingly glance out of my peripheral vision to see what the guy next to me was doing. I wish I hadn't done that. Let's just say no one's equipment is that dirty. The minute he saw me look his way he took a step forward with his crank in his hand, bent over and put his free hand on the soap dispenser under my shower head. That was well inside my personal space. In fact my brain went into a class five proximity alert causing me to have the most intense flee response of my life. I snapped off the water then got the fuck out of there.

I rushed out of the locker room dismayed that my personal space was so overtly invaded. Throwing on my clothes I bolted from the gym. As I approached my car a rock landed nearby. I spotted some kids in an apartment complex overlooking the gym hurling rocks into the lot. Could this night get any worse? I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. Another rock landed very close to my car. After reporting the rock incident to the police I jumped in my car and sped off for the apartment complex bent on catching the hooligans. Unsuccessful I returned to the lot to find a police car parked haphazardly at the front of the building. As I approached the cruiser I noticed the officer behind the wheel was in plain clothes. I told him about the rock throwing incident. Oddly he never asked me my name. I assumed he knew I was the guy who called in the incident.

At the bar I recalled the story for my roommate and surrounding clientele. When it came time to pay the tab I pulled out my wallet to discover all my money was gone. That was just great. Someone stole all my cash. I immediately took the blame. After all I did leave my wallet accessible and in full view. It was a hard lesson. One I had coming.

The following Monday at the gym I noticed several signs posted throughout the facility that read,

"If you lost money at the gym on Friday night contact Detective Dan at (phone number)."

My volleyball roommate, Doug, went to the same gym. I ran into him there and asked about the signs. He encouraged me to report my loss.

"But it was my fault. I left my locker open."

"Yeah, but something happened Friday night. You better report it," Doug urged.

I found the owner's wife, a young woman who recently married the much older guy who started the gym. She was unusually cold. She was that way normally so I didn't take it personally. She reminded me of the attractive women in high school. You know, the ones that treated everyone like shit.

"Well, if you did lose money then you should call Detective Dan," She said smugly.

Instead of apologizing for a customer being ripped off in her establishment she scoffed at my inquiry as if I was bothering her or something. So I called Detective Dan from my desk at work on Tuesday morning.

"Hello, my name is Robert, and I got ripped off on Friday night at the gym."

"Oh really!" Detective Dan exclaimed.

"Someone stole $96 from my wallet."

"Oh really."

"Yeah."

"Well, why didn't you report it on Friday?" Detective Dan asked.

"Because it was my fault," I answered.

"How's that?" Detective Dan asked.

"I left my locker open with my wallet in plain sight," I offered.

"Oh really. Well, why did some people see you running out of the shower?" Detective Dan quizzed.

Great. Now I had to explain my uncomfortable men's room experience.

"Because some guy in the shower was working over his junk right next to me."

"Oh really. Some people saw you racing out of the parking lot."

"That's because some kids were throwing rocks at the cars in the lot."

"Oh really. Well, you're the only gym attendee who didn't report a theft on Friday night. How do you explain that?"

"What was I going to report? I left my wallet out, and someone stole all my money. I was taking responsibility for my own stupidity."

"You still should've reported it."

"I'm reporting it now."

"Maybe that's because you're our prime suspect."

"What! Me?'

"Yeah you!"

"Well, Detective Dan, you need to talk to the plain clothes cop I spoke to on Friday night."

"That was me," Detective Dan informed.

"Well, that was me talking to you."

"That was you?"

"Yeah, I called the cops on the kids throwing rocks."

"Oh. Good thing you called."

"How so?"

"We were going to pick you up for questioning?"

"Pick me up? For what?"

"I told you. You were the only one who didn't report a theft on Friday night."

"That's because I was taking responsibility for my own lapse in judgment."

"Who does that anymore?"

So it turned out that the theft was an inside job pulled off by an employee with a master key on a night that I just happened to leave my locker open with my wallet visible then was subjected to a dude yanking his crank in the shower and some kids throwing rocks at my car. You know, a typical night.

And that's how I became the prime suspect for the theft of my own money.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on April 6, 2017.

Things Not to Ask of Jesus

A few years ago my son, Aidan, was taking religious education classes. One day he returned from catechism telling me that his instructor, a young woman in her twenties, accidently dropped her phone in the toilet. She retrieved it quickly, but it was completely submerged in the loo so it was unlikely that it would still function properly. Aidan told me that she said a prayer to Jesus, and the phone worked just fine afterwards.

One time I was watching a television documentary about kids getting ready for college. Several Christians were all about to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). They formed a circle and asked Jesus to help them with the exam "especially the math."

I had a colleague once who was quite religious. He told me that he said a prayer before a blind date "to ensure things went well." He also prayed before job interviews for the similar reasons.

This got me thinking about what it must be like for Jesus to hear prayers. I don't think He really cares all that much about your cell phone which you carelessly dropped into the toilet no matter how sincerely you pray. I wouldn't bother Him about a test either. Best to just study up. And praying for a date to go well is just plain wrong. What did that sound like,

"Jesus, please make sure that my blind date has a nice rack."

Or praying for an advantage on a job interview,

"Jesus, please give the other candidates the Nutella squirts."

Gold Rush

I saw something like this unfold while watching the History Channel's smash reality hit, Gold Rush. That's the show whereby a bunch of gruff moderately skilled dude bros spend their summers up in the Yukon washing dirt and rocks to capture a cup of gold. Jack Hoffman, the patriarch of 316 Mining, prays for success at finding gold all the time. He exclaims,

"Heavenly Father, we ask that you richly bless us with gold."

I don't think this is a good idea. He doesn't ask that no one falls into the grizzly bars or gets sucked into the tromel. He doesn't ask Jesus to look after their families in their absence. He asks for money. He might as well ask Jesus for a winning lottery ticket. You have to remember that these guys are all religious folks so they know the story. No matter what you believe in, historically speaking, Jesus had a pretty rough time when he was down here. I wouldn't be asking Him for coin especially when there are other people who are in real need of help queuing up as well.

Carrie Underwood has a song on her debut album, Some Hearts. It's a ballad that tells the story of a young distracted mom who's speeding to her mother's house on Christmas Eve when she hits a patch of black ice and loses control of her vehicle. Her small child is strapped in the back seat. As the car spins out of control the woman throws her hands in the air and cries,


Carrie Underwood

"Jesus, take the wheel!"

While I know this is a reference to letting the Almighty take control of your life in this particular situation it would have been best if she kept her hands on the steering wheel and turned into the skid, that is, spin the wheel in the same direction in which the back of the car is moving. She made it out okay but not from her superior driving skills. It just doesn't seem right to ask the Savior to drive your car for you.

Religious folk ask Jesus for everything all the time as if He's got nothing better to do but answer their lame ass prayers. I grew up Catholic so my religious education was liberally seasoned with a good amount of guilt, and it appears to have worked. I rarely ask Jesus for anything. In fact, I often thank Him for things that went well in my life as in,

"Dear Jesus, I don't need anything right now. I just wanted to say thank you for that awesome wave I just rode all the way into the shore."

Or sometimes I thank him for not getting run over while I ride my bike on my daily loop. You should try it once in a while. You know, thank the Man for another day on earth. After all He's dealing with millions of knuckleheads asking Him to be their copilot. Who knows? You just might make Him smile, and how cool would that be?

Editor's Note: Originally posted on March 30, 2017.

The Telephone Game

When our son, Aidan, was old enough, my wife was adamant that he go to a private school. Christine was bullied horribly in public school which left an indelible mark on her opinion. I wanted a rule free, creative, avant-garde teaching environment staffed by former pot smoking hippies from the 60's turned educators. You know, a real artist's haven so we looked into the only private school in our area. When we attended an open house, one administrator boasted,

"We don't have to follow any state mandates, being a private institution."

 

This appealed to my conservative sense that all state mandates are bureaucratic wastes of time. What I didn't know then was that boys are more difficult to educate than girls, and knowing how to effectively teach them requires real skill. For years people always said,

"Girls mature faster than boys."

Today, this is generally regarded as untrue. Girls are more inclined to try to impress their teacher, who is often a woman while boys are equally likely to wonder aloud what will happen if they jump out of a nearby tree. Since girls are more compliant, they are more likely to be regarded as intelligent.

The private school we sent Aidan to was stuck in the 70's. They used outdated techniques like round robin reading and math bees which were rejected by public institutions years ago since such approaches reward the most competent students while ignoring those who need the most help. Public schools know how to educate boys because some of those state mandates thrust new ideas in education into the system. Public teachers understand that boys are sometimes not going to sit still and need to move about now and then.

Early on Aidan was deemed ADHD by his kindergarten teacher who requested that he be tested. In most states it's illegal for a public school teacher to make such a determination due to their lack of actual medical or psychological training. This wasn't my idea of mandate free radical teaching I was hoping for. The previous year Aidan took the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) which showed he was two standard deviations above the norm for vocabulary and one standard deviation for math. They didn't want to hear about that even though their own school psychologist administered the test. The first time I heard the letters ADHD strung together was when his teacher called me in to tell me about Aidan's misbehavior. He said,

"I was teaching a lesson when I said to the class, 'Watch carefully. This will happen quick.' Aidan said, "You mean, 'quickly.'"

I was puzzled.

"You do know he's right," I responded.

"That's besides the point. I'm the teacher!" he retorted.

So I got dragged into my son's private school which was costing me $21,000 a year to listen to his kindergarten teacher espouse his grammatically incorrect sentiments. This along with other infractions led Aidan to be put on the "ticket system" which was a punitive scheme by which a student is given five tickets for the week. Each time they get in trouble they lose a ticket. If on Friday they have less than four tickets, they can't go out for recess. If they have at least four, they win a prize. When his teacher explained this to Aidan, he asked,

"Don't you think there should be something for all five tickets?"

His teacher told him that they do it that way so you can lose one without penalty. Aidan inquired,

"If I have a friend who has three tickets on Friday and I have five can I give them one?"

"No, Aidan, you can't do that. You have to follow the rules. One ticket for one infraction," his teacher recited.

"So there's nothing for five tickets?" Aidan asked.

"No, nothing," she explained.

It just didn't seem sensible to Aidan to have a system that didn't reward the top score. One spring day, his teacher had all the kindergarteners sit in a circle to play "Telephone." That's the game by which each student in the circle whispers a phrase in the ear of the adjacent classmate. His teacher started off the game with,

"Spring is here!"

As the phrase made it to Aidan, he whispered to his friend, Hampton,

"Dunkin Donuts."

When the last student recited the phrase aloud, the top of his teacher's head almost blew off. She angrily asked,

"Who told you that?"

She backtracked up the circle looking for the culprit. Aidan knew he was busted so he just waited for the phrase to reach him.

"Give me a ticket Aidan," his teacher commanded.

Now here is where good judgment and youth do not intersect. Aidan explained,

"That's okay. It's Friday, and I have five tickets."

This angered his teacher so she tried to take another ticket from him.

"You can't take two. One ticket for one fraction," Aidan exclaimed.

It didn't help that when his teacher called me, I chuckled a bit. Most of my friends who are parents thought I was teaching Aidan to be disrespectful, but I didn't see it that way. His teacher established a set of rules which he followed to the letter, and in doing so, he found a way to beat the system. Many of the same parents had previously advised me to establish "504 status" for Aidan via an ADHD diagnosis in order to get him more time on tests and preferential treatment. One parent told me,

"It's the only way to level the playing field for boys."

The problem is Aidan was not disabled, and as such, didn't warrant protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act. That would be more than disrespectful. It would be criminal.

We left that private school a short time later. I homeschooled Aidan for two years in which he completed three years of education. He entered middle school in sixth grade. He's in the national honor society in high school and plays varsity tennis and trumpet in the jazz band, all things that were unavailable to him at the private school. He was one of the youngest members in Bugles Across America, a nationwide, organization which provides volunteers to play Taps at military services in honor of veterans. He's also a second class petty officer in the Naval Sea Cadets.

The dirty secret about private schools is that they generally have less money than most public schools, and likewise, hire lower qualified teachers. Ignoring state mandates ensures that private schools remain stagnant. We discovered teachers at the institution had assigned the same project to all four of a colleague's children. They use an ADHD diagnoses to cover for their inability to effectivly educate. While most parents welcome an ADHD diagnoses and raise their kids comfortably behind a snowplow, my wife and I were confident that Aidan's behavior was his choice. Boys are three time more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls, and the diagnose is on the rise. One leading expert in the field said,

"We need to find out why boys are more susceptible to ADHD than girls."

I think the answer is because one of the biomarker for ADHD is having testicles. This is not the same thing as believing vaccines cause autism. This is drugging your child on a baseless diagnoses so that he becomes more compliant in an educational system that processes children in batches according to a factory model.

One thing I learned from teaching my son for two years is that kids like Aidan are the real deal. You can't stop them from becoming. Just give them sunshine and some room to grow, and they'll do the rest.

Editor Note: Originally posted on March 16, 2017.

Flying Carousel of Science

William and Aidan on
the Flying Carousel

The Flying Horse Carousel in Watch Hill, Rhode Island is a historical landmark enjoyed by generations of children seeking the brass ring. Parents measure their child's progress through their patronage of the carousel. At two years old they select their favorite among the inner ten horses then hang on for dear life. At three they move to the outer horses where they are handed rings by the attendants. Before long they begin snatching rings from the holder allowing a chance at the elusive brass. They get a solid four or five seasons perfecting their technique before puberty ushers in a weight above the limit.

Most of the local kids move on to the operation of the carousel as a summer job. It was sad the day my son, Aidan, rode the carousel for the last time. The teenagers running the carousel knew it was his final ride so they handed him the brass ring several times allowing an extended whirl. Back in 2017, our youngest, William, was just discovering his ability to snatch rings from the holder. At the time, he hadn't yet felt the summer joy of discovering brass in his little hand.

The carousel offers a lot of opportunity for amusement. When Aidan or one of his friends came up with the brass ring my friend, Steve, would always shout,

"Take the thousand dollars!"

As if there was a choice between one free ride or $1000. The tourists would all look puzzled. Once I told Aidan,

"Don't come home unless you get the brass ring."

The frowns from parents were priceless. Every once in a while a kid snatches the prize and says,

"Mom, Dad! I got the golden ring!"

One of us usually exclaims,

"It's brass. Go back to New Jersey."

Aidan also enjoyed pretending that he fell asleep as the ride whirled about. The carousel was abandoned by a travelling circus in 1879. Originally, it was powered by a horse, but over the years it was modernized and housed in a stone and wood structure at the entrance to the town beach. During winter the horses are repaired and repainted by volunteers. The ride is the oldest flying carousel still in operation in the country. It's been lovingly cared for by the nonprofit Watch Hill Improvement Society for decades.

One day, as I watched Aidan reach out for a ring, I thought of the movie, A Beautiful Mind, starring Russel Crowe as John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. Nash came up with the game theory concept, Nash Equilibrium, which was depicted in the film as a bunch of guys employing a collaborative strategy to score with a blonde. Not only was this not an example of Nash Equilibrium, it didn't actually happen. That's Hollywood for you. Always dumbing down history for the consumption by us stupid people. The closest the movie got to the actual definition of Nash Equilibrium is when Crowe said,

"The best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself and the group."

This got me thinking about the brass ring and carousel. I had Aidan and five of his friends position themselves one horse apart from each other. There were ten outer horses which gave access to the ring holder. The odds of getting the brass ring was one out of ten. I instructed the group to pass on the ring when it was not brass so as to constantly feed a losing selection to the person behind them. This ensured that one of the five in the group would always get the brass ring, doubling the odds of someone on the team winning.

The strategy worked amazingly well with the odds going up as the number of riders went down. Some times Aidan rode the carousel with only one tourist who he fed all the losing rings. In this scenario, getting the brass ring is all but guaranteed. Aidan and his friends began dominating the brass ring capture with some kids getting it over ten times for the season. Aidan, himself, lost count after twenty. I enjoyed his theatrics as he missed the ring, ensuring the hapless kid behind him snagged a loser.

Science is often used to enhance our lives as in better medical advancements, more effective means of communication or increased travel convenience. Ever so often, some people use science to beat the system like the Eudaemons, a small group of University of California physics graduate students who in the 1970s figured out an algorithm to predict the outcome of roulette. They derived their name from the word "eudaimonia" which means "human flourishing."

And that's what Aidan did with four of his friends one summer. They flourished as each upped their brass ring count. It never lost its appeal. In fact, it got even more exciting as each kid knew they were beating the system. Many asked me to explain the increased odds they experienced by the passing strategy. One parent said,

"I hope you feel good that you taught them how to cheat."

They weren't cheating like doping, deflating a football or illegally avoiding taxes. They used knowledge to increase their odds of winning. That's not cheating. That's smart. In the end the flying carousel of Watch Hill will continue to whirl about through the summers enthralling generations of children, and every so often the old ride just might inspire a kid to go into science.

Editor's Note: Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor, cashing in on the popularity of the movie, A Beautiful Mind, once claimed that everything needed to win Survivor was in Nash's seminal paper. I'm sure Professor Nash would be thrilled that his Nobel Prize winning work was helping people win the Dorito Food Challenge. Originally posted on March 17, 2017.