A Lifetime of Research

In honor of Thanksgiving, I’d like to share an observation I’ve been working on most of my life.  I’m not certain if the established scientific community has caught up with my data, but I feel comfortable with my assertion. 

The data:

How many times have you eaten substantially more than you should on Thanksgiving?  I know my first plate seems to be too small for all the great food, especially once-a-year goodies like dressing.  I usually find a way to refill the plate with slightly less food, but still more than a meal should contain.  I lean back, groaning, rubbing my distended belly, once again wondering how my eyes can make decisions over my stomach…again!  I find myself vowing never to eat so much so fast again and understanding why these meals are infrequently spread throughout the year.  I hope to make it to the couch for football and to pass the necessary hours for the pain to subside.  Then, I encounter the desserts.  Oddly, when I see the pies and/or cakes, I discover to my surprise that I have room for more food.  A piece of pie is nice, but smaller pieces of several pies are better.

The conclusion:

I am left with only one explanation for the “more food space” event.  We have two stomachs.  One is for substantial food like potatoes, beans, bread, and meats.  One is strictly for sweets.  I realize this hypothesis may be controversial, but in the name of science, I will continue my fieldwork research tomorrow!

Another quote not found in Roget: Wisdom from unexpected sources.

As you can imagine, I heard a lot of interesting things in thirty years of teaching mostly middle school.  Some of the more memorable ones are too personal to discuss.  Some were interesting to me but probably not to a wider audience.  I think this one might have an appealing message for us all.

Surprisingly, this quote was not from one of my students, or even a middle school student.  It was from a third grader at Collinwood Elementary School.  Furthermore, I never knew the student’s name.  It happened about twenty years ago.

I was teaching 8^th grade math and science at Collinwood Middle School (I learned how to teach and love teaching there---Still Mean and Green!).  It was a very snowy morning, and we all suspected school would be closed early.  In fact, school was closed almost immediately after everyone arrived.  We started the middle school schedule then with a thirty-minute homeroom time that many students used to finish homework assignments, but most just visited while getting ready.  They also could go to the cafeteria for breakfast.  CMS is in a very rural area, so bus rides to school could start early and last a while.  Many students needed this opportunity to eat AFTER an hour-long bus ride.  This day was no different in that respect.  All the teachers were checking with each other to hear any news on a possible closure, and since the buses were still parked in the driveway after unloading, we figured the word had come.  Sure enough, one of my coworkers got the message from a family member (no kidding) that we would load them back up as soon as breakfast was over.  I left another teacher watching my class and hurried to tell my wife who was teaching first grade in the attached elementary school.  First grade teachers are ten times as busy as 8^th grade teachers to start a school day with every signed folder, lunch money, book order, etc. that had to be dealt with everyday, so I figured she hadn’t heard.  I hurried down there, gave her the sign from her door, and headed back to my room.  The halls were packed with kids and teachers going here and there, and I happened to end up behind three 3^rd grade boys going to eat breakfast.  Apparently, they had also heard the news of the impending early dismissal because they were discussing what they would do as soon as they got home (mostly play in the snow).  Now this was a Friday morning so they were looking at a three-day weekend at least (snows in Wayne County can close schools for days, even weeks), so they were very happy, indeed.  That’s when the teacher in me felt the need to treat this as a teachable moment about all things having reward and cost, no free lunch, paying the piper, etc. by pointing out the day(s) would have to be made up later in the year, sometimes even on Saturdays---don’t ask.  I’ve never forgotten one boy’s reply, and the simple, powerful message it included.

“Well, that will be then---this is now.”

How much of my life has been and continues to be racing to or reliving an earlier “then?”  I still have to work everyday to live that day to the fullest.  I do not suggest that planning for the future or evaluating the past are mistakes, that is, unless these activities define the goals/achievements for a day.  How many times do we look so forward to some event and halfway through it, are already dreading its end?  For me, it’s a big bunch of “second halves.”  And I also am not suggesting that today’s decisions don’t have repercussions tomorrow.  If not, I’d eat a lot more chocolate than I already do!  I just mean that if we choose to eat the chocolate, enjoy it.  Oh, I’m sure that third grader was miserable on that makeup day at the end of the school year, but that was then, not now.

I am including some lines from a poem I wrote in 2008 on this very topic.  It’s titled “Learning to Live.”

I rush through so much.

I see beauty and waste the experience

trying to figure out how to maximize it,

how to save it for later,

how to carve it out for me and mine.

I love cheesecake,

but eating it is always a mixed blessing;

I savor the first bites with so much more left.

I hurry through the last bites to finish the job,

to speed the inevitable end.

And maybe cheesecake is a good place to start.

Maybe I can close my eyes and taste each bite

with no reckoning of beginnings and ends;

maybe I can walk the greenway and not measure time and distance;

maybe I can listen to music and not wonder about a better version.

I’ll let you know.