My Wooden Snake
There is a wooden, multi-jointed snake on my breakfast table. I got it at a truck stop in Mississippi. One of the cable internet guys was sitting across from me, showing me the bill for 24 dollars. I was writing the check when he said--you a snake lover? I think that is what he actually said but I was writing the check and only caught on that he had mentioned the snake and I just said something like, yeh, hoping that I would get away with it. I don't actually speak a lot, in the course of a day. He went on to say that snakes were the only thing he was really afraid of. I felt bad about this, his fear of snakes, so I blurted out a bald-faced lie about why the snake was there on the table. It felt weird lying to this kid about snakes. He already thought I was a snake lover because I think I had already admitted as much. I wanted to let the kid know that I was also afraid of snakes, but to say so would make me a hypocrite, a snake loving hypocrite. But I don't know, really, what was going on. This was a perfect example of poor communication. Of two people not synching. I think it was partly the kid's fault. His partner was in the other room hooking up the wireless router. That's not what they were paid to do, that's not what the 24 dollars was for but I had told the partner there was an extra cash 40 in it for him if he had me wireless when he left. I'm getting the hang of things. I am a slow learner but I am getting the hang of things. It took the partner about 5 extra minutes to get me wireless. Was it worth 480 dollars an hour to me? Yes it was, is the crazy truth.
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Advice To Slim
I signed up last year and had all the necessary background checks to qualify as a volunteer in a local mentoring program for area youth, but in the year since I have not actually participated in the program. Shortly after the final orientation I had to leave the area for several months. And then upon returning I wasn't sure my future here was stable enough to commit to a program that asks for a minimum of one year involvement. When I did become more comfortable with the idea of being here it was due in large part to a woman in NY, who exists for me in blinking fashion, sometimes here, or I there, and sometimes not. It is a relationship that survives by the acceptance of a five hour separation. And that one of us can visit the other often enough to make it seem real. And so I add this--that I must travel away from here on a semi-regular yet not scheduled basis--to the list of reasons why I cannot commit to a local mentoring program.
But the truth is, before I even get to those reasons, it may be that the real reason I am hesitant to get back into mentoring is because I suck at it. Yeah, I did a little mentoring once, sort of free-lance, outside of an actual program. And in my head I try to blur the number of failures into one. But as the years pass it is hard to imagine any description that would in any way define my efforts as mentor as anything but, well, a tad short of ideal, and the number of failures not just one, but several. On Sundays I used to load up a compact car full of teenage and pre-teenage boys and drive them around a city in southern Louisiana, looking for distractions from the difficult scenarios that played out every day on the street on which we all lived.
What brings all this to mind at this point in time is the news that another of the boys has been locked up for first degree homicide. So that now I can look back to a Sunday almost ten years ago, where of five boys in my car, all five have at least been accused of murder, if not actually committing it. On other Sundays the mix would be different and I can proudly say that one of those mixes included a carful where only two of the five have grown up to be suspected murderers. Of what use is this information? What do you do with it? I'm not sure yet of what use it is but what I'm doing with it is getting rid of it. These bits of information can slip in almost unnoticed, a brief email exchange where you ask--oh really, what was he arrested for? and the answer comes back first degree homicide. And then the information sits there and you think you have processed it but you haven't because it turns out that you could never keep up with it, over the years. Every so often you think you have cleared out the old files, those files with tabs that say--kids who cuss; kids who hit; kids who stab; kids who murder, but apparently you not only suck at mentoring, you are not much of a bookkeeper, either; the information is not gone, just hidden, and not even well hidden at that.
I am not really so egomaniacal, or self-critical, to think that my deficiencies led directly to these kids growing up to be murderers, but as we shared a part of our lives together it is hard for me not to think of our lives as being intertwined. And so to whatever small degree I was actually an influence on these bad boys, I seek in at least that measure the answer to what it is I could have done differently. Which is funny, because my mother, may she rest in peace, once asked the same question regarding her raising of me. I told her at the time that I thought she had done a fine job, I really had no complaints, and that I thought there was a limit to how far a parent should go in taking responsibility for the overall outcome of their child. Hey, that's pretty damn good advice, I should take it.
As for these boys--is it true that they would greatly benefit from a relatively stable two parent family, some love, some discipline, a school system that hasn't given up on itself, and them? I would say for sure it is true and "greatly benefit" might even be understatement. Is it also true that seeing the problem, defining it, studying it and speaking out about it is half the battle? No, I don't think so. I think we should quit seeing it and speaking about it and just jump right in and do something, be something, in some way become something that can be described as actively involved. There will be plenty to look at and talk about after the fact. I'm talking to you, Slim, and this isn't just about mentoring. You need to giddyup boy, giddyup.
I signed up last year and had all the necessary background checks to qualify as a volunteer in a local mentoring program for area youth, but in the year since I have not actually participated in the program. Shortly after the final orientation I had to leave the area for several months. And then upon returning I wasn't sure my future here was stable enough to commit to a program that asks for a minimum of one year involvement. When I did become more comfortable with the idea of being here it was due in large part to a woman in NY, who exists for me in blinking fashion, sometimes here, or I there, and sometimes not. It is a relationship that survives by the acceptance of a five hour separation. And that one of us can visit the other often enough to make it seem real. And so I add this--that I must travel away from here on a semi-regular yet not scheduled basis--to the list of reasons why I cannot commit to a local mentoring program.
But the truth is, before I even get to those reasons, it may be that the real reason I am hesitant to get back into mentoring is because I suck at it. Yeah, I did a little mentoring once, sort of free-lance, outside of an actual program. And in my head I try to blur the number of failures into one. But as the years pass it is hard to imagine any description that would in any way define my efforts as mentor as anything but, well, a tad short of ideal, and the number of failures not just one, but several. On Sundays I used to load up a compact car full of teenage and pre-teenage boys and drive them around a city in southern Louisiana, looking for distractions from the difficult scenarios that played out every day on the street on which we all lived.
What brings all this to mind at this point in time is the news that another of the boys has been locked up for first degree homicide. So that now I can look back to a Sunday almost ten years ago, where of five boys in my car, all five have at least been accused of murder, if not actually committing it. On other Sundays the mix would be different and I can proudly say that one of those mixes included a carful where only two of the five have grown up to be suspected murderers. Of what use is this information? What do you do with it? I'm not sure yet of what use it is but what I'm doing with it is getting rid of it. These bits of information can slip in almost unnoticed, a brief email exchange where you ask--oh really, what was he arrested for? and the answer comes back first degree homicide. And then the information sits there and you think you have processed it but you haven't because it turns out that you could never keep up with it, over the years. Every so often you think you have cleared out the old files, those files with tabs that say--kids who cuss; kids who hit; kids who stab; kids who murder, but apparently you not only suck at mentoring, you are not much of a bookkeeper, either; the information is not gone, just hidden, and not even well hidden at that.
I am not really so egomaniacal, or self-critical, to think that my deficiencies led directly to these kids growing up to be murderers, but as we shared a part of our lives together it is hard for me not to think of our lives as being intertwined. And so to whatever small degree I was actually an influence on these bad boys, I seek in at least that measure the answer to what it is I could have done differently. Which is funny, because my mother, may she rest in peace, once asked the same question regarding her raising of me. I told her at the time that I thought she had done a fine job, I really had no complaints, and that I thought there was a limit to how far a parent should go in taking responsibility for the overall outcome of their child. Hey, that's pretty damn good advice, I should take it.
As for these boys--is it true that they would greatly benefit from a relatively stable two parent family, some love, some discipline, a school system that hasn't given up on itself, and them? I would say for sure it is true and "greatly benefit" might even be understatement. Is it also true that seeing the problem, defining it, studying it and speaking out about it is half the battle? No, I don't think so. I think we should quit seeing it and speaking about it and just jump right in and do something, be something, in some way become something that can be described as actively involved. There will be plenty to look at and talk about after the fact. I'm talking to you, Slim, and this isn't just about mentoring. You need to giddyup boy, giddyup.