Into the Mist

There was a fog today, the first of the season. And by this, I do not mean that we had some fog. I mean there was a fog. The difference is subtle when written, but significant when experienced. We occasionally have heavy, incredibly dense, visually impairing fogs in the CA central valley during the winter. Last winter we didn't have any, but usually we get four or five a season. They occur when the air temperature drops quickly while the ground temperature does not. The cool air is dry, so it leaches moisture out of the ground. But once the moisture makes contact with the coolness, it condenses instantly to be come an opaque vapor that hovers impenetrably above the surface. Sometimes even the sun and wind cannot disspell it.

I quite enjoy a good fog. Not the brown, industrial kind that Dickens describes in A Christmas Carol, but the swirling white kind that envelopes the world in a special feeling. Fog provokes an odd sort of reversal; solid objects take on an insubstantial, barely-seen quality while the ephemeral air mutates into something solid and tangible. It turns the landscape into a water-color painting, muting the colors and blurring them together into something softer, less intense, less real. It also muffles sounds so that even the roar of a car's engine and hum of it's tires become distant, almost imagined. Essentially, fog acts like a veil over the world, fashioning mystery out of everyday things. In literary terms, fog is poetry.

And how fitting that it should come on Halloween day, don't you think?

On the Rail Again

What is it about trains? I can't say exactly. Children's eyes light up and adults wax nostalgic whenever they see one. Maybe it's that they offer some sort of connection to a past era, both personal and historical. Maybe it's the disembodied concept of "Travel." Maybe it's the comfort and ease of train travel as opposed to plane or automobile. Or maybe it's the landscape that trains typically traverse, usually more scenic and isolated than that of highways and airports. I just don't know, but I know I love them.

This past weekend, Darling Wife and I went with our two houseguests to visit some of the tourist attractions in the Bay Area. To save money and make the trip more companionable, we took one vehicle. We spent a day and night in San Francisco, hitting several sights that DW and I were very familiar with, but also taking in one or two that we had not managed to experience on previous sojourns in the city. The next day, we all travelled south to San Jose, where we paid a call on Mrs. Winchester, and then our guests continued down the coast to San Simeon, the isolated mansion of famed newspaper publisher William Randolph Hurst, while DW and I caught the train back home. How odd it was to be on a train again. . . and how wonderful.

The southern city where I grew up didn't have trains. Well, that's not exactly true. We had freight trains. I could hear them whistle as they passed by the suburb where I lived, haunting and thrilling to a small boy lying awake in his bed at night dreaming of distant lands and even more distant days. They were romantic, carrying with them an echo of Europe and Victorian industry.

Later when I was studying in the UK, I took my first train trip. I had a British Rail pass that openned the island to me, and I made frequent use of it, so much so that I was an old hand at train travel by the time I hopped back across the pond. Everything seemed so easy on the train. I'd just show up at the station, check the schedule, and go to the right platform at the right time. It required very little thought or effort. I didn't have to carry maps or directions, arrive hours ahead of time, purchase tickets days in advance - I didn't even have to check luggage. Once on board the train, the seats were usually much roomier and more comfortable than airplane seats, and there was almost always a dining car with decent, if overly priced, food, so I was never required to plan ahead or go hungry. I could read or sleep or stare out the window as sheep and stone fences sped past until the conductor notified me that we had reached my stop or I heard the announcement over the loud speakers. Then I'd jump off and start a new adventure in a new place where people spoke with different accents and dwelt beside enormous cathedrals. What could be more fun?

Later, when I'd moved to Boston, I again renewed my friendship with the train. My sister lived on Long Island at the time, and I would take Amtrak down to Manhattan and board the Long Island Railroad at Penn Station. The fast pace of the crowds and smell of pizza-by-the-slice always excited me. Sometimes I would stay in The City for an hour or a day. There was no rush. There would always be another train if I missed one. And if I didn't have time to buy my ticket at the station, I could get one from the conductor on the train, for a slightly increased price. I also regularly took the MBTA commuter rail from Boston to Salem, Gloucester, or Maine. These quick and convenient trains made getting out of the city without a car part of the fun of the escape rather than an additional hassle. I could imagine that I was Sherlock Holmes, steaming my way toward another case, or David Copperfield, about to embark on a new phase of my education.

Now that I live on the west coast, my train excursions are limited to the occasional trip from Washington, D.C. to DW's parent's house in Maryland. They are infrequent, perhaps once a year, but they are delightful. The rolling hills of the mid-atlantic region glide by the windows like a permanent green sea, and rivers with names forever connected in my mind with Civil War campaigns flow gently alongside us. And these trips carry with them the additional promise of family and home.

So as we sat there on this western train, returning to our Central Valley town, I felt the familiar rocking and listened to the perpetual rattle and chug, and a sense of pleasure and relaxation swept over me. There is just something about a train.

Room To Let to friends and family

Darling Wife and I have more houseguests arriving this evening and staying through next week. This means another bout of sightseeing and entertaining. But we are not as weary of this as you might think. Quite the contrary.

You see, DW and I have no family and very few friends out here at the end of the world. That means that 95% of the time it's just the two of us. Of course, we're still newlyweds, and we enjoy this time alone together. Besides, even though I suffer from chronic wanderlust now and again, we're mostly kind of quiet homebodies, so it's nice to have no social commitments generally. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Despite the wonders of telephones and the internet, we have few options other than quiet, alone time. Everyone we know is just too far for easy face-to-face contact. (There are reasons I won't go into right now for why we haven't made many real friends here.) Consequently, we often feel isolated and homesick. As a result, every visitor gives us a little taste of home and friendly companionship, reminds us that we are part of a larger circle. They also give us the impetus to get out of the house and enjoy a little of this wonderous place we live in.

It's true that we are being overly blessed with visitors at the moment, but we won't complain. We are enjoying it.

But this means that I will, once again, be writing very little next week.

Cheers!

Feel the Burn!

So, Southern California (SoCal) is in flames, as everyone must know because it is in all the papers and ABC pre-empted my favorite television show last night to do a special report on it. It is truly terrible how many people have been evacuated, homes destroyed, landscape devastated, all to the tune of millions -if not billions- of dollars in damage. I know that I should feel bad for these people. I know that I should sympathize with their very real human suffering.

But I can't. Call me cold; call me cruel. But I just can't feel anything for these mostly extremely wealthy people who have lost their million-dollar Malibu and and San Diego homes and now reside in a football stadium all because they refuse to leave "paradise." Oh, I know that it's hit some average Joes and Janes too. But mostly it's been the filthy rich.

My lack of sympathy is not directly related to my opinions about the victims' wealth. Certainly the fact that most of them probably have more than enough insurance to allow them to rebuild with very little inconvenience does factor into the equation, but it is not the bottom line. No. The real reason for my response would be apparent if you actually watch or read the news reports in which these victims make statements. Almost all of them say something along the lines of "We've been through this before, but not this bad." And "We're just hoping it's over soon so that we can start to put our lives back together again as soon as possible."

These statements tell me two things:
First, this DOES happen in SoCal... a lot. To be sure, it is seldom, if ever, this bad, but it is always happening. Southern California is desert, but unlike deserts in the southwest, which get little if any rain and consequently have almost no vegetation other than cacti, SoCal gets some rain in the winter, which means that it grows grass and stuff that dies when the winter rains stop so that by summer and fall, there is a lot of dried up, extremely combustible vegetation covering the landscape. SoCal also has dry, hot winds every single year, many, many times a year. The conditions couldn't be better for wildfires. So, unlike a Hurricane Katrina-type disaster that happens occasionally when a thousand factors play out just right, these SoCal fires happen every single year, several times a year. And everyone knows this.

As a result, I have a hard time feeling sorry for these people. They chose to build very expensive homes in the heart of a fire-prone area. Where's the surprise that those homes are now burning, burnt, or threatened by fire? Duh!

Furthermore, the second statement indicates something very detrimental to any sympathy on my part. Most of these people have the money to go elsewhere, but they are choosing to stay in that stadium for one reason and one reason only. They didn't just build their homes in a dangerous area in the first place, they are staying as close as they can, hoping that the fires are contained soon so that they can go right back to them! Did they learn a lesson? Are they fleeing? Will they use a little common sense and make a life in a more hospitable environment? Nope. They are living off of taxpayer dollars so that they can quickly repeat what was a stupid and costly decision in the first place. And they are putting thousands of firefighters' lives on the line as a result.

There are real tragedies, unavoidable ones, happening all over the world. I cannot feel that these people deserve my sympathy.

Is It a Positive Virture, Though?

My horoscope today reads:

"Develop the patience of a saint. The pressing need to rush to meet a deadline could be working at cross purposes with accuracy. Start nothing new of great importance right now."

Patience, eh? Patience is a curious concept, especially in American culture. We have all sorts of platitudes that advocate it, like the one alluded to in the horoscope and the title of today's post, and we generally accept patience as a desireable quality. And yet, everything in our society pushes us to strive for more, to actively seek greater things, to be decisive and sure, to be anything but patient. Being patient can be seen as being weak, inert, insignificant. Patience is one of those words, like "complacent" or "condescending," that technically denotes something positive while connoting something slightly negative to most people. The patient person appears to us simultaneously wise and enervated.

Now, I don't put any stock in astrology. I read horoscopes out of curiousity and entertainment more than anything else, and if one does accurately reflect a certain present or future reality for me, I see this as an interesting coincidence or the result of creative perspective rather than fact.

However, it is. . . well . . . interesting in light of today's horoscope that I just discovered that our scottie breeder's "bitch" has not come into season yet. She is more than a month overdue. After some research, I discovered that this is not really abnormal since a female dog's reproductive cycle is hardly regular. There are four distinct phases, each of which can vary in length by several days. As a result, the entire cycle tends to last about six months, but this is no where near an exact figure for each and every cycle even in the same bitch. In addition, there is no real way to know when she began a particular phase of the cycle, so the breeder's calculations could easily be off by as much as a month. But the consequence of this delay is that Darling Wife and I have had to decide to either find another breeder who will have puppies available at the late-January/early-February date that we wanted, or stick with our current breeder, meaning we won't be able to bring a puppy home until April at the earliest.

On the one hand, we've already been very patient on this issue, and I do have another breeder waiting to help us get a puppy around the time we want, which we believe to be an advantageous one for us. But on the other hand, there are several incentives for getting the pup in April, and we have already made a significant investment of time, research, and emotion into this breeder and her dogs.

So, we have chosen the route of patience. But I can't help but wonder if our decision indicates a positive, saintly virture, or simply inertia and irresolution.

I still Believe

GO SOX!

-

Still

"Dense." That's the word I would give it if I were limited to one word. Dense with history, people, cars, buildings. Even the trees cling to every curb, determined to crush out any sense of space. I grew up with fields and pastures, and I need to see sky sometimes. There is no sky in that New England metropolis, just age and culture. Consequently, I found myself wanting to strike out at people on the subways and sidewalks in panic for a little elbow-room, some air to breathe. From buying groceries to having a drink with friends, everything is hard there, dense and hard. There are just too many people in too small a space - all of them scurrying to secure for themselves what you want for yourself. They are your unwelcome competitors for materials, attention, and space, and you are theirs. Certainly they can be nice, if you can slide beneath their hard exterior, their instantaneous "No!" But if you want to survive, you have to push them before they push you. It is a constant struggle in which even the weather beats at you, a cold that seeps into your bones until you think you will never be warm again.

I cannot live there anymore.

And yet…I miss. I miss tea at a café on Newbury Street on a spring afternoon when the snowmelt puddles on street corners and drips from the awnings of Armani and Prada. The air so heavy it dampens the sounds of cars rushing past and sidewalk conversations carried out in Mandarin and French. I miss brick townhouses that remember the Revolution, plain and solid on the outside with glimpses of marble fireplaces and crystal chandeliers through rippled, centuries-old glass. Things were built to last there. I miss narrow, winding streets that never quite come out where one thinks. Every journey is one of confusion, followed by discovery. I miss the river that freezes so hard in winter people drive on it, and in spring, breaks out with Ivy League crew teams that glide over its surface like maroon-clad swans. I miss used-music stores in Harvard Square where millionaires' sons in second-hand clothes haggle with sales clerks over $10 CDs. I miss the Museum of Fine Arts where blue-collar workers from Southie spend a Saturday admiring Van Goghs and Renoirs with no more self-consciousness than they would feel at a construction site near Fenway. I miss Robert Frost, Hawthorne, and Thoreau. I miss fresh lobster in summer and flame-colored trees in Autumn. And most of all, I miss the pubs, places where my friends and I listened to Irish bands and talked about our classes while drinking Guinness served by people who know how it should taste, the feel of warm camaraderie on cold, winter nights.

I miss Boston.

Crossing the Line

The rainy season is beginning here in California's central valley. That means our months of cloudless blue skies, blazing sun, and scorched earth are finally at an end, and the plants and people breathe a sigh of relief. But it has also had an unexpected side effect for me in my new occupation, so I thought I would take this moment to elaborate on the negative aspects of my job that I hinted at before. There are only three, which means that on the whole I still enjoy what I do, but they are seriously annoying. So here goes.

The first one, as I indicated, relates to the weather. Being a crossing guard involves standing outside on the sidewalk for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. I'm a rather outdoorsy kinda guy, so this really doesn't bother me. In fact, I quite like it. And unlike most people here, who seem to think that God ordained that their lives be filled with only sunny and beautiful days and who feel betrayed and horribly put out when this imagined promise isn't kept, I enjoy a little variety in my weather. I love a sunny day, but I also like a little rain and the occasional bluster. Heck, even a spot of cold and snow would be welcome to me. Besides, I'm only outside for an hour. If I get hot, I always know that I'll be back indoors before it gets intolerable. And if I get wet and cold, I know I will shortly be able to go home and change clothes. It really, really isn't a big deal. But any time there is a speck of dark cloud in the sky, every parent crossing my intersection feels the need to threaten me with being soaked to the skin. For some of them, it is a casual observation, but for some, there is a slight note of belligerence in their prognostications that I cannot for the life of me understand. Perhaps they are so used to ordering people, ie their children, around that they cannot comprehend that I do not instantly obey their directions and donn a rain coat in fear and trepidation of the terrible outpouring from the heavens; therefore, they feel the need to repeat their dire warnings at every possible instance. Or perhaps they are just trying to make conversation with me. But either way, I think I'm aware enough to notice that it is raining, and I further think I am old enough to decide for myself whether or not this rain warrants any extra measures on my part. I don't need to be told, let alone harrassed, about this. And in all honesty, I swear to you that this happens when the "rain" is no more than a slight mist that I find pleasant instead of alarming. I sometimes wish that people would just cross the street and be done with it.

The second issue is a less personal one, and it relates to my city's standing as the number one bike friendly city in the US. I, myself, am a cyclist. I prefer to walk or ride my bike rather than drive if at all possible. I would love to claim I do this for the environment, but the truth is that I just think it's easier. I don't like all of the hassle that comes with a car. Being able to just go out the door and get to my destination without the extra thought about gas, directions, parking, etc. is one of the best reasons for living in a major city; it is just so much more freeing. And though my town is a small one, it has this in common with a much larger metropolis. You can get anywhere in town quickly and efficiently on a bike. Every street has bike lanes; there are additional bike roads in many areas; and bike racks abound. The university even has entire bike parking lots. However, many cyclists seem to forget that a bike is, in fact, a vehicle. That means that one cannot, or should not, ride a bike on sidewalks or crosswalks. The word "WALK" in these compounds is there to indicate that these areas are for pedestrians. If one wishes to move within them, he or she must push the bike while. . . WALKING. And when one is in an area designated for vehicles, such as the public street, one must obey the rules of the road, even if one's vehicle is pedal powered rather than mechanically powered. That means that cyclists are required, just like cars and trucks, to stop at all traffic lights and stop signs, including the one held in the hand of a crossing guard. And one must remained stopped until the crossing guard lowers his or her stop sign and steps onto the curb. Most cyclists think they are exempt from traffic laws. They speed right through the intersection, sometimes even weaving in and out of tiny children toddling across the street. This is not only dangerous; it's illegal. And even when it appears that the kids have gotten safely into the opposite lane, that doesn't mean the cyclists (or motorists for that matter) can decide for themselves that it's time to go. Little kids are not to be trusted when it comes to crossing the street. That is why there is the need for crossing guards. They can turn around and run back across the lane at any moment, or a child that you didn't even see on the curb behind a line of cars may see a friend on the other side and decide to make a dash for it. And though a bike might not directly hurt a child much if it struck one, it can knock the child onto the pavement, leading to potentially serious or life-threatening injuries. Cyclists really need to learn that the decision is not theirs. They must stop as long as the crossing guard is in the crosswalk with his or her stop sign held aloft. Period.

And the last thing is a regular pet peeve of mine: cell phones, Blackberries, iPhones, iPods, etc. I cannot tell you how many times someone has blown through the crosswalk without even seeing me or the four small children traversing the intersection because they were talking on the phone or fiddling with a Blackberry. And often parents begin to cross the street with their precious loved ones following obediently behind them without making certain that I have stopped traffic or motioned them to proceed because they were preoccupied typing in a text message. And even if I blow my whistle or shout, most cyclists do not hear me because of the iPod permanently implanted in their ears. I don't care what anyone says, the primary convenience of these devices is that they allow people to do one thing while they are actively engaged in another, and this is dangerous! The human brain is not capable of doing two things at once. It's just not. You may think you are multitasking, but you are not really doing either task well. Diverting attention to an electronic device removes you from your surroundings so that you are not completely aware of what is going on. As long as everything goes smoothly, you can handle this. But what about when a car pulls out in front of you or a child darts across the street or a crossing guard waves a big red "STOP" sign before you. You will likely not notice it. And once you do see it, your brain will take a moment to refocus and realize what is happening. Then you will have to consider how to respond, drop the device you are holding, and move you hands/feet into position to halt your movement or alter your course. The delay it takes to perform these steps is longer than you think, and a child or children could be killed. Is having a meaningless conversation with you BFF or maintaining constant background music to your life really worth that? This isn't hypothetical. It almost happens every single day, multiple times a day, at my one crosswalk alone. Just wake up to reality and turn the damn machines off. Not down. Not on vibrate. OFF!

Dulce Domum

Every dictionary I check has at least six definitions for "home" -one had more than twenty- but none of them captures my sense of the word. To me, home is not exactly a place but a feeling. It must be a place I feel I know well, a place where I am familiar with the people and the landscape; it's where I am in sync with the rythms and comfortable in the surroundings; it's where even the atmosphere feels right. It is where I belong.

Listen to the word. h-OOO-MMM-e. It even sounds like strength and comfort, doesn't it? Yet, I'm not exactly sure where or what home is for me. I knew once, or thought I did. But now. . .

I grew up in a suburb of Nashville, TN. It was an odd sort of in-between place, too rural to be the city and too developed to be the country. It was houses, houses, houses all around without a single store and only one small horse pasture. Certainly, I had friends who lived close by; my school was pretty good; and our house was roomy enough. But the place was totally lacking in any sense of atmosphere. I never considered it home.

"Home" in my youth meant our family farm in Mississippi. No one remembers exactly how long the land has been in the family. My great-great-grandparents lived on part of it when my great-grandmother met and married my great-grandfather. The latter bought and added most of the rest of the 80 acres before he died when my grandfather was 8. There is a small cemetery on this "new" portion, containing mostly unmarked graves and two tombstones with the name "Scott" on them, but my grandmother has no idea who these Scotts were. I always loved the farm and spent as much time there as I could. The barn, fields, pastures, and ponds all seemed a part of me. But after my grandfather died, a tornado blew away the barn and other farm buildings, and my great uncle sold off the cattle herd, the place just didn't feel like it used to. In addition, everything is poverty and ruin in the deep South, and a radical conservative faction has such a strangle hold on the economy and politics that I no longer feel like I belong there and haven't for some time.

As a young twenty-something, I moved from the suburbs into Nashville. I had a good job downtown, good friends, and I walked the streets like I was born to them. I knew all of the best cafes, and each tree and statue was like an old friend. At night, I would go out on the town. I always knew where the best bands were playing and when, and I was a regular at several clubs and pubs. But then I moved away to start college. When I go back to Nashville to visit family, I feel like a stranger in the city. There are new buildings and new venues, and I am out of touch with the spirit of the place.

The small town my university was in was never really home to me. It was always a temporary stopping place, and it quickly felt alien once my friends and I graduated. I've been back there too, and it is comfortably familiar, but I cannot imagine living there now.

While in college, I participated in a summer abroad program and lived in London for a time. There again I found home. The cosey blend of cutting-edge city and centuries-old tradition suited my personality perfectly, and my long love of British literature made me intimate with the people, spaces, and culture like no place I'd ever been. I would gladly have remained there forever, but it was not meant to be. I had to return home at the close of the program. I have since paid it an all-too-short visit, and the old sense of returning home was with me just as strongly. But it is not practical to consider living there. It's too expensive, and immigration to the UK is difficult for non-europeans. I will have to be satisfied with occasional visits and a name of expatriot.

Then came Boston. My affiliation with "Beantown" began when my sister's family moved to western Massachusetts in 1992 or '93. They lived there for 5 years, and whenever I would travel north to visit them, we would go into Boston. It reminded me very much of an American London, and I knew that someday I would live there. And I did, for three years. At first, it required a lot of acclimation. I came from a world of Walmarts, suburban malls, and sprawling ranch houses. Boston is a dense city of boutiques and townhouses. I adapted to many things quickly, but much of the everyday took a little more effort. Still, I felt like I belonged there as I walked the streets, rode the "T", hung out in the pubs, or had lunch on the Common. How I miss it.

But I could not stay there. Again, it is too expensive, and no matter how comfortable I was in this bustling old city, I longed for a sense of space that it seems hostile to. Eventually it wore me down until I was tired and angry like most northeasterners, and that just didn't feel like me. So, DW and I moved to California.

If I lived here until the day I died, I would never feel at home here. Everything from the food to the trees makes me aware at every moment that I am an outsider. A lot of people, thousands each year, move to this sunny state, desiring exactly the things that alienate me. And to be sure, there is nothing innately wrong with these things. They just aren't for me.

But by this point, I have forgotten what is. I have lived and loved in so many places, each with it's good and bad, each feeling a little like home for a day or a season. . . but none of them, ultimately, filling the bill. I know all of the platitudes: "Home is where the heart is." "Home is where you hang your hat." "Home is where DW is at." "Home is..." "Home is..." Perhaps it is, in the final analysis, not that which is known, but that which is unknowable.

Crossing Expectations

I am a people watcher. Like most things, people tend to annoy me when I am focused on a specific activity and they are in my way. Even their very breathing seems to interfere with my ability to complete my task. However, if I take the time to stop and pay attention to them as living, sentient beings rather than obstacles, I often find myself entertained, amused, or even sympathetic toward them. I see their humanity. And even if I still notice them perpetrating incorrigible acts, I am often more tolerant or, at the very least, less agitated by their behavior. This may have no direct affect on them, but I feel certain that it encourages me to be less hostile toward them, which must indirectly make things better for them in some small way.

My new job as a crossing guard has given me a superb opportunity to observe people. In fact, one might say that this is my primary function. I watch people trying to cross the road, and I watch people driving cars/riding bikes down that same road. I always have to be alert and watching. And I admit that I was shocked by people's behavior during my first week on the job. But not in the way you might imagine.

You see, I tend to think of people, Americans especially, as self-centered automatons that will do anything to make their own lives better or more convenient while ignoring everything and everybody who will not further that end. Oh sure, people pay superficial lip-service to caring about others. We watch "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," we donate money to Habitat for Humanity, and we experience moments of sadness when we see some tragedy on the news. This makes us feel better about ourselves. And if a life-threatening situation arose, I truly believe that many of us actually would sacrifice ourselves to save someone else. Nonetheless, these general truths do not change the fact that on a day-to-day basis in a thousand little ways, we slight and belittle our fellow human beings while we strive to build lives of increasing isolation and personal luxury.

But perhaps I might have to revise this estimate somewhat. As a crossing guard, I am a public servant. I expected people to take me for granted, some seeing me merely as a necessary machine that enables them to get where they have to go but possessing no life of its own, and some as an annoying impediment in their progress down the road, something to be put up with for a few seconds before pressing down violently on the gas pedal with an irritated glare. On the contrary, most people are polite and respectful. They acknowledge me as a person and express their gratitude at my assistance, although sometimes this takes the form of trying to engage me in conversation, thereby inhibiting my ability to be as watchful as I need to be. Still, they mean well. Even the drivers usually show far more respect and patience than I anticipated. To be sure, some of them are motivated solely by a personal desire to be a good role model to their children - not because they actually care about me - but that desire in and of itself is a positive thing. It shows that they possess the right instincts, even if they do not always practice or consciously recognize them.

And the children are even better. They wait patiently at the curb, look me in the face as they pass, and almost always say, "Thank you." I had really not expected such courtesy and politeness. I suppose they are young enough that they still obediently follow their parents' orders and utter these words out of habit. And I suppose my orange vest and association with "School" makes me an unquestionable authority figure in their minds. Not to mention that my height of 6'4" must make me appear awesome to individuals who seldom exceed 3' themselves. Nevertheless, this has been a pleasant surprise.

That is not to say that some people have not reacted exactly as I expected, or worse. But for the moment, I'd prefer to allow my faith in humanity to expand a bit, so I will address these exceptions at a later date.