Of Gifts and Talents and Proclivities

Left: Our granddaughter's interpretation of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Photo and stylization courtesy of Jane Cato Studio. What you can't see is the makeup and tousled hair of her zombie princess alter ego.

Years ago, I read one of those how-to-live-a-blessed-life kind of books in which the author spoke of the time-released capsules she believes God builds into each of our lives. Sudden discoveries and realigning of circumstances had released new and unexpected creative energies in her own life. God doesn't give everything to us all at once, she wrote. He lets us discover, in His time and as we go along, the gifts He planted in us from the beginning.

I have thought about the phenomena of implanted time-released capsules often these last few years. My husband touched clay for the first time three-and-a-half years ago, and one of those extra-fast-acting time-released capsules burst open.

For me, however, the first sense I had that I could be a "real" writer came in my 20s. But circumstances didn't align themselves for me to explore that in all of its fullness until I was in my 50s -- a slower-acting capsule, as it were.

One of our responsibilities as parents, says Proverbs 22:6,  is to "Train up a child in the way he (she) should go." Most people interpret that in terms of religious teaching. But it also speaks to paying attention to the individual personality, abilities, and talents each child has -- and to the times they are released in their lives.

One of our sons was assigned in seventh grade to write a computer program for a game. This was in the Commodore 64 era when we played Atari's Pong at home and kids played that newfangled game, Pac-Man, in arcades. I don't even have the vocabulary to describe the game he created, but it was intricate enough that we had to buy additional external memory to hold it all -- and even then I think he only scratched the surface of what he had in his mind. Today he's the IT guy at a Colorado ski resort -- where he can also make the most of another time-released capsule called snowboarding that exploded in his life a couple of decades later.

Another son absorbed everything he could learn about fishing and hunting from his father and from other people and from books. Beginning when he was about eight years old, he often fished the neighborhood ponds after school when the other kids rode bikes and played kickball. One day when he was 13 or so, my husband and I were visiting my parents in Spring Hill when he called to tell us he had snagged a barbed treble hook in the top of his foot while fishing from a bridge not far from our house in Seminole. My husband walked him through the process of backing the hook out, which he did successfully -- and then went back to fishing. He explored the professional fishing tournament circuit for a time before circumstances limited his time. Today he's our go-to guy when we have questions about Florida flora and fauna . . . and fish, of course.

A third son would spend days in character -- Huck Finn was a favorite, corn cob pipe and all -- and he also learned to love the physical labor of building things. His second grade teachers commented on his "showmanship" when they filmed him doing a science experiment. When he played the Jack of Hearts in a fifth-grade production of Alice in Wonderland, the advisor suggested he consider a theater program  in high school. He did, but turned to building sets and running lights and sound in the technical theater program instead. Today he's the go-to guy at a major corporation, responsible for maintaining much of their physical infrastructure and equipment. And he's a backstage dad for his children.

Of course, our sons explored other interests along the way. They played baseball and soccer in the local leagues. They each learned to play more than one musical instrument -- one still plays around with music quite a bit. One has learned the art of selling. Two of them still enjoy reading books. All three are good writers, when they have a use for writing. They all learned how to cook and to use hammers and saws and wrenches and what not. Sometimes they still call their dad for a how-to walk through, but sometimes he calls them for the same.

Now our children watch their children walk in particular paths, or -- for three of our grandchildren, at least -- dance down particular paths.

Our oldest grandson was two, maybe three, when he started asking to wear my "clap shoes" when he came to visit. They were just my wear-to-the-office 1-inch heeled pumps . . . but he liked the clapping sound they made on our tiled entry way and on our concrete kitchen floor. By the time he was four, all he wanted for his birthday was a pair of tap shoes. His mom, a dancer herself and married to our theater son, enrolled him in tap lessons. From his first lessons, he exhibited an innate ability to follow the steps -- and, when he made a mistake, to correct himself back into the rhythm. Last night, I got teary-eyed watching him rat-a-tat-tat across the stage . . . and also perform a very sensitively danced lyrical number.

His brother was barely two when he memorized the score and choreography from the Wizard of Oz. He couldn't articulate the words, but the on-pitch melodies and voice inflections were there. He couldn't match all the steps, but he had the timing of Scarecrow's loose moves down pat.  Before long, he followed his brother into dance classes. Last night, I lost count of the number of dances -- solos, duets, trios, group dances -- to which he had memorized the choreography and inserted his own personality.

Little sister was just four when she saw Michael Jackson's Thriller video and started teaching herself the choreography, including the moon walk. Her reaction when Michael Jackson died? "But he's still alive in Thriller." Last night, she performed a solo version (a 5-year-olds' recognizable rendition) of Thriller at the DanceMoves Studio's final program. She can turn respectable cartwheels and has a lovely toe point.

Their parents have poured lots of time and money into helping their children follow these paths to date. What does the future hold? None of us know. They could wow them on Broadway or a different time-released capsule could take them down new and unrelated paths. For now they have learned the disciplines of working hard at something, of working consistently at something, and of sharing what they have learned with others. I suspect they have learned to walk hard, walk long, walk joyfully in whatever way they find themselves down the road.

Everything else is icing on the proverbial cake.

Making a Joyful Noise! In Memoriam Interlude: 5 . . . 6 . . . 5-6-7-8

 Susan Hartley in Ireland, 2005.

Not everyone sings with the voicebox. Not everyone makes melody with the mouth.

Susan Hartley made a joyful noise with her feet. Tap-e-ta, tap-e-ta, shuffle ball change, shuffle ball change, jump down, jump down, jump down, stomp! Only a whole lot faster and a whole lot more intricate.

She must have been something when she was younger. Her bio says she started dancing when she was five, and was a demonstrator for Paul Draper in his New York studio by the time she was 12. When she was 15, she was part of a group of precision acrobats called The Hurricane.

Tap, jazz, acrobatics, ballet -- Susan danced it all on concert hall and theater stages from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And she shared what she knew. In 1988, Susan opened Dancemoves Studio in Seminole, Florida, where she taught countless girls and boys how to cartwheel, arabesque, and Shuffle Off to Buffalo.

Nine years ago, give or take a few months, I watched Susan take my then somewhat hesitant four-year-old grandson by the hand, lead him to the center of her studio dance floor, and walk him through a series of tap steps.  

Brush forward, brush back, step. Brush, brush, step. Fl-ap, heel; fl-ap heel. Fl-ap, fl-ap, fl-ap, flap.

Week after week, month after month, year after year. Tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical, hip hop, acrobatics. First one grandson, then another, then a cousin, then a granddaughter.

It was all about developing that innate itch that makes us sway, swing, and step to music. It wasn't about perfection. It was about the kind of professionalism that drives you to keep practicing until it's as perfect as you can make it. It was about the kind of professionalism that keeps the show moving regardless of what faux pas has just occurred onstage.

Miss Susan didn't go over and over and over a step. She expected her students to watch closely and remember complex combinations almost instantly. She expected daily practice between lessons. That was part of the training. Broadway directors would be culling wannabe's who needed coddling from professional dancers who had the mental acuity as well as the physical agility to handle two-hour's worth of demanding choreography.

There was no undeserved praise awarded and no slack given. Little miss in a huff off in a corner? Pick her up, bring her back into the circle, and tell her to save the hissy fit for later. Shut the door, shut out the distractions, and carry on.

Knowing that one teacher is never sufficient, she brought in Lane Napper and other professionals from the Broadway Dance Center and other studios to conduct master classes in dance, voice, and theater. Her daughter, Elizabeth, joined her in the studio teaching musical theater and voice. She took her students to New York, Ireland, Miami, and as many places as their parents were willing to let the children go. She taught them how to conduct themselves in an audition, how to occupy themselves when it was someone else's turn to practice, how to overcome the fear of doing a round off, how to be generous with each other.

One student ended up with a part in a Nickelodeon TV show because of the connections Hartley helped her make.

Her choreography reflected Draper's melding of ballet and tap and her own acrobatic and ensemble training. Her studio boasted the only precision lines  (think Rockettes kick lines) in Pinellas County.

It can be hard on kids when their mother works with other kids. Especially when you don't quite fit in to her world, their world. That's not an excuse. It's also hard when you know you're not quite the mother your child either needs or would like to have. Either way, there are choices to be made. Choices to let go of unrealistic expectations, to accept what is and not what we wish was, and to find the perfect path our Creator has prepared for us -- and no one else -- to walk in.

Susan's son struggled with that. Susan struggled with it, too. Maybe no one knew how much until it was too late. Ultimately it cost both of them -- and all of us -- big time.

There are no guarantees of how many days we each have in this world. Or of how we will pass from this world into the next.

All we have is today. How we choose to live today is what matters for today . . . and, oddly, for tomorrow, too. Today we can choose anger and bitterness over what we perceive as unfair. We can choose to sit in a huff in the corner because the music isn't to our liking.

Or we can choose to get up and make a joyful noise to the music that is playing -- one that echoes through eternity.

With our mouths.

Or with our feet.

Get 'Em While They're Young

This past Thursday through Saturday, I attended the National Newspaper Association's 123rd Convention in Mobile, Alabama.

Meeting publishers and editors of community newspapers -- mostly weekly papers -- from all parts of the United States reinforced my conviction of just how vital their work is to the overall health of an area.

Thanks to Dr. Jennifer Greer, journalism department chair at the University of Alabama and my master's project advisor, she and I were invited to present the paper and project as part of NNA's Community Building Symposium.

We heard lots of good ideas presented by people doing everything they can to help newspapers find their way to continue serving their communities through a changing economic and technological landscape.

I maintain one key is largely overlooked -- instilling the news habit when kids are young. Common wisdom says you don't wait until your child is an adult before you teach him or her to brush his or her teeth.

The problem is that not much in most newspapers is targeted to kids, is about kids, or is on a child's reading level. Our study showed less than 7% of available news space was targeted to or referred to children age 14 and under -- about 20% of the population.

Material targeted to children is largely puzzles, games, general knowledge articles, and coloring pages.

I applaud any newspaper who does that much. They have invested money and space in those products in an effort to include the youngest members of their communities in the readership of their community publication.

But most of the material we found -- even material targeted directly to children -- was written at a higher-than-9th-grade reading level.

I contend newsrooms can do more -- much more.

Part of a newspaper's responsibility is to help citizens "navigate society," according to Bill Kovach and Ted Rosenstiel, authors of The Elements of Journalism. But how credible is the map if 20% of the population is largely missing from the picture? And how useful is the map to the community's youngest citizens if they can't read it?

Want to know more about how to write real local news -- government meetings, community events, community issues, and more -- from a "kid angle" and in simple language?

Reply to this blog posting or send me an email (aander8130@gmail.com). I'd love to talk to you about scaling down local news without dumbing it down.

Our children (and their parents and teachers) can use all the help they can get in finding their way through their local world.

Kid-sized real toothbrushes, kid-sized real news -- makes sense, yes?

Twenty Years, Twenty Plus Stories

"Just Kidding," the lead story in this month's issue of Pockets® magazine for children, a publication of Upper Room Ministries, is by yours truly and marks twenty years since my first children's story was published -- also in Pockets®.

I can still feel the envelope in my hand. Not thick with a returned manuscript of several pages, but thin.

I can still remember reading the letter advising me that a story I had submitted to Pockets® magazine for children had been accepted for publication. Sign the enclose contract card, the letter said, return it, and they would send me a check. Not at publication, but now.

I can still remember thinking, "Maybe I really can can be a real writer."

Since then I've had more than two dozen children's stories published, most in Pockets® and a few in other magazines. The first dozen appeared between March 1989 and October 1991, and were written while I worked with my husband in a construction business we owned.

Then we closed the business, I went to work elsewhere full-time, our three sons hit their teens, and our parents' health began to fail. Writing children's stories went by the wayside.

Writing didn't, however. I wrote/edited a weekly newsletter at work for seven years, discovered drama, and wrote vignettes and plays for church programs.

As I neared age 50, I decided it was now or never if I was going to be "a real writer." I quit my job, went back to school, and went back to writing. I sold some of my dramas to CSS Publishing and began writing for a local newspaper. My second round of children's stories began appearing in 2003, exclusively in Pockets®.

Why Pockets®?

Because they take children seriously. They take God seriously. And they take their publication seriously, meaning the stories are well-written, the illustrations and graphics are top-notch, and the magazine is full of thoughtfully planned content.

There is very little that is "cute" in Pockets®. God is not "sweet."

Instead, Pockets® presumes that children face the same questions we all face: Why am I here? How can I get through today without messing up? What's in it for me? Does God really care about me -- even when life doesn't go the way I think it should?

Pockets® presumes children are spiritual creatures, as well, who talk to God and who listen for God to talk to them.

I deliberately targeted Pockets® magazine for children when I started writing children's stories. Over the years, I have written about:

• a child who has to repeat fourth grade because of a learning disability
• a girl who has her head "in a bait bucket," as her older brother says, because she's so focused on a Saturday fishing trip she misses the things that happen "this day"
• a child with a rambunctious dog
• a boy who realizes that, if Jesus needed a step-father, maybe it's OK for him to have one, too
• an immigrant girl whose brother died during a war
• a boy who doesn't know how to pray for his very ill coach
• a boy who wonders if God watches TV
• a child with an alcoholic mother
• a boy falsely accused of stealing something
• a child who grumbles that God mustn't want us to have any fun because there are so many rules--things like never cut another kid's hair and never throw food in the cafeteria
• a child in a group foster home who wonders whether God knows he's there
• a child who thinks "just kidding" is a good enough excuse to cause mischief
• a child whose best friend steals something from him

Real children, real world, real God.

It's been a privilege to be a real writer.

Kids Can Vote, Too

Kids Voting USA volunteers will be manning precincts around the country over the next couple of weeks. Kids of all ages can cast their ballots when their parents cast theirs. (No, the underage "voters" ballots don't count in the official results.)

It's not too late to volunteer. I just found out about the organization on Tuesday (Wednesday? the days are a blur) and I'm signed up as a Kids Voting Tampa Bay poll worker for this Saturday -- as in tomorrow -- and next Saturday at a mid-county election office.

Yesterday I met the director of Kids Voting Tampa Bay at the polling place to get the materials and instructions. A steady stream of early voters filed through the doors and lined the hallways.

This on a Thursday two weeks before Election Day!

Should be fun -- look for an affiliate in your area.

Spelling Bee

From the LaQuinta motel in Tuscaloosa after a long day of tedious coding Alabama newspapers for children's content. But there's a TV in my room ... and those of you who have been following my BAMA BLOG/M'LADY'S M'LOG know that I don't have a TV set in Anniston. So ...

Kudos to ESPN for broadcasting the 2008 Scripps Spelling Bee -- loved the play-by-play! The kids amazed me ... I'd never heard of any of the words in the final round.

Pardon me while I go read my dictionary.

Growing Up Into Myself

Dressing up now includes ... LIPSTICK!

And I'm wearing 2" heels today.

Just finished a rereading of Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie, and a first reading of the recently written sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet, by Geraldine McCaughrean (2006).

Does this mean I'm growing up after all?

A Matter of Definition

The young father stood in line in front of me with his two children--a boy, maybe 5, and a girl, maybe 7--at the WalMart pharmacy tonight. In front of them, a woman haggled with the clerk for a good ten minutes about her prescription.

Through it all, the children stood quietly, the boy at his father's right hand, the girl at her father's left. His hands rested lightly on their heads. Occasionally the father caressed his son's head, running his hand over the close-cropped straw colored hair, or he patted his daughter's mousy-brown hair pulled back in a series of bands and barrettes. Once in a while his hands dropped to one child's or the other's jacketed shoulder.

Their sweatpants and warm jackets had seen newer days; the father's lighter jacket bore a number of NASCAR decals. A tattoo swirling up his neck from his t-shirt became lost in the neat, but not trimmed, beard covering his cheeks and jaw. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a ball cap topped his head. Tenderly, but almost unconsciously, his clean, long-fingered hands--left ring finger banded in gold--assured his children their father was right there with them.

They didn't fidget.

They didn't fight.

They didn't poke each other or pester their father.

They stood quietly in line at WalMart and waited. And waited.

Once the little girl turned her head to see who was behind them and saw me watching them. I smiled, she gave me a solemn look with her gray eyes, then turned her head back around.

At one point, the father slid his hands down their arms and pulled them closer in a quick hug; then he released them, and his hands returned to their positions atop his children's heads.

It wasn't until a mother with two little girls took their place in line behind me and started talking about the Christmas parade they had just attended that the father and his children turned around.

"D'you go to the parade too?" he asked, and they chatted briefly about the lights and the chilly weather.

The children had turned around as well. Their thin faces looked a tad pinched. But then in this day of the obese child, perhaps I've just become accustomed to plump and so normal seems pinched. Light streaks of dirt rimmed the boy's mouth; the girl needed a tissue.

The father had no front teeth, his other teeth looked in questionable shape.

As the three spoke to the family behind us, their accents and grammar bespoke their rural Southern roots.

Today's Anniston Star carried a report on yet another study -- ever wonder who pays for these? Guess who's taxes do -- the headline of which said the majority of children in Alabama live in poverty. Of course, on reading the article, that wasn't quite the case. The study showed that, for the first time (since these kinds of statistics were kept, of course), the majority of Alabama school children are eligible for free or reduced lunches from the federally funded school lunch program. That means that @ 24% of Alabama's children live below the federally-defined poverty level and the rest live at up to 185% of that level.

So are they poor or not?

Depends.

Depends on who you ask.

On how you define poverty.

On what program you're trying to fund or what agenda you're trying to push. Or whose votes you're currying.

The woman ahead of them finally got what she needed, and the father and his children stepped forward to the counter. The clerk found part of his order, but said another part was still being processed. He stepped back, his daughter with him, so I could move up and be served.

The boy remained where he was, not realizing his father and sister had moved. The father reached out and touched his son's shoulder. Immediately, the boy turned, his father motioned slightly, and the child stepped back by his father.

I thought of the parents I've watched who have raised their voices, motioned frantically, hissed through clenched teeth, glared, rolled their eyes, threatened, grabbed, yanked, and cursed while their children played 'you can't catch me' or rolled on the floor or whined or screamed or otherwise made life miserable for their parents, everyone else in the store . . . and for themselves.

Was the family ahead of me poor? I've no doubt they weren't rolling in dough. Insurance covered at least part of the father's prescription, but maybe it didn't cover his dental work.

The clerk handed me my order and I turned to leave. The woman behind me stepped up. The father stood to one side with his children, one hand on his son's head, the other hand on his daughter's shoulder.

Poor?