The Great White-Out of Midway High

What you are about to read is true.  Well, as true as the passage of 30 years will allow, given that time tends to muddy the recollection. Still, the story I am about to share remains a fixed part of my personal oral history, embellished only where necessary to enhance the tale and its telling. 
 
In the vast flatness spanning the horizon west of Grand Forks, one will find dozens of small, largely unincorporated communities with names like Mekinock, Gilby, Inkster, Johnstown, Honeyford, and Forest River. The first of these, where I lived for a time, rested 5 miles north of the runways of Grand Forks AFB, where on any given day B-52 heavies would fly directly overhead, mere hundreds of feet overhead, on their way to who knows where. Some of those flights featured crews that included my dad, but I digress.
 
On a lonely county road, in the relative center of all these townships, is Midway Public School. In my day, Midway was a K-12 facility, with only enough students to fill a single class for each grade. Indeed, had I stayed there through all of my high school years, I would have been in a graduation class of about 29. If I had to guess, I’d wager that this remains more or less the case to this day. The school features a hexagon pod for 1st-6th, and a couple of hallways for grades 7-12. We had a gym, of course, a real “shop” for woodworking, welding, and the like, and a big, curtained stage (part of the gym) where the pep band would stand and play for basketball games. From my home, the bus ride to and from school was 30 minutes – and I was the last pickup in the morning, and the first drop off in the afternoon. In my mind’s eye, I can still see it all – the gravel roads, the grain elevators, the unending flatness of the fields – as if it were yesterday.
 
Winters in this part of the country are marked by three things: frigid cold, bitter, howling wind, and drifts upon drifts of snow. Weather systems often drop out of Canada with frightening speed, bringing subzero temps, winds 40-50 miles per hour and even more, inches upon inches of snow, and drifts several feet high across the roads. This is a tale of one such storm.
 
I was sitting in class late one afternoon, English class I think, listening to the teacher drone on about something I don’t recall. To my left was a bank of windows that looked out to the parking lot in front of the school. It was an overcast day, but not unpleasant as far as that goes. As the clock turned slowly on its dial, it began to get darker, but there wasn’t anything unusual about that at that time of day, that time of year. Snow began to fall, and the wind started picking up, but again, nothing out of the ordinary for the northern Dakota plains.
 
Then it hit – a wall of wind and snow that shook the windows so hard that even the teacher was momentarily startled out of her monologue. We all stared at the window, chattering and marveling at what we were seeing. Or rather, not seeing. For where moments before you could see cars a mere 10-15 yards away, now was a wall of white. We’d had such conditions before, but usually they were relatively short-lived, and often looked worse than they really were (a good wind on a bright sunny day can grab the snow and blow it against the windows, creating a similar effect). This time, however, we were dealing with the real thing.
 
It wasn’t long before the principal came on the PA, announcing to the school that busing was being suspended due to the increasingly hazardous conditions. What with the wind and zero visibility, that was kind of a no-brainer. Students were to go on to their last period classes and wait for further instructions. The bell rang, and we went on, but with the buzz of adrenaline and excitement that comes with the knowledge that we were in the middle of something quite outside our normal routine.
 
By 3:00, the wind and the snow had only gotten worse. Some brave parents (or stupid, as the case may be) ventured out to the school to pick up their kids. But the vast majority of students like myself, dependent on the buses, were stuck. The principal came on the PA again, to announce that due to the worsening conditions of the storm, all students and teachers were to proceed back to their 1st period classes, where we were to in effect start a “new day” of school, regular schedule. Attendance would be taken. “Lunch” would in fact hit right about dinner time.
 
And so we did. Most teachers turned their class periods into a study hall of sorts, allowing us to complete the assigned homework from earlier in the day. One or two of mine continued with the next day’s lesson plan. Actually, it was quite ingenious, because it kept us busy (and contained) for as long as possible. Outside, darkness fell, the wind howled, and the white-out continued. Dinner consisted of grilled cheese, some kind of soup, and that chocolate cake mix the kitchen staff insisted was “pudding”. By the end of our second rotation through the school day, it was clear that we were headed into uncharted territory: they were keeping us overnight.
 
And then the party started. The gym was opened up, initially half-court for volleyball, half-court for basketball. Later, the volleyball nets were pushed to the side, to accommodate even more basketball. The pick-up games went on all night – and I do mean all night. Some classrooms that had AV equipment (TV/VCR on rolling carts) had movies, but I don’t recall too many showing much interest in that. One room had a computer, a TRS-80 maybe, that had one popular, hand-jammed BASIC game: Mow the Lawn. A few others may have worked on projects in the shop. But most of us wandered around, doing a little bit of everything, making the most of the freedom that came with having the run of the school. Teachers tried to chaperone, of course, but on the whole, given that there were fewer than 200 of us at most, things didn’t get too bad. The parents need not have worried about those poor kids stuck overnight at school; hanging out all night with friends, making the most of what was probably a bad situation, we were having a ball. A few people eventually did try to find quiet corners to sleep, but truth be told, not many of us really tried. At one point during the night, a couple of us went down the hall to the elementary pod to check on siblings. Most of these young ones had curled up to sleep in various places on the floor. I have no idea what else these teachers did to keep order down there, but I am certain they had their hands full.
 
By 2 a.m., the storm had finally passed, even clearing enough to allow the brilliant white moon to be seen shining overhead. Word got around that buses would roll at 7 a.m., as soon as the plows had cleared the worst off the roads. School was off the next day, of course. Sure enough, the sun came up on another frigidly cold morning. We loaded the buses and made our way home. And promptly went to bed. Well, at least I did.
 
Having lived in the South since the summer of ’86, I’ve seen what passes for winter weather here. Some years feature actual snowfall, a bit of ice, and the general disruption of life in a place ill-equipped to handle such things. And each time winter pays us a visit, I cannot help but to recall, retell, and romanticize the story I’ve come to call “The Great White-Out of Midway High”. For the better part of 24 hours, it was winter at its worst, but through the eyes of youth – the time of our lives, and a memory for a lifetime.

It's September, and that Means Sunrises

Of course, the sun rises everyday. And yes, the approach of dawn can be beautiful any time of year, if the conditions are just right. For the past few years however, it seems that September is the prime month for the kind of sunrises that reach beyond the barriers I so carefully erect, filling my eyes with colors and sometimes tears. I age with the seasons, and perhaps it truly is for such a time as this, when my reserves are low and I ache for renewal, that these masterpieces of divine tapestry arrive in quiet splendor.

His mercies are indeed new every morning.

Random MishMash

I'm not writing much these days, as should be quite apparent by now. There are many reasons for this, many having to do with the notion that "discretion is the better part of valor," which to take the true Shakespearean meaning serves as an indictment against the type of man I think I claim to be. I could say I am busy, which would also be true, but even this does not tell the whole story. I could say I am concerned with the Orwellian trends in our discourse, and that some exercise of caution may be warranted, particularly with respect to future employment given the public nature of our social media, blogs, and the like.

Needless to say, I've been doing some soul searching as to what I should be writing about, what I want to write about, and whether there is much to be gained by writing at all. (Hey, if I'm going to have a crisis of faith, better that it involves something like this than anything else more important!)

Below are a couple of nuggets, bite-size rants if you will, that are standalone thoughts I've jotted down or copied off over the last month or so, but never developed into anything more meaningful. They are generally devoid of context, so I'll leave it to your imagination what drove me to put them down.

• I am forever amazed at those who believe progress means nullifying history rather than learning from it, and each other. And yet I shouldn't be, for this is a tale as old as civilization itself.

• Willful blindness and the inability to accept the humanity and fallibility of our forebears for what they are makes my head explode.

Key quotes:

"Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive. - 1 Corinthians 10:23

“For under the smooth legal surface of our society there are already moving very lawless things. We are always near the breaking-point when we care only for what is legal and nothing for what is lawful. Unless we have a moral principle about such delicate matters as marriage and murder, the whole world will become a welter of exceptions with no rules. There will be so many hard cases that everything will go soft.”- G. K. Chesterton

And finally:

• If a fool happens to speak the truth, that a fool said it makes it no less the truth.

• Truth is more about what is, and less about what you think it is, or even who said it. Objective truth matters.

I also have a story about a bison, that perhaps one day I will put to print. I've started the composition several times, but end up marveling at the idea that perhaps I am more like the bison than I would have ever imagined. When I get that figured out, I'll have a story worth telling.

A Dad's Lament

Later this week, my boys are finally going to learn to fish, and I'm not going to be there. Someone else will be teaching them, and that depresses me.

Some of my fondest childhood memories hail back to a time when the highlight of the summer was a week-long fishing trip to a lake in the woods of northern Minnesota, where the target catch was walleye, Northern Pike, and the occasional perch. Learning at the feet of my grandfather, my father, and my uncle all the while competing with my cousins as to who could catch the most fish, these hold a special significance for me. Of course, if I am honest, many days were spent just hoping to catch anything at all. Nevertheless, the lessons in tying fishing line, setting the hook, getting out of the weeds, casting without hooking anyone in the process, cleaning a fish … all these foundational experiences set forth in me a life-long love for being on the water, with a line in, passing the time.

And then, the sad resignation that since one trip in college, I haven't been fishing in 20 years.

As Boy Scouts, my sons are heading to camp, where each will work to earn their Fishing Merit Badge. Yesterday, I bought each of them new gear, including rod and reel, to replace those that I had once owned but was unable to recover from the storm.

Today, I taught them what a swivel barrel is, and how to tie the line to the swivel. I showed them what the different lures were for, the difference between a jig and a spinner, and how to attach a bobber. I showed them proper casting technique, taking advantage of the yard's tall grass to simulate the effect of having the lure get caught in the weeds, and how to gently but firmly tug at it without breaking the line.

I then went inside, while they continued to practice off the back deck.

I know there is still time, but the fact is there is not nearly enough of it. My oldest will be off to college in just a couple of years. They will have a different set of memories and experiences than I had growing up, and I suppose that is okay. But my heart hurts that I have not managed to make this one thing that was so important to me a part of their experience.

My boys might catch a fish this week. And if they do, I won't be there to see it, or to share in their joy.

The thought of this makes me ache, far more than I care to admit.

But I still hope they catch the fish.

Star Wars Reboot - Yeah, I'm Ready

Ok, what follows is really my brother's domain, but man, I cannot help but to get a little excited about this. Unlike so many others, apparently, I'm a pretty big fan of J.J. Abrams, from his work on Lost as well as the Star Trek reboots. (Some of that, mind you, has much to do with the regular involvement of composer Michael Giacchino for the soundtracks).

Nevertheless, I have high hopes for the new Star Wars coming out in December:


It'll be weird dealing with the new faces, but after further review, that might be a good thing. I mean, Harrison Ford! Indiana Jones once said it wasn't the age, it was the mileage. If that's the case, then geez, the parsecs on that guy!

Southern Snow

Snowfall in Alabama is rarely a news-driving event, but every now and then, Mother Nature pops in to remind us that with weather, anything can happen. Beginning late yesterday afternoon and continuing late into the evening, she unloaded 8 plus inches of snow across the Tennessee Valley. Here at the house, we managed "only" 5 inches or so. Enough to play in, enough to sled upon, but not enough to survive today's 40-degree high.

So last night and this morning, we took advantage of the gift we receive all too rarely around here. You should be able to click an image below to enlarge.

Escaping with Copland

Once in a while, I need a little escape, a means of tuning out and tuning in. Sometimes I turn to books, other times I'll binge watch television. I tend to stay away from video games, due to a certain addictive weakness I've had since I was a kid (even moderation is tough for me on this one, all these years later). Of course, in the office, the opportunity to escape is nearly impossible without just giving up and taking a personal day. Be that as it may, on a day like today, I'm turning to music. In particular, Copland. Of course, the risk is that I get lost in the music and lose all semblance of productivity. But sometimes, you just have to. Today is one of those days.

So Copland it is.

What Is E-Walker's Parade?

Well, here it is 2015. The headlines are divers and depressing, and I have an opinion about most of them, but nary the will to write about any of them. It has been that way for most of 2014, and from this point in January, I don't see much changing in that regard. This alone explains the big decline in posting frequency on this blog.

I'm not entirely sure what that means for the future, but I do know enough to know that I am not ready to give up on writing, and subsequently, I'm not ready to give up on this blog. So to kick off the new year, perhaps it is time for an origin story.

I find it mildly interesting that in the five years I've been blogging, no one has ever actually asked me to explain the story behind the title and tagline of my blog. It is especially interesting given that I am an Auburn University alumnus and I have an elephant head background on the site (more indicative of that other school across the state). It is not that riveting a story, but it as good a topic as any right now, I suppose. (Cue wavy camera fade and harp).

Many years ago, I was working for a telecommunications equipment manufacturer that was struggling to survive in the post dot-com-bust economy. Leadership was making questionable choices, and the stock value was plummeting to penny-stock status. Yahoo was the big dog in those days. One day, I found myself on Yahoo Finance (not sure if that was the name back then), watching my company's stock performance. Yahoo had a message board, and thus began one of my earliest introductions to the morass that makes up the comments sections on the internet. Most of the posters were just bashing the company, purporting to have inside knowledge that they didn't have, and me - being prone to fits of righteous indignation - took umbrage. So I created an alias called "elephant-walker" (the origin of which I will get to in a moment), and while extremely careful not to reveal anything that could be considered insider or proprietary in any way, fought back against the haters. I learned very quickly that you cannot defeat haters, because the haters never acknowledge defeat. In the end, the alias survived longer than the company. Go figure.

So why "elephant-walker"? It all comes back to the job, or rather, my caricature of the job function for which I seem most suited. Some engineers get to design stuff; me, at that point in my career, my job was to fix stuff. Products would get designed and released to market, and then the engineering responsibility (feature enhancements, bug fixes, part obsolescence, quality) for those product lines fell to me. Joking one day, I came up with what is now the tagline for this blog: "Everyone's got a role to play … even if it is walking behind the elephant". Somebody has to clean up the, well, you know.

Before you think me too cynical, you should know that over time I began to wear it as a badge of honor. I carved a niche for myself in being able to come into a task, assess the situation, propose and execute a solution that resulted in better products and better processes. Indeed, a former supervisor of mine once told me that I had special knack at turning stinking elephant dung into fine, expensive stationery. (I told him then that he was seriously straining the analogy, but the compliment was well received).

So when I finally decided to create a blog in 2004 (it would take me until 2009 to really do anything with it), it just seemed to make sense to extend this online persona. I shortened elephant-walker to E-Walker, and well, elephant parades are a thing, so, well, there it is. E-Walker's Parade. And the tagline. (I like the tag line). The elephant graphic came much later after Google blogger updated its blog template.

And there you have it. The origin story for E-Walker's Parade. I trust that your day has been enriched by this provocative insight. No? Well, at least now I have a post for January.

If you will excuse me, I need to go clean off my shovel. Until next time!