Timely Tuesday Update Regarding Pending Announcement from Governor Whitmer...

The CCS school family has been getting a lot of updates and information these days. I hope they are a refreshing change of pace. They all have a purpose. This one is timely because of a pending annoucement from the Governor that has started considerable speculation. Please watch this video and remember who we are as a school, why we are staying our course, and why the weeks ahead are so important in that process. After watching the video, it may be encouraging to go to the CCS Blog and watch the music video that follows these same thoughts posted there. Our theme for this entire school-year since September has been "Never Alone." That was so providential! And these thoughts and the short video that follows it at the blog underscore that God is in control of these days and weeks, even as we must choose how we respond to them.

Watch the video from 3-16-20 which has been relocated to follow this post.

Be Still and Know That He Is God...

This was originally posted on March 15, then reposted to follow the March 31 updat.

I posted this video on the first day of "Quarantine" away from our building. It was sent only to our school family but it has been viewed by 3X as many people. Either that or people have chosen to watch it more than once. Either way, I trust the truth of the lyrics brings comfort even as the stillness of the halls and classrooms makes us sad. God be with you till we meet again.

Though the title on the video mentions Covid-19 Closure, beginning this week, I am using the term "Spring Session" when I communicate with parents and students. It is seasonally accurate, and my hope is that suggests a breath of fresh air from the daily news. 

"Soft Rain Saturday Morning"

On Saturday morning, March 28, 2020, I went out to get the mail (for the first time in several days) and saw large puddles everywhere. I had not heard the hard rain in the night, and now it was a very soft rain. I also noticed that mourning doves and song birds and cardinals and blue jays and crows were out in full chorus. It was as if spring had awakened, but I had not noticed until then. The calling birds and the soft rain immediately brought to mind Sara Teasdale's poem from 1918, "There Will Come Soft Rains." This video was also used to "kick start" Poetry Month (April) and a poetry unit in some of our literature classes. On the day it was posted, the on-line lesson plan in British Lit included Robert Burn's "To a Mouse," alluded to in the second half.

Teasdale's poem later inspired Ray Bradbury's classic sci-fi short story by the same name (1950), Both works serve as warnings that man's own actions will lead to his end, while non-human life will go one. (It's a premise for other fiction such as the Planet of the Apes franchise.) I contend, however, that whether by war or by virus, if the world as we know it is no longer inhabited by man, it will not be left to animals. God's plan for a new earth will not be altered from the metanarrative outlined in the Bible (creation, fall, redemption, restoration).

In Act III of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, Emily comes out of her "flashback" and asks the Stage Manager this question: “EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?" STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some.” Teasdale was a gifted poet, but her beautifully written lines reflect underscore a juxtaposition between "saints and poets" (maybe). That is to say, Teasdale's warning to her fellow man during the First World War makes the Darwinian assumption of "Nature's" protection of "fittest animals" while scripture tells "saints" quite the opposite about their Creator's attention and affection for man "made in His image. In Luke 12:6 and Matthew 6: 28, Jesus tells us clearly that while our Heavenly Father indeed takes care of birds who neither sow nor reap nor build barns, etc. that care is nothing compared to how He will take care of his children. These are the passages that inspired the old gospel song: "His Eye Is On the Sparrow." In the video, I also allude to Robert Burn's poem "To a Mouse" (1785) which reflects an understanding of of the Genisis mandate establishing man's dominion (Genisis 1:26 and 28) over the very creatures and trees that Teasdale imagines surviving after man is gone. It is the responsibility of that "dominion" that distinguishes the difference between the kind of cares that man has compared to the animal kingdom. Instinctive nesting, breeding, feeding, migration, etc. in the "Circle of Life" as the song says, is a marvel indeed, but it is quite different from the burdens of civilizations and the complexity of human coexistance. Man is prone to cares from our past and dread of future unknowns--especially when "the best laid plans of mice and men" do not pan out. (Or when viruses spread or travel plans halt or stock markets tumble or lay-offs loom large.)

It is for this reason that Christians take comfort in being able to "cast all our cares on Him" and songs like "His Eye Is On the Sparrow," which comes from Luke 12:6 and Matthew 6: 28. Keep that in mind as you watch the following:

Don't you love the freeze-frames that YouTube selects. So flattering...

The song "His Eye Is On the Sparrow" comes from Luke 12:6 and Matthew 6: 28. That well-known gospel song was written by Civillia D. Martin in 1905, thirteen years BEFORE Teasdale wrote her poem, and provides an encouraging contrast to "There Will Come Soft Rains."

Cabin Backstory: "God Uses Broken Things."

The first of the two videos in this post serves as an introduction to the second. It was one of what would become "Friday Updates," but at the time, we had been given the impression that schools would be allowed to re-open after the three-week closure to "flatten the curve." Who knew that it would be the beginning of several such efforts to keep in touch with our families through May.

This second video is for the CCS parents and older students who may be curious about the connection between the school and the cabin in our basement, but it is also a reminder that God uses broken things for His purposes. That would include broken school-years.

When we do our best to see things from God's perspective, we tend to think more creatively, we tend to see more than one purpose in a plan. The opening of the video list several examples from scripture of how God uses broken things. This cabin comes from "broken things."

I literally took this "cabin" from a trash bin nearly two decades ago, and for 18 years it was simply a "family room" of sorts, but on March 13, 2020, when schools acros the nation were temporarily closed to give "social distancing" a chance to slow or even stop the spread of Covid-19. That was when "The Cozy Little Cabin" became the place where Mrs. Kapanka (and guests?) began spending time with her class.
At the time of this post, the effectiveness of "social distancing" seemed to be having positive results, but just how effective our 15 days of isolation would be remained to be seen. The time involved to spend just few minutes (via video) with those we care about is a small reflection of the bond between teachers, students, and parents. One positive outcome of this isolation is that, ironically, we are seeing the non-school side each other. I've enjoyed that.

Video Update: March 21, 2020

This is the fourth update to our families since the national closure of schools, but it is the first "video" attempt. On Friday, March 20, 2020, the Michigan Department of Education caused confusion by saying that none of the efforts that had been implemented by teachers would count toward the school year. The full impact of that decision is non yet known, but CCS had been preparing this possibility two weeks before the official announcement. All teachers are equipped to "send" and all students have been equipped to "recieve" (about 20 laptops were made available to homes that needed them, and internet was provided to any family without it). We have confidence in the plans and the merit of these efforts.

Imago Dei: Creative Man and the Creator God

What does it mean to be “creative”? When discussing this topic  with young writers through the years, I always began with the obvious:

For those who believe in the Creator and in the Genesis account that says man was created in God’s image, the ability to create and the inclination to make something from nothing* is indeed part of what it means to be made in the image of God… to be creative. For those who do not believe man was created in the image of Creator God, this is nonetheless true but much less understood. 

In this sense, creativity is unique to humans because, of all created living things, only humans were created in the image of God. This notion is offensive to those who cannot grasp the idea of Creation or the personhood of a Creator… those who have chosen to believe instead that all of what we see  just “evolved” over billions of years and that humans are mere animals themselves--slightly more evolved, perhaps, but no different in nature from a mouse or a magpie. Such people are quick to tell us that these thoughts on “creativity” are arrogant. They might argue that it is just as creative for a bird to build a nest or a beaver to build a dam or a bee to form a honeycomb than anything man has ever “created.”

[Click on images to enlarge.]

I would agree that the creative achievements of all creatures great and small in nature are indeed wondrous and they reflect a wonderful Creator. The difference between man and birds and beavers and bees, however, is that we can talk about all three of those creatures and their instinctive creations. We can discuss them in both abstract and concrete terms. We can even draw parallels between their work and our own. "Go to the ant, you sluggard."

Artistically, we can re-create the concepts of this created world in poetry as Robert Frost did, then illustrate it in a picture or a painting as Audubon did; we can bind the poetry into books and shelve them with a thousand other books that agree and disagree. We can frame  the paintings and house them in grand museums and galleries full of man’s reflective work of external observable creation—and on the same walls can also hang the more abstract works generated by more modern minds that reject the notion of a Creator and any meaning of life bestowed to those who believe it. 

We can even create entertaining stories and films that create an alternate world in which animals act and think like human beings.(Anthropomorphism is what morphed Disney from an artist to an industry: “It all started with a mouse.”) 

Gifted Creativity can reflect reality as well as an imaginary world. It is man's ability to study the variety of bird nests, and to write about them and paint them that sets the creativity of John James Audubon apart from the amazing animals in the kingdom he studied. 

In the literary world, creativity fuels the ability to better understand the human condition as seen through the writings of humans themselves since the beginning of written words.  In the fields of "creative arts" this god-like attribute can be seen in theater, fashion, jewelry, architecture, photography, cinematography, and music as beautifully blended in the last scene of The Elephant Man, a film that uses one man's grotesque deformity to show the best and worst of supposedly "normal" society. For most of the film John [Joseph] Merrick is abused as a circus freak and gawked at by a society entertained by grusome things, but in the latter part of the movie he is exposed to all things "creative" and even begins to build a model of a nearby cathedral even though he can only see the steeple from his room. "I have to imagine the rest," he tells his friend. It is a statement that speaks to the essence of creativity which is inseparably linked to the power of imagination. 

In the truest sense, I am neither a theologian nor a scientist, but the connection between man's creativity and His Creator seems plainly clear to me, and all deviations from this understanding stem from the same creative thinking man is blessed with... even when he chooses to ignore the origin of his creativity.

Jonathan Edwards was both a theologian and a scientist, but not until he became a believer did he see the wonder of creation. He was noted for his study of spiders and thunderstorms. Spider webs amaze me in both form and function, but they fit into the list mentioned earlier of things like nests and honeycombs. Instinctively gifted displays of natures but made by limited creatures unable to see the big picture of creation itself--unless through  anthropomorphic tales like Charlotte's Web--a favorite of mine. It is in the creativity of its author E.B. White, and the illustrator, Garth Williams, of his first edition, and the artists at Hanna-Barbera who put the story in animation, and Joseph Robinette who put it on stage(a production I have enjoyed directing twice in a previous life), and then the story was put beautifully on the big screen in 2006, which gave birth to the beautiful song "Ordinary Miracle."  It is in the poetry of that song and the prose of White's tale of the scrificial love of a friend (as in "no greater love than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.") and the human gift of being able to "imagine" such meanings through "story" that set man's creativity apart from that of a spider who can actually make a web.

And that, I believe, is part of what it means to be created in the image of God. It goes beyond intellect, beyond the five senses alone, to something much deeper in the human experience, and that "something deeper" is what sets us apart from the animal world. Even the very rambling of this paragraph reflects something that sets us apart, whatever that "something" is about man that makes us wonder about things far beyond the shelter of a nest or next meal in the web.

You might be thinking: "But I'm not creative. I'm a farmer; I'm a mechanic; I'm a truck driver; I'm an administrative assitant; I'm a nurse, etc. I can't draw or write or sing..." Let's think about that for a moment. Let's not limit creativity to the arts. I cannot think of a profession that does not reflect some level of "problem solving" that demonstrates the human capacity to think beyond basic animal needs. The way a farmer can tighten a fence with a stick. (My father-in-law calls that an "Oscar Stevens" because his farmer-neighbor did it often.) There are similar creative tricks in nearly every trade.


Are all people equally creative? Clearly not. Are all people who are creative equally gifted? Clearly not. Am I a creative writer? Sometimes, and what is it about the way my mind works--especially when my thoughts are fertile for writing--that makes me feel at home in that category? It can be both a blessing and a curse, but in writing I believe creativity is dependent on one's ability to be an associative thinker. As explained in Psychology Today:

“Associative thinking occurs when all avenues are open in your brain and your mind, and you allow your mind to … automatically link up ideas, thoughts, observations, sensory input, memory of existing knowledge, and your subconscious. Rather than relying solely on what you know or have observed …you allow any and all thoughts to arise, which helps your brain’s neurons to spark and connect in unique ways….”

“….what drives the need to create is not creative ability per se, but rather a tendency toward self-reflective pondering and the ability and penchant for letting your mind wander (daydreaming, as an example), in which all thoughts are welcome…. the need to create is associated with having thoughts that interrupt one’s ordinary stream of consciousness and that are seen as welcome rather than interfering.”

As I mentioned, the penchants described above are both a blessing and a curse. The first twenty years of my career, I taught literature, writing, and participated heavily in performing arts. Yet even in those years, if you tracked down any of my students or cast-members, they would clearly remember me as a teacher who enjoyed "associative thinking" even while lecturing. To me, "rabbit trails" were not an interference from teaching but fascinating applications of any given lesson plan because letting "way lead on to way" (Frost, "The Road Not Taken") brings texture and dimension to otherwise flat information. The second twenty years of my career has been in school administration, and still this penchant plays a part in most of my writing and communication. 

Nearly everything I write is a blend of memory, faith, and familiar literature (from my teaching years). There are those who find it fascinating and those who find it frustrating. I have come to understand it as neither madness nor genious but simply the way God wired my mind.  Those wired similarly understand me better than those less so. I cannot be all things to all people, but through the years, I have been blessed by the kind words of others who enjoy my "metaphor and meaning and endless patterns of ink."

Tom Kapanka

***************

*Creating Ex Nihilo (from nothing) is a power reserved only to Creator God, but man's desire to create something concrete (tangible, literal, enduring) from something abstract (conceptual, figurative, ephemeral) is what I mean by "creating something from nothing."

Tips on handling groceries and carry out....

Dear CCS Family,

I do not know this physician who serves in GR, but he is active in the daily processes we are all facing, and he is also delivering groceries to his 70-year-old parents each week. 

His protocols may seem a bit extreme, but watching this short video will help you adopt "best practice" for your own home. Many of us have already begun having groceries delivered to our home, and this video answered some of my own questions about that process.

Three practical things that we can all take away from this video: 

1. Think of the virus as "glitter" that you don't want in your house. That is a good word picture. 

2. Know the "life span" of the virus on various materials (which makes "paper or plastic" at check out a whole new question. Sounds like paper has a shorter "virus life" than plastic.

3. Microwaving is helpful in "killing" the virus (and freezers do not kill it). There were many other good points in this video. Consider this doctor's experience and his real daily routines with his parents. It makes sense to us. Do the best you can....

FYI...ACSI...ESO...FOR...CCS

The name of this blog implies the foundational nature of topics we address here. Most home-owners have never seen the foundation of their house. It’s deep underground, and if all goes well--if it’s holding firm--you don’t think much about it. When building a house, you “begin with” that unseen foundation. The same is true with a school.

In Matthew 7, Jesus is wrapping up the “Sermon on the Mount,” which outlines foundational truths for Christ followers, and He reminds His large audience that heeding these truths will make them like the “wise man who built his house on the rock.” Later in the 22^nd chapter of Matthew, Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment (of the 10). His answer reflects first man’s need for a vertical relationship (love God) and second for lateral relationships (love people).

These thoughts came to mind last August (2019) when a committee met as part of our ACSI accreditation process. Shelley Watkins has played a key role in five accreditation and re-accreditation processes since 1998. She led the meeting. The topic? ACSI had asked us to outline ESO’s for CCS. Wait. What?

Like all industries, education thrives on cycles of jargon. ESO’s are Expected Student Outcomes. ACSI is asking its accredited schools to describe what their graduates would ideally “be like” after spending formative years in their program.

We looked at some samples from other ACSI schools, and we agreed with most of their “outcomes,” but our group also felt like the lists were a bit random and over-complicated. So we posed this question: Shouldn’t our ESO’s reflect the way Jesus himself summed up all His teachings? In other words, if Christian education is built upon “the solid Rock,” won’t our “outcomes” reflect first a spiritual/vertical relationship with God? And secondly, won’t it sharpen human interactions? In fact, don’t all other “learning” categories simply maximize the loving, respectful ways we interact with our world and those with whom we share it? (Science, language, math, the arts, etc.. Do not these disciplines help us better love and serve others?) Once we agreed on this foundational premise, the ESOs fell into two distinct categories.

Does having published ESO’s mean that all CCS graduates will be cookie-cutter models of those outcomes? Of course not. Education is a process not a product. CCS is a life-prep setting not an assembly line. This is especially true of spiritual matters, and much of the New Testament underscores the steps of spiritual maturation and the fact that we all fall short in that process. Those same pages, however, do tell us “by their fruits you will know them,” and what is fruit but the “expected outcome” of being part of the Vine. (John 15:5). Even so, we realize that Biblical ESO’s are not earned like merit badges; they are focal points that we strive toward in our K-12 program. We define success as helping each student to grow and make progress in the pursuit of God’s purpose for their lives. (Proverbs 27:17)

Click Here to see the full Expected Student Outcomes document.

When Weeping Falls Like Rain

Sometimes…

It takes the hottest tears

to melt the coldest pain.

That salty drip upon the lip

is savored not in vain...

It sometimes takes the sorrow

that blurs the eyes with grief

to help us taste tomorrow

and hope of sweet relief.

It's only when our weeping

falls like rain upon our face

--that our aching, outstretched arms

can feel the Savior's warm embrace.

Heartstrings and Heartache: 
The Meaning of  "Dismayed"

Two weeks ago, we had a wonderful 40th Anniversary Banquet. In preparation for some brief remarks about our theme verse: I Chronicles 28:20,  I was thinking about the phrase “...do not be afraid neither be dismayed...”, and I wondered what the difference between those two words was. We sometimes fear things that we know to fear and we can  also fear "the unknown," but what does it mean to be "dismayed"? 

I looked it up, and while being dismayed is similar to being afraid, it happens when we're caught off guard and at are a loss for what to do.  One cannot be dismayed in advance. Whatever it is that dismays us, we never see it coming.  Life is like that sometimes. "Sometimes a plank in the bridge gives way... and we who tread are frozen fast with fear."  I chose not to include these thoughts about "dismayed" in my remarks at the banquet, but they came back to me a few days later... and I needed them. 

On Monday afternoon, our family received some news of a serious nature from my second daughter who is mid-term in her second pregnancy. (It's a boy. Due in March. We had the "reveal" party just three weeks ago.) I will not go into details, but the discovery came during a routine doctor's visit when she was alone. That made it much harder. The doctor called for an immediate follow up visit two days later with father and mother and doctors and surgeons and counselors. Those difficult sessions would come on Wednesday.

At my Tuesday morning teachers, the morning after we learned the news, I was not yet at liberty to tell any of this to our teachers. I chose to share my unused thoughts about the "dismayed" from our theme verse. I knew if I explained why, I might break. It has happened before, and everyone understands, but I could not yet be that transparent. As I looked across the chapel, eyes met with each teacher as I spoke, I thought back over the many years I have spent with with this group since 2000, and I recalled the many times when we have collectively and individually been dismayed by unexpected trials to difficult to talk about in real time. I paused, took a breath, and moved on to the second part of the verse: "...neither be dismayed, for the LORD God, even my God is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you..." And on that positive note, we each began our days at Calvary.

But later that afternoon, in the quiet of my office, I inadvertently slipped back into "dismayed mode." I wrote a note to a prayer partner that ended with: "There is a lot of information for them [my daughter and her husband] to process. One of the options the doctors presented is not option for them at all (and yet by law it must be presented). Yet even from a firmly "pro-life" position, the strain between facts and faith is deep--the tension between the mind and heartstrings takes time to tune." The next morning the word-picture about heartstrings crystallized into these lines.

Heartstrings

Sometimes the tension

between the heart

and the head…

strains beyond

what string can bear.

The tie that binds

is stretched like gut

across the frets—

too tight to tune

the anguished cry

of twisted  time.

But just when it seems

the strand will snap,

there comes a turn

that trues the tone

into a steady note

played soft and low

by the gentle stroke

of God’s almighty hand.

© Tom Kapanka 

I should clarify that the original draft written the day before the Wednesday visit ended with "...The gut is drawn / outstretched on frets / and fear the strand / will break / before a single note / is played."  Before the second consultation, the doctors provided little hope, but on Wednesday, once the non-option was again presented by counselors and again taken off the table by the parents, the focus turned to a plan of action--a difficult plan to be sure--but one that has been successfully done upon birth. It gave them and all the family reason to hope and brought specificity to our prayers. Mostly this news has provided more frequent moments of peace as God works His will in this situation.

Note: There are 19 lines in this piece, and the first 13 show the stress that comes when we are dismayed. Words like "tension," "strains," "bear," "binds," "stretched," "gut," "fret," "twisted," and "snap" depict the human anguish that results from ignoring the rest of the verse: for the LORD God, even my God is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you..." Gut (our deepest sense of being) refers to both the visceral feeling we experience during stress but also the fact that for thousands of years stringed instruments were made from animal intestines. (It's still true today.)

Likewise, the word "fret" has two very different meanings. First it means debilitating worry ("Don't fret about it"), but it is also a part on some stringed instruments ( especially guitars ) that bring certainty to the pitch and tone of a note. Only in the last six lines comes a "turn" of trust... toward faith (like the turn of tuning peg on a guitar) that changes the meaningless screech of stress and the "fret" of worry to the clear tone of certainty that comes when we stop fretting and become instruments in God's hands. It's true that strings must be drawn tight to create a clear tone, but the difference between heartache and harmony comes in knowing we are never forsaken.

It may seem strange that I would write during such a time. We all cope in different ways. I write mostly to myself as the header of this blog suggests.

Taken As A Child

I first wrote a post on this topic in 2008 at a blog called Patterns of Ink (click link),

It's no secret that I tend to be a bit nostalgic--especially when it rains, and it's been a volley of drizzle and downpour all day.

I had an unusual request this morning.

There is a "bug" going around our halls, and each day we are seeing a few absences. Until today, it has not taken a teacher, but this morning our secretary told me our music teacher was home with the bug and asked me if I could think of a worthwhile "educational video" to show to three music classes. We don't typically like to "fill" with "filler" when "filling in," but with an active class like vocal music, it is sometimes the best option--especially when a great title comes to mind that is just the right length. So I searched on line and was happy to find what I was looking for here: The Red Balloon.

I was first taken as a child by this short film in 1962. It was a first at many levels: I was in first grade; it was my first "school-wide assembly" at Huron Park Grammar School in Roseville, Michigan; it was my first glimpse of Paris; it was the first time I identified so thoroughly with an on-screen character. It was in that sense that I was taken by the film.

As we made arrangements to show the film in the chapel to our vocal music classes (upper elementary, middle school, and yes, even high school), I had to wonder: would this simple film still hold an audience fifty-five years after I first enjoyed it? A lot has happened in those fifty-five years: a president was assassinated; color TV came; the internet engulfed us;the Cold War thawed; Y2K came and went, 9-11 broke our hearts, "smart phones" stole our minds, and flat TVs hang on our walls like a picture of Aunt Millie.... after so much change, could a foreign film about a boy and a balloon still capture the imagination of 21st Century kids?

The answer is yes. It did, and it made me smile to watch it happen through the chapel window.

Was it every student's favorite movie ever? Probably not. But I peeked in on each class and they were enjoying it at a quaint level not often observed nowadays. They were amused at the funny parts, and sad at the sad part, and impressed by the surprise ending when the little boy is taken as a child for the ride of his life.

The true test, I suppose, is whether or not any of the 100+ students who watched "The Red Balloon" today at Calvary Christian Schools will remember it in fifty-five years--in the year 2064--as I and many baby-boomers my age do.
..........
One week after posting this, I saw this Mazda commercial during a Michigan football game. It is the first obvious hat-tip to this classic film that I have ever noticed in pop culture.

Nothing Better to Do: The Power of Dull Moments

From far away the strange sound came—

like the drone of distant dragonflies,

but we knew that couldn’t be.

Louder and nearer it grew

as three approaching bikes on the sidewalk  

flashed in the dappled shade of elms.

Slowly the riders came into view—

unknown boys with peddling feet

and blowing hair and happy smiles,

amazed at the speed of their “motor bikes”

powered not by pistons nor pumping legs, it seemed, 

but by the sound of something roaring in their wheels.

As the three bikes passed, we saw

the secret of that summer day

was a Jack and a Queen and an Ace of Spades

flapping ‘gainst their spinning spokes.

Just playing cards from some abandoned deck

fastened to the fender brace

with clothes pins from the line.

But what a wondrous sound!

What joy to know that bikes gained speed

when motorized with cards and clothes pins—

and better yet to know with certainty

that all around the block those first to try

this feat met not one mocking laugh

but rather awe from youthful eyes of admiration.

"We could do that!" We said amazed as if
it were the answer to the question of the day.

Soon the sound was everywhere

from other boys on other bikes

whose coming and going and jumping of curbs

would last for days and weeks on end

but not for years it seems,,,

for it has been a lifetime since 

I’ve heard that sound of cards on spokes...

And years, I fear, since youth have looked for fun
made not by Mattel...
and powered not by batteries...

but by the pent-up energy of dull moments
and the sweet imagination of a summer day…

with nothing better to do.

These lines are a first draft,  but I wanted to post them before I forgot the image and memory. They are triggered by two passing bikes of boys at a campground. They had empty water bottles wedged on the front fork and rubbing on the tire. It was quite a different sound than cards flapping against spikes, but it was a similar idea, and it made me laugh because I’d forgotten about the cards. I was happy to see kids being kids—but keep in mind: these were not random kids; they were children of parents who go camping. That alone gives them an edge and makes their childhood slightly more like mine.

Here is a clip of my grandson who, like me at his age, found the sound a great addition to an otherwise quiet ride at the campground.

The reference to Mattel is a hat tip to their battery-operated “Varoom” motor that mounted to the frame for kids whose parents had money and no imagination. Today’s children of course know nothing about “Varoom” motors (which at least encouraged riding the bike outside), but I used it as a metaphor for “screen-time” and all the other distractions that keep kids indoors with “something to do.”

Our bikes were not the “Stingray” style of the early 60s that forever changed the look of bikes. (It would be years before we could save the money for a Schwinn “Typhoon” and many more years before demand for 10-speeds outpaced supply.) No. Our early bikes were old hand-me-downs from the 1940s brought to life by cards and clothespins.

It may take a century to know what we've lost from childhood's past. "Screen-time?" Oh, we watched our share of TV in the 60s--it was from the TV screen we borrowed scripts for countless hours of outside swashbuckling play. Screen-time today, however, takes the place of play itself. It's in that sense that it may take a generation or two to assess the creativity, motor skills, and work ethic our culture has lost from having fewer kids with nothing better to do... nothing better but to think...and wonder....and create good wholesome fun from the resources within their reach.
See “The Virtue of Reality” at POI.