...so I was sitting in seat 11F...

Ahhh. An exit row. How awesome is that. Nothing beats being able to stretch out in the exit row on a plane with crowded seats and crying babies. I was headed to Minneapolis/St. Paul and was prepared to sleep my way there.

Then came 11E. He was a handsome fellow...and I knew there was no way he'd be sitting next to me...I always get old men with hankies and mothers with babies. But in the aisle he came and immediately started talking about how great the extra room in the exit aisle was. One sentence led to another (you never know how much a person next to you on the plane wants to talk...and even when you are with friends or family, the chances of you talking the entire two and a half hour plane ride are minimal.) But somehow, Joe (his anonymity name) and I were able to do it. We had a cadre of things to talk about once we started. One loop of a conversation led to another loop and before I knew it, we landed in Minnesota.

We started of course with work.
"I'm a police officer," he says, kind of under his breath.
"Really?!" In DC?," I ask.
"Yeah."

From this, I lay a multitude of questions before him.
What do you do? Where specifically do you work? How long have you been on the force? What brought you do DC? Do you have your own car or do you ride with a partner? What are your shifts like? Mornings? Afternoons? Are you out in the streets? Do you work undercover?

Blah, blah, blah. I just wouldn't give it up. Growing up with a father who retired from a 30-year career with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, my automatic was to compare Joe's job to that of my father's and contrast the differences. It was apparent Joe had a college degree, possibly in Criminal Justice or something, and his work experiences were in Colorado and now DC. So I knew he had some talent and knowledge in his field.

He quite nicely, but vaguely, answered all of my questions. And when we realized he left his cell phone in the airport lounge back in DC, I was quick to encourage him to use his DC police credentials to have security at Minneapolis help him start the "cell phone hunt." He told me that probably wouldn't be right, but I insisted. I told him stories about Dad using his patrol ID and things always worked out, like, for instance, the time he was stuck at the Canadian border and when asked to produce ID, was whisked across the border like royalty. Nothing wrong with that.

So, needless to say, the majority of the time that we talked about his job, I dominated the conversation with my "extensive" background knowledge of police work. When we got off the plane, he offered to have a drink if we both had layovers. I declined due to my second plane already boarding, but as we walked toward my gate, he said, "Well, I thought, since we're parting ways now, you might like to see this," and he hands me his badge. It was large, and looked like your typical police badge. It was on top of a large, black leather wallet, and I thought it was awesome that he wanted to share it with me. "Awww," I was touched by the gesture, "Thanks for showing me."

When I handed it back, he opened up the wallet showing me the ID inside...and his agent number for the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Yeah! This only happens to me...give him all the downlow on how to be a great police officer and he's a stinking CIA agent!!?? And the worst part...I won't even tell you all the details of our conversation I covered on how much I love CIA movies and books and how I can't wait for the new Bourne movie to come out.

I am such an idiot!!! And I'm sure he thought so too. But, that's just me. It was a fun ride and memorable experience. I'm definitely going to develop this story into something even greater! :) Maybe a big spy story lie about how I helped him apprehend a criminal on the plane...now wouldn't that be fun!!!

...the program to kill handicapped children...

is the title that finally emotionally broke me in my journey to read War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust by Doris L. Bergen. I had to take a breath before barreling into it, but then came to a complete halt after finishing the opening paragraph:

Like Jews in Germany, people deemed handicapped also experienced the open Nazi aggression of 1938-1939. Hitler and other proponents of so-called racial
purification would have to wait for the cover provided by war to implement
murder on a mass scale, but by 1939 they felt confident enough to take steps in
that direction. They began with the most defenseless segment of an already
vulnerable group: the children.

And there you have it. That's where I finally let loose. A gentle, elderly man sat next to me on the plane and finally leaned over to ask if I was okay. He took out a handkerchief, handed it to me, and patted my leg. I could only show him the book's cover and he understood.

Probably one of the worst thoughts that comes from this is the fact that to a decade of children born in the late 1920's and into the 1930's, the normalization of Nazi power coincided with their child development...so these acts were normal to an "Aryan" child. So if a handicapped child in the neighborhood disappeared from his home to never return...that was normal. When grandpa, who fell to Alzheimer's and was being cared for by his children and grandchildren in their home disappeared, that was normal. When a van drove down the street with "Kaiser's Coffee" emblazoned down the sides and girls outside jumping rope would make jokes about "they are coming to pick you up to die", that was normal. (And just so you know, the back of the Kaiser's Coffee van was full of poisonous gasses that killed the lucky ones who got a free ride.)

I'm not quite finished with the book. I still have a chapter titled The Peak Killing Years to get through.

For now, I am sick and upset and although I have known about this my entire life (like studying the history of the Holocaust was normal to me in school) this book has been so insightful for me. Especially in regards to human nature and Hitler's tactics. He carefully plotted to pit people against each other, and he used natural human weaknesses that every one of us has succumbed to at some point or another in our lives to his advantage.

There are points of light in these moments of disparity, but they are individual...not on the mass scale that Hitler offered up his claim for Race and Space. But the Holocaust Museum in Israel offers up a memorial and lists names of those who found it in themselves to help the weak and vulnerable. They are known as "the righteous among nations."

So, in the midst of this book, I've questioned myself several times. Where do I go from here? What information do I take and what do I do with it? Of the notes I've jotted down in the book itself, I know I want my students to decide what is normal for them...and possibly debate this. I was troubled by the voyage of the ship Saint Louis, who brought fleeing immigrants to Cuba and were then denied entry there...and every port north of there along the Atlantic seacoast. I know, that current immigration laws weigh heavy with me and I want my students to know the impact they could have. And, of course, there's Darfur and Sudan...there's so much we can study and discuss. And there's so much my students can learn about themselves in hopes that if, ever presented in a situation where the weak and vulnerable are being taunted and abused, they will stand up and be known as part of "the righteous among nations."

fantasy island beach bums...

My cousins are at the beach. They are taunting me with text messages...

"Miss you."
"Wish you were here."
"Thinking about you while I'm sipping my cool drink, napping to the beat of the afternoon waves, and planning my delicious seafood dinner tonight."

Okay. So they weren't that detailed...but that's exactly what they meant I know.

Tonya's probably into Sudoku under the umbrella. Cindy's reading a novel she doesn't need to think about. Faron's on the computer or playing football or frisbee with Richie and Jim. Linley and Eric are running up and down the beach chasing the waves ... and then letting the waves chase them. Blue plastic shovels and red sandbuckets litter the area around the Adamson clan. And then the whole family stops to eat ham sandwiches and cheetos for lunch.

Then back to Sudoku, reading, playing, napping, swimming, and building sandcastles before Russ and Cindy close the afternoon umbrellas when the sun begins to disappear behind the hotels of South Daytona Beach and our little Fantasy Island.

Awww....the life of a beach bum. I'm insanely jealous! (So I won't mention all the negatives...like sand in swimsuits and places you had no idea existed, bickering children, cloudy afternoons, cramped rooms, restaurant crowds, towels that never dry, and sunburns...but I'd definitely trade spots...I think.) :)_

ancient history and cheese pizza...

I only had three bucks left. After a 14 hour train ride followed by a 4-day jaunt around Italy's capital, I was down to my last American dollars. The train back to Vienna didn't leave for another seven hours, and I was stuck my with two girlfriends, a backpack, and no money (this was before ATM's.)

We decided to wait out our final hours in Rome on the steps of the famed Colosseum, where we hoped to find some cheap food and cheap entertainment by doing some quality people and pigeon watching.

The tourists were thick and the pigeons were thicker; the tourists were flocking to vendors selling paintings and other "Colosseum" riff-raff, and the pigeons were flocking to tourists leaving behind crumbs from baguette sandwiches at outdoor cafe tables.

We sat watching the collage of events unfold as the crowds grew through the afternoon. Kids were enjoying gelato, families found picnic spots, and old men sat on park benches feeding the passing birds. All this eating made our mouths water...and we realized we were starving. But what were poor girls to do?

Choosing our prey wisely, we sweet-talked one of the food vendors who graced the plaza into three hearty slices of pizza. His Italian hospitality gave us a slice each, along with a coke AND an apple for road. And our American ideals took them without reservation...:)...but we did give him all the Lira we had...which to my recollection, wasn't enough to pay for our delicious dinner. But genuine smiles and pouty lips do wonders for half-starved American girls begging for food.

I had a greasy, cheesy slice that spilled over my paper plate and I was ready to eat it. The three of us walked rather awkwardly, toting our large packs on our backs, our pizza, drink and apple nestled in and under arms. We found an open spot in the sun on the main gate steps of the Colosseum, sans pigeons, and prepared to enjoy our last meal for the next 14 hours. I tried to carefully place my coke on the ground (note my pack was heavy and nearly knocked me over every time I bent forward) before I took my pack off.

But carefully didn't work for me that day. When I leaned forward, my plate tilted as well, and in slow motion... while time stopped and the plaza sat still, my pizza followed the force of gravity and landed, cheese side down, on the steps of the ancient building.

I know I screamed. I KNOW I cried. And I knew I had no choice but to pick up the pizza from the grime and dirt of thousands of gladiators, and animals, and Romans, and tourists and eat it with a smile. It was delicious.

summer stay longer...

It's not officially summer...and it's not the end of summer...but I want all of my summer days to be like today. On my first official day off, I enjoyed my morning coffee on my deck (I did have to run into work for 10 minutes..and I took four work related phone calls throughout the day.), and wrote a plan in my mind of things I wanted to do.

You see, I needed to sweep and mop my floor, wash the windows, vacuum the carpet, do the dishes, wash the laundry, hang up clothes, clean out the spare bedroom, wash the pool deck, clean out the sun room, plant my tomatoes, re-pot my schefflera, tend to all my plants, start the water garden back up, unload my car, clean off the kitchen table, sweep out the garage....and the list goes on and on.

These are all things I haven't done since 1987. So, I'm telling you, filth. :)

And some of them I accomplished...all with Dad's help. It's so nice to get things you need to get done when someone else is helping. Dad prepped the pool for the new pool liner, measured the pool deck, put together my new adirondack patio chairs (backwards the first time), hauled off junk from the garage, and ate a hearty lunch of homemade tacos followed up with an afternoon bowl of strawberry ice cream.

Such a sweet summer day!