Tidings from Tim

Marty was a former high school principal out of L.A. Unified, and in his retirement, he took up the occasional temporary, part-time gig as an administrator to replace someone who was ill, or on leave; and that was why he showed up for a season on our campus. He did not serve on any of our committees, or work on an accreditation report, or make any classroom observations.

His main job was to handle student discipline referrals that came in from teachers or campus security; and he was great at it.  He was not imposing in size, nor was he aggressive.  He was relaxed, easy-going, friendly, avuncular and kind, not threatening in the least.  He would joke and tease with the miscreants.  He was every kid’s favorite grandfather, and they responded respectfully.  It seemed effortless for him to work the student around to taking responsibility and accepting his consequences.  He was the “visiting priest” who draws the longest lines at the confessional.

There was one especially effective tactic he used with students who were bobbing and weaving with the evidence.  He would remind the student that he must call Mom or Dad; and that when he made the call, he would convey one of two messages to the parent, and the student could decide which message.

Message #1.  “I have some bad news.  Your son/daughter was sent to the office, and he/she has chosen to whine about it and not take responsibility.  The consequence for her/him is _______.”

Message #2.  “I have some good news.  Your son/daughter was sent to the office, but there were no excuses. Your child took full responsibility for her/his actions and graciously accepted the consequence, which is _______.  Students make mistakes all the time, and many of them do not fess up; but your child is different.  Looks like your child is growing up.  Looks like good parenting to me.”

I stole that tool for my kit and would use it to good effect on many occasions.                                                                

He was also something of a collector.  For over forty years he had chronicled the excuses he had heard.  When you summon a student to the office in response to the discipline referral; ninety-nine times out of one hundred, the student does not immediately tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  The excuses, the evasions, the blame shifting, the denial of wrongdoing, the smokescreens, the cover up, the whining and the drama can be exhausting.  Please do not get me wrong.  These are not bad kids.  These are just kids who have been caught in a misadventure and hoping to wiggle out of it.  Not much different from the rest of us.  Congressmen in training. 

After he left us and went to another school district to be an example for others, we kept in touch for a while.  He sent me the occasional addition to the list, and if I had a new one, I would return the favor.  Between Marty and me, and mainly Marty, our list grew to more than 50 examples of excuse-making.  Here are a few!

Some other kid did it….It’s not fair….She doesn’t know how to teach….I’m smarter than the teacher; it’s boring in there….I’m not the smartest kid in the class; it’s boring in there….The lady at the gate made me show my ID; that’s why I dropped the F-bomb….I was up late at the drive-in with my girlfriend. Why is being tardy such a big deal?….That teacher doesn’t like me….I threw my English book at her because she didn’t invite me to her birthday party (three years previously in sixth grade)                                                   

Some of my colleagues also contributed to the list, and we numbered them. We took it to Kinko’s, where it was enlarged to 24” x 36” and laminated; and we put it up on the office wall.  Staff members came by for a chuckle, and it became required reading for any student who was in the sub-culture known as “kids who get sent to office.”  They were told to look down the list and pick the excuse most closely aligned with their crime. 

We messed with them, saying, “Just pick a number; it will save a lot of time.”

Many students just took a glance, didn’t read the whole list, didn’t react at all, didn’t get it, no sense of humor!  Yet there were a few who stood there, taking it in, allowing the absurdity to roll over them, smiling at the weirdness of it, and who would say, “Yeah, OK, number 14. What do I have to do”?

There is no telling how many kids came clean without a fuss.  Probably a small number.  After all, it was just a whimsical thing on a wall, like “The Things You Learned in Kindergarten.”  Yet for those few for whom it was a prompt to do the right thing, and for whom it was a learning experience from a school discipline moment; they can thank a man that most of them never met nor remembered. 

His time with us was short, just a few months; but he is fondly remembered for his wonderful anecdotes about the crazy things he saw and heard in his decades of service in the school trenches. He is still remembered for his droll sense of humor, and he is especially remembered for the way he dealt with such care and compassion to the kids who were at that moment in some degree of trouble. Marty is in his 90’s now; moving a little slower; but still laughing and telling stories. I smile to recall the “excuse” list — a tangible reminder of Marty’s infectious wit; and I will never forget the even more intangible reminders of his kindness and guidance to students, and to me. 

My friend Misty uses an expression to describe any good and felicitous moment that is beyond coincidence, makes no earthly sense and defies every rule of logic.  She calls it a “God Thing.”  I can offer no other explanation as to what happened when I stepped into the treatment center at Kaiser Hospital Woodland Hills in July of 2011 for my first day of chemo.

My journey there had started in earnest just six weeks earlier on June 1^st with a painful rib that drove me to my GP, and a sore jaw that drove me to the dentist one week later; and I would soon learn of the connection between those two visits.  There came specialists, X-rays, MRIs, blood-letting and other indignities.  Along the way the word “biopsy” was spoken, and it did not take the deductive powers of Sherlock Homes to know that something was afoot; and what was afoot was made clear on June 18^th when I heard those most frightening of words,

“Tim, it is 85 against 15 that you have a cancer known as multiple myeloma.” 

I will not sugar-coat it.  it is no fun.  Nine years of treatment, close to three hundred trips to Kaiser, certain experimental drugs that can beat you up, and at least a thousand needles.  Do you like needles?  Me neither! 

However, those are not the things I dwell upon.  The median life expectancy upon diagnosis for this cancer has telescoped from just two years — fifteen years ago — to more than eleven years today.  The drugs have become so refined that the treatments are not as pernicious as they were almost sixty years ago when my dad was brutalized by the rather primitive chemo therapies.  I will be receiving treatment every two weeks for the rest of my life; but it is now regarded as a chronic disease, not a death knell; and I am absolutely besotted with love and appreciation for the nurses and phlebotomists and pharmacy techs and oncologists who nurture me, comfort me, keeping me alive.  Super-heroes all. 

Of course, I was not aware of these benefits on that first day.  As I walked down the hallway to the treatment center, I was praying like mad and claiming to myself, “You’re in good hands, Timmy; you’re in good hands.” 

Little did I know!

She welcomed me and said, “Hi Mr. Piatt.  Remember me”?  There are about ten nurses in the treatment center, and they work on a rotation that pairs them with the patients on a random basis.  What were the chances that a former student would greet me and treat me on my inaugural visit?  And what were the chances that her husband’s gramma is a dear friend of mine?  And what were the chances that this young nurse had the most remarkable hands?

As a senior in high school, Keri was the captain of the “Guard.”  Sometimes known as the drill team, or the flag girls, or the pageantry corps, or the dance guard; they performed on the street and on the field with the marching band.  And as a separate spirit group, they competed in “Guard” competitions.  It was spellbinding to watch them do dance routines and close-order drills with the discipline and the cadence you would associate with the Marines. At the same time, they were waving these huge flags on ten-foot poles or flipping wooden rifles.  They practiced like crazy, and the flags and guns were heavy and dangerous.  Many were the times they took a blow from a falling rifle on the head or the hands or their shoulders.  And as they endured the pain and worked the routines, they built real strength.  Keri and her teammates developed hands and forearms as strong and sinewy as Popeye’s, with toughness to spare.

These memories of the “Guard” flashed through my mind as she shook my hand. She gave me my first needle, my first IV, my first dose of chemo and the first drip of my bone-repair medication.  My day had started with apprehension and wild curiosity, wondering whether I would live or die, lose my hair, get real pukey or suffer enormous pain.  Instead, from the handshake on, there was an enormous calm that defies all comprehension.    

Over these nine years I have experienced the most amazing care from all the Kaiser nurses — now cherished friends; yet, my first day of treatment had a special tenderness.  I was in the care of a woman whose hands were uniquely equipped to allay my fears.  My walking-in prayers were answered, because I was indeed in good hands, the best of hands — hers and His.

My friend Misty called it.        

Our daughters tell their friends that their dad is not a crybaby, and that I only cry on special occasions.  Special occasions, like breakfast.  Like Hallmark ads.  Like chick movies.  Like Super Bowl ads — remember the horsey and the puppy? 

And other special occasions.  Like eating an apple.  I have carved up a gorgeous Honey Crisp, put the slices in a bowl, and am about to toss the core…but I stop.  Most people toss the core into the garbage disposal or the compost pail, but I can’t do that right now; because the sight of the remnant on the cutting board conjures up a snapshot of my mom, for whom an apple core constituted a meal unto itself.

This Depression Era lass was beyond frugal.  She never wasted a thing; and I have such a vivid memory of Audrey devouring an apple.  She would gnaw on it until the only thing left was the stem.  She ate the seeds and everything.  It was a sight to behold.  And it wasn’t just apples; you should have seen her scavenge a chicken wing, right down to the marrow.  You could have sold tickets. 

Which is why on this morning I am a little weepy in remembrance of my mother’s quirky habit of making a banquet out of everyone else’s leftovers.  When there was a family gathering at the local Denny’s, Audrey didn’t order anything except a cup of coffee and an empty plate; and when everyone else was done, she would scrape the stuff from all the other plates onto her own.  That was Audrey’s dinner.  I told her once that she reminded me of Charlotte’s friend Templeton the rat, who goes to the fairgrounds at the end of the day and gorges on the smorgasbord of throwaways and leavings.  Strangely, she was offended by that. 

And she took her own sweet time.  This is the woman who could take half-a-day just to finish a wing.  Yes, it took a lot of patience to go out to dinner with Grammy, but that wasn’t the hardest part.  Sometimes she would get antsy and begin to snitch stuff off the rest of our plates before we were finished.

“Daa-aad!  Grammy’s eating my fries.”

After a while we all agreed to a change of habits.  Rather than guarding our plates, and then waiting for her to finish, we began to share a portion of our orders with her.  Each of us gave her a morsel; that way she could eat right along with us.  Call it table tithing.    

Yet some habits are hard to break; she didn’t want to give up the scavenging.  So after dinner, instead of scraping our leftovers onto her plate, we scraped all the orts into a doggy bag — or in her case — a combination chicken wing bag, mac “n” cheese bag, cold fries bag, Caesar salad bag, meatloaf bag, little piece of fish bag, a BLT bag, and so forth.  She got to take home her favorite form of dining, and we no longer had to wait her out.  She would feast on that hash for days.  Just for the record, she never took home any dessert scrapings, because no one in our family ever left even a hint of cheesecake on the table.

Once on my birthday, I asked the family if I could pick something off each plate around the table, in honor of their Grammy.  They said they were cool with it, but when the check came, they all had forgotten their wallets; and I ended up paying for my own birthday dinner.      

Back to the apple core!  Why does this simple scrap of fruit make me cloud up?  Even though it is close to twenty years since Audrey passed, and even though she lived until just two months after her 99^th birthday; even though all of that, there are still some days and some moments when I miss her like crazy.

And there’s this.  At the core of me, I am a crybaby.

When my mother was in her nineties, someone asked her, “Audrey, what is the secret to your longevity”?  She gave a three-part answer. 

• Number ONE, I love the Lord with all my heart, and He has sustained me through thick and thin all the days of my life. 
• Number TWO, I have a good cry every day.  If you don’t have a good cry, it’s not a good day.
• And Number THREE, I eat lotsa salads.

Bullet # 1

As to her loving the Lord, religion for her was not a spectator sport.  She was always ready to give an account of her faith, being garrulous, outgoing and enthusiastic about almost everything.  She was an avid reader, and a dog-eared copy of Thomas a Kempis’ “The Imitation of Christ” was her favorite book.  She loved church and did not discriminate.  Becoming a Catholic when she married my dad, she also held onto her Texas Bible Belt roots.  It was not unusual for her to celebrate 7:00 a.m. mass at Saint Joseph’s, and then catch the 10:00 a.m. over at Trinity Methodist for some “old-time religion” – Wesleyan hymns and fiery preaching.  Oh, how she loved those old hymns.  When she lived with our family in her dotage, I would sit on the side of her bed, open the hymnal and sing her to sleep; and from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, Handel’s “Messiah” filled our house, which often reduced her to tears.

Which brings us to Bullet # 2

Audrey was a world-class crybaby.  Her heart was more often on her sleeve than in her chest.  Happy or sad, heroic or tragic, big or small, nothing wasn’t worthy of tears.  She could be in dire straits over finances, or she could be in the thrall of joy over a ceramic plaque from “Paint Pals,” crafted by a granddaughter; either way, the reaction was a torrent.  Audrey could have taken a write-off on her tax return, naming Kimberly Clark Worldwide (makers of Kleenex) as a dependent.  She could be anxious, but she didn’t brood, just cried it out.  The takeaway is:  Audrey would get over it and move on.  There is a Piatt family trope that Audrey could drive us all crazy, but was perfectly sane herself.  Cannot dispute it.  Yep, she cried about almost everything, although I do not remember her ever crying over salad. 

Which brings us to Bullet # 3

Salad was a constant in our lives.  Every night of our lives, salad was served; and Audrey did make good salads.  There was never just a hunk of iceberg and a dollop of Thousand Island.  No sir!  There were interesting lettuces, nuts and seeds, varieties of vegetables and fruits, including frequent slices of avocado; and she often made her own dressings. 

Yet, even with her great green delights, our dad never took even one forkful.  Every night she offered.  Every night he refused.  If you asked him why, the best he came up with was, “I wouldn’t want to rob a rabbit of a good meal.”

This exchange took place almost nightly for their forty-four years of marriage.

“Ted, would you like some salad,”?

“No thanks.” 

Ever hopeful, she put some on his plate anyway.  When we were done eating, she would ask,

“Hon, are you going to eat your salad,”?

He shook his head, “No.”

After giving our dad one last opportunity to accept, she would pick up his plate and scrape his uneaten serving of salad unto her own plate, and down it.  Mom loved salads, but she hated equally to waste anything. 

Audrey’s salad ritual seemed weird, almost comical, to her sons; and it may seem peculiar to you.  But remember, she was about 95 when she was asked about her longevity, on the way to her ultimate destination of ninety-nine.  We cannot really question any of her secrets for a long life, can we?

My dad’s name was Ted, and he was very fond of hats.  Over the years he added to his collection as styles demanded.  He wore fedoras and porkpies and panamas and derbies.  In later years he wore a Tryolean model with a little feather in the headband, narrow brimmed, turned up in the back and down in the front; and like all of Ted’s hats, and because he was right handed, it slanted just a bit to the right, drawn down a little closer to his right eye than his left.

So jaunty!

One memorable outrage he wore was this monstrosity, covered in plastic apples and grapes and bananas and a pineapple.  He looked like a walking fruit salad.  Chitiqua Banana would have worn it proudly out in public, but dad only wore it for the select audience of his grandchildren.  Between the goofy hat and the ‘Nilla wafers he always had in his shirt pocket when visiting them, they couldn’t get enough of Big Daddy.

Such a pied piper!

There were limits to the chapeaux.  Under no circumstances would he put on a Stetson or a ten-gallon.  Wouldn’t catch him in any kind of farm apparel.  No baseball caps.

So not is style!

But of all the visions of hats, the one I treasure the most is the one I never actually saw him wear in person.

My parents had a tall colonial dresser which we called the highboy.  I would visit their room as a kid, because one of the drawers held family photos and newspaper articles and other memorabilia, and I loved to rummage.  Nothing was organized.  Nothing was catalogued.  Just tossed in.  You had to plow through it, and plow I did, wondering who those people were, digging for lore, digging for information, hungry to know my family.  Had I not been digging in this family clutter, I might never have seen my dad in his boater straw.

There was a photo of Ted walking in a cityscape, wearing sharply creased slacks, shiny shoes, a crisp white shirt, a very stylish long-sleeved cardigan sweater; and all topped off with the boater.  He was a “sharp dressed man.” 

So dapper! ZZ Top woulda loved him.

What is a boater?  It is a flat brimmed straw hat, and the crown is also flat.  The name probably derives from Victorian England when young British schoolboy fops would woo women by “punting (boating) on the Thames.”  Barbershop quartets wear them, probably for the same reason.  Picture the quartet in “The  Music Man.”

The first time my mom saw that hat was in 1933.  She was standing on a curb, in full “urp-ness” and waddle, tummy stretched out to there, waiting for my oldest brother to emerge, just a few days later.  She had stepped out of the office of her Ob/Gyn right there on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, waiting for my dad to pick her up.  He drove up and reached over to open the door of his Model A.  She heaved herself in; and before he could ask her about the appointment, she noticed that he was wearing a new hat.  She complimented him on his handsome appearance, and he nodded his thanks.  She asked him where he got the hat, and he told her.  She asked him how much it cost, and he told her that too.

So like Ted!  Not to worry about the budget.

Audrey didn’t remember the price of the hat; but whatever it was, it was way too much, and definitely not in the budget in the middle of the Great Depression when times were tough and you could buy a back of groceries for a dollar, if you had a dollar, and buy a loaf of bread for a nickel, if you had a nickel, and there was a baby on the way.  She came apart and her blood pressure blew out the top of her head and all over Ted.

So mad!

Ted listened for a long time, for it was not his style to cut her off.  Finally, when she wound down a bit, and when he was sure that he had her full attention, he rolled down the window, reached up and removed that new and expensive boater straw, and with a deft flick of the wrist, zinged it out the window.  That flat-brimmed hat took off like a frisbee, sailing up and around the car and halfway across the street before coming to rest in the middle of one of the busiest thoroughfares in Los Angeles. 

It took a few seconds for it to sink in, and when it did, she shrieked, “STOP THE CAR!”  Ted pulled over, and she was out of the car in a waddling flash. She fetched the hat right off the ground; and when she got back to the car, she dusted it off and put it gingerly on his head.  Of course, he readjusted it slightly, as all men do, canting it to the right a little. Then he drove on without saying another word or taking his eyes off the road.

Such a rogue!

Audrey did not like it when Ted spent money on things they couldn’t afford; but she liked even less the idea of throwing money out the window.  The last thing Audrey said was, “Nice hat, dear,” and again, he nodded his thanks.  Throughout this entire incident, my mother never stopped talking, and my dad didn’t say more than ten words.  When someone asked Ted why he spoke so little, he said, “Because I love Audrey, and whenever I open my mouth, I interrupt her, which is rude.”

Ted was very fond of hats, and of Audrey; and Audrey was very fond of Ted, with or without a hat.

A love letter to Liza

Once upon a time my leadership students adopted the rose as a metaphor for love, affection, approval and generosity; and if they did not have a real rose, they would affirm each other with imaginary roses.  You and I borrowed the metaphor and have affirmed each other with many imaginary roses over the years when our rose garden was otherwise not in season. 

You are indeed a rose to me, and over the years in these writings you have also been a swan, a gem, a diamond, a pearl of great value, a violet, a noble girl, an English beauty, and a lioness, among other endearments.  It has been a joy of my life to write about the love of my life with metaphors and symbols and similes to describe your character and your beauty. 

And today, Liza, you are a sapphire; and like the rose, even if we cannot come up with a real sapphire (because real sapphires are currently out of season), please accept this sentimental sapphire for you, with all the attendant feelings.

Did you know that the sapphire is the anniversary symbol for the 45th?   Surpassed only by the diamond in terms of hardness, it is unsurpassed in terms of beauty. A geological derivative of corundum, it can be found in several colors, including red, when it is known as a ruby.  It can also be orange and yellow and occasionally colorless as well, but it is most commonly polished to a deep and stunning blue. 

And that hardness quality?  You know, it is a positive thing.  You are tough in ways that I appreciate deeply.  You take care of business.  You surprise and delight me with your ability to focus and to finish.  You don’t give up easy.  You stick to your guns.  To borrow a verse from Scripture (with apologies for the paraphrase and for taking it wildly out of context), you demonstrate strength in all of my weaknesses. 

Perhaps one day I will get you a real sapphire; but when and if that day comes, the real stone will not convey — cannot convey — any more love, affection, approval and generosity than these words today.

Funny, but there is a regular time when I think of all these things, like roses and sapphires and swans and anniversaries and God’s enduring love and adhesive for our lives.  The time is Tuesday morning when I open my “undies” drawer.  There I see love’s daily devotion.  Just like the sapphire and the rose, the drawer slides open to all the newly laundered and folded metaphors for your enduring faithfulness.  Thanks for that; it shows that you are thinking about me. 

And I about you!

In a word, here’s a sapphire for you.  Happy anniversary.

Love, Me

August 2013

Note:

When Liza was a full-time stay-at-home wife and mom, she did the laundry on Mondays.  Hence my well stocked shorts and socks drawer on Tuesdays.  But please dear reader, do not think of me as a mid-century troglodyte who regards the washing as “women’s work.”  Au contraire!  I willingly pitched in; but after nuking several unmentionables, giving all new meaning to the phrase “bra burning,” a wife and three daughters forbade me from setting foot in the laundry room ever again.  Cross my heart, I did not do it on purpose.

We must have previously met.  We were colleagues after all, but it was a big school, and we never really had a chat until that spring afternoon when we sat side by side in the bleachers, there to cheer on our school’s baseball team.  We shook hands, and he said, “You’re the new guy, right”?  Mike had been teaching U.S. History for years, but it was my first year at the school.  He had a wonderfully alliterative name, Mike Maddux, which lent itself to the moniker by which he was known around campus — Mad Dog.  Or just, the Dog, as in, “Seen the Dog today”? 

The Dog was a great sports fan, and soon we were regaling each other with our favorite sports trivia, laughing about baseball’s insane use of jargon.  You could fill a book with all the chatter that comes from the dugout and the bleachers; and Mike and I did schtick on the best-seller we would co-author about “Hey batter batter” and “Throwing BBs out there” and “Frozen rope” and “Be a hitter” and “Pitcher’s got a rubber arm” and “Hey Blue, I have the number for Lenscrafters.”       

But the best story was Mike’s take on one of the most famous clips in baseball history, “The Catch.”  The Cleveland Indians and the New York Giants were all tied up 2-2 in the eighth inning in game 1 of the 1964 World Series, and Cleveland had runners on base.  According to Mike’s telling, the Giants manager brought in a reliever to pitch to Cleveland’s Vic Wertz, who promptly slugged the ball so hard to deep center that it might still be rolling, if not for the most famous “catch” in baseball history, when the Giants all-world center fielder, Willy Mays, made this amazing, blind, over the shoulder catch while his cap was flying off.  The manager came right back to the mound to give his reliever the hook; and the reliever said, “C’mon, Skip, don’t take me out?  I got MY man.”  This became a slogan and a metaphor and a password to our friendship.

“Hey Dog, how was your day?”

“I got MY man.”

Mike’s classroom was unique.  Most teachers have posters and timelines and pithy quotes on the wall, and for some it is an art form; but the Dog was not into “feng shui.”  The walls were bare, bulletin boards empty.  There was nothing to tell you that this was a classroom, except for the white board.  The white board is the contemporary version of the chalkboard.  No more chalk dust!  Instead, you write on these boards with a special marker, called “dry-erase,” and the markers have feet; because if you are into that sort of thing, and some kids are, the chemical in the marker is reportedly very sniff-able. 

The Dog’s use of the markers was profligate, but not for sniffing, just for writing.  He had two white boards on the front wall, so his writing surface was sixteen feet long and four feet high; and it was full.  I would like to report neat columns and rows, clear outlines, various colors of markers and helpful arrows that led you from here to there.  But no; it was chaos.  He wrote small, with black marker only, and he must have been absent in 4^th grade when they taught cursive. 

Was it the wild musings of a brilliant but absent-minded scientist, unlocking the universe?

Was it a monochromatic example of a museum piece if Jackson Pollock had become a teacher?

Was it a mad attempt to describe the floor of my daughter’s room?

None of the above.  It was the just the Dog who loved history and to lecture about it; and who would turn around mid-sentence and hurriedly jot something that was pretty much unreadable, assuming he could find a spot.  Adding to the confusion was a “DO NOT ERASE” warning for the custodian, so there would be jottings from ages past.        

Kids loved the Dog, but they were often bewildered by the Dog.  You could see them trying to figure out the board, heads turned this way and that, the way a regular canine dog would turn its head out of confusion over a new sound, with an expression that said, “Huh”?  And the Dog was loud.  Students sitting in the back row of Mr. Meyer’s AP English class next door would plead with the guidance counselor to give them dual credit, because they were hearing as much about the Missouri Compromise as Beowulf. 

The Dog also had some curious behaviors which contributed to his reputation as being “out there.”  He would periodically bang his head against the wall, or he would go to the classroom door, throw it open, step into the empty hallway and yell, “WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE, TOTO.”  And if a student was horsing around, not doing the work, not interested in academics; the Dog would get into his dish and say, “I can see into your future and where you will be working.  Repeat after me, ‘YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?’ “     

He was the Mad Dog, because he could be a little crazy. He was the Mad Dog, because he could be a little testy.  

Some years into our friendship I got a new job description  which involved student discipline; and one day the Dog came to my office to ask for help with a student who was getting under his skin.  The student was summoned to office for a little chat, but I cannot remember a word he said, or what I said.  What I remember was the decibel level of his mother’s voice, who threatened her son him with great bodily harm if he EVER gave any lip to a teacher.  When the Dog came by, I told him that the kid had been given “…an offer he could not refuse,” quoting one of the most iconic lines in film history.

A few days later he came back, bowed deeply, and gave me a dramatic salaam, saying, “You are The Godfather.  That student has been perfect. What the heck did you do?”  I chose not to tell the Dog that the mom did the heavy lifting on this one, because I loved it when he called me The Godfather.     

Mike’s legacy at the school is legendary and includes many more stories that are filled with humor, pathos and poignancy.    

Like the time he was in a charity golf tournament.  He was in a greenside bunker; and instead of burying the head of the club in the sand behind the ball for nice flop shot, he skulled the ball, which lazered across the green and zonked the school principal square in the head.

Like the time he wanted to get into the school on a Sunday, and not having a gate key, climbed the ten-foot chain link fence and fell from the top of the fence right on the sidewalk inside the fence, breaking his leg, while the keys to his classroom and his car fell outside the fence.

Like the time he sat in my office and wept over the loneliness in his personal life, telling me how much he loved the school, the kids and his colleagues — his lifeline.      

I miss the Dog, taken by cancer not long after his retirement.  I miss the easy comradeship and his sense of humor.  I miss the wild and zany predicaments he so often fell into.  I miss the child-like naivety about him.  I miss the times he came by the office, and we spoke to each other in our own private language.

“Hey Godfather, I hear you were looking for some kid who went AWOL.”

“No worries, Dog, I got My man.” 

Note:

There is an unsubstantiated rumor that — on the occasion of the golf tournament — someone ran to the clubhouse to report that the principal had been injured, which prompted one of Mike’s colleagues to quip, “Nothing trivial, I hope.  Way to go, Dog!”   

When I went off to college, my parents lost their gardener.

My dad never touched a mower, a rake or a hoe, so they decided to hire someone.  My mom looked in the want-ads and found a prospective replacement nearby, but Dad was skeptical.  Japanese names were as ubiquitous and as much in demand among gardeners in 1961 as Latino names are today; and he figured that if they had to advertise, they must not be any good.  Whatever Ted and Audrey’s decision-making process was, she ended up making the call, and that is when Sam came into our lives.

Masami Kaneyoshi needed to advertise, because he had only recently moved to the area.  My mom and dad became his first clients, and he billed them $25.00 a month, an amount that didn’t change as Sam came every week for the next fifteen years.   

If you showed up on a Wednesday morning, you would find Sam and Audrey inspecting the petunias, chatting over the shrubs, or just sitting cross-legged on the front grass, sipping coffee.  They found lots to talk about.  Audrey was an interior decorator/designer whose own house was artistic, warm, and welcoming; and she deeply appreciated Sam’s equally creative work on the exterior.

Sam’s work was lovely.  The edges of the flower beds and the lawns were razor sharp; and the lawns were manicured, because Sam used a “front-throw” mower like the ones used by greenskeepers at the country club.  He introduced new ideas and new colors and new life into the potted plants.  The hedges and shrubs were shapeless under my care, but Sam shaped them into works of art, and there was never a weed in sight.  It just looked like Sam treated my mom’s yard as if it were his own.      

It did not take long for Sam to learn all about our family, because my mom was a chatterbox and quickly made friends out of strangers.  She also showed a keen interest in others; and although Sam was more taciturn, after a while he began to share about his life and family.

After Sam’s father died, he brought his mom from the Central Valley to Los Angeles County for better work opportunities for him, and that they might find a wider Issei community for her.  For the rest of her life, his mother was in the care of her son.  They had a small home, and not surprisingly, it was a doll house, thanks to Sam’s remarkable touch with all things growing.  When his mom died, my mom went to the memorial, a Buddhist observance.  Most of the aging attendees spoke not a word of English; the ceremony was conducted entirely in Japanese, but that did not dismay my mom.  The trappings of the service were different for this church girl, and the incense was intoxicating; but the solemnity and the grief were universal, and Sam was deeply honored that his yard buddy had come.

When Sam began to slow down, less able to handle the mowers and blowers as when he was younger; he confided in Audrey that he had not charged his other clients just $25.00 a month over the years.  Oh no!  He had spent little and saved a lot, quietly accruing a sizeable estate, with a paid-for house and an impressive investment portfolio of blue chips, bearer bonds, and bank accounts.  Sam created a trust account to provide scholarships for children and grandchildren among the families in the “San Gabriel Valley Japanese-American Gardeners Association.”

Funny, the things that can bring a rush of memory!  The smell of new-mown grass reminds me of Sam and how he came into our lives.  This quiet, humble, dignified, intelligent, hard-working caregiver had come to groom our lawns.  He came to shape the flower beds and rotate the colors from season to season.  He came to fuss over Mom’s potted azaleas.  He came to “bonsai” the pittosporum tobira.  He came to use his artistry to turn our yard into a showplace.  He came to be my mother’s friend.      

Note:

Issei are first generation immigrants, born in Japan; Nissei are second generation immigrants, born in the U.S. and Canada; Sansei are the third generation; Yonsei, the fourth

My friend Steve and I have been hiking buddies for almost twenty years.  Occasionally we walk the mall, or the neighborhood, or nearby trails, or the winding road up to the Reagan Library; but our favorite and most frequent hike starts at 5:30 AM and takes us up the twenty-seven switchbacks to the top of Mount McCoy.

Our community of Simi Valley looks like a football stadium, flat in the middle, surrounded by hills.  It is about ten miles long east to west, and four to five miles north rim to south rim; and Mount McCoy is a prominent feature of the west end.  If the weather is fair and the light is favorable, you can make out the huge cross that crowns the hill, a holdover from the days of the el camino real, which connected the California missions.  From the trailhead, our hike is 2.4 miles round trip, with an elevation gain of 600-plus feet, roughly the height of a 60-story building.

The view of the stadium in the early morning is breathtaking, because as the sun rises above the eastern rim and lightens the sky, the town below is waking up; and there is a narrow window of time, neither night nor day, when you take in the fading and speckled checkerboard of porch lights and streetlights and headlights, as the dark-thirty commuters head out.     

We have been up and down this hill nearly two thousand times, including a fair number of moonlight hikes, enough miles to take us to Chicago and back; and in those countless hours we have talked about everything.  Grandkids.  Dodgers.  Politics.  History.  Religion.  His corny jokes.  My long-winded stories.  Favorite authors; our very own traveling hillside book club.

Steve is a Cal Poly graduate who taught horticulture and agriculture before getting his doctorate and becoming a principal; and on our hikes he has been my personal tutor about Southern California flora and fauna, biomes, the gestation period of bovines, the care and feeding of chickens, and all the flowers and herbs you can pick along the way to spice up your turkey dressing.

And trees!

His walking quizzes have been particularly vigorous when it comes to the genus Quercus (oak), of which there are more than 100 species.  He has some personal favorites, which have become required learning for me:  Quercus agrifolia (California Live Oak), Quercus lobata (Valley Oak), Quercus pacifica (Channel Island Scrub Oak), Quercus suber (Cork Oak) and Quercus vacciniifolia (Huckleberry Oak).  Oh, I almost forgot; he also collects cacti; hundreds of them in his yard.  You must be careful where you sit.  Yeah, really!

As he has schooled me over the years on native plants and animals; I have found Steve’s intellect to be world class, his knowledge encyclopedic, and his geekiness just plain scary.

We have enjoyed “the hill” in all seasons and all weathers.  At the winter solstice the sun peeks over the hills in the southeast, and we track the progress of the sunrise northward along the eastern horizon through the vernal equinox, when the sun is due east and sits in the saddle where the freeway connects our town to the San Fernando Valley.  It reaches its most northeast wake-up call at the summer solstice in June.  Then the return trip, inching southward along the eastern horizon week by week, through the autumnal equinox until rising again in the southeast on the winter solstice in December.  Another year of conversation and admiring the oaks and the heather and the sage and the mustard plants and the prickly pear cactus and the bunnies.     

We have ascended the hill in muggy July heat and frigid January mornings. Right after our clocks spring forward, we need mounted headlights, like a miner, to see the trail.  There is a special joy when it is foggy; you are in a grey cocoon for most of the hike, but near the summit you rise out of the fog.  You find yourself on an island, with a cross, surrounded by a blazing white and frothy lake, like the sensation of being in an airplane when it blows through an overcast sky and you are dazzled by the sun’s glare above the clouds.  It may be gloomy down there, but up here it is magical. 

In the earliest days of our hill adventure we could get up and down in about 50 minutes.  Allowing for a few minutes to sit on the rocks at the foot of the cross, we could easily accomplish it in an hour; but as the years have worn on, and the knees have worn out, we have had to allow for extra time. 

Steve has soldiered on for years with a sore knee; and it is mainly his fault, because he regularly does an imitation of a teenager and engages in one of America’s most hazardous sports — church league softball.  As for me, just about everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work.  For these reasons we had to slow down the frequency of our hikes, and when Steve had knee replacement surgery, I wondered with some sadness if we would ever hit the hill again. 

Yet he was determined to get back to work and back on the hill, so he took his rehab and stretching seriously.  In the days immediately following the installation of his bionic knee; he needed help standing up, could hardly bend his knee at all, and suffered innumerable indignities.  But he worked it.  They said he might get back on the job in four to six weeks, but nothing was said about going up and down a skyscraper without an elevator.  It was good to hear that he was able to return to the office; but it shocked me when he texted, “Wanna try the hill tomorrow”?

He climbed slowly out of his truck, carrying something resembling a ski pole.

“I see you brought your cane.”

“It’s a walking stick.”

“OK.”

We made it to switchback # 19, when he stopped for a breather; but he didn’t want to quit.  On we went.  He said it hurt, but he had gone from a knee bend of 10 degrees the day after surgery, to 120 degrees that morning on the hill.  We took our time, establishing a new PR for length of time on the hill at an HOUR and 50 minutes, up and back.  Steve felt bad for holding me up; but truth be told, this is a new and comfortable pace for a guy who is closer to 80 than 70 and who has only two stops on his transmission – SLOW and PARK.  We brought the hill to its knees six weeks to the day from his surgery, and we have the selfie to prove it.

Since our pace is slower now, we have more time for Dodger talk, more grandkid tales, more gossip about the school district where we have both spent many years of our lives working with other peoples’ sons and daughters.  Two guys trying to trim the weight and the waistline, enjoying the journey, enjoying the views, walking to the contours of the hillside and the rhythms of the sunrise, smelling the flowers, building a friendship one step at a time.

My father wanted to name me after his brother, my Uncle Bob. In fact, he insisted on it, and that was how I became christened Robert Timothy Piatt, and how I am known by Kaiser, the IRS, the DMV, and various employers.

The problem was, my mother was an excellent judge of character, recognized my uncle for the scoundrel that he was, and insisted that I would be known as Rob, Bob, or Bobby over her dead body. My parents compromised on the diminutive of my middle name; and from the day they brought me home from the hospital, until now and every day in between, I have been plain old Tim Piatt. The unintended consequence of that decision has been considerable abuse, because most people missed the memo and have not called me Tim at all, but by my initials — T.P.

Just to make it clear, there are two pronunciations of T.P. The first is poetically trochaic, which means the stress is upon the first syllable – TEE pee. You would use that to describe a conical dwelling covered in buffalo hides in common use by the Native Americans of the Great Plains, also known as a wigwam.

On the other hand, my initials are iambic, which means the stress is on the second syllable – tee PEE. Just imagine the teasing and derision I have suffered, because of the popular use of my initials to describe a very ordinary but necessary paper product, which has been in great demand during the current pandemic. In fact, my initials are in such common usage that the Oxford English Dictionary has expanded the classification of the product they describe as being not just a noun, but also a verb.

“Friday night! What’s happenin’?”

“We’re going to T.P. the principal’s house. Wanna come?”

Because of my popular nickname, this emptying of the shelves in the paper aisles is fascinating. While wearing a mask and keeping my social distance, I conducted my own research as to the reasons for this toilet tissue buying frenzy and have found that most people are not selfishly hoarding tissue at all. They have perfectly reasonable explanations for this recent rush on my namesake necessity.

For example, do you see the woman over there in checkout line #12? She has six or seven enormous bundles, at least 200 rolls. It turns out that she is the little old lady who lives in a shoe. She has so many children that countless others have assumed she does not know what to do. They are wrong; she knows exactly what to do. She comes to Costco.

And the young lady in checkout line #5? She is the president of the club who will be decorating the principal’s house and yard tonight.

And that guy on #6 who is tenderly cradling his bathroom tissue? He is among those folks who are stressed to the max in these uncertain times. They seek solace from the isolation of social distancing. They succumb to certain fetishes and find it therapeutic to repeatedly, and at the same time very gently, squeeze the “Charmin.”

Others have shared with me that toilet paper is very versatile. You can blow your nose on it; sheet for sheet it is cheaper than Kleenex. You can dry your tears, remove your mascara, use it touch the buttons on the ATM, stick a little piece on your chin when you cut yourself shaving, and still have enough left over for your grandson to wrap you up like a mummy.

Over time, T.P. has been much-maligned product; but its many uses have taught me to be proud of my nickname and to stop blaming my parents for the bullying which I encountered from junior high on. My only real regret is that I did not have the foresight to protect my nickname with a copyright application. Just think! If all these people had to pay me royalties, I would be wiping up financially.