Pass the Popcorn

In the brightly-lit diner-like concession stand, there were photos of all the icons—James Dean, Roy Rogers, the Mouseketeers, Ozzie and Harriet, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and beyond. Behind the counter, the ubiquitous popcorn ($1.95 for a large), hot dogs, French fries, Coke, cotton candy, that great American cuisine that fit the size of the customers inside. There was a pinball machine, a jukebox and Jerry Lee Lewis blasting over the speakers. Outside, kids were swinging on the swings in front of the giant screen, cars were parked on little mounds with boxed speakers hanging from the window attached by wire to poles. The children sat in the front seats, the parents, and for a different reason, the teenagers, in the back. The screen lit up and lo and behold, there’s Mickey Mouse, larger than life! The drive-in movie had begun.

Is this a memory from the 1950’s when I first experienced the thrill, magic and downright weirdness of drive-in movies? It could be. But it actually is from last night at the Cherry Bowl Drive-in Theater in Honor, Michigan, where my daughter, niece and I fulfilled an annual tradition to see whatever they had playing—in this case, Brave and Spiderman. The first, a Pixar animation, was tolerably good given our low expectations and the second we don’t know. Since “dusk” in Michigan is 10 pm, we opted out of the double feature and Spiderman with its midnight start time. My daughter (27) and niece (17) are just getting too old to make it through. J

The Cherry Bowl is an extraordinary 59 years old, a last gasp of a bygone era holding on to every nostalgic string it can pull. (Call their number —231-325-3413—to get a taste of their hyper-50’s circus-barker like invitation, almost two minutes of chatter before they tell you what’s playing.) It boasts “family entertainment” only (G and PG), though often that means violence is fine, but sex a no-no. Approaching the kiosk, there are four Burma Shave-type signs:

1)    We welcome children 

2)    But we have none to spare

3)    So when you drive inside

4)  Please drive with extra care.

Ticket per person is $8.50 (for a double-feature, that’s a bargain these days!), you can choose between the umbilical cord speaker or turn on your radio and hope your battery doesn’t die and opt to bring beach chairs and sit outside your car.

In a lifetime of work related to teaching and music, I sometimes wish I could talk about my years as a busboy, apple-picker or construction worker, but truth be told, I’ve only had one job unrelated to my chosen field and that was at 16-years old in Berea, Ohio— as an usher at a drive-in movie theater. Every summer of my high school years, I visited my friend Bruce Crookston and when he got this summer job, he managed to get me hired also, at a whopping $0.75 an hour. We arrived about an hour before the movie, changed the towels in the bathroom, walked the aisles turning all the knobs to off so the sound from empty speakers wouldn’t disturb the neighbors, reported broken speakers (amazing how many drove off and forgot to disconnect the speaker) and picked up trash. Once the movie started, we roamed around for a while looking for trouble spots or shining our flashlights into backseats hoping to vicariously experience a little action and then mostly sat and watched the same motorcyle picture for six nights straight until we had memorized all the dialogue.

On weekends, we went into our high-action mode, equipped with cool walkie-talkies and entrusted with the responsibility of not letting in more cars than there was room for. One person was out in the field scouring parking spots, another at the top of the hill by the kiosk awaiting instructions about what was available and a third at the bottom of the hill waiting to hear where they were available and directing the cars with a flashlight. If anyone seemed too suspicious, we did the trunk check, often to find some sexy giggy girls awaiting their release.

I’m sure there are scores of books written about how the automobile changed history. All the decisions to build roads instead of more railroad tracks, the birth of the commuter and subsequent suburbs, the death of the small town downtown in favor of driving to the mall on the outskirts, drive-in fast-food, drive-through banks, drive-in movies (!), the creation of factory jobs and whole cities (Detroit), the outsourcing of those jobs (see Michael Moore’s Roger and Me), the need for more fossil fuel and the subsequent wars. Politically and ecologically, it has been an unqualified disaster. But who could have resisted our ancient urge to move and travel and exchange goods and feel independent, as free as the roads and gas stations available could make us?

Culturally and mythologically, the car has been a potent force in America. Travels with Charley, On the Road, It Happened One Night, family vacations piled in the car, hitchhiking, the post-graduate road trip. The car indeed became our mobile home, where we lived whole lives—carried on conversations where no one could get up from the dinner table, listened to music on the radio (and later four-track or cassettes or CD’s or I-Pod plug-ins) or books on tape, thought our solitary thoughts, looked in wonder at the passing landscape or explored the mystery of procreation while parking up at Lover’s Lane or at—the drive-in movie.

Though cars are everywhere these days, as a shaper of culture, we’d be hard pressed to find something more American. As these blogs testify, I’m a world citizen, appreciative of and enchanted by the ringing of the gamelan in a moonlit night in Bali, the gentle sounds of bossa nova on a Rio beach, the blare of bagpipes on a Scottish moor, the exuberant polyrhythms of drums and bells in a Ghana marketplace.

But none of it strikes home quite as deep as a trip to the drive-in movie on a summer’s night in Michigan. 

Haiku Healing

Each time the wind blows

The butterfly changes its home

On the willow. 

                        —Basho

I recently heard from a few friends about their unexpected misfortunes, one so horrible and unthinkable that the usual words of comfort and assurance simply weren’t available. Of course, I tried to say something anyway, but each word fell so short of the deep healing that was needed that it felt hopeless to even try. Especially by e-mail, where  words minus touch and tone and hugs and the little details of caring that help us get through life’s large storms felt so small and impotent.

And there is a timing to words of comfort. No one wants to hear about life’s closed doors being another door opening or God/Buddha/Allah/Great Spirit’s etc. grand plan when the wound is raw and bleeding.

But this morning, I opened a book to the haiku above and when the time is right, perhaps years down the line, this might help somebody somewhere. Despite all our efforts to control our life and protect ourselves and our loved ones, we are ultimately at the mercy of the winds of Fate. If we can miraculously imagine that each gust of wind that sends us spinning simply blows us to another branch in our willowed home, it might help us accept what comes our way. I’m getting better at viewing the small gusts that way, but know I’d be hopeless with the large ones that wreak unhealable havoc.

Friends, step carefully through this world and be ready to help those fallen by the wayside.

Life in Seventeen Syllables

Browsing through the vacation cottage’s bookshelves, I pulled out Robert Hass’s The Essential Haiku like attending yet another reunion. There were my old friends Basho, Buson and Issa and some of their familiar memorable poems about frogs, butterflies and fleas. Such a pleasure to remember this poignant and powerful poetic form, the Japanese haiku.

I first encountered haiku in some thin hardcover books in late high school (was that the Pauper Press?) and was immediately intrigued. Soon after, I found R.H. Blyth’s volumes with more detailed information and commentary on their Zen Buddhist background. When I moved to San Francisco and lived with my sister and brother-in-law, all three of us had begun a Zen practice and developed a passion for miso soup, samurai movies and haiku. Sometimes while walking through the city streets or Golden Gate Park, we would have “haiku contests.” No winners or prizes, but just the pleasure of attending to the world a different way and sharing it with your companions.

Sometime later, while camping with the SF School 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th graders each year in Calaveras Big Trees, I initiated the haiku walk. The rules were that we had to walk in silence for a set period of time, armed with pencils and a pad of paper. The point was not to make up a poem out of your imagination, but attend to the world with all your senses. Listen, look, smell, touch, taste, take a snapshot of a moment and then capture it in words. Small was beautiful, no need for big epiphanies or dramatic feelings, simply notice something simple—the wind in the pines, the smell of the Mountain Misery plant, the cracking of twigs under hiking boots. No need to insert “I” into the occasion, but simply be the “eye” the sees and reports and brings the reader by your side to enjoy the scene.

And if you could follow the old Japanese structure of 17 syllables—5 in the first line, 7 in the next, 5 in the last, well, good for you. But since this structure evolved for the Japanese language, it didn’t necessarily make sense in English. Especially when translating haiku. R. H. Blyth felt this way, translating Basho’s famous poem to an 8-syllable reduction:

The old pond.

A frog jumps in.

Splash!

Early in his career, my colleague James Harding worked in a school where the teacher was teaching haiku. One of the young students was thrilled when he “found” a haiku!

Frosty the snowman

was a jolly, happy soul.

with a corncob pipe.

Hmm. A case of mistaking structure for substance. Haiku typically have a seasonable reference and a sense of movement in the still image, a tension that leads to, or implies a punch line. The splash of Basho’s frog, Buson’s “butterfly asleep on the temple bell,” Issa’s “the man pulling radishes pointed my way—with a radish.” And one of my favorites: “The snail crawls two feet—and the day is over.” (Well, I guess you can make a case for a seasonal reference in Frosty and the corncob pipe as an intriguing movement in the image—Frosty’s smoking? Maybe that poem is better than I thought.)

So this morning, I had haiku on my mind and that’s all it takes for them to appear. And contradicting my own feeling that we needn’t feel confined by the structure, I did find the 17-syllable challenge intriguing. Like 12-bar blues or sonnet form, prepared forms and structures often sharpen the creative mind and aid rather than hinder the imagination. So below are four (are you counting syllables?) from my morning ramble down the beach and up the dune with my brother-in-law’s dog.

Footprints in the sand.                                  The morning lake sings

Early morning walk reading                         in whispers, then wind-whips to

yesterday’s stories.                                        an afternoon roar.

Bounding down the dune,                              Sand-covered, the dog

the dog pauses— and waits for                      washes in the lake, then rolls

his aging master.                                            again in the sand.

Looking for Stones

It’s vacation time on Lake Michigan. Most every summer for 37 years I’ve come here, courtesy of the in-laws wisdom in building a “cottage” on the Michigan shores and generosity in hosting the extended family. A beach on the big lake protected by the Nature Conservatory a stone’s throw away, a more intimate back lake (warmer for swimming) a short walk through the woods in the other direction. The folks who have peopled this house span five generations, some long gone, some recently gone and some, like granddaughter Zadie, enjoying her first time here.

I have my vacation routine here, some of which includes a self-styled triathlon. Walk up the big sand dune called the Sugar Bowl in the early morning before the sand gets too hot, bike the ten miles around Upper Herring Lake, swim a thousand strokes (yes, I count them) in Lower Herring. Then the balance of fun—canoing, Cherry Bowl Drive-In Theater, board games at night, —and necessity—e-mail at the Frankfort Library, shopping, cooking. It’s a welcome break to get off of the wheel of accomplishment.

But even leisure can feel like lists to tick off. Just because you stop your usual work and it’s summer doesn’t mean it’s Summer. One is just a season and a pretty backdrop, the other is a transformation. This morning, I started the walk to the Sugarbowl and decided to look for Petoskey stones. This was a ritual in the early days here, long since abandoned and partly because of their diminishing presence on the beach. But finding the stones wasn’t important. It was the way the simple act of looking down at stones short-circuited the dialogue in my head and brought me forth into the world. Ah! Here I am! It’s not San Francisco, it’s not North Carolina, it’s not the airport. It’s here on this beach in this moment. A little frog jumps into the lake. Splash! A large snake slithers through the grass, crossing my path (first one I’ve seen in all these decades). The see the sand imprinted with criss-crossed bird tracks, the shadows of the slender dune grass, the solitary butterfly flitting amongst them. Summer starts leaking through my thick, work-obsessed, protected skin and edges me closer to Zadie’s effortless sense of wonder.

The philosopher Pascal once said something to the effect of “The misery of mankind stems from his inability to sit in a room alone.” I’ve thought of that quote many times in Zen retreats as I learned to calm the jumping monkey mind and be content to just sit. But I think part of that misery comes from sitting in a room. Just an open screen door away is a world full of fragrant breezes, singing birds, crawling bugs and cool inviting waters— get out of the house and partake! Even here in summer paradise, we all can get stuck in our indoor routines and forget to go out and join the world.

Baba Ram Dass’s book “Be Here Now” may seem like an eye-rolling novelty from those crazy hippy times, but the message still holds— one moment of full presence is more difficult than the 12 Labors of Hercules. And modern life conspires against it. Our nervous systems are ramped up to hyperspeed and getting faster every day. The instant and constant documenting of each moment via cell phone camera robs us of a certain quality of attention. Not to mention the addictive texting and talking instead of looking and listening. Very little encourages us to breathe and savor, to be still and silent, to observe the slow crawl of a snail or descent of the sun over the water.

Needless to say, I didn’t find a single Petoskey stone, but stumbled onto something much more valuable— that remembrance of what it means to be. Here. Now.

The Circle in the Field

After gloating about my brief moments of privilege, I came back to earth to the kind of community I admire. The reunion mentioned in Life Lived Backwards was a great pleasure on so many levels— the 200-person circle of silence in the field before each meal, the high level of conversation at the meal tables with people just met, the little kids in hog heaven playing with the water hose, running barefoot in the grass, just playing, playing, playing as children were meant to do. Then the chores and work projects, everyone chipping in to prepare the meals, wash the dishes, weed the garden, work on the building, all that caretaking work that levels the playing field and erases that inflated sense of hierarchy and privilege— no First-class at the dish-washing or compost station. That lovely sense of all being in it together, all at different stages in the journey (all ages well-represented there, from 4 months to 94 years), but side-by-side splashing in the pond, cutting vegetables, drying the pots and pans.

My urban paradise at The San Francisco School shares many elements in common with The Arthur Morgan School. But instead of the murmer of the stream nearby, there’s the dull roar of the 280 Freeway just below. Instead of the watchful eye of the mist-covered mountain, there’s the fog-enshrouded downtown buildings. The kids serve the lunches Montessori style and have a classroom job, the parents come to two Saturday Work Days each year, but the overall feeling of shared chores and work is significantly less. On the other hand, I believe the richness of our academic program (and of course, that includes music and art) is several notches higher and the longevity of staff more impressive. The latter due to the intensity of the boarding school situation, where the teacher is at once a teacher and a house parent. On the negative side, there is a quicker burn-out— 13 years seems to be the record for an AMS staff member, compared to our SFS 40 years. On the positive, there is that sense of school and community as virtually the same noun.

At the AMS Reunion, we broke up into small groups by decades and listened to people’s testimonies about what the school had meant to them. One person recalled a day when he was walking down the path and paused, struck by the thought “This is as happy as I’m ever going to be.” Not in a pessimistic sense that it was all downhill from there, but in the profound feeling that the blend of community, work, play in the loving embrace of the natural world is the discovery of the lost paradise so many of us seek. That’s indeed what I felt many times when I was there and touched it yet again walking through the rhododendron dell to lunch, that sense of arrival.

And yet. Both formally and informally there also surfaced all the stories of mean, incompetent, abusive or just plain weird teachers, troubled kids, troubled relationships. The year that I was there, every single staff member including the head was new. The next year every single staff member including the head was new. And the next year, yet again. Amidst the serenity of the intentional community in the mountains was a great deal of turmoil, the usual bloody mess wherever groups of human beings gather. I’ve seen it in Zen centers, alternative schools, musical groups. From the outside, a carefully crafted philosophy of caring and human potential, lovingly cooked food, a practice aiming toward freedom and love, all the good intentions of intentional communities. And then the nitty-gritty reality of “who the heck moved my cheese?!!” Such places can sometimes get sidetracked in a self-congratulatory posture of “Aren’t we wonderful?” while the shadow of real human conflict grows and grows.

So it turns out that Paradise is not to be found in a place, a mission statement, an intention, but in each moment we become wholly ourselves in company with others. That takes hard work, lucky chemistry and a good deal of grace. And that can—and does—happen anywhere and anytime. Places like AMS and SFS don’t guarantee the realization of individual and collective human potential, but they do make space for it and are worthy endeavors, especially when they come to grips with the reality of how supremely difficult it is for us humans to share time and space together.

On the last night of the reunion, the Jug Band performed, so happy to be together again. But the show was marred by the organizer suggesting, after we had played but two pieces, that we cut our last few numbers (below the 30 minutes she had promised) because the proceedings had started late (not our fault). I powered through the best I could, but my band members were irate and the longer I thought about it, I was too. After the ceremony, a few of us went to the bonfire and sat for some time more with others singing whatever songs occurred to us. It was a lovely time, with a varied repertoire, good guitar and ukelele playing, tuneful singing, the fire crackling and the moon rising. Amongst many was the old song May the Circle Be Unbroken, which starts with such a promising refrain and then disappoints with its promise of paradise only in the sky and verses about mourning a mother. But thinking back to the circle in the field before meals, the joining of all who had dared to edge closer to paradise in the here and now, it feels like an appropriate sentiment to close here.

May the circle be unbroken!

Plan B

Remember those old math word problems?

“Train A leaves the station at 3:15 pm going 40 miles an hour making two stop of ten minutes each and train B leaves at 4:00 pm going 50 miles an hour and making three stops of ten minutes each. Which train will arrive first?”

I think they had the best intentions of cultivating our analytic, scientific, logical-mathematical and problem-solving mind. But let’s face it, real life is daily throwing problems much more complex in our face and we sink or swim according to our ability to think flexibly. Here I offer five of them from my past three days. This will be a timed-test, especially since all of these had time factors to add to the complexity and stress. Have your sharpened pencil ready and good luck!

PROBLEM ONE: On July 4^th, nephew Kyle calls from the SF train station after an all-night train trip from Oregon because the bus he needs to get home to Sebastopol doesn’t run today. He spends the day with Karen, Doug, Talia and Talia’s friend Joanna. The next day, Karen and Talia have a 10:30 am flight to Michigan, Doug has a 12:30 pm flight to North Carolina, Joanna will need to get to a friend’s house on the other side of town and Kyle needs to return to Sebastopol. To complicate matters, Doug wants to visit his Mom before his flight and suggests that Kyle visit too. Neither Doug nor Karen nor Talia want to take a cab or shuttle. Solve.

PROBLEM TWO: Doug sits at the gate F2 in Chicago for his connecting flight to Asheville. When he looks up from reading his book, he notes that “Asheville” has been replaced by “Charlotte” on the board. The people at the counter tell him that the Asheville flight was changed to F3. Doug moves to F3. Next time he looks, “Asheville” has again disappeared. Upon inquiry, he finds out it was moved to F1. (All this without announcements.) Sometime later (the plane is now delayed), he looks again and sees “Asheville” gone from the board. Two hours later, he finally boards a plane. What are the chances that it was actually the plane to Asheville?

PROBLEM THREE: Doug arrives at his destination at midnight and goes to pick up the Thrifty Rental Car he reserved through Orbitz. When he arrives at the rental car counters, he sees that Thrifty is closed. So is Avis, Hertz, Budget, Alamo, etc. 

Questions: Why did Orbitz approve a rental car to be picked up at 10:30 pm when Thrifty closes each day at 6pm? How did Doug get to the reunion in the mountains an hour away? Will Doug get his money back from Thrifty?

PROBLEM FOUR: Doug refuses a GPS in his rental car because he wants to continue to hone his directional skills. He miraculously arrives at a cabin in the woods at 2am in the morning. But on the return trip, he senses with his inner GPS that he missed the road to the airport. He asks directions and finally gets re-oriented onto Route 26. But Route 26 has a traffic jam that is moving at 2 miles an hour for as far as he can see. The airport is 8 miles away and he has 30 minutes to get there. How does he solve the problem?

a)    He rides past the stopped cars on the left hand shoulder trying to ignore their murderous glares.

b)    He calls the airport and tells them please keep up their good record of two-hour delays.

c)     He stops at the Marriet and gets a room to watch movies all day to calm his frustration.

d)    He stops at a Marriet, asks for back roads to the airport, crosses yellow double lines to pass cars speeding like a demon and praying no cops are around and arrives in time to make his flight.

PROBLEM FIVE: Doug arrives in Chicago at 1pm with a three-hour layover before his flight to Michigan to meet his family. He has a leisurely lunch, goes to his gate, looks at the board and reads, “Flight cancelled.”He goes to Customer Service and stands in line for 45 minutes before being rebooked on an 8 pm flight. Question: How will Doug respond to this situation?

a)    Make a vow to never leave his house and only read other people’s travel blogs.

b)    Strike up a conversation with the woman with the T-shirt, “I (heart) Boobs.”

c)     Enjoy listening to his neighbor’s inane cell phone conversation.

d)    Call the Chicago Airport Commision to inquire why Chicago still doesn’t have free Wi-fi when almost every other airport does.

e)     Write a long rambling blog with the hope of transforming annoyance to art.

SOLUTIONS

PROBLEM ONE: Kyle puts his bag in the car and buses to his friend’s house to spend the night. Joanna spends the night at Talia’s and Talia drives her early in the morning to the other side of town. Doug, Karen and Talia get in the car and pick up Kyle on the way to the airport and drop off Karen and Talia. Doug and Kyle drive back to SF to visit his Mom. Kyle drops Doug at BART that goes to the airport, drives the car back to Doug and Karen’s house and takes a bus to Santa Rosa. Simple!

PROBLEM TWO: Miraculously, it was.

PROBLEM THREE: Because Orbitz is stupid. Enterprise was open and had an available car.

And yes, because the credit card isn’t charged until you pick up the car.

PROBLEM FOUR: d

PROBLEM FIVE: You guessed it—e.

Now I had a real point to make about the need to develop a habit of flexible thinking, the kind of disciplined practice the Orff teacher and jazz musician are engaged in, constantly coming up with Plan B, C, D etc. and carrying that habit over into real life. And with four more hours of airport time, it’s a theme worth developing. Really, I think developing the flexible, imaginative, responsive mind is just about the most important task of the 21^st century.

But this guy’s phone conversation is driving me crazy (Hey! I got I-Tunes and ear-plugs! Plan B!), I’m really wondering what this girl with the T-shirt has in mind, my butt hurts from sitting so long, I don’t want to go outside in 100 degree heat and have to go through Security again and I’ll lose you forever as a reader if I keep complaining. Thanks for keeping me company. Isn’t travel fun?!

PS: BONUS LANGUAGE ARTS PROBLEM: After coming up with Plan B—listening on i-Tunes to Doc Watson (may he rest in peace—he just recently left us) until his battery ran out, Doug had a brilliant idea and sat on the bench between Concourse C and E strumming the ukelele he had in his carry-on and plotting his next blog showing how ukeleles will bring world peace and happiness. As the clock approached the flight time, he looked up on the board to see that it was yet again delayed from 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm. Translate Doug’s sentence below. Remember to use the appropriate tone of voice.

#%&*#$!+@#$%#*!!!!!!!!

Life Lived Backwards

I’m sure we’ve all playing this little game with ourselves— if this hadn’t happened, then that wouldn’t have happened.” The life we’ve ended up with is hinged on little twists and turns of fate, most of which don’t seem significant at the moment, but end up having a big effect. “If you hadn’t had a sore throat and come home early from the movie, I wouldn’t have met you while talking business with your roommate. And hence, no marriage, no kids, no job at the school, none of this life I’ve lived the past 40 years.” Once you start reading your life backwards like that, there’s no end to all the things that turned you in one direction and not the other.

Sometimes the turns in the road are larger and one such turn came to me in my last year of Antioch College. The college had a work-study program that alternated three months study at school with three months working somewhere, usually as an intern or apprentice. I had already worked at a Summerhill School in rural Maine, an alternative public high school in Hartford, a traditional 2^nd grade in Manhattan and now went to a Quaker boarding school for 7^th-8^th-9^th graders in the Black Mountains of North Carolina—the Arthur Morgan School.

The Morgan family had deep connections with Antioch College. Arthur Morgan was president of Antioch from 1920-1936. His son Ernest founded the Antioch Bookplate Company and later the Celo Press and achieved modest fame in the alternative culture’s bible, The Whole Earth Catalogue, where his book Manual for Simple Burial was listed. Ernest’s wife Elizabeth founded the Arthur Morgan School based on a mixture of ideas from visionary educators Pestalozzi, Montessori, John Dewey and Gandhi.

From the moment I stepped out of the car in the Fall of 1972 and was greeted by 25 curious kids, I knew I had landed into something special. A community with a vision somewhat aligned with the 60’s revolution of consciousness, but more firmly grounded in the midst of a Quaker cooperative land-holding community, an eclectic educational philosophy and an actual schedule of classes (unlike my earlier Maine Summerhill experiment) mixed with chores, work projects, community meetings, hikes in the mountains and evening folk dancing.

My own educational philosophy, borne from the failures of my own schooling, the successes of Antioch, the experiments of the various schools I interned at and the ideas of John Holt, Jonathan Kozol, A.S. Neil and others, was still forming, but edging closer to a unified vision and the intentional community out in the country felt like what I had been searching for, a place where school was not a specialized set of hoops to jump through to collect random information, but an attempt to live a whole life and learn exactly what was needed at the moment in company with others. I didn’t know anything about Arthur Morgan at the time, but had I read his quote, I would have recognized the vision that was forming:

“The ends of education should be that men and women shall have a strong appetite for living, a craving for truth, an insight into the nature of men and things, an understanding sympathy for human hopes, a trained and tempered habit of creative action which turns conviction into accomplishment, a comprehensive purpose which unifies life, and a spirit of passionate commitment which drives one to stake his entire energies and resources on bringing life into accord with his hopes."

Also developing at the time was my remedial music education. I had discovered Scott Joplin, the blues and was tickled by Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band. So when I decided to offer some music classes, the idea of starting a jug band quickly rose to the top and off we went. I also met up with a drama teacher (soon to be girlfriend) and we collaborated with little pantomimes set to ragtime piano and an ambitious production of West Side Story As my allotted three months drew to a close, the kids, myself and my girlfriend felt it was too short and I was granted another three-month extension from Antioch. Enter the first of fate’s twist. Had I returned to Antioch in the winter, I might have gone off again in the Spring and missed meeting Avon Gillespie, the Orff teacher who changed my life. I also would have missed singing in the chorus that took me to Europe. Unthinkable both!

And I would have missed organizing and carrying through the infamous Jug Band Field trip. 17 middle school kids, four teachers driving a rented school bus touring the South for two weeks, from North Carolina to Miami and back, playing and sleeping at community centers, alternative schools, parent’s houses and the like. That’s a story worthy of a best-selling novel, but suffice it to say that it was utterly wild, crazy, fun, intense and forever memorable. I am astounded that I organized all this at a mere 21- years old in the days before e-mail, internet and cell phones. And thankfully, in the days before the lawyers took over the world. I’m sure I would be arrested today simply for thinking about this trip and how we did it!

Fast-forward to yesterday, the first day of the Arthur Morgan’s School 50^th year reunion.

Some 200 alums gathered back at their old home in the mountains, seven of them veterans of the jug band field trip and four of whom I hadn’t seen in 40 years! Those bubbly 12-year olds now 52 and all of us hanging out and chatting as if it were the next day of the trip. That was pleasure enough, but when we sat around the piano with kazoos and spoons and washboard and sang the old songs, we could have powered Las Vegas with the electricity generated—and everyone remembering all the words!! Tomorrow we perform at the formal ceremony.

Comparing banging around on spoons and humming into kazoos with what the 17 Middle Schoolers my colleagues and I took to Salzburg last year (almost exactly these dates!) did, I felt like I had grown as a music teacher enormously. I told my old students that it was a mercy that we had no recordings of us because I’m sure we sounded like crap. They seemed a little insulted and countered with, “No, we were great! Remember we played at this place and the people were dancing on the tables?” And then it struck me that though in terms of musical sophistication and actual developed skills, the Salzburg group was a different level, the spirit behind both was the same. And 90% of what communicates and matters in music is the spirit, the feelings generated and the unbridled sense of fun in both the participation and the listening.

James Hillman’s “acorn theory” of development in his book The Soul’s Code suggests that our destiny is born with us and we live our lives backwards, aiming to bloom into the oak already in the acorn we’re born with. The qualities of our guiding image change and develop in nuance and sophistication with age and practice, but their central character is fixed and unchangeable. My work with the jug band at 21 years old and the Orff Salzburg group at 60 years old was one and the same.

After my six months was up, I did return to Antioch, met Avon and took my first Orff class, went to Europe and sang 15^th century sacred music with the Antioch Choir and graduated from college. My intention was to return to the Arthur Morgan School as an official teacher and live the rest of my life teaching in the North Carolina Mountains. But Destiny had other plans. Before I left, my fellow teachers on the jug band trip had written a letter to the school Board of Directors suggesting that the current head (in his first year) was doing strange things, alienating students and withdrawing from teachers. The Board eventually agreed and fired him, but the new directors decided not to re-hire us long-haired agitators and thus, my vision was not to be. So Plan B was to go to San Francisco and find out what awaited me there.

Back here at the reunion, I couldn’t help but feel grateful that things turned out as they did. Of course, I was disappointed and angry at the time, but looking back, I can’t imagine it happening any other way. One theory, and the one I lean to, is that invisible hands are guiding these things and everything that happens, no matter how painful at the time, is supposed to happen. Another theory, and one I think about when bad things happen to good people, is that such things are completely random, but it’s the way we respond to them that matters. Had I been hired back here, I’d like to think another life would have awaited me as fulfilling and pleasurable and exciting as mine has been. But having lived through The San Francisco School, my wife Karen and daughters Kerala and Talia, it’s beyond me to imagine that other life.

Much food for thought here. But I gotta go rehearse with the jug band!