Three

About the same time I found out that I would be RIF’ed from Seattle Public Schools I began to wage a small scale war against a patch of Himalayan blackberry bushes that currentyl control the northwest corner of our back yard.

This part of the yard exists behind a false fense and is hidden from view. Out of sight, out of mind and out of control. I have cut these berries down several times over that last 10 years, as has my Dad, but they are pernicious and dedicated fighters who come back year after year to maintain their sway over the corner.

I usually loath the process of cutting black berries. I inevitably choose a hot day to work and wearing long sleeves and shorts wade in and into the maw of the verdant beast. In short order sweat is pouring down my face, and small cuts on my legs and arms sting and I seem to make no dent in mass of thorny vines. This time things have been different. I have, in a strange way, enjoyed the process.

As I began the process of cutting  I had just finished reading a biography of Daniel Boone, a figure who I knew little about beyond  some mid-century Disney generated pablum. Boone, it turns out, was a prodigiously talented leader and woodsman who inspired both colonizers and poets. His life figured prominently in the work of James Fenimore Cooper, Byron, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

A consistent theme of Boone’s life was  his return to the woods. Over and over his attempts at joining the mainstream of American society would fail and he would return to the subsistence life of a frontiersman. A large part of these returns involved clearing land and building a cabin. I imagine that an afternoon of cutting down blackberry bushes lacks the physical rigor of stump-busting Kentucky bottom land, but I have an inkling of the satisfaction Boone may have drawn from the task.

The work is simple, pure in its intent and rife with metaphor. With my hand occupied by the repetitive process of pushing back the vine, cutting it out and throwing it on the growing pile behind me, my mind can wander in strange directions.

Today, as I worked in a sunlit grove of lime green thorns   I was struck by the similarity between the Himalayan blackberry plant  and an Imperial power. Like the Romans, the Turks, the British or we Americans, the Himalayan blackberry is an efficient conqueror. In short order it can spread over a landscape and dominate the existing flora. It has little respect for the needs or views of what currently exists, but instead imposes its own order upon the the area it dominates. Those who can not assimilate or adapt disappear.

While not inclusive, the Blackberry is tolerant to the point of utility. It will allow others to grow and even flourish as long as that other is not threat to its sovereignty. And in the end, it will fall to a greater power.

This last point gives me some comfort.  As stressful and unassailable my current job situation can feel, it is not permanent.

Today marked the final required day of training for me. I am, sort of, free for the summer. A week spent in training seminars means I still have work to do in my class, but my required work is done until August. This means that I will get to see Snowden every day when she wakes up!

Here is an unrelated but really cute picture of Snowden.

This week was spent in a mandatory Columbia Teacher’s College Writer’s Workshop training session. Writer’s Workshop is a writing instruction method that has proved successful many school districts. It is modeled on, ostensibly, the process the “real writers” use to produce high quality work.

The program was divided into three daily sessions. The morning was a large group lecture style presentation on some aspect of the curriculum. These were moderately informative but were too often repetitive and lacked the depth I hoped for.

The first afternoon session was devoted to using the method to improve our own writing. These sessions were very informative and turned out to be a lot of fun as well. Our instructor, Stacy, did an excellent job explaining and modeling the methods while still treating us like adults. I was very impressed with the quality of her instruction.

The final sessions were short lectures on particular aspects of literacy in schools and varied in quality with the instructor.

Like most professional development the program was too long for the content it contained. We could have covered the same information and completed the same amount of writing in a three day period if we had used our day’s more efficiently. Other than this, however, it was a useful and enjoyable training.

Here is a sort of accurate personal memoir I wrote in my small group session. It is a dramatized version of actual childhood events.

Compression Start

It was running on fumes, when my Dad pulled into the gas station and shut off the engine. Our dusty brown-on-tan 1981 VW Vanagon coughed a couple of times and was silent. Dad got out and began pumping gas while my brother, sister and piled out, trailed by my mom and grandma, to find a restroom. I was 10 years old and on my way to visit family in Montana.
Road trips were a frequent occurrence in my family. My parents resisted, primarily on fiscal grounds, the wonders of air travel. While my friends at school were jetting of to exotic locales like Hawaii or Disneyland, we drove. To California, we drove. To the Oregon coast, we drove. To Canada, we drove. I am convinced that had the van manifested adequate flotation we would have attempted the drive to Hawaii.
Our bladders empty and the gas tank full, you would expect us to climb back in the van and with a turn of the key wend our way towards big sky country. Instead, my mom sat in the drivers seat and my grandma and six year old sister took their usual places in the middle seat while my brother, Dad, and I arranged ourselves around the van, getting ready to push. When it came to starting, our Vanagon had a small problem.
It was 1986 and the Vanagon was 5 years old. It sported 150,000 miles on its current engine and sported more than a few dents. The high mileage came with a nagging side effect. After about 20 minutes of driving the heat from the motor would cause the starter solenoid (a small switch which caused the starter motor to fire) to stop working. This was no problem when the van was underway, but when the engine was turned off, we had to wait an hour or two until the it cooled enough to start.
Stopping for fuel presented a challenge. Pumping gas meant shutting down the engine, which in turn meant a few hours of waiting while the Van mustered the courage to go on. This mandatory wait could be circumvented by maneuver known as the compression start.
The compression start, one of the first pieces of VW related lore I learned, involved  accelerating the van to a moderate speed and then letting out the clutch in second gear. This would manually turn over the engine causing the spark plugs to fire and, hopefully, the engine to start. After several years of living with the cranky solenoid we all knew what to do to get the van running. This process started when we exited the interstate and begin looking for a gas station.
There are many ways to choose a gas station; price, the quality of the attached mini-mart, the potential cleanliness of the bathrooms. We, however, were looking for something different. My Dad at the wheel we would pull into gas station, our faces pressed against the window as we evaluated the topography. We were like the Lee at Gettysburg, our success depended on the terrain.
The ideal was a filling station with a slight downhill exit. This way all that was needed was a quick push and the van could coast up to speed and we could be on our way. It was not uncommon for us to drive through two or three stations before finding one with a suitable descent. On that fateful Montana afternoon, our search was not a success.
We were somewhere east of Vantage in the rolling flat browness of the Inland Empire. Fields of shorn winter weat slowly toasted in the hot sun of late summer. We had checked our a couple of stations previous to this one and found their exits lacking. This was flat country. A telltale stutter in the engine told my Dad that this had to be the stop.
We pulled under the shade of the shed covering the pump and went through the normal gas station routine. We came back the van and assumed our positions for the compression start. My Dad and I were pushing against the rear panels, my hands just above the orange running lights. My eight-year-old brother was pushing against the frame of the open sliding door. The lights in the rear glowed when my Mom turned the key and stepped on the brake. When she took her foot off the brake and the red light in front of my face ceased to glow I would push.
It was very late in the afternoon and when the brake lights dimmed and we began to push. As the Van rolled out from under the shed of the gas pumps it cast a long a shadow against the gravel on the side of the road. Something was wrong. Usually it only took ten or fifteen feet of pushing before the engine would sputter to life, leaving us in a cloud of oily exhaust. This time, nothing was happening.
Each step seemed harder than the first. Finally, the van rolled to a stop and the brake lights came on. With sun to my back I looked up at my Dad. Sweat was running down his face and dripping off his beard onto the dusty pavement. He squinted at me and then turned to look down the road.
“It must be a false flat.” He said these words quietly and I did not really understand what he meant until I began running a few years later.
Our chosen stretch of road looked to be pancake flat, but rose just slightly enough to make our attempt at compression start nearly impossible. My Dad is a calm and humble man who rarely shows when he stressed or angry. What was he thinking? His Van stopped on the side of a darkening rural road, his wife and three young children inside along with his spry 65-year-old mother in law. What would he do? Would we wait for the engine to cool and the van to start or would we have another go? Wordlessly, the decision was made.
The sun nudged its way beneath the Cascades to the west, as we girded ourselves for one more effort. In unspoken solidarity we took our positions. This time, only my sister and Mom remained in the car. My Grandma, all 4 feet 8 inches and 90 pounds of her, leaned in next to my brother and pushed against the frame of the open slider while my Dad and I resumed pushing at the rear. If my Grandma could make it through a depression, a world war, and a battle with tuberculosis that took one of her lungs, compression starting van could not be that hard. The brake lights dimmed and we began to push.
The orange glow of the running lights pooled around my feet illuminating a blurry circle of pavement. We began to push. The van began to roll forward and I put one foot down inside the orange circle and then the other in a plodding walk. I could hear my Dad groan as he leaned harder against his side of the van and I felt the pace increase. My walk gave way to a jog that in no time became a run. Soon I was no longer pushing, but flying along as fast as I could turn my legs over, struggling to maintain contact with the van as my feet bit long loping steps from the pavement. Just as I thought I would loose contact with the Vanagon and sprawl headlong onto the chip-seal of the road the engine roared to life. The van pulled away and I stood with my Dad in a cloud of sweet smelling exhaust watching the glowing taillights.
10 minutes later we were comfortably in our places in the van. Neil Diamond was blasting on the stereo and the cool evening breeze carried the smell of sun burnt grass through the open windows, as we made our way east to Montana.

Writer’s Workshop - June 2007
Sean Baughn