Freedom Writers. Freedom Watching (bad movies).

The other day, my mom told me how she was watching Freedom Writers on tv (most likely while folding laundry or going through months worth of newspapers that she hasn't had time to read...).

Supposedly, Dad watched it for a minute and commented about how histrionic it was. I had to laugh when I heard this because I got sucked into watching it while staying at a friend's house. I pretended like I was doing other things and too busy to watch, but then I'd always cycle back to ask for an update. I used to do this all of the time when my sister would watch movies like Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth. She'd ask, "Katie, why don't you just watch it?" And then I'd pretend that I was above it.

To quell this pattern of snobbery, when my friend asked, "Katie, why don't you just watch Freedom Writers with me?" I answered, "Okay, but just for a minute." He snapped this photo of me 45 minutes later:
I think my picture explains how I wasn't really into that movie at all... just walking by the room on my way to read some Milton...

Although it doesn't make my top movies of the century, it was mildly entertaining. Actually, when I walk by little cubbie holes in Asheville, I wonder if some at-risk teenager is writing in a notebook in there. There aren't that many little cubbies that I've found, though.

I wonder if my mom could catch my brilliant dad with an expression like that one while watching Save the Last Dance or The First Wives Club. It's good to put your brow a little lower at times. But, as my good friend from college pointed out, a little snobbery is important in life. It's like getting the best icing on your cinnamon roll.

Fire

I just put a load of laundry into the drier and I'm about to go to bed. As a result, my paranoia about the house burning down is kicking in. Once or twice, I have had to drive back to my house when I was worrying that I left a candle burning, a kettle on the stove, or the drier running. I know that normal people might not do this. I think my mom actually leaves the drier on when she leaves the house. What if it gets too hot, though?


This year, two fires have had an effect on my life. First, my aunt and uncle's house burned down from a lightning strike that hit the electrical panel. Luckily, they weren't home and none of their animals were harmed. However, they lost their home and everything inside of it including photos and family heirlooms.

Second, the Linville Gorge was on fire for several weeks last Spring. As a point of reference, the photo on the top of the page is Table Rock, which sits on the east side of the Linville Gorge. Because the North Carolina Outward Bound basecamp is below Table Rock, our home was threatened when the dry season and a series of lightning storms combined to set the pines in the gorge on fire. I was actually instructing a course when the first of several fires exploded in the Linville Gorge. Before that course, I had never seen the sky rain ashes.


It was immediately after the course that we had to evacuate the basecamp for the first time that summer. Unlike the sudden destruction of my aunt and uncle's house, this fire slowly moved towards us. Still, we waited as it moved towards us and hoped that the wind would stop blowing it up the ridges and the rain would dampen it.

As the fire moved closer, we had to load vans and cars with Outward Bound pictures, historical documents, and our own personal items to evacuate the basecamp. At the time, I had half of my belongings in the cook's cabin at the basecamp. He had everything he valued there. As a result, I packed my Annie Dillard books in his truck and helped him load (in this order):


* his musical equiptment
* his cds
* his photos
* and anything else that would fit... I don't think my love letters made the cut.




It was strange to have time to decide what to bring as this fire approached.

This is a picture from Table Rock of the fire moving in the distance. A friend described it as little explosions of pine on the far rim of the gorge.


After it fizzled and the next fires of the season threatened our base, the instructors going into the field were told to put anything they wanted saved on their beds. As I sit here and consider the drier, I think I know what I would save.

I wonder, dear reader, what would you save?

Oh, Baby

(In case you didn't read the previous post, this is about one of our TAASC adventures...)

One of our 12 year olds, Adrian, had to tend to his baby, CJ, during one of our weekend trips. He wasn’t a pre-teen dad; in fact, the home economics assignment that landed him the tot-watching gig was designed to thwart teenage pregnancies.

Unlike the bag of flour that I had to carry for health class, these five-pound dolls cry loudly when face down and at random times. To quiet the baby, students need to turn the key in a slot in the baby’s back and hold it there until she cooed, which was anywhere from five to fifteen minutes.

Adrian’s teacher thought about some ways kids would avoid doing the assignment. For instance, she attached his key to his wrist with a bracelet—like the ones people wear at concerts or festivals—that could only be removed by cutting. And for the students that might be tempted to leave the crying baby in the trunk of a car or in a closet for the weekend, she would grade him based on an electronic tally in the baby, which shows how many times he neglected or rough handled the child.

While my once-in-a-lifetime Outward Bound students wouldn’t bring a baby on course, a once-per-month Asheville TAASC student would not question bringing baby CJ (who was originally named “Lefty”) camping with us for the cold October weekend. CJ donned a smile with her onesie while the other students huddled in their down jackets. Like Adrian, CJ sported a bandana and a quiet, calm demeanor. Unlike Adrian, CJ cried often.

On the second morning, Adrian rolled out of his tent and said, “She woke me up at 12, 3, and 6 this morning. My arm was so cold when I had to hold that key.” CJ was fine in her onesie, though.

When it was time to take down the tents, Adrian’s tent-mate, Jules, complained, “Adrian, you need to help me with this. I’ve been doing everything around here!”

Adrian replied, “I need to take care of the baby! Just chill!”

I could hear that home ec teacher admonishing, “Right here, you see, is an important lesson. Even if you think you are in love with your boyfriends or girlfriends, it’s not easy running a household and raising a baby together.”

We went on the Outward Bound ropes course that day and CJ didn’t have the appropriate helmet to go up into the course, so she had to stay on the ground. Adrian went up and trusted someone on the ground to watch his kiddo. All was fine until he was about 60 feet up on a difficult element called the grapevine. Basically, you walk across a cable (while clipped in with short ropes called lobster claws). To help you balance, there are short ropes that hang vertically down from a top cable. They are spread out thirds, so as the first rope is coming to the end, you can reach out and hopefully grab the second one… (I had a great picture of this with a linebacker trying to reach for the second one, but it wouldn't copy for some reason...).


Here's a real photo of it. This person was clipped in to the top cable with lobster claws, but fell and is trying to get back on the bottom cable. He was balancing by holding onto those vertical ropes to get across. (This may be foreshadowing Adrian's story...)

Okay, so CJ was on the ground and Adrian was in the sky (concentrating, by the way). Check. About halfway across, CJ started wailing and Adrian fell. (See picture above.) His lobster claws caught him of course, but he was below the bottom cable and needed to pull himself back up on a wobbly cable that was 60 feet up and suspended between telephone poles.

At this point, the kids on the ground were yelling, “Adrian, we can get CJ up to you!” They decided to hoist her up with a rope that I had attached to my little platform on a telephone pole at the end of the grapevine; I had it there to haul up my small pack of water and snacks while I sat in the high observation seat. (I'm actually in that picture, on the upper righthand side...)

Happily, the kids got to practice their knots with this exercise and tied an excellent noose onto the baby’s neck. (Relax… we don’t really teach them nooses… and if we did we’d teach them much more effective ones than they tied on little CJ…jk.)

They did tie the rope around her neck, though, which worked well for hauling her up to the platform. That baby cried so much that I felt tempted to drop her right back down to the ground. jk. When Adrian finally got over to me, he wrapped his arms around the telephone pole and turned the key in CJ’s back. Although he looked exhausted, he still managed to say, “It’s alright, CJ. Daddy’s here.”