Guys Read

If you’re reading this between 10 am and 1 pm, California time, on Friday, then — Even as you read, buddy! — I’m behind the wheel of a 12-passenger van, burning east along I-10. I’m on my way back home from the church Summer Camp where I’ve been incarcerated with scores of screaming teenagers since early Monday morning.

I spent the week before this getting the van laid on, hunting down last-minute campers, and preparing things so that my dad, my wife and our kids would be ready for my week-long absence, as well as gathering the minutia I figured a 49-year-old man would need during a week of — well, I guess it’s not exactly “hell-raising” if we’re going to be at church camp. Still, my list of minutia included a small propane stove with coffee-making accessories, a stash of cigars I expect to E&E into the woods to enjoy (since smoking is prohibited on the camp grounds), plus a big box of chemical heating pads for aching back muscles.

I didn’t exactly mean to volunteer for this. But, I did in fact volunteer for it. So, I suppose I ought to quit my … er … um … ‘complaining’ (see, I’m already practicing to spend the week at church camp with a bunch of teenagers).

What happened is this: A few months ago, I promised the 22-year-old woman, who was going along as a counselor for the girls, that I’d go with her if we couldn't find a younger guy to shepherd the boys. We only have five girls and one boy attending camp, but the  22-year-old refused to go without another adult, and none of the other college-aged kids in our church could get time off from work. So … I’m the guy driving a 12-passenger van with the rear seat removed for added cargo space, a young female counselor and six teens. And, I have no idea what’s in store for me up at camp, as I write this — though, by the time you read this, it will all be over.

One thing all this does have me thinking about is KIDS.

Particularly young boys, around nine or ten — like the rowdies in the Sunday school class I teach. Boys who are dying to go to camp, but aren't yet old enough, which is something I’m working to rectify for next year.

These 3rd and 4th graders may be too young for this year’s camp, but they aren’t too young to swing hammers, work saws, and turn screws when we build Sunday school projects. (Can’t tell this class is taught by an old SF Engineer Sergeant, can you? No doily projects for us, buddy. We stick to wood and hardware! That’s the only thing that keeps these “Wild Men of Borneo”, as I call them, from tearing apart the classroom. LOL   And, please realize: No slight is intended to those who hail from Borneo; these are all great kids.)

These boys are just that. BOYS. They love adventure. They crave it; they seek it; and, when adventure isn’t a part of their real lives — they invent it. Which brings me to the point of this post:

Guys Read

According to their website, Guys Read is “a web-based literacy program for boys … Our mission is to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers.”

I first stumbled across Guys Read when I bought one of their anthologies for my son at a school book fair. This anthology, Guys Read: THRILLER, holds ten short stories, packed with action and adventure — a real hit with my son and his friends.

Some of the stories, such as Ghost Vision Glasses, by Patrick Carman, are spooky and fall into the horror category. Others, such as Gennifer Choldenko’s Snake Mafia, are pure mystery-suspense. The Double Eagle Has Landed, by Anthony Horowitz, is a perfect blend of action, suspense and comedy that had me laughing (and biting my nails) right alongside my son, while Walter Dean Myers’ Pirate provided a quick and troubling, blinding flash of insight concerning life as a teen pirate off the coast of Mogadishu.

All these stories have young male protagonists who face daunting odds, force their way (sometimes with second and third thoughts) through a rousing adventure, and finally find their way out the other side.

Guys Read website says: “… research … shows that boys will read — if they are given reading that interests them.” And, I have to say: "I couldn't agree MORE!"


Guys Read: THRILLER definitely delivers. But, the site offers more, saying:

“… the biggest part of this site is the collection of book titles below. These are books that guys have told us they like. Our idea is to help guys become readers by helping them find texts they want to read. Get in there and start looking around. There is a little something for everyone.”

 This old soldier's suggestion?

If you know a young guy, similar to one of my “Wild Men of Borneo”, check out Guys Read. You may be opening up a whole new world of adventure for him!

See you in two weeks (assuming I survive Church Camp without being burned at the stake!),
— Dix

Summertime and the Living is Killing Me

It isn't even officially summer yet and I'm dying from the heat. Not literally, but it seems likely I could succumb any moment. The heat index has soared into the 90's already where I live and people are getting cranky. It isn't pretty.


It's a fact that more crimes are connected to heat than any other weather -- while suicides occur more with rainy seasons. Personally, I like a rainy night (and day), so I don't understand that part, but my address doesn't get that much rain.


Crime rates interest me. Is there a reason for spikes and times of lower criminal activities due to a high thermostat rating? According to many experts, crime rates are higher in the Southern states where the temps rise higher and higher like notes in Mariah Carey song that don't seem possible.

Human behavior is studied, incarcerated prisoners are interviewed and police officers are questioned for their take on the dilemma in search for answers. If only we could encase the Earth beneath a huge glass globe like Superman's Metropolis and regulate the weather. I think it would be a great discovery if someone could figure out how to do this. Imagine the possibilities. No more worrying about global warming.


In the meantime, we can only spend so much time near a pool, lake or ocean to cool down. Too much sun is another problem with situating ourselves at some sort of water park for the duration of the too-hot-to-breathe weather. If you've ever had a bad sunburn, you understand the grouchiness that accompanies that scenario, too. Are there no answers?


I think I may have this one solved.


I am suggesting the public take a mandatory break during the heat of the day. If it were a national proclamation, it'd be like a daily mini-vacation without having to pay anything extra for gasoline although snacks might corrupt the budget a little. If doing this cut down on crime, think of the money law enforcement could save. In that case, the government could afford to pay us (or provide a nice tax break or something) to stop and rest while it's scorching outside. I'm sure some would use the time to take a siesta, do another load of laundry or write one more chapter on that Great American Novel. But for those who wouldn't be interested in any of that, how about just sitting down and spending some time reading.


That suggestion comes with an interesting caveat: I'd want everyone to choose a (gasp!) mystery which probably includes a crime.

ABC

It's been a funny old few weeks. 'Funny' in the Emo Phillips sense of strange or bizarre. We've been pulling down the house, was the first thing, or at least a false wall that the previous owner had built to encase the monumental fireplace and chimney that graces our living room. We expected to find human remains, but all there was was a spider evidently dead of boredom. During this demolition, surrounded by stepladders and tools of all persuasions, I had a clever idea which finally turned out as usual to be a suicidal manoevre. At the end of this clever idea I fell flat on my cervical vertebrae. I suppose I was lucky: two people I know of who did the same sort of thing are now quadriplegic. But the results are still with me. For one thing, I can now only walk with the aid of a stiff drink.
But that was long ago. Last week turned out to be the most bizarre of all.
First there was the Queen Spree in London which I watched from afar, while wiping away  a fugitive tear and a fugitive spill of scotch.
The rest of the week is a sort of ABC. That's all I can think of to characterise it - sorry I put an 's' there instead of a 'z'. I'll try to do better.

A  is for Auden (W.H. of that ilk).

Tomorrow, Mimi is off to London to visit her son. Rather now than in a month, since he lives within the epicentre of the Olympic Games. She is going by Eurostar, and therefore is going under the Channel. This has her white-lipped and trembling. I have tried to reassure her that the tunnel is in a part of the planet,: "They didn't tunnel though the water, dear, but through the rock."  That does no good. For Mimi the Channel Tunnel is a wobbly sort of tube resting on the seabed.
But anyway, I shall be waving her off at the Gare du Nord which pleases me no end. I love railway stations. I love them to death. I would prefer a lot of vapour and a steam-whistle, but those days are gone, Marjorie. I'll make do with what there is. I love just looking at it all - the crossroads. And what does all this have to do with anything? Well, for a month or so, I've been reading a lot of poetry. I read poetry when the writing isn't going too well or just isn't going, when it seems to have a cleansing effect, rather like that stuff you use to unblock drains. Auden has been one of my favourite poets since I was a teenager. I don't know why. Perhaps it's the imagination coupled with a talent for the common touch.
In 1938 Auden spent some time in Brussels where he wrote some of his best shorter poems. 'The Musée des Beaux Arts' is one that I'll bang on about some other time. My all-star favourite is 'The Gare du Midi' which has always fascinated me, because it is a short mystery story, or at the very least the start of one. Everyone probably knows it by heart, but I like writing it out.

Gare du Midi


A nondescript express in from the south.
Crowds around the barrier, a face
To welcome which the mayor has not contrived
Bugles or braid: something about the mouth
Distracts the stray look with alarm and pity.
Snow is falling. Clutching a little case
He walks out briskly to infect a city
Whose terrible future may have just arrived.

You just know that on a certain day in 1938, Auden sat in a station cafe and saw something - a person - that disturbed him and stayed with him. Since I first read it, I've been trying - and we're talking decades here - to write the story that Auden began . And there must be other poems like this somewhere. Does anyone have another?

B is for Bradbury.

By a sad coincidence, on the morning of the 5th, I pulled out a copy of Fantasy and Science Fiction - October 2000. I often pull out this particular magazine to read a Ray Bradbury story called 'Quid Pro Quo'. It's a story that involves time travel but it's not about time travel, if you get me. But  I don't read it just for the story, but for the author notes, which accompany it.
In the notes, Gordon Van Gelder, ( for I take it to be he) writes this:

"One of the things Ray Bradbury takes seriously is the matter of using one's talents. When asked years ago what the Eleventh Commandment mmight be, Mr Bradbury repeated Polonius's advice to Laertes: " This above all: to thine own self be true." 
"To neglect God's gifts to you," says the great Mr B., " is one of the greater sins."


Furthermore, the manuscript bore this gentle warning from its author: "Reader, beware. If I ever meet you and ask you what you have done with your genetic talent and you give the wrong answer, I may throw you down the stairs." 

This little passage has always made me very very uneasy. And never more so than when the writing gets too difficult and I seek other easier tasks. I have been negligent in the past. Less so now. But whenever I am tempted to persuade myself that rolling and smoking a cigarette to smoke under the Big Parasol and listen to the sparrows holding a rowdy class reunion in the forsythia is a worthwhile  activity, comparable to sitting down and doing the writing, I feel the cold breath of these words on the back of my neck. The words of one of the greatest teachers of  Writing and Reading we have ever had.

C is for Christie.

Last week, I decided to try again. Agatha is not my favourite. We do not get along. We rub each other up the wrong way. So last week, I had another try to see whether, with advancing age, I could see my way to finding some good in there. And I can already feel the shudders of revulsion and loathing. ("Someone doesn't like Agatha Christie!  What sort of a world are we living in? Isn't there some sort of therapy for these people?")
I didn't read 'The ABC Murders'; that would have been way too neat. I read 'Mrs McGinty's Dead'. And I have to say, it didn't take. I simply don't like her. That's all.
But I didn't come out empty-handed. Because I realised that I had a quiz question. I know it is more Rob Lopresti's  or John  Floyd's flower-bed than mine. But I have no shame.

Neil Schofield's Big Quiz Question:

Can you find the connection between Agatha Christie and Ray Bradbury?
Clue: Think North of the Border.

Either pathetically easy or fiendishly difficult. You pays your money…
No prizes for a correct answer. Except the knowledge of a job well done.