Day Four Summer 2010 - On Holiday

Yesterday was a very good day that started with some strong coffee that Joe knows I like after being here last year with his usual weak stuff. Then I got to ride on the Virginia Creeper Trail, an old railroad bed with the tracks removed and cinders and such put down for a trail for walkers, jokers, bikers and horses. It passes by beautiful rivers girgling, cut away rock faces, sheer drop offs to one side and rising mountains to the other, an occasional open field and a small town, a golf course, and people’s homes fortunate enough to settle by the tranquility.







I met a couple from England on holiday, as they say, at the beginning. They wanted to know all about Red and in the process said their son biked across the country when he was 17 (now 41) in six weeks and was very impressed by the hospitality. I wonder how it would be now.

I went ten miles up the trail and stopped for a moment by the river and listened to its gentle voice

(push play, set on repeat, close your eyes and enjoy as long as you want)
and saw the home of two riders who went by me on mountain bikes.


They had a split-level with gardens and porches. A beautiful spot. The slightly up return was a bit of a challenge but no too bad especially in the cool. At one point I had to unclip because a group was walking horses across the bridge. I commented on how the bridges were a good release point for horse biscuits and one of the riders said,

“Yes, they (the bridges) scare the s--- out of them.”
I said they do me too.

I had lunch with my buddy, Joe, the interim associate dean of something at Emory and Henry, a mini-majestic, secluded little Methodist school with red brick building and walkways and bustling with Suzuki camp kids. We ate at the deli and had Reubens, my favorite sandwich and we walked back to his office and I realized I did not have my POC (cell phone – piece of crap). I went back to look and it was not on the table. Somebody suggested calling it to see if it vibrated – no luck. The waitress was going to look in the trash and I left thinking I dropped it. I got across the street and she came running out saying, “Sir, it was in the trash.” I guess the trash vibrated. My POC saved once again.

The rest of day and evening were totally relaxing and involved some replenishing fluids and a wonderful supper with broccoli salad and chicken and rice prepared by Betty, Joe's bride, who is a great cook. Life is good.


Betty getting ready to hike in 90 degree heat and Joe getting ready to work in the AC.

And I burned some more of The Brief History of Nearly Everything (which is not so brief – so far 7 CDs and I have the third part yet to burn) for my long travel day of 11 plus hours coming up this Saturday.

Enjoy the ride.

Crossing the Bridge

Day Three Summer 2010 - I Aint Nothing

I got in another great ride this time 9.4 miles without a break and up the hard hill at 5 and even 5.5 at times but at the top the shade magnet pulled me right off the bike. I tried to steer it around the bend toward the bridge but just could not. I did not get out of the left foot lock in and went down on the soft cool grass. Time for a water break. Then to the bridge and father's day text to kids and back down the hill and half way up another long one at 12.5 I decided to call it a day.

I turned in and this old man - I use the term relatively - drove up - it was his drive and he offered water and a ride back home. Life is good. He referred to the rich folks high up on the hill across from him as monkeys and rued the fact they got power a week earlier than him after the storm and suddenly gave the line of the day, "I get so D-&-&-! tired of these politicians. I used to be a good Republican but now I aint nothing." That pretty well sums up the political pulse of the country now.

I showed up just in time for father's day dinner. It was my first in quite some years.



Then I traveled 5.5 hours to see my friend Joe in Abingdon and have several good long, conversations on the phone that broke up the monotony of the broken white lines.


And here is mom.

Day Two Summer 2010 - Red Rides Again

I set two new records yesterday – the slowest I have ever been 4.5 mph up a very long hill and 36.6 down that same hill. What a rush of a ride up – and I do emphasize up - Highway 96 to the Natchez Trace Bridge.



I stopped along the way because my water bottle malfunctioned and I was facing a very long hill.
I stopped in a beautiful place




and the guy came out and shared cool spring water and stories about science. He studied physical chemistry at Florida State under a nobel prize winner that discovered Bucky Balls. He also knew Paul Dirac and did not understand anything he said like most everyone else that hears about quantum mechanics. I asked for a photo with his cool mountain beard but he declined – that is fine – I always ask.

I made it to the bridge that I have crossed in all three of my motorcycles and filmed as I went across in one. I did the same on Red but pushed the record button too many times on the first crossing and had to do record on the second trip.


While stopped at the majestic site that I have photographed many times (when in Southern California once a relative took us to see this awesome bridge and it was identical to this one)



I met two motorcycle riders, Hal and Bill.




We shared some lies. Hal is an engineer semi-retired that designs software for fire safety (www.hrssystems.com). Bill was an airplane mechanic who saw Chuck Yeager’s plane the day before he broke the sound barrier.

It was a 102 heat index yesterday and I had been 10 plus miles so when I got the bottom of the hill I called mom to come and get me. I could have made it back but I did not want to be macho today. As I waited I found a cute little leaf roller.



After shower and rest we had a family dinner at Cracker Barrel where my mom and dad and brother eat every Saturday and ask for Donnie to be their waiter. This day he had three more – me, my sister and her husband.



A very good day two and was glad to see I still had my bike legs even in the heat after a two week lay – off. Bring on the Virginia and West Virginia mountains, I think.

P.S. Happy Father's Day, Pop

Number One Fan of my blog and life

Day One Summer 2010 What Difference a Week Makes

Farewell to my oasis south

I got off at 10:10 and without drama or fanfare made it to Carthage and found the police station off of 35 by feel not direction and as I walked up there he was. Vince Carter the officer who just a week earlier had stopped me for going 60 in a 45 on the Highway 45 that led to the interstate. He seemed almost glad to see me because he was getting cussed at my a man who said something about if you protect her you are wrong and on and on and finally he left threateningly. I on the other hand was very cordial.

Last Thursday he took forever and I wondered what in the world he was doing and when he finally made it back to the car and I was going to be so late for my 10:00 with my caterpillar expert at MSU, he looked at me with that stern officer look and said,”Sir, your license is suspended.” What I queried. He said you remember getting a ticket in Alabama July of 09. Yes. You never paid the ticket, and they suspended your license. (for more on that day).

And on it went and the end result was he kept my license and told me if I got my reinstatement and brought it to him he would give me back my license and tear up the ticket for driving with a suspended license that will save you some money but the other one will stick!.

After much drama I now had my reinstatement certificate and showed it to him. He asked the clerk to check if my license had been reinstated – she did and said no. I said what and thought worst than that. He read the certificate out loud and he said clearly my driving privileges had been reinstated. I thought Millicent with the beautiful smile and how she had been so kind on both occasions at the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. I even told her the last time that the people of Mississippi were lucky. She did not understand. I said they are lucky because they get to look at you and your beautiful smile. Apparently I flustered her so that she did not reinstate me on the computer – oh well.

Officer now friendly went to the back where I could not even go to the bathroom and came back this time and had her run it again and all was good. He said now he was going to help me on BOTH tickets. God is good. As we were leaving I asked about my license and he said oh yeah. He went to his car and retrieved it and I asked if I could take his picture and he said sure and he stood with his chest poked out with pride and here he is:



Thank you what a difference a week makes.

So this is how my journey of three weeks begins. An auspicious start.

I picked up the trace in Kosciusko after passing the huge Tyson plant outside Carthage and lots of tiny towns with the city limits on both sides of the same pole and stopped at one of my favorite little place with the Rainwater Observatory at French Camp and had lunch at the Council House. I got smart and ordered the small broccoli salad this time the big one is huge and went to get Benita out of the back of the truck – she was good and hot by now and sat her beside me at the lunch table.




She was a hit the four man crew that was bushhogging a plant down the road were fascinated with her. We told snake stories and motorcycle stories (I told them about not having my motorcycle on this trip and I road with my windows down in honor of the only thing I ever loved – Blue2). Two of the guys just had to touch her and Benita cut her eyes up at them. It was great fun to see the interaction and interconnection of all your creatures.



Another customer came by and had to give Benita some love as well. When I said something about the Geometrid - she said we call the inch worms and her hubby said we used to say when one landed on your shirt that meant you were going to get a new one. As if that were not enough a geometrid (inch worm) caterpillar dropped down from a tree overhead and I put her on the table. The boss guy said it was a stick and I said that was the defense and when I prodded her this is was the “stick” did:



She caught Benita’s attention but she was not interested in eating her - maybe she was just enjoying the dance as was I.


Back to work

I also met a granddad with his grandson (he had to go through the whole list of his grandkids to remember his name) and got a shot of them on his vintage Honda Shadow 2001 (it was a 750 not a 1100 like my Blue1).



And an old guy who made a smart remark about my long water bottle (Smart Water that my son says is used to make Crystal Meth) and also said when gas went to 4.00 a gallon he said they could keep the gas and he got a recumbent too.



I stopped in Tupelo for gas and off the trace the temperature seemed to increase to 100.

I drove on gladly back on the trace and off the hot highway interstates to a sleepy little town where I had toured with my motorcycle before. I went into Pucketts a great restaurant and could just taste the Yeungling on tap when she said they were having a private party and I could not order.

So I went across the street and this is how I was greeted:



And there no Yeungling but it was two for one so life was good. And the turnip greens and mashed potatoes with the skins and shrimp gumbo and cornbread were scrumpious. And I met Pat and Connie who went to my trunk across the street to see Benita and Red (my recumbent) and came back with lots of questions about both. They have a solar home in the woods outside the Loretta Lynn exit. I knew they were cool because when I first came up and was telling about being from Mississippi he said the was in Meridian once and asked where they could have some debauchery and the clerk said he did not know what that was but was pretty sure they did not have any of that there.

I made it to my parents in Franklin at 7:45 or so and they were having a pizza and delighted to see me and me them. Mom got the present of a whole crate of laundry and gladly took it on. I got to share with them about my new life (maybe more on that later) and she had my favorite ice cream (Breyers Cherry Vanilla) and two tumblers of that with milk and to bed and good rest after a great first day.

Everyone Needs An Oasis

And I have one and am blessed. When I am there I am a part of the oneness of all things living and non-living.

I think it was one of my Earthwatch Friends, whom I affectionately call Designer Girl aka Kathy G who teaches second graders in New Jersey (at least for now as she suffers through the Christie budget wars along with other dedicated teachers across the country) who first coined the term for my place between my classroom and greenhouse, oasis.
It is such an apt term.

When my life is dry and desert like, I can go to the oasis where there is water in the pond and drink cool water in my now new handcrafted metal patio chairs at the companion table shaded with a new blue patio umbrella. When the students are hormonally challenged or intrinsically unmotivated, I can retreat to the oasis and get renewed to enter the fray once again to challenge and to motivate and maybe even inspire academic inquiry and excellence in a world that increasingly devalues such things.

And like yesterday I can ride my new recumbent bike 22.6 miles and park it under the green ash tree at the entrance of the oasis and walk up the concrete path lined with rain collection barrels and marigolds and azaleas and two bushes with purple leaves whose name escapes me now on one side and climbing roses (given by the same friends who gave us Hero and Eduardo) and tomatoes and egg plants (started in the green house) and more marigolds and milkweeds (started in the greenhouse by one student and planted by another to provide sustenance for monarch butterflies) and more marigolds on the other.



And when I get to the oasis I heard a splash in the pond right after I spotted a frog resting on the new lily pad in the pond and thought how pleasant it is “for you to greet me here on a Saturday morning.” I sat and drank cool water awhile before going inside and greeting Benita, the bearded dragon, who is going through a no eating spell and Eduardo, who survived the Thursday “flood” in his space shared by the flower press operation in the classroom and greenhouse walkthrough and had to have new quarters in the classroom until the waters receded, and of all things see Mojo, our first hamster who was donated by Quaneckqua in Eighth Block Introduction to Biology, back in his cage (he had been on the lam for two weeks and kids kept inquiring about him and I left his cage on the floor with the door open and the “light” on like Motel 6 and just like that he was back as if nothing happened – now he is back on rodent row with Hero, the gerbil, and Mo, the one eyed hamster donated by Pet smart), and feed the fish who tested by biological tolerance on Thursday when I had to leave the poop filled filter in the sink to be cleaned on Friday morning during my conference period since I had no hot water from the microwave since the storm knocked out our power.

As I wrote initially, everyone needs an oasis.

And after getting the nine weeks test finally completed after letting other things get in its way earlier, I came back to the oasis for lunch (my usual lean cuisine heated in the now functioning microwave) and was greeted with new visitors. One was the green anole lizard caught in the classroom on Thursday by Courtney after another student spotted him in the windowsill. I showed the slide by one of my seniors who had mistakenly put him on his amphibian slide show and followed his internet citation to the specifics of his range and my students added “and in Mr. Banks’ classroom” with great pride. They wanted to keep him but I insisted that we let him go in the oasis


since I had spotted him there with his companion on earlier retreats. And there he was on the brick wall bulging out his bright red throat to impress his mate or ward off predators and skittered behind the now rejuvenating pampas grass. It was not much longer until his mate skittered by as well. And then to my great surprise a hummingbird found his wave over the top of the walkthrough and went to the feeder that had been there for almost three weeks and checked it out and flew off. I despaired that she would not return. Not to worry, hummingbirds along with lizards and frogs and the three new goldfish in the pond and tired biology profs need an oasis. She returned not too long later and sipped from all four stations of the bought feeder and ignored for now the homemade feeder by one of my seniors, Mia.

She made one more visit during my sojourn.

As this school year unwinds and as I go through other transitions, I will call on the oasis not infrequently for connection to the oneness of all, living and non-living, named and unnamed, motivated and to be motivated, dead and alive, hopeful and to be hopeful.

Everyone needs an oasis I pondered on my return trip in the blazing Saturday heat where I forgot sunscreen for my white now red chicken legs. They will need the oasis, too, as well as the rest of me and all things, great and small.

Edquardo and Every Living Thing Are Welcome Here

Greg brings in Edquardo from my truck and lets me use his phone for a picture.



He joined our classroom community, which really extends to the whole school on Thursday. I looked up at break and there were thirty kids in my room giving him a greeting and the office staff, janitors and other teachers trickled in all day to meet him. Thank you, Edquardo, for helping me realize once again my mission to enjoy the wonders of this world and share them with others. I may be able to teach more content and influence more high achieving students in another school but nowhere on this earth could I have more fun than here at Velma Jackson where:


• One of my promise kids actually took up my challenge and sent an email to me to express interest in a weeklong summer camp (where I have been offered a scholarship for someone just like her)
• A student who failed my biology class last year brought 18 farm fresh eggs from her grandmother for the cookies I bake each day
• A shy big kid slips me a note to order five of those same cookies (chocolate chip) 4 2 morrow
• One student from my most rambunctious class who would not even listen long enough one day to hear about putting Lady down heard from another class who did listen and stopped me in the hall to say how sorry he was
• Another student fusses at me each day I do not get there early enough for her to check the rain gauge to enter onto the national network (www.cocorahs.org)
• Another student is making an artistic card to thank the Minks for donating Edquardo and needed another day to get it just right
• A star football player who has a great eye for spotting caterpillars helped plant planters for the nature trail and talked about how much he loved working in the greenhouse and wishing he had known this in middle school
• That same student is also one of the best caretakers for Benita (and kept her at his home over the spring break while I enjoyed my “eight days”)
• The Velma Jackson Foundation awarded me a grant to purchase two beautiful blue pots with golden bloom euryops plants to embrace the greenhouse entrance and begin and end the nature trail for which they awarded me another grant



• The 1.5 miles plus 117 meter nature trail around the campus will have beautiful planter boxes with different flowers carefully selected by me and my botanical consultant, Cindy Lu, at Home Depot at each 400 m (about quarter mile) mark on the trail
• Kids carefully put earthworms from the soil tended and tilled for flowers and vegetables around the oasis into little cups to be put into earthworm farm
• Students painstakingly gather flowers from the greenhouse and put them in the flower press to later be put on bookmarks that are given to each new classroom visitor
• Students grew tomatoes from seed and sold them in 1.00 and 2.00 varieties to their grandmothers, teachers and community members to total about $75.00 to purchase more potting soil and plants for the greenhouse and oasis



Grandmother will like these.



Mr. Cotten, our attendance officer, makes his selection.

• Students carefully pitchfork compost from old plants and pots and a star baseball player digs a posthole and sets a recycled post from the Dwelling Place and another puts up a lattice screen to soften it from my old dog enclosure



• Students design and put together hot air balloons from tissue paper and launch them from the front lawn of the school with great enthusiasm and then sit attentively (for a change) to learn about Archimedes and his principle that describes buoyancy of balloons and little rubber duckies in the bathtub and pseudo-gold Eureka crowns . .
• Students worry me to death about when we will have our next science club meeting and field trip
• Students still wear their DNA bracelets with the three bead tRNA codons match the letters of their name on their wrist weeks after we completed that unit
(http://www.genomicseducation.ca/educationResources/activities/)

This is where I live and move and have my being as a teacher confirmed and see quite to my joy one of my best academic students getting her hands dirty and planting merigold, milkweeds grown from seed by another one of my students (who almost threw away his senior year because of an impulsive fight), and zinnias and bachelor buttons.



Signing off to go to get energized at Wells and then to water the plants and feed the animals and every other new flora and fauna that is welcomed into the VJ fold.

Letting Lady Go

Another first last week - I took our Shelty to the vet to have her put down. She had been with us for fifteen years, and she was the smartest dog I have ever been around. In the photo it is like she is saying farewell and thank you for a good life.

She had been leaving spots of blood all over the house and the doc had said it was probably bladder cancer last Saturday. He gave her a round of antibiotics just in case. They did not work, and I planned to take her in Thursday after school. The principal wanted me to be at the faculty meeting with the superintendent (where he told us we would probably take a 2000 dollar pay cut next year). Not a good day overall.

I decided to take her the next morning and asked for permission to be a little late for school. It turned out to be okay because Lady and I got to walk together and she had to be awakened with me putting the lease around her neck to go to the vet. All the pictures I got with her were farewell gifts from her.

She rode with me to the vet with her long snout in my lap and could not walk up the concrete steps to the vet so took the hill beside them. When we went in she was a lady as always and did not even whimper when he did a thorough exam. After looking again he said again she either had a bladder tumor or a tumor between her rectum and vagina. When I asked what he would do he would not answer but did not argue when I said my wife and I have made our decision even though the nurse had said I could take her for ultra sound to assure me I had done all I could.

He came in with a shot to relax her before giving her the lethal shot just as he had describe after my inquiry about what he would do. That is the only time she whimpered when he gave her that shot in the gluts. She very soon calmed as I leaned over the table and held her in my arms. Pretty soon I was pouring libations of my tears on her long snout and she was sleeping. When he came in with the final cocktail shot, she did not even stir when he shaved her left forearm for a clear shot into a vein. When he put in the needle and started injecting I think she was gone before he finished.

I came outside after letting him take care of her and found two rocks in the parking lot. I picked up an ugly flat brown one and a beautiful red quartz. I decided to keep both - one for life and one for death, one for mourning and one for joy, one for despair and one for hope, one for grace and one for judgement - the twin tandems that border and embrace the path of life.

I put them by my oasis fountain upon my return to school - punctuated by a stop at the MIll Store in Canton where I purchased two beautiful blue ceramic pots that I had written a grant for to enhance the entrance to the greenhouse and shout out school pride with euryops filling the air with golden blooms. She would like all these things.

Walk now in the light, Lady.