MR. HAGEN'S CLASS

I don't know if anyone ever called him Hiro. His real name was Hiromi but for as long as I knew him he was just called Eddie.  He was our next door neighbor. He was also my father’s best friend.  Eddie and his wife Jane lived next door to us along with their three kids and Cassius, their oversized short haired mutt. Our families were very close.  Their oldest son was my brother Steve's best friend, their youngest son was my  brother Danny’s best friend and their daughter Barbara babysat for me from the time I was too young to pronounce  her real name.  She was just Bra-bra to me.  Even our family dogs were best friends - so much so that when the realty company that managed our housing project revised their lease restrictions and forbade dogs, Eddie and my father moved their families.  We relocated to a better neighborhood, but they managed to find houses within walking distance of each other.   Years later at his son Terry’s wedding E...

You could see it in his eyes.   He was in Sarasota, Florida visiting an  elementary school.  While  sitting in a classroom reading a book with a bunch of kids a secret service man whispered the news in his ear. A massive terrorist attack had just occurred on American soil. Airplanes hijacked and crashed into buildings. He froze. Thinking.   I wasn't a fan of his, but in that moment you had to feel for the guy. The Yale Skull and Bones frat boy had it easy until then. From what I’ve heard he wasn't even his own father's first choice for president. But there he was when the spot lights came on and the planes came down and the eyes of the world were on him.  The weight of the office came down on him that day too and even his staunchest adversaries rallied for him because he was still our president. Then came Katrina. Nearly two thousand dead and it was obvious that it wasn't just New Orleans that was underwater. He was in over his head again. ...

When I was in high school I had a buddy named Trent who was such a fan of the comedian George Carlin that his mom bought him a copy of the record “Class Clown” for Christmas one year.  Trent had the damn thing memorized.  I never knew anyone who had a comedy record before and frankly,  I thought it was a little weird.  I remember the first time he played “Class Clown” for me.  He mouthed all the words and watched me as if I was supposed to be impressed.   “Poor pigeons, man. Their song is stuck in their throat.  That's what livin' in the city does, man. Sticks your song in your throat. I'm sure when the pigeons first got to the city, they had a nice song, man.   Few years in the city . . . ( makes 'throat' pigeon sounds ).” It used to happen every year. I'd  feel like a million bucks through the summer and the beginning of the school year but by about mid October laryngitis would settle in and before I knew it my voice was g...

She wasn’t very happy with me by the time we reached the North Rim.  It wasn’t as if I’d done anything wrong, but apparently I hadn’t done the right thing either. Jenny and I had been living together for a few years when we took our first trip out west.  Rocky Mountain National Park, Lake Havasu, Las Vegas, Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon.  I thought I’d planned the trip of a lifetime and couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t as thrilled with our itinerary as I’d been.   Although I’d never been to the desert southwest I’d done my homework and thought I was prepared.  Jenny assumed I’d planned everything so thoroughly that an engagement ring must have been in my carry on.  It wasn’t.  By the time we made it to the Grand Canyon things had gotten a little chilly between us despite the hundred degree temperatures outside. As we got out of the car and walked toward the rim the scale of the place slowly began to register.  It's a cliche to say w...

Most of his friends called him Bubs but I'll always remember him as Rambo. We'd been friends through high school.   I think he wanted to be a hero - the army reservist who wore his camo everywhere.  One year he came up to my family’s annual camping trip at Pike Lake.  He got so hammered the first night that the rangers kicked him out but nobody wanted to drive him back to Milwaukee.  Instead we dropped him off in the woods with his sleeping bag.  Everyone took to calling him Rambo.  The next morning the rangers picked him up walking along the side of the road and told him to leave the park . . . again.  Instead we hid him behind the seat in Dave’s Fiero.  It seemed like a foolproof idea.  We made it past the ranger’s booth by the beach parking lot.  All we had to do was park the car then get out, keep an eye out and try to look inconspicuous.  The plan was working beautifully until Dave hit another car in the parking lot. ...

He said, “so whose side are you on anyway?”  And although I tried to keep my emotions in check I could feel my blood pressure rising and the veins on my neck begin to throb.  I said, “You don’t understand, it’s not about taking sides,” but it was already too late.  The mood of the room had shifted.  In their eyes I was dodging the question, like some slick politician who only sought to muddy the waters instead of seeing things as clearly as they did.  So while they hid safely behind their firmly held but ill  formed convictions I took pot shots at their sacred cows - not smart when you live in the heart of America’s Dairyland.  It had already been a long war and I had no way of knowing that I was on the wrong side.  Arrogance had gotten me into this predicament but it wasn’t likely to get me out . . . It was a warm Saturday afternoon in October.  When autumn comes to Wisconsin you’d better make the most of it because the landscape can...

I'm supposed to be working on my resume, but every time I sit down at the computer to unwrap that turd and get a good whiff of it I find myself stalling.  Where to begin?  Like any strenuous exercise it's best to start with a warm up.  So I browse through my private scrap heap of ideas and spend the next hour or ten trying to frankenstein something together.  The resume will wait, some ideas will not. When I’m done assembling I have a choice; float it out onto Facebook and hope that it slowly comes to life, or stash it away again with my collection of random ideas and misfit toys.  Either way another perfectly good morning goes by with no progress on the job front.  But not all of that time is wasted. I write.  There, I said it.   I've been working on a short story collection for years now. Originally I thought it would contain views from my classroom.  I even had two working titles:  “My Life in Lilliput,” or “Teachi...

It was the summer of 1986.  I was a  year out of high school and working full-time at a Little Caesar’s Pizza on the north side of Milwaukee.  I had no car and no prospects.  The only upside to working there was that since I was an assistant manager they let me have so much overtime that between working and commuting by city bus every day I didn’t have time to spend my money.   $3.65 per hour can really add up.  Anyway, it was a Friday night so the manager was there along with a crew of about a half dozen high school age kids - and me.   Shortly after I got there Mike, the manager, told me that he’d just hired a new guy who was going to start the next day and that he might stop by to introduce himself later that night. I thought nothing of it at the time and settled into a long night’s work on the pizza line.  Read the ticket order, stretch out the crust, ladle on the sauce, add ingredients, slide it in the conveyor oven, repeat. ...

He should have just taken the money. Apparently that's what everybody else would have done. He could have made his life a hell of a lot easier if he would have shut up and cashed in. Watching the Packer-Bear game it was obvious somebody needs a quarterback.  I'm sure there are plenty of other teams around the league that could use a hand - or an arm. But he couldn't just go along with the crowd. No, that’d be too easy.  50,000 fans standing in the stadium every week, tens of millions sprawled on bar stools and Lazy Boys and there he was taking a knee, blowing a hole in a once promising career.  I get why he isn't playing. He's bad for business. After all, football isn't just a game anymore. Besides, nobody wants to be preached to on a Sunday morning . . . I spent way too much time reading Twitter feeds and Facebook posts about this young man and the shitstorm he created.  According to some friends of mine  who’ve been following the NFL their whole live...

His father was your stereotypical Irish drunk who made a living as a handyman but only worked a few hours a day before he’d knock off early and pick up a quart of the cheapest generic liquor he could find - usually Pick N’ Save Five Star vodka.    Most days he was passed out on the couch before 2:00 pm.  I know this because I worked with both of them when I was high school and occasionally after I graduated.   His mom was the long suffering type who always seemed to seethe just below the surface.  You never knew what would set her off.  One minute she’d be smiling like the buddha while her husband strode into the living room in his boxer shorts with a drink in his hand and the next minute she’d fall into hysterics because her son forgot to let the dog out.  She tried to hold it all together but sometimes she was even scarier than the father.  At least you knew what to expect from him. We partied a lot together.  We’d skip school...

I ran into an old friend while I was out biking this summer.  She and I had taught for years in neighboring classrooms.  Last fall I resigned from teaching so we had a lot of catching up to do.  Within minutes though the sky opened up and we scrambled to the safety of a park pavilion to wait out the storm.   After discussing the office politics of my former workplace and getting each other up to speed on our personal lives the conversation was drawn almost inevitably toward politics.  Our president has been characterized as a “disruptor” and a “chaos candidate.”  I guess we got what we should have expected.  A lot had happened since we last spoke.  But I wasn't sure how my friend felt about the new administration.  She's a very religious person and the evangelicals have been siding with the president so I treaded lightly.  Regardless of where she stood I didn't want to offend her.  It turned out I shouldn't have been so c...

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...