I have never met someone who got married and said how much they are looking forward to getting a divorce.

Have yet to hear from a friend about how much they are looking forward to being in a car accident the next day.

When I was in the ninth grade, after an afternoon run on a frozen cross country course in February when the temperature was about 12 degrees, I was not looking forward to getting under a squat rack moments later with a frozen back and not being able to come back up with the weight I went down with.  My back has not been the same since.

Yesterday morning I was so excited.  I was heading into my office at Paoli High School to get some work done.  Working at the workplace is a joy after working from home for so long.

Still in the process of getting my office in order, aesthetically and otherwise, I was collecting some mini college helmets, most of which are of a local variety that I display and make reference to should the need arise.

These helmets were on the top shelf of my bookcase in my home office.  As I have done many many times to simply retrieve them, I took my metal retractable Air Force pointer and extended it to full length.  Reaching up with the pointer to connect with the face-mask of the helmet as a means to lower it.  It works every time.  Only yesterday it did not work.

There was a reaction to an action.  That sounds familiar.

As the Ball State helmet I had leveraged with the pointer was ready to be turned loose, the pointer, in my right hand, sprang back a couple of inches.  It was just enough distance to make contact with something on one of the shelves of the book case.  One of my many mementos on display.  The pointer somehow had to bring down the last thing on that shelf I would want to lose.  It is broken and so am I.

This thing broke because something went wrong.

My Great-Grandmother, Ivy Nowling, she lived in Brownstown on Bridge Street for 53 years, brought this back from Niagra Falls a VERY long time ago.  When my dear wife, Carrie, and I last visited the falls, I brought back some water from there to replace what had evaporated inside the little ceramic barrel over many decades.  Just looking at this picture makes me want to reach for something that is not even there.

My little barrel isn’t the only thing broken.  We have a country that is broken.  Something or some things have gone wrong.  The death of George Floyd in such a senseless, cruel fashion was the last straw for many.  Now, during a continuing Pandemic that has crippled the country, America is burning.

Cities are being shattered by protesters.  I sit on my comfortable couch in the middle of the woods in Southern Indiana and I see cities that Carrie and I have visited.  Many of them, including Minneapolis, have been wonderful to us.

I could go on and on about what is wrong with the protests.  I could also go on and on about what is right with the protests.  That is up to you for you.

Yesterday I saw a post on facebook that personified the US and THEM finger pointing so prevalent in America today.  Divide and conquer seems to be the recipe for politics today and it is backfiring.  Or it may be a case of…you asked for it…what the hell did you expect?

Three things rattle consistently in my head when I see this action being played out in real life and not in the candy land of social media that some seem set to rely on for an alternate reality seeped in fear and indifference:

3.  Billy Joel singing WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE.

2.  In the movie A TIME TO KILL when Matthew McConaughey’s character, lawyer Jake Brigance, was describing to white jurors the torture at the hand of white men that  happened to a young black girl…and in closing he asked the jury to imagine that the little girl was white.

Watching George Floyd die on television brought that back to me in a hurry.  I don’t think a white George Floyd gets a knee to the neck.  Do you?

In classrooms over the years I have talked to students about race issues.  Some hate it when I talk about the root cause of racism: fear and ignorance.

When I discuss race issues with students I tell them I have had my heart broken, been punched, been kicked, been shot at, been made fun of, been called names, and been considered by some as an outcast.  All this and I can’t tell you of one black person responsible for this catalog of ache.

1.  President Jimmy Carter and his Crisis of Confidence speech that included:

…First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.

One of the visitors to Camp David last week put it this way: “We’ve got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America.”

Are you prepared to help to change the course?  I hope so.  We can do better.

Speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson