Dark Eyed Cajun Woman

I set out to prove a point, and I did; the point I proved, and the one I set out to prove, may have differed slightly.

Staring down at my cup of sweet tea and rum, the song Dark Eyed Cajun woman comes to mind. I think that’s what I’ll call this drink. Anyway, to the point.

Her name was Andrea, with the snooty pronunciation, Ahn-dray-a. She was wearing a white dress that fit her dark slender form well, if not elegantly. She and her friend sat down at a table about twenty feet away from us. I asked Greg if I should go ask them to join us – after all, we’d been bachelors in New Orleans for a week and some feminine company seemed like a pleasant interruption to our manly pursuits of music, food, and booze. Greg’s attitude towards life is summed up by his saying “I don’t give a rat’s ass,” which is what he said when I mentioned the girls. Chuck also didn’t care. I suppose for all my posturing, their heads may be screwed on more squarely than my own.

I posited a plan of attack, not the best pickup line ever, but at least it was original. Greg called me out, said I wouldn’t do it. I responded with that elegant little phrase I so often used in college to dismiss homework assignments in favor of more worthy pursuits like Super Smash Bros, beer, sleep, and spending time with my girlfriend.

Original or not, my opening line fell a trifle flat. It turned out the two girls were not alone as I had hoped, but were waiting for friends to show up. This was a bad start. They did invite us to join them, and so, not losing hope (though what I hoped for is unclear… more on that later), I waved Greg and Chuck to come join us.

We made small talk for a bit. The girls had met at LSU before Andrea transferred to Tulane. They were from New Orleans, and we were not. Now, foreign guys may be exotic or cool, but being from Indiana is neither when you are in New Orleans. The band began to play and conversation became more difficult. Andrea lit a cigarette and the five of us took in the strange music. The girls knew this band and vouched for them – they vouched correctly, and our streak of good music continued for the rest of the night. That was about all that did continue.

What I had thought would be two more girls turned out to be maybe three or four girls and a couple of guys as well. Now, at this point if I’d had any sense I’d have ditched the lot of them, grabbed another Jockamo IPA and bathed in the wondrous electric cello. Being devoid of good sense I made an effort to continue conversation with a few of the girls. Most of them just wanted to dance and talk to each other and the guys. The one girl who was there with Andrea at the beginning was standing off to the side, so I went over and talked to her for a few minutes. She seemed the best of the lot – quieter, a little heavy but still quite cute, and somehow radiating a real personality. Maybe the others weren’t bad girls. It’s not fair to judge them just because they weren’t taken by a couple of guys from Indiana in jeans and t-shirts. Maybe we were the ones who looked worthless and hopeless, and maybe we were.

After an hour or so the adventures of the day began to show, and we decided to ditch the place and head for home. I doubt if Andrea and her friends even gave us a second thought.

I proved something that night. I proved that I had the testicular fortitude to go up and talk to a couple of random girls in a bar. I found doing so to be one of the more worthless ways of meeting women. For some men it works. Usually there is a definite aim in mind. Most guys probably aren’t just looking for a change of company and conversation. What had I hoped for? Had I really hoped they’d join us in back and that we’d have a good ol’ time, jesting like old friends? I don’t think so. I don’t think I hoped for or expected anything. I think I just decided to do it (in retrospect probably not a reliably wise mode of operation). Maybe I just had to try it once, fall on my face and realize that good music, good food, good beer, and good friends is more than I could ask for, and I don’t need to go around making pathetic, half-assed and poorly executed attempts at playing the world’s game.

The dark eyed Cajun woman is gone, a pleasant memory tainted with acrid smoke. I’ll stick to making drinks – I’m better at it.

Home and Homeland

Independence Day was cold. Temperatures in Indiana during the summer run towards an abbreviated version of temperatures in Georgia. It gets nearly as hot, but only for about a month. Not this year. This year the 4^th of July was hoodie weather – sixty degrees and rainy – not that I wore a hoodie; it wouldn’t have been manly. I blame global warming – *ahem* climate change, excuse me – for the bawdy weather (I don’t think weather can be bawdy, but I’m writing what comes to mind tonight).

Anyway, Brian, Diane, Scott and I went out to Tipton for a cookout and some good, wholesome, ill-considered fun. Nothing burned (probably because of the rain) and no one got sent to the hospital. After a good American dinner of hamburgers and bratwursts… err… right, at least the beer was American (which may not be a recommendation, come to think of it), we stomped out into the cloudy, misty evening to commence our own mini-revolution. There were a few burns but nothing glorious enough to impress any ladies with our military courage – the worse luck for us, though as you can see from the picture we certainly weren’t trying to exercise good judgment (yeah, that's a lit bottle rocket in my hand).

The obligatory patriotic radio program accompanied the fireworks display, stirring within me long dormant feelings of awe and majesty and love of the fatherland. Scenes from my childhood, singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” in my cub scout den, being reminded at the Stone Mountain show that “at least I know I’m free” sprang to mind and I joined in the silent reverence for my heimat. Things may not be perfect here, but here is where I am, and for all its shortcomings I’ll give America this: it has some beautiful land. I’ve a new project in mind: whenever I see an American flag, I’m gonna close my eyes and imagine for just an instant that it’s the bonnie blue. Let that lone white star forever stand for freedom amidst a field of pure blue.

On the drive home I turned on “Georgia on My Mind.” I suppose it’s as good a national anthem as any. That lone evening star glows softly over the rolling blue hills in the land that I’ve called home.

Other arms reach out to me
Other eyes smile tenderly
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you

My country? I was born of my mother; I follow in my father’s steps; I love my brothers; I live by the Grace of God. In the Eucharist I am united in Love to my God and His Church. What better country could I ask for?

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.

The Socialization Fallacy

Some reflections on the most common and frustrating objection to homeschooling...

I’m growing weary of hearing people say, “wow, I never would’ve guessed you were homeschooled.” They don’t mean it the way I’m hearing it. They aren’t trying to sound condescending. I think they don’t know any better.

I really don't feel like repeating the same old defenses of homeschooling that I have been forced time and again to trot out in answer to cliches like "what about socialization"... really that's the only argument anyone uses anymore, as any intelligent person can see the utter failure of the public school system to provide anything more than indoctrination. The last argument I heard was that, if your children are homeschooled, you have to spend *gasp* every minute that they aren't in school trying to get them the socialization they miss by not being in school. Fine, I'll go around looking for bullies and tattle-tales and skanks and other unpleasant characters of my child's age for them to associate with. I believe a boy would be better educated by spending his days with Tom Sawyer. At least Tom could read all those adventure stories that got him into trouble by filling his young head with dreams of... well... something other than a sissified, emasculated, PC regimen, wherein the girls are not girls and the boys are not boys, there are no ladies worth saving nor battles worth fighting, and the ultimate purpose of life is to achieve, not wisdom or excellence or holiness or any other worthy mark, but sameness with your fellow persons. (Yeah, it's a long sentence, read it again and deal with it).

I got socialization out my ass as a homeschooler, and no, we didn't spend every hour seeking it out. Spring and fall I played baseball; summers I went to the pool for swimming lessons and, later, to work; winters I played basketball or did theater. In highschool I spent some time in youth group. I played outside with the neighbor kids, who didn't seem to mind in the least that I was homeschooled, as I was still good at baseball and roller hockey and getting dirty just to annoy our mothers. I did things with homeschoolers, and I did things with public schoolers, and y'know what, I did things just with my family, too. By far the norm growing up was an evening at home, and if we went out, we went as a family, usually. My friends' parents were my parents' friends, and vice versa. I learned to speak politely and well to my elders, to tolerate (occasionally with great annoyance) my juniors, and to enjoy the company of my peers. I dealt with bullies (not well, but what kid does). I liked girls and flirted with them in the same incompetent way that all boys do (by annoying them to get their attention). I had friends and enemies. Sometimes I was a little brat. I'm sure I caused my parents no end of trouble. Isn't this what every kid does? My parents were not slaves to my social life. Indeed, they had the ability to guide it and observe, occasionally with more interference than I'd have liked, but never being tyrannical. If you asked me what I did of an evening as a kid, I'd tell you my family played games and listened to my dad read classic literature aloud. As I grew older the games changed and the reading abated. I rarely was bored, anymore than any other kid.

So was I cheated, or were my parents placed under unnecessary strain to see I got my proper "socialization" (a word, by the way, which makes me cringe)? I doubt it. Were my parents perfect? I doubt it, but then again neither was I (nor will I be when, God willing, I have kids of my own), and neither are any parents, regardless of where their children are educated (or socialized). Am I an exception, a shining example of homeschooling gone miraculously sort of maybe not terribly wrong? I don't know. I know plenty of kids in public and private schools that came out sort of okay, and plenty who went horribly wrong. (See how it sounds... sounds arrogant, don't it?) Some of the ones who went horribly wrong early got their shit straightened out, and some didn't, and some of the ones who went pristinely correct are in for a tough time of it when they find out that life is not full of teachers who can inflict sameness on everyone, and protect you from problems and challenges and hard stuff. Was I sheltered? Maybe. And maybe what most people call sheltered isn't a bad thing. Maybe there's just some shit that kids aren't supposed to deal with at certain ages, and maybe it's worth it to let boys pull the occasional stupid escapade, and leave off the detailed description of the reproductive act until they're, I don't know, capable of dealing with it. And maybe rather than letting the schools teach our children that sex is a game and cap guns are WMDs, just maybe we ought to let the parents have some say in raising their children to be men, and gentlemen, and ladies, rather than persons. And maybe it's time that parents remember that children are a responsibility, that being a parent means growing the hell up and acting like an adult, and loving your child the best you know how. Maybe homeschooling ain't the way to do that. I'm just a simple southern boy, and not too bright about some things, but I think it's a fair start.

So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm looking back on Sodom. I hope I don't get turned into a pillar of salt. Most of my life I've had different groups of friends, but they usually mesh well enough together. At my graduation party there were friends from church and the theater and my next door neighbors and others, and all was marvelous. Now... now I have my college friends and my church friends, and they don't mix. I know they're very different people, but often very different people still get along perfectly well. I know I've changed a good bit in the past year. Are some of the old faces no longer friends worth having? I don't think so. Then why am I never comfortable mixing? I suspect, but I don't know the solution.

Incoherent Reminiscences of a Night on Bourbon Street

Bourbon Street on Wednesday night is far from quiet, though the beads do not fly, the streams of flesh are not seething from one side to the other in a drunken, lustful frenzy. Most people, it seems, are there for what is there, for the mystique and the bars and the drinks and the cabarets. It is a strange mix – tourists wandering curiously back and forth, friends laughing as they drink one too many hand grenades or hurricanes, eighteen year old boys trying to sneak into the strip clubs. The calls of “no cover” and the quieter, more vulgar descriptions of what is to be found inside some of the buildings blend into the flood of noise, but are not lost. The missionaries stopping people in the streets, passing out pamphlets and trying valiantly to reach out to souls in need, they seem so naïve, and I wonder if anyone ever listens to them or takes them seriously. My friend wants to flip them off… sometimes he’s an asshole.

I don’t remember the oppression in the air being there before. Everything looks at once so innocent and so horrible. Few of the people walking the street tonight are depraved, yet most are lost and troubled. They are having a gay time, reveling in the moment, in the sensual numbness that envelopes them. A war seems to be building around me and within me. Too easily I stare, hollow-eyed, at those around me – the girls, the drunks, the skirts, the strippers in the doorways, the sleezy fifty year old man telling you about what’s inside his building. His daughter, if he had one, could be working there, I think. Not all of the places are that sleezy, though. Many of them affect a genteel air, with young, well-dressed doormen standing in the street and pretty girls in modest, professional clothes working the front desk.

The bars are your standard. There are sports bars, a karaoke joint, stands selling beer or fruity drinks. Pat O’Brien’s and Tropical Isle are there, and people are sucking down sweet concoctions that they might later regret.

Everything seems so heavy. The summer air is close, but there is more. I want to enjoy myself. I want to have a couple of drinks and relax. But there’s a darkness there that won’t let me be. I want to laugh at the proselytes in the street and what seem to my mind to be their too strong words. But I can’t, because I think they’re right.

Finally we turned our feet toward Canal and the direction of our cars. A little in front of us a girl walked alone in jeans and a black t-shirt. My eyes followed her out of the club she had left. She was cute, darned cute. Maybe she was a real sweet kid; I’ll never know. Strange, I thought, how this girl who almost certainly had spent the night taking off her clothes for drunken adolescents of whatever age, was showing a fraction of the skin of any of the girls walking down the street. I wish I could have talked to her – I’d have told her she was pretty, and maybe tried to give her a Miraculous Medal, if only I’d had one. Maybe she wouldn’t have taken it, but I wish I could have offered.

For some reason that girl has stayed with me over the weeks. I think maybe she always will. I don’t know her name. Sometimes I pray for her and call her Lisa for no particular reason. Lisa’s a pretty name, and it’s as good as any. Even now, weeks later, I can still feel the oppression that surrounded me that night, the spiritual violence, a battle far greater than Thermopylae. Writing these words brought it down upon me again, and writing the end, the turning of our weary steps homeward and thinking about Lisa, I could feel some of the cloud lift.