A Father's Day Musing from a Chronic Daddy Worshipper

Everyone knows I suffer from Daddy Worship in the highest order.  I think my father is the best man in the world, and I've written about him several times on this blog.  Despite his hesitation (or inability) to demonstrate affection, my father is the most loving, kind-hearted man I know.  He regularly goes without in order to provide for other people.  When I was little, just after my parents divorced and what little money my father did make was spent on child support and trailer payments, he always, always took my brother and me out for pizza on Friday nights and McDonald's for breakfast on Sunday mornings.  He always made sure we had school clothes and money for field trips and book fairs and anything else we needed, and in many cases wanted.  My father, the ultimate provider.

I was much older when my grandmother confided in me that during those trying times in the late 80s and early 90s my father would often go without eating lunch at work every day of the week in order to have money to spend on Jeffrey and me when we went to visit each weekend.  As a child, I loved trips to my father's house for a few reasons.  Weekends at Daddy's meant hours spent playing with my cousins who lived next door.  It meant eating hamburgers and tea cakes at Grandma's and sitting out under the shade tree at Muffy's.  But, I think what might have been most important to me at least for a while as a naive and pretty much spoiled pre-pubescent boy was that it meant on our weekly Walmart trip, Daddy would buy me whatever I put in the shopping basket.  It never was much, mind you; usually just a package of pens or markers or a Hot Wheels car.  I never asked for outlandish things as a child.  But knowing now how much my father gave of himself to be able to give me those things makes them mean so much more.  And makes me feel a little guilty for not appreciating them as the love tokens they were.

I won't gush too much about Daddy today.  This blog's full of Daddy Worship posts, as are my writer's notebooks, as I'm sure will be the pages of my future volumes of poetry.  I only hope I can be half as hardworking and self-sacrificing as my father is when I grow up.  My daddy's a good man.  My daddy can beat up your daddy.

Happy Father's Day.

"Let us all be from somewhere"

Anyone who has known me for more than five minutes (or has read this blog for more than five posts) knows that for quite some time now I've been preoccupied with the ideas of home, place, and where I'm from.  I am from Mississippi.  That's where my people are, that's where I was raised.  This is something I'm prouder than ashamed of, though I've apologized for my Deep South roots too many times before.  No more.

When I moved away to college, I resented Arkansas until I loved it and began to resent Mississippi.  A bad thing indeed when one resents his home.  

When I finally became well-versed in Natural State, felt pride in calling myself Arkansan, I up and left that home behind for the long, skinny state of Tennessee.  Repeat resentment cycle.

I'm an East Tennessean now, by way of Central Arkansas.  My heart will always belong to Northwest Mississippi, as well as every other place I will live.  Let us all be from somewhere, the more somewheres the better.   I think, though, my somewhere will always be a nowhere place just south of the Tennessee state line.  

A Primer

I remember Michigan fondly as the place I go

to be in Michigan. The right hand of America

waving from maps or the left

pressing into clay a mold to take home

from kindergarten to Mother. I lived in Michigan

forty-three years. The state bird

is a chained factory gate. The state flower

is Lake Superior, which sounds egotistical

though it is merely cold and deep as truth.

A Midwesterner can use the word “truth,”

can sincerely use the word “sincere.”

In truth the Midwest is not mid or west.

When I go back to Michigan I drive through Ohio.

There is off I-75 in Ohio a mosque, so life

goes corn corn corn mosque, I wave at Islam,

which we’re not getting along with

on account of the Towers as I pass.

Then Ohio goes corn corn corn

billboard, goodbye, Islam. You never forget

how to be from Michigan when you’re from Michigan.

It’s like riding a bike of ice and fly fishing.

The Upper Peninsula is a spare state

in case Michigan goes flat. I live now

in Virginia, which has no backup plan

but is named the same as my mother,

I live in my mother again, which is creepy

but so is what the skin under my chin is doing,

suddenly there’s a pouch like marsupials

are needed. The state joy is spring.

“Osiris, we beseech thee, rise and give us baseball”

is how we might sound were we Egyptian in April,

when February hasn’t ended. February

is thirteen months long in Michigan.

We are a people who by February

want to kill the sky for being so gray

and angry at us. “What did we do?”

is the state motto. There’s a day in May

when we’re all tumblers, gymnastics

is everywhere, and daffodils are asked

by young men to be their wives. When a man elopes

with a daffodil, you know where he’s from.

In this way I have given you a primer.

Let us all be from somewhere.

Let us tell each other everything we can

Bob Hicock

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

Congratulations are in order!  One of my dearest undergraduate creative writing professors (whose wife is an even dearer former creative writing professor and current mentor, friend, and faithful reader of mine) has just published his first novel and received tenure in the Writing Department at the University of Central Arkansas.  Congratulations, Dr. V!

Below is the press release:

Fiction writer John Vanderslice (not to be confused with the Indie songster of the same name)  announces the publication of his first novel, Burnt Norway, with Florida Academic Press. Vanderslice has published numerous short stories in journals such as Crazyhorse and the South Carolina Review and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, but this is his first published book.  A comic, metafictional romance (or, novel within a novel), Burnt Norway will be published sometime in the fall as an inaugural book in their New Voices series and will be available online and through various other sources.  Look for more updates soon.

In a fiction workshop I took with Dr. Vanderslice my final undergraduate semester, he encouraged me to keep up the "white trash" aesthetic I was working up (or, as he called it, "Kmart Fiction").  Because of his encouragement, I came to graduate school unafraid to share my own less-than-ideal perspective in my creative work, unafraid of the honesty present in my own voice.  So, thanks Dr. V, and congratulations.

Retreating

Well, in t-minus 59 minutes I'll be packing up my tooth paste, books, pens, and shorts and trekking across town to house and dog sit for my writer friend Charlotte. For two weeks. Normally I'm weird about staying at someone else's place for more than a night or two because bliss is being surrounded in my own mess. But this time it's going to be different. Firstly, I can pop back home to check the mail and NBC's Tuesday night line up (Charlotte has no TV--one of those). Secondly, I'll be finishing up my teaching gig this week, so I'll spend my mornings at school anyway, which relieves the stress of Being In Someone Else's Mess for more than the duration of a nice visit. But next week I'm off the teaching hook, and I plan to treat Charlotte's house like a writer's colony. I'm so excited.

Her house is in Old North Knoxville, the historic district near the good bars and the Agee walk. It's an old Craftsman bungalow style, with a lovely front porch for afternoon people watching, and a lovely pale green sun porch in back, completely screened and outfitted with a ceiling fan for afternoon reading and writing. In such posh digs, I plan to treat myself to beer beyond the cheapest available and venture out to a deli off Broadway I hear is amazing. Oh, and the farmer's market. I'll walk her dog in the cool each morning, then sip coffee on the porch and write a few pages before I sit down to the dirty work of revising the stack of stuff I need to overhaul for the thesis project and sending out for publication. I'm even taking a new notebook with me, which I fully intend to fill up with all types of scribbles--poems, stories, lists, ideas, drawings. No notebook would be mine if it didn't house a few grocery lists between leaves of poem drafts. I'll share the juicier bits as they are created.

After my retreat is over, I think I'm going to pack off to the old homestead for a few days (depending on gas prices and Daddy's generosity) for a late June lunch date with my best friend from high school and our old AP English teacher.

Don't worry, though. I'll still be updating.

Bon Voyage!

Mr. Sisk Goes to the Doctor

Mr. Sisk was in absentia yesterday. No, it's not what you think. He didn't decide he couldn't handle teaching the confused and attitudinal youth of Knox County. In fact, the more he thinks about it, the closer he comes to deciding that's exactly what he wants to do when he finishes school. But Mr. Sisk had to miss school yesterday because he had a 24-hour stomach bug.

I'll stop with the 3rd person references for clarity's sake.

Stomach cramps woke me in the middle of yesterday night and I was unable to sleep due to frequent trips to the bathroom. Around 4:30 a.m. I finally dozed off, only to wake again at 6:00 to get ready for school. I still felt queasy, but I thought "I can do this," so I got up, showered, dressed, and began preparing myself for the last day of my first week of teaching. I felt like I might vomit the whole time, but decided to eat a little something in order to calm my stomach. I settled for some ice water and a bite of banana. Almost immediately, I lost my breakfast. After moving to the couch where I lay nauseated and guilt-ridden for fifteen minutes, I called the director of Project GRAD and apologized profusely for my absence and left detailed instructions for what I expected my classes to do while I was out. Then I called the doctor and snagged an 8:45 appointment.

One Phenergen, 2 sprites, a half a liter of Powerade, and 14 hours of sleep later I'm a new man. I feel much better today, and that means I can get around to the household chores I've been putting off. Pile o' laundry, prepare to meet the washing machine. If I'm lucky, I might even get to go see Sex and the City with Laura this afternoon, and tonight I'll hopefully find something fun to do with my friends. Yesterday was the first time I'd stayed home exclusively for more than 5 hours in a very long time. I needed to cool my wheels, but I'm ready to get back into the game today.

I'll share this funny anecdote before dashing off to the Laundromat:
Yesterday on my way home from the doctor, I stopped at the Pilot station across the street from my apartment complex. It was around 9 a.m., and an old man in front of me purchased two 12 oz. cans of Sprite, a tallboy Busch, and a tallboy Bud Ice. When I got to the counter with my Powerades, I asked the cashier if folks came through here this early buying beer on a regular basis. She responded, "It's all these apartments around here. Folks that don't have to work *knowing eye squint*." Then she gave me a copy of the newspaper for free and told me to have a good day. For some reason, whether it be her tone of voice or the fact that I live in one of those apartments around here, I got a kick out of her response. And I got a free newspaper, which makes everything sweeter.

The Mr. Sisk Effect

If the baldness didn't convince me, this week I learned that I am, in some people's perspectives, an old man. By some people I mean jaded teenagers with better things to do than spend their summer on a college campus.

On Monday I started teaching three classes of 15-16 year olds in this program at UT called Project GRAD. What happens is groups of students with a C average or better from the under performing schools in Knoxville come to campus for two weeks and take college prep classes. At the end of the program, each one of them gets a $4,000 college scholarship. That's a big deal, and I'm ecstatic to be a part of it. I've always been for the under dog, because in a lot of ways I've always been an underdog, and I'm glad I get to help these kids on their way towards becoming somebodies, even if only for a measly two weeks. We all have to start somewhere.

I made the decision last year to have my freshman students call me by my first name. I've been Tim for nearly a quarter of a century, and I thought it would be awkward changing to Mr. Sisk. I knew the time was coming, but I wasn't trying to rush it along. Mr. Sisk just seems so old sounding. That's who my daddy is, for crying out loud, and my daddy's pretty agey. But I decided for this program I'd be Mr. Sisk. It wasn't much of a decision really. Monda (The Goddess of Teaching Teenagers) told me long ago that when I start teaching, especially at this age level, I have to be Mr. Sisk in order to maintain distance and command respect. So my decision was made. I amped up my ethos by introducing myself as Mr. Sisk, a teacher in the UT English department. I left out the fact that I'm a peon Master's student with very little experience. They need not know my life history, right? Besides, it would ruin the Mr. Sisk Effect.

I gotta tell ya, I think I like Mr. Sisk better than I like Tim. Mr. Sisk is poised and professional, but he still really cares about his students. He's not afraid to keep misbehavers after class and let them know that giggling and hitting (yes, I've had some hitters, even at 16) aren't going to make it through his class if the behavior continues. He's not afraid to scold, when need be, and he's not preoccupied with whether or not a group of rambunctious teenagers think he's cool. He's a teacher and he knows, in teenagers' opinions, teachers are never cool the first week of class. But if they command respect and show that they care, students will learn something, and they'll be more prepared for college. And in his opinion that's pretty damned cool.

Mr. Sisk is personable and interesting. Despite his frumpy attire, which he selects with the express intent of making himself appear older and thus increasing his ethos, he's thoroughly intrigued by his students, laughs at their jokes, reads and comments on their poetry after class (a sure fire sign that he's got them under his spell), and he always maintains a positive disposition even when presented with challenges. He's shaping up to be like the best teachers Tim ever had, and the type of teacher he wants to become.

I gotta tell you, the Mr. Sisk Effect is addictive. I might even have to bring him out again next semester with the freshmen.

Oh, and FYI, despite the challenges, I LOVE my students. They keep me on my toes, but damn if they aren't bright, funny, and a helluva lot of fun.

Rocket Ship Mazes and Sunburned Scalps

Add this to the Perils of Premature Baldness list: Yesterday I volunteered to wrangle children through an inflatable rocket ship maze at the Children's Festival of Reading sponsored by the Knox County Public Libraries. My dear friend Matt told me about the festival at Happy Hour with the Boys (Monda, I've assumed your capitalization habits) on Thursday night at the sushi bar. He got roped into volunteering because his mom is the children's librarian at the downtown branch. I volunteered because I heard the words "play," "children," and "moon bounce." Honestly, in my past life I was a kindergarten teacher. It was great fun, but very sunny. By the end of the day, I was red faced with a sunburned scalp. Anyone got any aloe vera?

The sunburn was worth it though, if only for two reasons, listed in order of coolness. 1. Matt's Mom and Dad (nicest people you ever want to meet) took us for beer and pizza afterwards. 2. A little boy no more than six came through the inflatable rocket ship maze's rear exit, looked up at Matt and me wide-eyed, and exclaimed, "There's a dead astronaut in there!"

Kids DO say the darndest things.