MR. HAGEN'S CLASS

Exhibit A:  The view from Jenny’s pillow looking out at Swiftcurrent Lake and the amphitheater of mountains surrounding the Many Glacier Hotel.  Thanks to the work of our sis in law Tracy who managed to book a pair of rooms in this hard to get location.  Many Glacier is the most remote hotel in the park.  If you want to see a sunrise or sunset from that location you pretty much have to overnight it. Our vacation ended when we said goodbye to the Boemmels at the highest point in the Going to the Sun Road - Logan Pass.  But we still had a three day drive back to Cheeseland.  We tried the Super 8 in Havre, Montana but it was a little . . .weird. I was met at the door by two dogs.  I thought the woman behind the desk would apologize but instead  she picked up the smaller of the two and held it in her arm like Doctor Evil from Austin Powers while she checked on the room rates.  I don’t have a problem with dogs.  One of my favorite ...

I spent Labor Day weekend waiting out a storm on my brother in law’s boat. My wife and I got into a big fight that I'd rather not relive right now and I just needed a place to stay, a little shelter from our storm.  I could have gone out to the bars, visited a strip club or just gotten a lonely hotel room somewhere and stewed.  Instead I stowed myself away on the boat, read the news on my phone compulsively and watched Antenna TV:  “The Mod Squad,” “Red Dawn,” “Maude,” “Archie Bunker.”  Those were the days . . . Texas is drying out from the strongest hurricane to hit the state in recorded history. We were in Texas just over a month ago.  Dallas. The city was unaffected, but the convention center where Jenny spent three days became a shelter for two thousand Houstonians escaping the rising water to the south.  Meanwhile tho usands of miles away there was another hurricane eying up Florida.  All this even as my floating hotel rocked gently a...

My best friend in high school wasn't actually homeless. That's not the type of story most people want to hear. My wife literally attended the high school where the movie “The Breakfast Club” was filmed. A friend of hers had a cameo in “Ferris Bueller's Day Off,” and her sister had to compete with the actress Jami Gertz for the lead in their school play. But that's their story. This is mine. It was the beginning of my sophomore year in gym class and I was sitting up on the bleachers during roll call while the teacher took attendance for the first time. Roy’s older brother played drums in a metal band with my older brother so the last name stuck out for me.  I was talking to a buddy of mine when the teacher called out the last name St-Pierre. After class I walked over and introduced myself to Roy. Roy St-Pierre. If you asked him to say his own name his chest would stick out and he'd produce this slight swagger as he pronounced it with a French accent.  On t...

H e punched a cadet in the face for asking him to be quiet, but cried as he tried to tell his side of the story. He threatened and intimidated other students but practically begged me to play four square with him on the playground. He couldn't sit still or keep quiet in class, couldn't stay in single file in the halls or keep his hands to himself in the cafeteria. If anyone confronted him about his behavior he'd become defiant, but for me he’d usually offer a sheepish grin and apologize with such charm that I wanted to believe him. Kenneth couldn't help but stand out, not just because he was one of only a handful of black students in his fourth grade class, but also because he was a head taller than anyone else.   At nine years old he was already bigger than many of the teachers in our school so there was no way for him to slip under the radar even if he’d wanted to. He’d been suspended from his previous school a half dozen times for fighting, but only twi...

I f silence is golden then you take a vow of poverty when you decide to become an elementary school teacher.  Rustling papers and sliding chairs, muffled whispers and joyous laughter are the sounds that you'll work to and work on every day. Whines and chiming bells, sharpening pencils and the constant drone of your own name in your ears - it's enough to drive a someone to the brink of wanting a real job. Almost.  After years of living in Lilliput you'll be ruined for life. Where else do you get to make a rainforest out of tempera paint and construction paper? Where else are you paid to play four square and tell stories? Nowhere, that's where! So you'll stay on year after year despite pink eye, contract disputes, and an all you can eat buffet of dysfunction .

My wife loves games. Pool, darts, bean bag toss. She'll play solitaire for hours if there's nobody to play with her.  But I think her favorite games of all are slot machines. So a couple years back we booked a night at the Ho-Chunk Casino in Wisconsin Dells.  I’m cheap so it’s not easy for me to burn through money like that for fun, but after a Captain and Coke or three the Captain usually convinces me to loosen up - and I usually listen. We got to the hotel, checked into our room, made ourselves a couple of drinks and headed over to play.  We stayed together for a while but eventually I got distracted and headed off on my own drink in hand.  I’m wandering around aimlessly not paying attention, just feeding the machines.  In my Captain addled state I stumbled across a Native American themed game which seemed  appropriate since we were at an Indian casino.  I slid my ticket in and started playing.  I'd only pushed the button a few times befor...

My wife and I have been going on my family canoe trip since before we got married.  So I'm not sure how she convinced me this year that it would be a good idea to scrap that annual event in favor of a road trip to the Mary Kay convention in Dallas, Texas. I love road trips. She knows that. She was going either way. The room was already paid for whether I was going or not. I could bring my bike. And I'd never been to Dallas before. Still… In the weeks leading up to the trip I had to tell my brothers that Jenny and I’d have to bow out because we were traveling to Dallas instead of canoeing. I didn't advertise the reason for the change of plans, but what could anybody say? My brother Steve and his wife skip the canoe trip every other year to go to Sturgis for Bike Week. Totally the same thing, right? Right? Anyway, Dallas is a long way from Milwaukee but Jenny was right, I really do love a road trip.   We drove through Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma. By Mond...

My father survived a plane crash with the help of a sixteen year old girl he met in a movie theater. She was working as an usher at the only theater in the tiny town of Casselton, North Dakota.  He was an air force sergeant recuperating from a horrific plane crash that left sixteen other servicemen dead.   That teenage girl turned eighty in May.  She’s now the matriarch of a family with nearly as many people as there are in the town she was born in (Emden, ND population 59).  She is also my mom.  But this isn't my story to tell.  It's hers. Grandma don't Fb and Grandma don't tweet. If you want to know more all you have to do is ask her.  But no need to mention my name.  She hasn't heard from me for awhile either . . .

My parents didn't move us out of the projects so we could transfer to better schools.  No, that's not how the Hagens roll. Our mom and dad moved so they could help build a better life for our dog Skeeter. My brother Danny likes to tease the rest of us that he's mom's favorite, but even he knows who the real favorite was - which says a lot about Skeeter’s awesomeness - because even on our worst days I don't think any of us ever literally crapped in the yard. Every family has it's own legends and lore. We do too.  But this isn't my story to tell. If you want the rest of it just ask Grandma. Grandma don't FB and Grandma don't tweet. So if you’d like to hear Skeeter's story straight from his mom you're going to have to ask her yourself.  I'm sure she'd love to tell you all about him.

For years when I told people that I was a teacher I got the same response, “I don't know how you do it! I wouldn't have the patience.”  It was a point of pride for me. I felt like a first responder with chalk and Omit ( for those of you who’ve been out of school for a long time Omit is the stuff teachers sprinkle on V-Omit).  I may not have been risking my life, but I was doing a job that a whole lot of other people were unwilling to do. Last fall I quit teaching. We all have our limits and eventually I reached mine.  My thoughts and prayers are with my friends and colleagues who are heading back to school.  I envy them (a little ;-).  They have the unique opportunity to truly make a difference in the world.  We live in turbulent times and classrooms offer refuge from the chaos going on everywhere else.   So if you're a teacher good luck this year. Get plenty of sleep, don't take the bs too seriously, and try to have fun when you can. You'...

“So do you miss it?”  she’ll ask when there's a lull in the conversation.  A few years ago Jenny's mom sold her home in Illinois and moved to Milwaukee to be closer to us. Other than the years she took off when raising her kids she was a teacher her whole life. She's 84 now and her memory is fading. She loses track of her place in conversations but there's one thing that doesn't seem to slip. She knows that I was a teacher and that I'm not anymore. I try to explain that the job is different than it was when she taught, and that I wasn't exactly working in Mayberry, but none of it seems to convince her. In another “Groundhog Day” reminiscent scene I find myself having to justify my decision to get out.   “Maybe you could apply to work in the suburbs,” she’ll suggest.  “No, I was a city kid,” I tell her.  “Besides, there’d be hundreds of applicants for every position and my resume wouldn’t exactly stick out.” “What about a private school . . . ?” ...