A Crack of Light

I remember the salt-stained boulders, encrusted with mussel shells, which flanked the levee to my father’s Coast Guard base, reaching like a prickly arm around the Port Angeles harbor.

I remember delivering casseroles late at night in the pilot’s hangar, being driven through the gates-the guard’s salute because of our officer’s bumper decal. Delivering casseroles to my father as he pulled all-night duty flying his lumbering H-52.

I remember my father, at dawn, dragging his heavy boots across the threshold, peeling his orange flight-suit halfway down, a snake shedding his skin as he chugged milk from the up-turned jug, draining its contents in front of the open refrigerator.

I remember watching him from the crack of light in the swinging kitchen door as he told his wife about his latest search and rescue case, “I lost him,” he whispered in a milky gravel. “Twenty-foot seas, winds at 50 knots, only five feet of rotor-clearance on either side— It was the water’s temperature that killed him.”

His voice was tired, but without emotion, not like when -that same summer, in the middle of the night, when he thought I was asleep in the back seat- he sobbed behind the wheel, a forceful engine choking into gear while listening to the radio, listening to how Thurman Munson –his favorite Yankees catcher- had perished in an airplane crash.

“Augered in—” he cried. “My boy has augered in…” as I watched him through the rear view mirror, the intermittent streetlights staining his warm, wet face.

It is graduation week here at Crook County High School, but all I can think about is my father, who will make his last flight as a helicopter pilot on the 4th of June; the day of his retirement. He has been a pilot since I was a baby. Over the next couple of entries, I will post some of my archived work about my dad as a pilot.

Letters to You

Dear Mom,

I miss you. I want you to come back. I hope you can come back early so I can see you. I really miss you Mom, because I love you.

I hope you are having a good trip on your plane and everything. I miss you Mom.

Love,

Jaedon


Dear Mom,

This is what I’ve been doing this week. I’ve been hanging out with Uncle Chris, watching Trin’s baseball games, and I’ve been playing baseball games. My baseball games are fun, because my dad gets to see them. I’ve been hitting good, and sometimes I strike out, but it’s okay, and I miss you Mom. And I was catcher. It was fun.

Love,

Jaedon


P.S. Mom, what is the word sarcastic? Just kidding. Dad already told me that this weekend. Sarcastic is just joking, but it’s not funny. No, wait, just kidding. hyuck hyuck hyuck.




Dear Mom,

I really miss you. I can’t wait until we see each other again. I hope you have a good time in Poland.

I wish you could have been at my baseball game with Chris. It was a really awesome game. It was the best game I ever had. I got to play pitcher and catcher. I walked everybody, but I got them all out from passed balls at home plate. When I was catcher, MacGuire threw an inside, high ball, and I jumped and I caught it. I’m writing a picture book about my game.

Dad got a good price for a catcher’s helmet and chest guard. It will also help Jaedon with catching the ball when Dad throws a hard one at him, because he wouldn’t get hurt.

What is the weather like over there? Is it cold? It was really hot over here over the past couple days. Do you like the people over there? Are they nice to you? Dad told me that you’re going to a really sad place, Auschwitz. I heard of places like that in the book “Number the Stars” That story made me sad. I hope you don’t get too sad.

I love you, Mom

Love,

Trinity



Carol,

I have been full of silence, and full of obligation. Both have been a joyful yoke to carry, but they have been heavier without you. The breeze has been so prevalent here that I swear I can smell the ocean, and as it blows steadily east, across our vast country, I hope it blows all of my unspoken I love you’s to you, over the Atlantic and those remote ice-mountains of Greenland. Let this breeze catch up to your train, and flirt with the curve of your nose, while armed guards from Slovakia grunt for your passport. And let this breeze contain the twice daily waterings of our hanging petunias, oregano and basil, and the goodnight kisses on the musky brows of our sons. Let these be the incense to guide you back home.

Back here has had plenty of baseball, but I was still (mistakenly) doubtful about missing the first half of Trinity’s game for the ‘kindergarteners on parade’ mock Summer Olympics. As it turned out, there were 400 kids. Parents nearly filled the entire stadium. And once the Olympic theme played over the loudspeakers, and as each country of tennis-shoed children made their procession on the track in front of us, my emotions leapt to my throat. That processional, that music, all those little kids, and the cheering.

And the cheering. An entire stadium shouting joy and approval to the participants, and all of the kids on the other side of the track cheering the way for each of the runners.

In the first heat, a kindergartener, in the 50m dash, ran his legs out from under him and flopped onto the ground, scraping his knees, wincing in pain, and the crowd, and the crowd, and the boy rose to his feet, and his face, the determination on his face as he ran, alone on the track the rest of the way, and the crowd, and the crowd-

And that is basically how it was for the rest of the evening. Character and courage being born, innocence preserved, and the joy of just running, and the crowd, the crowd, as Jaedon trudged around the last corner of the 400 meter dash, but when reaching the crowd, behold the crowd, and the shine returning to his face, and the speed, what speed!returned to his legs for the rest of the race, as the crowd, the crowd and the female announcer’s voice, a seasoned teacher with a self-aware humorous tone in that disembodied, god-like Francis-McDormand-from-Fargo voice, exclaiming “Come on! All the way! You can do it!”

And I remember when I was in grade school, the announcer on the television, in disbelief, in utter joy, asking a question that I am finally able to answer, “Do you believe in miracles?”

Yes.

Love,

Jim


P.S. Sorry for calling Lynn baby over the phone. She really sounded like you.

The Dimes at Crook County High School Tonight

These guys are the real deal. They are doing a benefit for our high school's Americana (singer/songwriter) program. Their album, "The Silent Generation" is brilliant, and reminiscent of the Portland influx of Colin Meloy, The Shins, and Death Cab. Still they are uniquely their own, and they are even better in person. A great bunch of guys who gave us a teaser of tonight's concert during 5th period today. A very well-timed upbeat/melancholy event after a very emotional week at CCHS.

They've been featured in many places, including SPIN. Check out the buzz at

http://thedimes.com/index3.html

For L.B.

Sunday afternoon, one of my favorite students got trampled by a bull in rodeo practice, breaking several ribs and puncturing his lung. We almost lost him Sunday night in the ICU. It is still touch and go, and will be a long slow recovery, but it's looking up. His recovery is being documented by his family at the following site: http://caringbridge.org/visit/loganblasdell

The halls of Crook County High School have been dimmer without his "Howdy, Mr. C-D" every morning.

Letters From the Mountaintop

Goddard College has a tradition of students writing a letter to themselves at the end of each intensive on-campus residency. While going through some old books of mine, this letter, from my Winter '04 residency, fell out from between the pages. The timing for me is still perfect:

Dear Jim,

Write from your spine, without arrogance or false humility- both are a form of self-hatred.

Write as if you were God when he created the universe-made small afterwards.

Indeed, they will increase- you will decrease.

You are a sincere visitor and you are welcome inside.

Cast away your doubt.

Always remember, people are dying a little bit every day. Bring them life- and fill your time doing the same thing for yourself-

You are a love poet-You bring people back into their bodies again-

Expect originality and magic from yourself.

Love,

Yourself

English Matters

From Master English Teacher, Jim Burke

"Teaching English has always been a privilege for me. As I write this, school has just finished up and my head still swims with the images of what my students did on their different culminating projects, what they said in their portfolio cover letters, where they reflected on the year. I feel very humbled by the achievement of my students when I consider all they learned. As I watched my students stand up in class and speak at length about different topics, as I watched them stand to speak at the funeral of one of my students, and as I watched former students of mine stand to speak at graduation, I was reminded again and again how important our work is. If you find yourself surrounded by people who do not appreciate this, seek your companions in other departments or online. Spend your days and the coming years with colleagues who feel the pride we should all feel for helping all our students tell their story even as we are writing and revising our own in classrooms across America."

Searching for Benjamin Rush

From an Anonymous Query from CousinConnect.com: I need to find the connection between my Great Grandmother Jennie Rush Gartman (MO-TX-OR), family has said she was related to signer Benjamin Rush?

My Response:

To the writer of the above query,

Greetings from Oregon. At the risk of sounding presumptuous, it is quite possible that you and I are related. I have no direct answer to your query into the link between Jenny Gartman and Benjamin Rush(I am currently searching for the same link myself.)

If your Jenny is the same ancestor as mine, (she would be my great-great grandmother,) then she settled in St. Helens Oregon with her husband Jasper-a simple yet handsome fellow with a mischievous grin covered by a handlebar moustache (from what I remember of the photograph).

They had three children, I believe: Bill, Neva, and Edna.

Edna (10-26-1903 - 12-23-81) was my great-grandmother, who married Kenneth Preston Howell.

They had three sons, Kenneth, Robert, and Richard (the youngest)

I am Richard's eldest grandson. He is the one who has told me stories of how- when he was a young boy- he was visited by a very old female relative of Jenny's, who claimed that they were related to the great Benjamin Rush. Since he was a young boy with little attention span, he could not recall the lineage that she shared. He only remembered thinking that "she was the oldest woman he had ever seen."

As your query was in 2003, my hope is that you may have found the information you are looking for. I also hope that this further information finds you in good health and in good spirits.

If you have the notion or the time, I would be grateful for any information that you may have found. I am truly excited by the possibility that we may be two travellers searching for the same source of the same tree.

Be well.

Warm Regards,

Jim Churchill-Dicks

Resolution/Revelation

At a recent teacher’s inservice based on Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach, I was given time to write a resolution to myself–a resolution to have teaching become a sustainable career. All embarrassment of my sentimental gushiness aside, it was a well-timed, (perhaps career-saving) workshop, where I uncovered some important revelations, which I realize are now within my grasp to attain:

I commit to sustain, better yet, to cultivate my life- to dirty my hands in my yard, to prepare my grass to be played on, run on, camped on- to prepare my little plot of earth for fruit trees- plums, apples and pears- to build a strawberry tower, and fill it with bulbous fruit.

I commit to drinking a good red wine with my wife, while we sit and swoon on our back porch that is strung with paper lanterns and hanging flower baskets.

I will play catch with my sons whenever they ask me to. I will see every inning and cheer at every game. I will write to live, and live to write, reclaiming my body on Misery Ridge. I will remember every ridge that I have balanced myself upon and take the time to be silent.

And in that stillness, I will remember a story worth telling; no, beyond telling. I will hone my craft, and show my students the power of their stories. I will show them how to speak for themselves- show them the power of so many other stories, so that some day, in a time of great need, those stories mingled together with their own will have the power to transform their lives for the better.

Ah, Poetry so serious and so pure an artform

Sweet Jesus, you've got to see this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lktd1OBHVI

For Ron (and for those we lost):

I’ve just had the distinct pleasure of reconnecting with one of my dear friends from elementary – high school. He had just found out about a mutual friend of ours, named Chris, who died of an accidental drug overdose several years ago.

For those of you who know me well, what I am about to tell you will speak volumes. Ron was one of the key players on our Red Shirted Little League team sponsored by the Rock Creek Tavern. He is one of the autographed names on my stepfather’s baseball which is displayed in a place of honor in his office in Portland. But more importantly, the end of our childhoods spent on that West Union baseball diamond are etched into the fondest memories of my life. Ron even remembers when my father saw my first and last ballgame I’ve ever played, when I struck out in epic whiffing fashion while my father was trying to photograph me in the batter’s box. So in honor of our time together, and in memory of the teammates we lost, (Another of our teammates is in prison) I present the revised version of my story “Son of Abraham” in the next entry.

Bruce Cockburn once sang, “To be held in the heart of a friend is to be a king…” Ron is my friend from long ago, and it is so good to reconnect with him.

Trinity's first "Poetry Jam"

This was Trinity last Friday, after performing the poem, "The SSSnake Hotel" by Brian "Spike" Moses in front of all the 4th graders and parents. Quite the tuckered out hipster. Am I proud? Am I proud?

Smart Billy: Prologue

Witness a man, a 19th century trapper, violently shivering in a snow cave with his dog. The dog has shared her heat with the man, has positioned herself between the man and the cave opening, protecting the man from the elements, because she is a good dog.

But now, just now she is dead, heat escaping her body.

Witness the man, buried and shivering in a snow cave up high, near Heaven’s Gate on Mt. Hood. His dead dog is his only company. Wind howls over the mountain, burning with snow in relentless curtains. For the moment, ignore the impulse to wonder why this trapper is so high upon this lifeless slope. Instead, wonder at his body, his sinewy skeleton loosely draped in blotchy pale skin.

Behold the man, the man whose shivering now stops. He strips away his beaver pelts, delirious and warm. He is chanting with graveled breaths, incomprehensible, swaying forward and back, forward and back. Behold the preconceived syllables of his language. The groaning vowels, the gravelly aspirates, the whiny whistle in each breath.

Behold the man’s pink face, freckled and burning through frizzy shocks of a chest-length, auburn beard. Behold the dried and broken blisters on his sharply cut nose, the wild green eyes, and closer, to his right eye, with broken capillaries slowly pooling with blood, just below the cornea’s surface. Behold the caked mucous at the lashes. The whitened salt-stained lower lid from dried tears—

Gaze into his eye, some reddening cloud that could swallow the moon— Look closer. Behold the muscular green filaments twitching in unison, now growing sluggish, failing, as they begin to give way to the pupil, a growing shadow swirling inward. Lean closer. Hear his whistling whisper in a final plume of breath— then stillness.

Wait. You heard something. Let your mind register it. You are correct. A final word, no, a name escaping the trapper’s rapidly cooling lips—

Billy.

The Ochoco Review: Summer 2007!

http://ochocoreview.blogspot.com/

Haven't been writing much lately. Most of my creative gas has been used to get our student work online. Come see it! I bet you won't be disappointed. We even have a section for Spoken Word. And soon we will have a short film which will be featured on the SciFi Channel's website!

The English Teacher's Kid

A New Freewriting Journal

Warning! Total garbage. Do not read beyond this point!

1/22/07 9:23 a.m. PST

Blank Page. So many pages to fill. A formal looking book. Sturdy. Austere. I must be mindful with my permission to write freely, without worry of coherence or of posterity. How do I do this, when this is the beginning? The first impression to the invisible reader over my shoulder?

Reader over my shoulder, forgive me. You may find nothing here worth reading. Nothing that matters. Danger. It may take hours away from your life which you will never get back. Believe me. I take your time seriously. I understand that you are dying a little bit every day . I don’t want to waste your time.

Reader over my shoulder, bliss be yours.
Reader over my shoulder. I am tragically uninteresting. My voice is not the one you should sell your soul for, to give away your hours for.

But have you heard the voices of my children? Chirps and giggles, and fights like warring angels. And soul. So much soul. Reader over my shoulder, my wounded shoulder. Go in peace.

1/24/07 9:42 a.m. PST

Active analysis of lethal doses of attention, getting to the root of my swarthy sweat. Attention, attention, body mechanic must play out the story for which white paper is too distracting. Cymbal high hat, warping bass beat, bubbles of attention perforated burst creative impulse- verge of supernova, merge onto a single thread of conscious thought, tiny red ribbon thoroughfare through electric cables spiking, arcing spiderwebs overhead.

Stay on the course of a quiet shy girl’s voice, murmuring in a windstorm; focus: clear, the beats of wind, the beating wind of pigeons scattering at the clap of approaching footsteps.

Focus on the shy girl’s voice, clear the storm. Let gravity obey your fingertips, funneling into you from tip to tip, draw the chaos into you until there is nothing but the flutter of butterfly wings, and the sound of a shy girls voice, singing in delicate spiderwebs, growing more sure in their tensile strength.

1/25/07 9:31 a.m.

Respect equals Respect- Respect: n a value for the other person’s personhood. I-Thou, hallowed sacred other-someone not to be trifled with-to see their gifts, to see the haloes in another dimension of light. Respect- a foreign language that must be learned, syllable by syllable.
I’m dancing around what is singing in my spine, humming there, angry. I have slost this language-the words cleave to my mouth my mind, searching through days where the students, users take over, anarchy, misguided protests locking themselves into a crowded dorm room to honor Martin Luther King Jr.

$10,000 worth of damage to trashed walls and a shattered toilet.

Respect: I-Thou withers inside of me- allowing me to be a casualty. Respect Equals Respect- and I am losing this language. I am losing myself- Hardened, we all are polarized each to our opposite sides, convinced that we are right.

But I am not a user. I am not that selfish. There is a job to be done. I don’t care if you’ve had a hard day. Overused dilemma. Shore yourself up. Get the job done, I’ll cry with you later. Compartmentalize: this is the real world.

See to the children. Pay the bills. Rest when it is time. Do not call in sick.

Get Up…


1/29/07

Outside, students are breaking up the ice that has melted into a polished fan-like sheen outside of my classroom. We are the icy delta of the chronic melt and refreeze of the snow runoff. This is how I damaged my shoulder, nearly three weeks ago: the same ice powdered with a thin skiff of snow. Powdered sugar on whale snot on an iceberg, someone said.

If only it would just snow and stay. It’s January for Chrissake.

We’re listening to the Shins new CD “Wincing the Night Away” Trying to silence the shaking of my classroom with each out-of-rhythm pound into the ice. I’m grateful for these work project students coming to our aide, though difficult to concentrate. Disrupting the house of cards that is my attention span.

Through my peripheral vision, I see one of my students looking out the window, scratching his tightly shorn afro with his fingernails then looking right at me writing, wondering probably how long I will prolong this protracted freewriting torture. He shrugs audibly into the back of his seat. I can’t blame him. It’s impossible to write today.

Now Introducing, The Ochoco Review!

Collage by Nicholas D. inspired by Sherman Alexie's "Fire as Verb and Noun"

http://ochocoreview.blogspot.com

It's here, finally! The Online Student Literary Journal from Mount Bachelor Academy has just released its inaugural issue, featuring student poetry, flash fiction, nonfiction, reviews, and short films. The work is finished just in time for our December graduation.

Featuring:

Poetry: John A.// Jennifer B.//Michael L. //and Bradley C.

Flash Fiction: "Lucid Dreams" by Glenn E,/ "Backflip-it" by Andrew F, / "The Cliff" by Chris B,

Nonfiction: "The Kid" by Josh L, // "I Remember, I Wish, I Believe" by the Sophomore Class of Mount Bachelor Academy, // and "9/11, Five Years Later" an MBA student collage

Reviews: Megan J. reviews "The Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri // John A. reviews "Candide" by Voltaire // Alex P. reviews "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo

Short Films: “Entering, With All of Our Senses”// “The Watchtower: A Parody of American Xenophobia”

Disclaimer: The creative impulses, thoughts, opinions, etc. shared in this online-literary journal do not necessarily represent those of its sponsoring school— Mount Bachelor Academy, or its parent companies, Aspen Education Group, or CRC.

Logistical and content oversight for The Ochoco Review is provided by Lisa Fairman: Special Education Director of Mount Bachelor Academy. The Ochoco Review is a product of the Mount Bachelor Academy English Department.

Additionally, students' last names have been concealed to preserve their confidentiality to the public.


Check it out!

A Direct Quote From One of My Students

"You're a Master in Fine Arts? Wow, does that mean you know Kung Fu and shit?"

Hmm. Maybe that would be more useful....

Tupelo Press, the final chapter

Jeffrey Levine from Tupelo Press has sent me another warm-hearted letter, because he is both kind and generous. And alas, my book-length manuscrupt, "Jacob Wrestling" was not selected for publication.So, there you have it. A manuscript whose main theme grapples with the effects of being 'chosen' has yet to be chosen.

"Jacob Wrestling" is still up for the Transcontinental Prize from Pavement Saw Press and the Gerald Cable Book Award from Silverfish Review Press, but after the results come from these (in the Spring?) I believe that I will put the book up into some special place. After two years of entering beauty contests, it is time to give her a rest.

Many thanks to all of you friends who were supportive of me during this work. That is worth more to me than the heartfelt content of those pages.

Now it's time to create something new...

Love,

Jim C-D