They Love Their Jobs

I work late, but this story isn't about me.  You just need to know that to understand how I stumbled upon this moment.  Working at a school, most of the day is spent working with students and staff.  It is busy.  There is a lot to do, and it is pretty easy to become focused on oneself.  It isn't egotistical, it is just the nature of working in a school.  You focus on your kids, your space and your work.  

I host after school clubs, and I coach the speech team.  These activities find me leaving 2-3 hours after most others.  There is a new crew of workers who show up after the students, faculty, staff, and most if not all of administration are gone, the custodial staff.  The unsung heroes who put in the work to make sure the classrooms, hallways, and bathrooms are clean when everyone comes in the next day to mess it all up.  Most don't know the names or faces of those who sweep the floors, wipe off the desks, and clean the drinking fountains.  

I do, and I feel lucky for that.  I see them almost every day as they walk through the library to punch in to work.  They roll their cleaning carts to the different parts of the school to do their work.  Since I am there until 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening and sometime return later at night for one thing or another, I see this custodial staff doing what they do, and they do it really well.  I have taken time to visit with most of them over the years. I get to know them. They are really neat people.  They like to tease and give me a hard time about being there so late as much as I like to get to know them.  Never have I heard one of them complain about the work.  Never do they complain about the hours or the pay.  They work hard, seem happy to be there, and they take pride in their work.  

This is a lot of build up to what I witnessed recently that just brought a smile to my face and made me realize the happiness one can get from working with great people.  I was on my way out at about 5:30.  I hadn't seen as many of the men and women who normally pass through with their carts, but I didn't really think much about it.  I figured that I just missed them.  As I left the library into the hall, I heard their voices in jovial talk and laughter which is not all that uncommon actually.  They had all congregated in the foods lab where they normally eat dinner or take breaks.  As I was walking down the hall toward the foods lab, the owner of the cleaning company came out of the lab and said hi as she always does, but she had a bit of a hop in her step.  We smiled and passed, but I saw the reason for the extra energy.  As I walked past the lab, I saw that she had brought a catered dinner in for her employees.  

They were laughing, razzing one another, eating like kings and queens (fried chicken, green beans, and other dinner treats) and loving life at work.  I walked past and smiled to see them happy as I continued down the hallway loving that I witnessed this moment.  I couldn't help but sense the camaraderie that they have built working hard and breaking bread with one another as they have for years.  But tonight it was special.  They count on one another.  They back each other up.  They are the best darn crew who keep our school looking great.  

Tomorrow, take a look at the people with whom you work.  Think about the good times and the difficult times.  Think about the times you all had someone's back when things weren't great for them.  Think about the meals you have shared with those people.  Yeah, they are co-workers but aren't they just a bit more than that?  Don't they help you love your job just a little more?  

Putting Away the Family Legos

At the beginning of the summer, my youngest daughter and I pulled a bag of our family Legos out of my office.  I wanted to open up some space and clean out the clutter, so this seemed like an easy start.  

Years ago, when my girls were young, we introduced them to Legos through the Duplo line.  Those
were fun; they loved the idea of building and breaking apart and building again.  Good times.  A few years later, I bought my oldest daughter her first set of Legos with the Lego Friends line.  This was a fun theme of Legos as it was girl focused in marketing and product.  Over the years we purchased several, well okay, lots of these sets from small ones like the dog training set, to the large sets like the Lego Friends house.  I loved to help them build the sets and play when they were built.  I have no doubt that these Lego friends toys were the most played with toys in the house.  I liked to build my space sets from the 1980's and have space invasions of the Lego Friends town.  They didn't always like that.  Hehehe...

Flash forward to this summer when both of my girls graduated.  One graduated from high school heading to college and the other graduated from 8th grade heading to high school.  They are growing up.  Something I haven't been very supportive of, but there is no stopping it, I suppose.  Anyhow, the youngest and I were cleaning up a tote bag of partially build or broken sets with random pieces spread across the bottom of the bag.  The goal was to figure out what pieces went to which set and deconstruct what was left of the partially build sets.  Lets just say, there was a lot of organizing to do.  As we got started, my daughter decided the best way to get the lose pieces organized with the sets was to just rebuild the sets.  She told me what she needed from the lose pieces and we hunted for them together.  We spent several hours rebuilding about 5 sets that were in the bag.  We hunted, built, talked, shared memories with the sets (I didn't mention the alien invasions), and had a good old time.  It was a nice way to start the summer.  

I couldn't bring myself to tear down the sets we had just built, so we took them to the basement to display and look at for a while.  Our mission was accomplished as we found a home for all of the lose Legos from the bottom of the tote bag.  

Now, school has started.  One daughter off to college and the other navigating the landscape of high school.  It was time to change out the display of Lego Friends in the basement.  I took them down one-by-one and started taking them apart and organizing them in their own Ziploc bags with the directions.  In this process, I was struck.  I will probably never build Legos with them ever again.  I let it sink in.  I will never build Legos with them ever again.  

Of course, the hope is some day when the grandkids come to visit, we will pull those "old" Legos out of the basement.  I don't know what that will be like, but I don't imagine it will be the same as building them with my daughters.  Maybe it will be more wonderful.  I don't know.  Nevertheless, the family Legos are now put away.   

I guess it is just me now as building Legos isn't really my wife's thing, so I pulled out my Star Wars Legos that I have gathered over the years.  I started rebuilding those.  Even though I am building those on my own, I have the memories of all the hours of fun I had with my daughters as children building the Family Legos.  

Balancing Act of Life

If you've ever walked through a school building in the summer when students are on break, it can really look like a mess.  Work that needs to be done on the building always waits for the summer months so it doesn't interrupt student learning.  Yearly maintenance like stripping and waxing the floors takes place so the school looks its best when students return.  

What all of this means is that classrooms are packed up and moved to the hallways for waxing and other maintenance.  It is a feat stacking and balancing to take the contents of a classroom out of the room and fit it into the hall in a short amount of time.  

I encountered a stack of desks that caught my attention recently.  I had to stop and take a good look to see how many desks were in a stack that was in front of me (see picture).  I couldn't help but think of the balance and work it took to stack all of these and how that can be related to life.  Sometimes we are taken out of our comfort zone to balance a lot in our lives.  It may seem impossible.  It may seem hopeless to tackle.  It may seem like a tangled mess.  But if we approach all of the things we need to do from our 9 to 5 jobs, spouses/significant others, to taking care of children, maybe caring for a parent or spouse, fulfilling our own lives with our hobbies and social activities, it can really add up.  Like those who stacked these desks, if we really look at our tasks and responsibilities and try to balance them, we can make it work.  We also need to realize that maybe it is too much!  There is a ceiling after all.  

Anyway, I hope when things seem to be piling up, we can think of the desks in the hallways of a school in the summer.  We can stack them in a well-balanced way to make it all work out or say no to a few things to make it all balance out.  

P.S. I believe there are 5 desks per stack.  Nice work to our custodial and maintenance staff for their balancing and their amazing work to make our schools look awesome at the beginning of the year and all year long.  

Snow Days

When I was a kid, I loved snow days.  What kid doesn't love a surprise snow day from school?  I think, for me, it was less about missing a day of school and more about the opportunity to drop everything to head outside to sled, build a fort, or just goof around in the fluffy white stuff.  As an adult working in education, I still get to enjoy an occasional snow day, but they are enjoyable for different reasons.  

I love snow days now because snow is one thing that can slow people down or maybe even bring things to a halt.  Everything just kind of stops.  I don't hear cars rushing down the street early in the morning heading off to work.  If cars are going down the street it is slowly and quietly.  I love that a snow day lets me spend time with my family.  We are all relieved to not have hectic mornings of rushing around getting ready for the day.  We slow everything down.  We get to have meals together without someone missing or rushing out the door.  We get to talk to each other.  I get to watch my kids playing in the snow as I shovel the driveway.  In fact, with our last snow day, I shoveled much of the snow on the driveway into two large piles in the yard.  In one pile my kids dug a tunnel and "cave" to hang out in.  On the other pile, they created a small sledding path that ended up a "surfing" hill.  There aren't too many times in my day where I get to watch them having so much fun together.  The best is coming in and having some hot chocolate while laughing about all the dumb things that happened while surfing down the hill, "face plants," epic crashes, and distance records.  The snow day forces us to slow down to watch and listen to each other.  

Why do we need a snow day to do that?  Our lives are so packed from morning to night that many people that I see, myself included, rush around with no time to actually see other people.  I think it is evidenced by the number of people who constantly speed on the roads rolling right through stop signs and gunning it through yellow lights.  Sure, we see people and we might even get to work with people (that is sarcasm there), but how many times do we actually get to stop and talk with them beyond the "How are you doing?"  

I worked outside of education for about 10 years between being a student and becoming a teacher, and I never got a snow day.  There were plenty of opportunities for them, but my bosses never allowed it.  I didn't work in any crucial industry like public safety,  healthcare, or snowplowing, so I never understood why it was necessary to head into work when there are 6 inches or more of snow covering the ground.  It is too bad, because there are many mental health and family benefits to staying home on a snow day.  

A couple things come to mind.  If you don't get to enjoy a snow day, find ways to simplify a day at work or on a weekend.  I don't know how to suggest that, but we all know in our own worlds what can be put off or maybe even not started.  Shed things in your day, even just one day, to give yourself a chance to clear the fog and take a look around you.  Give it a try!  Give yourself and the people around you (family or coworkers) a surprise "snow day."  Give yourself and others around you a chance to look and listen to each other.  The benefits are great!  Enjoy a snow day!  

Basement Treasures: Family Heirlooms

 

A stroll into the basement in search of some Basement Treasures uncovered this family heirloom.  This dollhouse was hand-built by my Grandfather and given to my mom who owned and operated a preschool in our basement.  He also made a copy of this dollhouse for a raffle (see picture), so there is or was another house just like this one.  

My grandfather was a Methodist minister, but I knew him better for the things he built.  He crafted a special item for my brother, sister, and me that we cherished as children.  My sister received a dollhouse that I have no memory of what it looked like, my brother received a red barn that he and I played with often, and I got a rocker that was a green turtle which I quickly outgrew.  I still have the green turtle rocker that will likely show up in a future "Basement Treasures" post, but both of my children used and enjoyed the rocker.  My hope is that my girls' children will also be able to use the rocker someday.  

I received the dollhouse when my mom was clearing out her house after she closed the preschool.  I have two girls who at the time were young and of age to play with dolls and dollhouses, so that is how it came my way.  My girls loved the wood floors and wallpapered walls that my grandfather so carefully hung and created.  He hand-created each wood shingle on the top of the house and inserted windows.  What can't really be seen is that the front of the house and the back of the house slide off to give full access to the interior of the house.  There is also a panel of the roof that can come out to give access to the attic.  This house has brought years of fun to so many children.  

Me and my Grandfather  and the twin house

What is sad to me is that it now sits in the corner of our basement and is only thought of when I have to reset a fuse in our own house.  Its purpose now is to wait for a new generation of children in my family.  It is in some disrepair with some missing windows and wallpaper curling up and off the wall.  I think I look forward to the "grandfather" duty of making those repairs in retirement sometime in the future in anticipation of grandkids myself.  That is years away but for now, it is a classic family heirloom that hides in the corner of our basement as a "Basement Treasure."  

Update:  10/27/24

I found a new home for the dollhouse.  I was sharing the story of the dollhouse and my grandpa at work when one of my colleagues mentioned that her husband and daughter like to work on projects, especially reclamation type projects.  So, long story made short, the dollhouse eventually went home with them so they can make it a family project to fix up the dollhouse.  When they came to pick it up in their pickup truck, it was sad to see it go, but I was excited for the look in her husband's eye when he saw the dollhouse.  I shared with him how it was built and the things that had fallen to disrepair.  His interest and excitement to work on it was clear, which made it much easier to be able to say goodbye to a piece of our family history.  

Free Comic Book Day 2022!

Just before the end of 2021, the Free Comic Book Day committee announced that it will return to its traditional "First Saturday in May" date.  In 2022, that date is Saturday, May 7!  I am quite excited about this announcement.  This "holiday" reminds me of how much I enjoy the art and storytelling format of comics as I get to read through new stories or comics that I have never experienced before.  Another reason I enjoy Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) is for the family memories that are attached.  

I remember taking my two girls (much younger then) to our local comic book store, Zeek's Comics and Games, on FCBD.  My girls have never had much interest in comic books and that's cool, they are who they are.  But on FCBD they always want to go with me as they seem to really enjoy browsing through the new/free books.  Sometimes I think they enjoy it because the covers look different than the new comic book wall they normally see on a weekly basis.  There are books they don't normally see there such as My Little Pony, Archie, Marvel Rising, Diana Princess of the Amazons, or The Descendants.  

I like stepping back and watching them browse through the books trying to decide which three or four they would like to take home.  I get to watch them discuss the pictures and the art.  These are conversations I don't often witness when they are out and about.  Once they have made their picks, they always want to see what I chose, because they know I won't have my typical stack of Star Wars or Spider-man books.  They know that I cherish this day to take a look at new stuff.  When we reach the car, the ride home is always quiet as they are flipping through the pages of the books they grabbed.  I seriously cherish this, because as they get older, that time together, the time for conversation and stopping to just watch them gets shorter and shorter.  Not long ago, I was helping my youngest daughter straighten up her room and I came across a stash of FCBD books.  I asked her if she wanted me to put them away.  She told me, "no," she likes to look through them every now and then.  Even though my daughters aren't necessarily fans of comic books, I hope other kids get to attend FCBD.  Maybe their mom or dad will find the joy in watching them flip through the pages and choose which books they would like to take.  I hope that the accessibility of the free books triggers a spark in some of the children that makes them ask to return to get more to create that love of the story told through word and art.  

Needless to say, I am excited for the return of Free Comic Book Day.  The FCBD committee announced that there are 46 comic book titles that will highlight the day.  Here are a few of the titles that are sure to bring some excitement to children and adults alike.  Here is the link to the full list:  

How about the 25th anniversary of Buffy the Vampire Slayer by BOOM! studios?  Can it be 25 years?  This could be a good conversation starter for kids and their parents who loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Also by BOOM! studios is a really cool book called Hollow that is set in...yes..Sleepy Hollow, so I bet you can guess who the antagonist is.  This may end up on my pull list in 2022!

Red Sonja by Dynamite Entertainment

Check out this classic Red Sonja cover!!  It is as stunning as the main character of this book; it is sure to be a hit, so swears Red Sonja!

Enemies by Svetlana Chmakova Yen Press

So many of my students enjoy Chmakova's other books, Awkward, Brave, and Crush, that just seeing the cover of Enemies makes me want to dive into this story.  I have a feeling I know two girls who will walk away with their own copies of the Enemies preview.  

Of course, just like in any year, the big publishers like DC, Marvel, and IGN will have titles on FCBD.  So mark your calendars and be sure to make a trip to your local comic shop in May. 

Want more information and a video with all the scheduled Free Comic Book Day books?  Check out the video: 

Storeroom Treasures part two: Old Equipment

Sometimes when I head into that storeroom in our house, I find some things that are so far removed from my memory.  Things that are obsolete in today's world, but for one reason or another seemed important to keep.  I came across a box that hasn't been opened in a long time because it found its way to the bottom of a pile of boxes.  I uncovered this box and popped off the lid to expose some old electronic equipment.  

The contents of the box included a VCR, a random remote control, a variety of different cords, and a digital television antenna/receiver.  This box is in the storeroom for several reasons even though the overarching question still is, why?  

Does anyone else keep a VCR around because of old family videos?  I think that is the only reason that VCR made it into the box. I know that there are also videotapes of some stage shows I did when I was in high school, and my wife has some videotapes of some dance shows.  What is funny is that none of these video tapes are in this box with the VCR.  That means that either we have discarded those tapes or there is another box somewhere filled with those tapes.  Upon inspection of this VCR, I discovered that there are a couple televisions in our house that do not have the RCA cable connectors for this old tape player, so it is almost completely obsolete.  

I kept the digital receiver from a time when we cut the cord and just watched the local digital, broadcast  channels.  That experiment lasted about a year.  It saved a ton of money that year, but in the times before streaming services, the Netflix DVD's just didn't come fast enough in the mail, and we went back to cable services.  I think I kept the digital receiver because I have dreams of cutting the cord again.  What I have discovered is that our local cable provider really offers reliable Internet service with a minimum cable channel list that it makes sense to carry this service.  So there sits the digital receiver in a forgotten box in the storeroom. 

This box also has a number of random cables including more coaxial cable than I think any room needs, an Hdmi extension cord, and some speaker wire.  Oh, there is a remote control from another VCR that apparently didn't make the cut, but the remote snuck in to this box to live another day.  

The best part of this box are the memories that are in here.  A silly box of random, old electronics has memories?  Of course, I remember all the rooms that I set this or other VCR's up in, from college apartments to houses long gone.  I remember the rooms and even some of the movies I watched on machines like this.  Boxes with old equipment like this are always filled with memories.  I realize that these boxes can't stick around forever, but while they are here in our attics, closets, or storerooms, they are worth a few minutes of time to reminisce.  Maybe even a little reflection is deserved to decide if boxes like these should go to the curbside to make room for new boxes that years from now will bring up a new collection of forgotten memories.   

Storeroom Treasures: The Sump Pump

The sump pump scares me to death.  Why?  It has nothing to do with the little spiders that hang out near it.  It has nothing to do with the hole it fills in the basement.  What scares me is when I don't hear from it especially on a wet, rainy day.  In fact, this little motor instills so much fear in me that I got a friend for it as a backup when things get hard.  Regardless of my fear of this "storeroom treasure," it taught me a lot about my family and how quickly we come together when things get tough.  

About a year-and-a-half ago, my fears came true when we
received about 7 inches of rain in a matter of hours.  I came home from work to have my family show me the "lake" that had appeared in our backyard.  As I looked out on the extraordinary amount of water in our backyard, my heart jumped as I realized I hadn't heard that soft hum from the basement.  I ran downstairs and did the hard right "U" turn into our storeroom where the little motor and his friend live only to see water rise out of the hole.  I hollered to my family to get towels as I ran back up the stairs to the garage to get our shop vac.  By the time I got back downstairs, water has spread across our entire basement.  It was less than 3 minutes.  

It was an incredible night of frantic salvaging of stuff that we deemed important but had been sitting on the basement floor.  All this salvaging while also trying to stop the flow of water into the basement.  I finally reached down into the sump pump hole to discover that both pumps were running but just couldn't keep up.  I finally mustered both of my daughters who were scared and confused.  I got them each buckets and I started bailing water out of the sump pump hole.  They sloshed through the water to the basement bathroom and dumped the water from their buckets into the toilet.  As one daughter went to dump her bucket, I would fill the other.  All the while, my wife was in the living area of our basement, running the shop vac and trying to save our stuff.  About an hour after the rain had stopped, each girl had taken a break to eat a very late and cold dinner.  I continued to bail the sump pump hole.  Finally, an hour after the rain stopped, I noticed that I was making progress and the water fell below the pit line.  Then another 20 minutes, the pumps caught up and could expel all the water that was still rushing into the hole.  

It was an exhausting, frustrating, frantic night.  I sent the girls to bed around 10:30 and my wife and I continued to clean up water and dirt until about 1:00am.  The next morning my oldest daughter and I moved everything out of the basement to dry out in the 90-plus-degree, humid garage while my wife and youngest daughter ran to the hardware store for supplies.  Over the next several days, we tore out all the trim and flooring and brought in professionals to finish the job.  It took about 3 months before our basement was back to normal.  

The sump pump scares me, but when it failed it was amazing to see my family come together.  We "survived" our own tragedy of seeing some really special items (Christmas decorations, record albums, collections, etc.) destroyed and our house, which always seems "safe and sound," flooded.  The four of us fought hard to keep the damage to a minimum without complaint and we worked together.  I never wanted our sump pump to fail or our house to be damaged, but without that, I wouldn't have the satisfaction of looking back and seeing us all in that moment.  

We still have the same two sump pumps in the basement, and we have taken several precautions like everything on the floor of the storeroom is in plastic tubs, and we keep the buckets and shop vac next to the sump pump.  We also added a water level alarm.  Probably the most important thing is as a family, we have each other.  We know that we can count on each other when things get tough.  There may be some shouting, maybe some tears and loss, but we are there to back each other up.  I know that in times that may be less frantic than water filling the basement and in times that could likely be even worse, we've got each other's backs.  When it comes to that, I am a pretty lucky guy.  

Shopping Local All Year

Because of family obligations and travel, I rarely have the opportunity to take advantage of Shop Small Saturday which happens right after Thanksgiving.  This year, because of COVID restrictions, we didn't travel or see family that weekend which gave me the chance to finally visit our main street/local businesses to celebrate this day.  As I walked around our town square, which is quite small but filled with a half dozen specialty shops, I realized that there are some really unique gift ideas that I wouldn't find on Amazon or in Target or Walmart.  This day kind of opened my eyes to the opportunities of shopping in my own town. 

I have always been an advocate of shopping local.  I visit my local comic and game store a few times a month.  I shop at our local bike shop 4-5 times a year.  The people who run those businesses are wonderful people, and they advocate for industry respectively.  I hang out with a community of comic readers, tabletop gamers, and cyclists.  I even pick up a gourmet coffee from our local coffee shop from time to time.  A group of local businesses that I don't often think of is the great restaurants that are owned by local entrepreneurs.  But, that Saturday opened my eyes to a new group of businesses of unique gifts, housewares, gourmet popcorn and ice cream, and jewelry.  These are people who chose our town to build their businesses.  They pay taxes, rent or own the buildings in which they do business.  Often the buildings they call home are buildings that already exist in our communities and they don't take extra resources or land to do business.  In fact, the businesses on our square occupy buildings that are likely over 100 years old.  As I was shopping around with my daughters they were mesmerized at the squeaky wooden floors.  They both thought the little rooms and tight narrow buildings were so cool and unique.  It gave them a nostalgic feel even though they didn't know what the feeling was they were experiencing.  They even found some nice, very reasonably priced (under $5) gifts for friends!

I did a quick little search on the web for some shopping local stats and found some on the shopping local advocacy site, Independent We Stand.  When we spend $100 at a local business, $68 stays in the community, whereas, when we spend that much at a chain store, $43 dollars return to the community.  These independent businesses hire local, pay local taxes, they also shop in our community too.  They often support our schools and summer sports and camps.  We might even go to church with the people who own the local businesses.  

I am a little late advocating for local businesses for the holidays, but I am just in time to remind all of us as we start a new year, a year where many of these businesses have struggled through the pandemic like the rest of us, to start shopping local.  Spend the extra $3 on earrings or the extra $7 on a game or book, or the extra $25 on a new bike to support your local retailer.  Or, as my daughters found, the prices were the same or even cheaper than a similar product we might find at a box store!  This year when you are in need of that unique gift, or bike repair, the chain store  retailers will still have the same earring you bought last year.  Box stores don't repair or properly fit you to your bike.  Your chain store doesn't special order or know when the new book comes out to tell you about it.  Basically, it comes down to the customer service. The local retailers know who we are.  

Drive around your community and look for those little shops along the streets you drive every day.  Do you pass a local barber or hairstylist on your way to the quick-cut national chain?  Do you pass the small coffee shop to get to the national coffee chain?  On Friday night do you pass the local restaurants to find the national chain that has the same burger and fries you had last week? Have you ever wished there was a local record shop or a local specialty grocery, or a local hobby shop?  This is the start!  When a community supports its local retailers, it gains the attention of those who want to start, expand, and grow a business. 

I get it, sometimes it is better on the wallet to save a buck; it is easier to shop online in comfy pajamas on a Friday night; it is faster to drive through a quick burger place.  But if we can change 10 to 20 percent of our purchases to from a national chain to someone local, that would make a huge difference on their businesses, but also on the resources of our community.   Plus, when we start seeing our community business owners more often and we shop with our neighbors, it gives us more people to wave to as we walk our neighborhoods or wait at the stoplight.  Let's see what we can do to support our local friends who took a risk to open a business to better us and our communities.  

The Value of Minecraft

My wife bought me an X-Box One several years ago for Christmas.  She knows that I love to play games and that my X-Box 360 was becoming an antique in terms of video game systems go.  I don't typically play that many games, but when I do, I really dig into them.  I have spent hours with Star Wars Battlefront II and Skyrim, but the game that changed gaming in my house is Minecraft.  

I realize that Minecraft isn't a new game, but when I introduced it to my daughters where they were at the time 6 and 10 years old, it became the top activity in our house.  At first, we just spent a lot of time wandering around and trying to stay alive in the survival modes.  As we continued to play, I started noting that my girls were getting more creative and trying different things.  I found that in their creative worlds, where there isn't any danger of starvation, mobs (monsters), or falling into dangerous things like lava and where resources fully accessible, they were trying new things with different resources.  Since most games and activities they had played were very directed and basically laid the path out in front of them or they were told what to do by the game, the fact that exploration became the norm for them in Minecraft was nice to see.  

Early on all three of us would look for some inspiration for cool things to build, so I bought some Minecraft books.  It was pretty awesome when I would come in the room and they would be pouring over the books talking about different building designs or figuring out how to craft certain potions or trying to figure out what the best strategy is for defeating an Ender.  That was pretty heartwarming, and it made me realize the educational value to Minecraft.  My girls were seeking out external resources like books and YouTube videos.  They were even evaluating resources without really realizing the skills they were developing.  When searching for good YouTube content, they were comparing the quality of video and instruction.  They even said there were a few they came across that had a lot of swearing (I am sure there are more than just a few), so they decided that those might not be especially credible.  They said who would try to teach someone and swear at them while doing it?  That made sense to me, so I encouraged them to find more channels that fit their style.   

Both of my daughters were making science and math connections when trying to figure out which type of stones or other resources mixed best with others.  They were figuring area and volume when building houses and trying to figure out how many blocks they needed to mine in my survival world.  My youngest daughter sat down this week to play and wanted me to see what she was working on.  She had created an elaborate underground system of hallways. She was explaining to me how a sticky piston works and how she was applying it in a hallway to push a light block into view to illuminate a corridor.  Watching her experimentation and trial and error is satisfying, because not only is it fun to play and watch what she has built, but also because I am watching her thinking and learning process.   I also really appreciate the art and design applications that go in to the game too.  They both have played with the color of different bricks in building to create a certain aesthetic.  

Minecraft offers all of us the opportunity to develop collaboration skills as well.  My first realization of this was when the three of us were trying to figure out how to defeat a skeleton spawner.  We discussed strategy and we all shared our ideas on how to approach this task.  Of course, it usually played out where they would go running off leaving me to deal with all the skeletons, but at least it started with a plan.  We've also done some mining collaboration as we were working on some different projects.  We discussed who would go where to cut down trees and collect dark oak and birch tree wood while the other would head underground to find granite and someone else would start crafting tools and building materials.  

Besides being a fun game that offers us new experiences every time we start playing, it offers so many learning opportunities.  My favorite aspect of the game though is how it gives me a way to connect with my daughters.  It gives us a common language.  It also gives us experiences that we can be proud of in some cases and laugh together in other cases.  This has been an unexpected value of Minecraft.  

A Simple Connection to Community

Early in the Pandemic and quarantine like many people did, my family quarantined in our house and we took pleasure when we could get out of the house to walk or bike ride in our neighborhood.  In our area, we were transitioning from winter to spring, so not only was it needed for us as a family to get out of the house, but the weather was changing for the positive. 

During these many walks and bike rides, I came to realize that we were taking advantage of an infrastructure that is so key to the development of a healthy neighborhood, sidewalks!   I watched as dozens of people in our neighborhood were taking advantage of the sidewalks.  It made me think more about these slabs of concrete that stretch along the streets in our front yards.  I am thankful for the leadership and planning of our community and the thousands of communities across this country that have made the investment in neighborhoods.  These sidewalks and trails in our towns help to connect us.  After returning to work with a new school year, I have started taking advantage of the paved bike paths that crisscross our town by riding my bike to work every day that I can.  I have found that this has helped me to be more productive and positive as I start a new day.  I have encouraged others that I work with who live in town to ride to work and a few have done so.  This has created new relationships among colleagues and given us something in common besides just work.  

Take a step back and look at these connected paths that line the streets of your neighborhood.  Look at the people who walk these paths for exercise, walk these paths with their pets, walk these paths to get to work.  These are the people of your neighborhood.  Throughout the pandemic, kids and families in our neighborhood have become creative using sidewalk chalk to leave inspirational messages, art, and even obstacle courses.  If you don't have sidewalks, advocate for them as neighborhood and community improvement.  Are your sidewalks crumbling or not lit at night?  Advocate for them to help people get out and enjoy them more.  Are there bike paths or bike lanes in your town?  Advocate for them to improve the health of your community.  

Take a minute to look around for the positive in your neighborhood.  What are some of the things that have been around "forever" that may be underutilized or may be used every day that bring people together?  Thank your leaders for those things or advocate for them to bring them
to improve the life and safety of your community.  

What brings people together in your community?  Comment below with the positive infrastructure in your community and how it brings people together.  

Indiana Jones Connecting Generations

This was originally published on The Bearded Trio Website September 25, 2020

A few weeks back, I sat down to introduce Raiders of the Lost Ark to a new generation of my family: my thirteen-year-old daughter.  While I have seen the film probably a couple dozen times in my lifetime, I haven't watched it myself in probably 10 years.  So, I was excited for another viewing after quite some time, and I was excited to see the film with my daughter who was experiencing it for the first time

I had forgotten how wonderful this movie is with the cinematography, the music, the story, and of course the acting.  But, what really made this movie for me during this viewing was one moment.  The moment is in the scene where Marion is taken while she is hiding in a basket.  Indiana is running through the street trying to follow her screaming voice.  A great moment when Indiana runs into the market and sees all the same baskets, but that wasn't the moment. It is the set-up for the moment.  I really wanted my daughter to experience the moment the crowd splits to reveal the "swordmaster" the same way I did when I was her age.  This moment captivated me as a kid.  The moment Harrison Ford shows Indiana's exhaustion for one more obstacle in this chase then reaches to his side to easily draw his pistol to eliminate the "swordmaster" who is swinging that sword around so dramatically, just caught me off guard with pleasure and theater fun. Who in the theater didn't laugh and clap?  

As the moment approached in the movie, I kept watching my daughter's face to see if she was following the tension of the chase as I had as a kid.  She smiled and rolled her eyes when he runs into the market with the hundreds of other baskets just like the one he was chasing with Marion in it.  She saw the humor in that, I thought.  I was on the edge of my seat as Indiana comes around the corner to the crowd splitting.  I saw her eyes focused on the opponent who was swinging the sword around so threateningly.  The moment I'd been waiting for, Indiana Jones reaches for his pistol and fires.  I held my breath as she smiled, chuckled, and started to laugh at the moment.  She looked at me to see me smiling and laughing right along with her.  Success!!!

I was relieved.  The movie had pleased her in that moment just as it had me at the same age.  I was so happy, that I sat and watched the rest of the film in complete satisfaction.  She enjoyed Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, just as I had.  

These are the moments that we parents look for when raising our children.  The moments we get to share; the moments that connect our past with the present through our children's experiences.  I am thankful for Indiana Jones and all the other stories that help to make those connections between generations.