Don't worry, this is not about yesterday's election. God is still in control of things, but my party didn't win, so I'm glum.
No, this is about a true story of divine intervention -- the kind of miraculous event that the unbelieving world chalks up to random chance or "luck," but Christians know is instead an instance of God moving in the lives of His people. The events described happened this past Sunday to a guy I work with who lives in a suburb of Waco.
This man has two kids in the high school band that was leaving Sunday afternoon for state marching contest the next day in Austin. There are approximately 150 kids in the band, which required chartering three buses to transport them down (about 50 kids per bus).
The buses were about ready to go when a local pastor happened to be driving by and noticed something funny about one of the buses. The hydraulic lift system that lowers the entrance steps to let people get in, and then raises the steps back up for travel, hadn't apparently raised back up all the way. The driver tried to get it to raise back into position, but it wouldn't budge.
A Department of Public Safety inspector had to be called out, and after an inspection and driving test he ruled that the problem didn't affect the safety of the bus and that they could get underway. This was good news, since the charter company didn't have another bus available. However, waiting for the clearance had put the band more than an hour behind schedule.
The kids and sponsors boarded the buses, then the first bus in the convoy pulled out of the school parking lot. However, my friend noticed as he was walking to get into his car that the second bus -- the one with his two kids aboard -- wasn't moving. A few seconds later, he heard his wife call from near the bus that there was something wrong with the driver.
My friend got to the bus and looked at the driver, a very large man. He was sitting in the driver's seat, looking out into space, and he was absolutely covered in sweat. The parents told him, "Look, come on out, you need help," but he appeared to shake off whatever had caused him to hesitate and said, "That's alright. I'm fine. Let's go."
The driver closed the door and started to move the bus ahead. A parent was standing next to him at the front of the bus, trying to get a DVD playing in the bus's onboard video player.
Suddenly, this woman at the front of the bus watched in horror as the driver slumped forward in his seat, passed out cold. She grabbed the extremely large steering wheel and somehow managed to keep the bus from going off into the ditch. At the same time, she was hitting the driver's shoulder and yelling "Wake up! Put on the brake! Wake up!"
Eventually, the driver was roused from his sleep enough to apply the brakes, coming within inches of hitting a power pole and a parked car. As soon as the bus came to a stop, he again passed out.
It turns out that the driver was a diabetic who hadn't taken his insulin, and he had gone into diabetic shock.
The bus company was able to supply a substitute driver who arrived quickly, and finally, after the long delay of about 90 minutes, all three buses were finally on the road to Austin.
My friend thought about this later and realized how fortunate that unwelcome mechanical trouble had proved to be. If the first bus hadn't had a problem with its hydraulics -- or if the pastor hadn't passed by and just happened to notice the problem -- or if he hadn't decided to flag the driver and stop the bus -- then all three buses would have left on time. And 90 minutes later, when the driver of Bus #2 (the one carrying my friend's kids) had his episode of diabetic shock, he would have passed out at the wheel not in a school parking lot, but doing 65 miles an hour on Interstate 35 somewhere near Georgetown. And it's highly likely that the bus would have been involved in an accident that would have resulted in many, many deaths.
There are some people who would chalk all this up to fortunate chance. But I know better.
Showing posts with label Children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Children. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Never Go to Work
One of my favorite musical groups is They Might Be Giants. The group is two guys who do all sorts of nerdy, intelligent, sometime weird and downright goofy songs that only a complete dweeb like me can relate to. Their only big hit, I believe, was "Birdhouse in Your Soul" a number of years back.
Anyway, I was excited to learn that TMBG is coming out with their first CD of songs written just for kids. They have also done a number of video podcasts to promote the songs. I'd like to share the video they did for their song called "Never Go to Work," teaching kids about the days of the week. It's a catchy tune, and the video is neat. It might take awhile to load, but it's worth the wait.
Anyway, I was excited to learn that TMBG is coming out with their first CD of songs written just for kids. They have also done a number of video podcasts to promote the songs. I'd like to share the video they did for their song called "Never Go to Work," teaching kids about the days of the week. It's a catchy tune, and the video is neat. It might take awhile to load, but it's worth the wait.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
(Don't) Send In the Clowns
Scientists have finally confirmed a suspicion I've had for a long time -- kids don't really like clowns. In fact. I'm not sure who really, truly, enjoys clowns.Researchers from the University of Sheffield, who were simply trying to figure out ways to improve the decor of hospital children's wards, did a study of 250 hospital patients between the ages of four and 16. What did they find? They discovered that every one of the kids they surveyed -- without exception --- disliked clowns because they were downright scary.
"As adults we make assumptions about what works for children," said Penny Curtis, a senior lecturer in research at the university. "We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable."
I have never been a big fan of clowns. I can't remember how I felt about them as a kid, but I know that as an adult, whenever I went to a circus and the clowns came out to do their "comedy" acts, I was bored, just waiting for the next act when the little dogs jump through the hoops wearing tutus.
I got a different view of clowns when we took my oldest daughter to a circus when she was probably four or five. Whenever a brighly-colored and wild-haired clown came near, she began wailing in fright, as if the clown was carrying a bloody knife and was going to start carving on her stomach. I wasn't used to this reaction then, but when I looked around, I noticed other kids were reacting the very same way. Not all of them, but a good number.
My guess is that all of that clown persona -- the technicolor drag queen makeup, the towering orange and red Afros, the wild, ill-fitting clothing, the honking bicycle horns and the squirting carnations -- simply overloads a kid's circuits. I mean, weren't were supposed to be somewhat afraid of or repulsed by the Joker in the Batman cartoons and movies? And what was he if not just another made-up clown?
Of course, maybe my kids are just overly sensitive. Neither one of them would ever let us put them on Santa's lap to get a Christmas photo made -- they were scared of Santa, too. But come to think of it, a guy in a Santa suit is kind of like a clown, just with fewer colors and props to work with. I think many kids perceive a real, live St. Nick as they do a clown -- not as a friendly adult, but as a big, loud, weird-looking stranger. Maybe there's just too much chaos and uncertainty in a concentrated dose coming at a kid to have him react positively to clowns of any stripe.
Now I know that there will probably be reaction from lots of clown-loving adults and kids out there, and if that's how you feel, it's no skin off my big, round, red nose. And in fairness I must include a disclaimer -- I do like the way clowns tie those long balloons into the shapes of animals. That's a valuable skill, I guess, but I'm not sure you need to look like the survivor of an explosion in a paint and wig factory to put it to use.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Nursery Rhymes I Don't Understand
Yankee Doodle
Picture, if you will, a five-year-old child who knows little or nothing about the American Revolution. Conjuring up this mental image should not prove difficult, given the colonial conflict’s failure to drive the plots of many Scooby Doo or SpongeBob cartoons. In fact, our imaginary child may not even know what the word “revolution” means, and his parents may be determined to keep this information from him as long as possible lest it give birth to plans for armed insurrection in the home.
Go further, and imagine that you are the parent of this child, and that he has just heard for the first time an unbowdlerized version of the American Revolution’s unofficial theme song, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Your child approaches you with a confused countenance and asks you to explain what in the world this apparent bastardization of the Barney theme song is all about. Daddy, what is a yankee doodle? (Sounds to me like some sort of forbidden Chinese wrestling hold). Why did the man call a feather macaroni? And what does it mean to be handy with the girls? Daddy? Daddy?
If you’re like me, these are difficult –– if not impossible –– questions to answer.
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring
This vicious little tune demonstrates how a sociopath would respond when asked to write a children’s nursery rhyme.
As is the case with many of these rhymes, the bare story line itself is simple. As a storm rages outside, an elderly man falls, hits his head, and is injured to the extent that he can’t get out of bed the next morning. The implication is that he was knocked unconscious by the fall, suffering a concussion which possibly resulted in a coma. Remember, it says not that the man was a lazy doofus who didn’t choose to get up the next day, but that he couldn’t get up. We are left to speculate –– will he ever get up again? Is he paralyzed? Or is this the swan song of a corpse?
Now, this simply might be a musical variation of the theme of elderly peril that gave us those daffy commercials with the old lady who complained “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” But of course, that old woman was at least conscious and able to call out for help. In this adaptation, Paw-Paw is out cold.
How strange it is that this scenario –– an accident to a senior citizen causing undetermined but possibly fatal injuries –– ever ended up being distributed to little children in preschool via a nursery rhyme. If there had been, say, a man diving into a shallow pool, hitting his head on a rock and sinking to the bottom, unconcious and slowly drowning, his air slowly seeping away, his lips turning blue, would the average onlooker with a musical bent follow their call to 9-1-1 by rushing to a piano and hunting for a cheery accompaniment? Would they then send the hastily scribbled sheet music for “He’s Diving, He’s Drowning” to Sesame Street for consideration?
A related offshoot of this is the “Jack and Jill” nursery rhyme, which tells the familiar story of Jack falling down and “breaking his crown,” with Jill repeating the same moves seconds later. The same themes are played out in the opening scene of “Chicken Little” and in every Roadrunner cartoon ever made.
I must ask –– what is this morbid, gleeful fascination with serious head injuries?
Rock-a-bye Baby
It’s highly likely that Rock-a-bye Baby is the only nursery rhyme created by, for and about squirrels.
Think about it. The only way this catchy little ditty makes any sort of sense is as a cautionary tale for young bushy-tailed rodents undergoing the challenges of high altitude parenthood.
You know the story. Mr. and Mrs. Nutsy, shut out of the highly competitive inside-hollow-tree housing market and unwilling or unable to move to a new forest, give into temptation and take the quick and easy solution to locate Nutsy Junior’s nursery.
As a temporary measure (so they rationalize) they place the little squirrel’s acorn-filled crib high atop the branches of their favorite old oak, and all is well until that big wind comes along, cracking the rotten wood and blowing the crib –– and Nutsy Junior –– over the edge and into a free fall to the ground far below. Our imaginations complete the screenplay: frantic leaping from branch to branch; the inevitable pounce of a snarling canine; excited, high-pitched chattering; a final view of the bloody, broken crib; slow fade to black.
I’m telling you, the squirrel scenario is the only way this sucker makes sense. So, I must ask –– which ambitious Hollywood script editor first got the crazy idea of substituting a human child in the role of victim? Not that all men and women are model nurturers, but in the history of the world has there been even one recorded instance of a human parent hauling their child’s crib up a tree and then climbing back down to watch what happens? Tarzan and Jane didn’t do it. The Swiss Family Robinson didn’t do it. The Three Stooges –– even Curley –– rejected knucklebrained stunts this perilously wacky.
And why do we continue to sing this musically soothing yet narratively disturbing song to our young babes at bedtime? My guess is we do it because it works –– it gets the little ones tired very efficiently. And we tell ourselves, for the most part correctly, that they can’t understand the words, so what’s the harm?
But what about a home in which there are older children present? How do they feel when each night they witness mommy or daddy lovingly rocking little brother or sister to sleep while giving melodic voice to their parents’ yet unrealized ambition to place the little tyke high atop the front yard pecan tree and wait for a good north wind? Hearing this, are these older children able to sleep at night? Do they harbor fears that their parents might maroon them on the roof in an orange crate during a tornado?
I say if we must continue to sing lullabies about babies placed in harm’s way, let’s invent some new ones and add them to the repertoire for variety’s sake. Let’s hear the following scenes played out to the gentle strains of Bach or Brahms:
––a baby is trussed up with ropes and then hoisted to the top of a tall flagpole during a lightning storm.
––a baby in its bassinet is left up in the crow’s nest of a ship during a typhoon.
––a baby in an infant seat placed temporarily on the car roof is then forgotten just before the car pulls out of a parking lot onto a busy expressway.
––a baby taken for a ride in a wagon by older siblings is left on the train tracks just before the 5:13 express blows into town.
––a young child left unattended in an airplane fiddles with the emergency door and is sucked out into the ether after it opens accidently.
These and other new tunes could be written, recorded and collected on a CD called Lullabies to Lose Sleep Over. At the very least, it would make a great Oprah show.
Picture, if you will, a five-year-old child who knows little or nothing about the American Revolution. Conjuring up this mental image should not prove difficult, given the colonial conflict’s failure to drive the plots of many Scooby Doo or SpongeBob cartoons. In fact, our imaginary child may not even know what the word “revolution” means, and his parents may be determined to keep this information from him as long as possible lest it give birth to plans for armed insurrection in the home.Go further, and imagine that you are the parent of this child, and that he has just heard for the first time an unbowdlerized version of the American Revolution’s unofficial theme song, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Your child approaches you with a confused countenance and asks you to explain what in the world this apparent bastardization of the Barney theme song is all about. Daddy, what is a yankee doodle? (Sounds to me like some sort of forbidden Chinese wrestling hold). Why did the man call a feather macaroni? And what does it mean to be handy with the girls? Daddy? Daddy?
If you’re like me, these are difficult –– if not impossible –– questions to answer.
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring
This vicious little tune demonstrates how a sociopath would respond when asked to write a children’s nursery rhyme.
As is the case with many of these rhymes, the bare story line itself is simple. As a storm rages outside, an elderly man falls, hits his head, and is injured to the extent that he can’t get out of bed the next morning. The implication is that he was knocked unconscious by the fall, suffering a concussion which possibly resulted in a coma. Remember, it says not that the man was a lazy doofus who didn’t choose to get up the next day, but that he couldn’t get up. We are left to speculate –– will he ever get up again? Is he paralyzed? Or is this the swan song of a corpse?
Now, this simply might be a musical variation of the theme of elderly peril that gave us those daffy commercials with the old lady who complained “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” But of course, that old woman was at least conscious and able to call out for help. In this adaptation, Paw-Paw is out cold.
How strange it is that this scenario –– an accident to a senior citizen causing undetermined but possibly fatal injuries –– ever ended up being distributed to little children in preschool via a nursery rhyme. If there had been, say, a man diving into a shallow pool, hitting his head on a rock and sinking to the bottom, unconcious and slowly drowning, his air slowly seeping away, his lips turning blue, would the average onlooker with a musical bent follow their call to 9-1-1 by rushing to a piano and hunting for a cheery accompaniment? Would they then send the hastily scribbled sheet music for “He’s Diving, He’s Drowning” to Sesame Street for consideration?
A related offshoot of this is the “Jack and Jill” nursery rhyme, which tells the familiar story of Jack falling down and “breaking his crown,” with Jill repeating the same moves seconds later. The same themes are played out in the opening scene of “Chicken Little” and in every Roadrunner cartoon ever made.
I must ask –– what is this morbid, gleeful fascination with serious head injuries?
Rock-a-bye Baby
It’s highly likely that Rock-a-bye Baby is the only nursery rhyme created by, for and about squirrels.
Think about it. The only way this catchy little ditty makes any sort of sense is as a cautionary tale for young bushy-tailed rodents undergoing the challenges of high altitude parenthood.
You know the story. Mr. and Mrs. Nutsy, shut out of the highly competitive inside-hollow-tree housing market and unwilling or unable to move to a new forest, give into temptation and take the quick and easy solution to locate Nutsy Junior’s nursery.
As a temporary measure (so they rationalize) they place the little squirrel’s acorn-filled crib high atop the branches of their favorite old oak, and all is well until that big wind comes along, cracking the rotten wood and blowing the crib –– and Nutsy Junior –– over the edge and into a free fall to the ground far below. Our imaginations complete the screenplay: frantic leaping from branch to branch; the inevitable pounce of a snarling canine; excited, high-pitched chattering; a final view of the bloody, broken crib; slow fade to black.
I’m telling you, the squirrel scenario is the only way this sucker makes sense. So, I must ask –– which ambitious Hollywood script editor first got the crazy idea of substituting a human child in the role of victim? Not that all men and women are model nurturers, but in the history of the world has there been even one recorded instance of a human parent hauling their child’s crib up a tree and then climbing back down to watch what happens? Tarzan and Jane didn’t do it. The Swiss Family Robinson didn’t do it. The Three Stooges –– even Curley –– rejected knucklebrained stunts this perilously wacky.
And why do we continue to sing this musically soothing yet narratively disturbing song to our young babes at bedtime? My guess is we do it because it works –– it gets the little ones tired very efficiently. And we tell ourselves, for the most part correctly, that they can’t understand the words, so what’s the harm?
But what about a home in which there are older children present? How do they feel when each night they witness mommy or daddy lovingly rocking little brother or sister to sleep while giving melodic voice to their parents’ yet unrealized ambition to place the little tyke high atop the front yard pecan tree and wait for a good north wind? Hearing this, are these older children able to sleep at night? Do they harbor fears that their parents might maroon them on the roof in an orange crate during a tornado?
I say if we must continue to sing lullabies about babies placed in harm’s way, let’s invent some new ones and add them to the repertoire for variety’s sake. Let’s hear the following scenes played out to the gentle strains of Bach or Brahms:
––a baby is trussed up with ropes and then hoisted to the top of a tall flagpole during a lightning storm.
––a baby in its bassinet is left up in the crow’s nest of a ship during a typhoon.
––a baby in an infant seat placed temporarily on the car roof is then forgotten just before the car pulls out of a parking lot onto a busy expressway.
––a baby taken for a ride in a wagon by older siblings is left on the train tracks just before the 5:13 express blows into town.
––a young child left unattended in an airplane fiddles with the emergency door and is sucked out into the ether after it opens accidently.
These and other new tunes could be written, recorded and collected on a CD called Lullabies to Lose Sleep Over. At the very least, it would make a great Oprah show.
Friday, May 26, 2006
To Everything Turn, Turn, or Do the Hokey Pokey
It's a sad day in the Muley household today. Sad not because of anyone's death or injury, or because of any financial setback or career-related tragedy, but sad because today is the last day that we have a child in elementary school.
We've had two children in elementary school, and it's hard to remember a time when we haven't been there dropping off or picking up, or attending kindergarten graduations, Christmas programs, open houses and parent-teacher conferences. There's lots of memories of making our daughters' day by buying a special lunch and bringing it up to them as we ate with them and their friends at the small little chairs in the cafeteria. I can remember me and Mrs. Muley being room parents, bringing up cookies and drinks for classroom parties, and even one time I was persuaded to sit down in a rocking chair and read a story to the eager group of little first graders gathered around me on the floor.
What's strange is that our 10-year-old daughter is quite sad to be leaving elementary school. Now, when I was a kid, I was always happy on the last day of school, no matter what milestone might have been passed. But both my daughter and her best friend have been somber and even teary-eyed this week when the subject of the impending end of school -- and the farewell to their elementary school days -- came up. A good friend and classmate of theirs is moving to another town in a few days, so that makes it even worse.
Yesterday, Mrs. Muley and I volunteered to take time off of work and be chaperones for the fourth grade end-of-year field trip. All the students went rollerskating at the rink here in Waco and had a blast. I decided that I didn't want to spend two hours just watching kids skate, so I strapped on a battered pair of inline skates and got out onto the floor. I'm sure my daughter was probably a bit embarassed, but she'll get over it.
Looking around at all the fourth graders yesterday, it really hit me how similar, but how different, they are from my classmates when I was in fourth grade in the late 1960s. They are the same in that, well, they act like fourth graders. They boisterous and loud, and overall very happy. That world-weariness and cynicism that starts seeping in somewhere in junior high has not affected them yet. It's possibly the last pure, unadulterated spring of childhood for many of them.
However, how different these kids are from the ones I went to school with. I looked around and saw a rainbow of skin colors and backgrounds. There were black and white students, students from Hispanic, Asian and Indian backgrounds, and even three young Muslim girls who wore head coverings as they skated around the rink joyously. In my elementary school, meanwhile, located in a upper middle class suburb of Houston, we were an almost totally lily white student body. There were no blacks whatsoever, and only a few Hispanic students before anyone ever used the word "Hispanic." Our one example of true multiculturalism was a blond-headed, blue-eyed boy who had moved here from England with his parents. The only place we would have seen a group of young children as diverse as that at my daughter's school in the late 1960s would have been in a Coke commercial.
So, time passes. We'll get used to it, as we always do, but if you don't take the time and notice the changes, even if that involves a little mourning, they're likely to pass you by much too easily and quietly.
FINAL THOUGHTS: If you ever happen to find yourself being with a large group of kids at a skating rink, make sure that when they are all told to take off their skates and return them to the desk that you don't happen to walk through them as they remove said skates. I did this, and the aroma of 120 kids airing their feet after two hours of intense exercise just about brought me down on the psychedelic carpet. A form of this airborne substance is probably among the biological weapons Saddam is suspected of once hiding.
Also, if you men out there want to take on a new and fairly unique physical challenge, try using a men's restroom while wearing a pair of inline skates. I have found that it's a bit of a challenge on a tile floor to navigate a urinal while eight wheels are where your ten toes normally are. You sort of end up just rolling slowly back and forth and hoping your aim is true.
We've had two children in elementary school, and it's hard to remember a time when we haven't been there dropping off or picking up, or attending kindergarten graduations, Christmas programs, open houses and parent-teacher conferences. There's lots of memories of making our daughters' day by buying a special lunch and bringing it up to them as we ate with them and their friends at the small little chairs in the cafeteria. I can remember me and Mrs. Muley being room parents, bringing up cookies and drinks for classroom parties, and even one time I was persuaded to sit down in a rocking chair and read a story to the eager group of little first graders gathered around me on the floor.
What's strange is that our 10-year-old daughter is quite sad to be leaving elementary school. Now, when I was a kid, I was always happy on the last day of school, no matter what milestone might have been passed. But both my daughter and her best friend have been somber and even teary-eyed this week when the subject of the impending end of school -- and the farewell to their elementary school days -- came up. A good friend and classmate of theirs is moving to another town in a few days, so that makes it even worse.
Yesterday, Mrs. Muley and I volunteered to take time off of work and be chaperones for the fourth grade end-of-year field trip. All the students went rollerskating at the rink here in Waco and had a blast. I decided that I didn't want to spend two hours just watching kids skate, so I strapped on a battered pair of inline skates and got out onto the floor. I'm sure my daughter was probably a bit embarassed, but she'll get over it.
Looking around at all the fourth graders yesterday, it really hit me how similar, but how different, they are from my classmates when I was in fourth grade in the late 1960s. They are the same in that, well, they act like fourth graders. They boisterous and loud, and overall very happy. That world-weariness and cynicism that starts seeping in somewhere in junior high has not affected them yet. It's possibly the last pure, unadulterated spring of childhood for many of them.
However, how different these kids are from the ones I went to school with. I looked around and saw a rainbow of skin colors and backgrounds. There were black and white students, students from Hispanic, Asian and Indian backgrounds, and even three young Muslim girls who wore head coverings as they skated around the rink joyously. In my elementary school, meanwhile, located in a upper middle class suburb of Houston, we were an almost totally lily white student body. There were no blacks whatsoever, and only a few Hispanic students before anyone ever used the word "Hispanic." Our one example of true multiculturalism was a blond-headed, blue-eyed boy who had moved here from England with his parents. The only place we would have seen a group of young children as diverse as that at my daughter's school in the late 1960s would have been in a Coke commercial.
So, time passes. We'll get used to it, as we always do, but if you don't take the time and notice the changes, even if that involves a little mourning, they're likely to pass you by much too easily and quietly.
FINAL THOUGHTS: If you ever happen to find yourself being with a large group of kids at a skating rink, make sure that when they are all told to take off their skates and return them to the desk that you don't happen to walk through them as they remove said skates. I did this, and the aroma of 120 kids airing their feet after two hours of intense exercise just about brought me down on the psychedelic carpet. A form of this airborne substance is probably among the biological weapons Saddam is suspected of once hiding.
Also, if you men out there want to take on a new and fairly unique physical challenge, try using a men's restroom while wearing a pair of inline skates. I have found that it's a bit of a challenge on a tile floor to navigate a urinal while eight wheels are where your ten toes normally are. You sort of end up just rolling slowly back and forth and hoping your aim is true.
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