The Open Road, Open Air, and an Open Letter to a Jackass.

I recently returned from a two week road trip during which I camped my way through British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon. I love going on solo road trips, and the Pacific Northwest is absolutely stunning. As always, dear readers, I have returned with random observations and a cranky rant which I hope will amuse and delight.

Random Observations: THE OPEN ROAD.

I love driving through the United States of America for the following reasons:

1.) Unlike Canadian drivers, U.S. drivers do not find it too taxing to engage the little finger on their left hand to indicate that they are going to turn their car. I am constantly amazed by the staunch refusal by many Canadians to burn the .000000001% of a calorie it takes to indicate that they are immediately going to cross eight lanes of traffic. While I admire our nation's physical economy, I must admit that I prefer the U.S. attitude towards turning.

2.) The U.S. Road Signage system is the most vigilant public safety service that I have ever seen. If a pebble should wobble from the shoulder onto the highway, U.S. road signage services immediately spring into action and erect the following signs to alert oncoming traffic of the upcoming hazard:

BUMP - 2 MILES

BUMP - 1.5 MILES

BUMP - 1 MILE

BUMP - .5 MILE

BUMP - REALLY SOON

BUMP - SERIOUSLY, I'M NOT KIDDING, THE BUMP IS COMING ANY MINUTE. IS YOUR SEATBELT ON? YOU SHOULD PROBABLY PUT YOUR COFFEE IN THE CUPHOLDER TOO.

BUMP - .000001 MILE

BUMP!

For all of the "BUMP!" signs I saw on my trip, I can honestly say I never felt a single bump, and certainly nothing even came close to Toronto's spring potholes. It was, however, very reassuring to know that should a possum shed a few hairs while it crossed a road, the road signage services would take immediate action to alert me of that fact at least eight times before my tires touched any follicles.

3.) The roads are so luxuriously wide that, had my car been capable, I could have driven it sideways throughout my entire trip and still been well within my own lane. Enough said.

Random Observations: Open Air.

I have done a few roadtrips before, and the best way to travel through the U.S. and Canada and save a few bucks is to take a sleeping bag and a tent and camp at state and provincial parks. The added bonus to this approach is that parks are usually designated as parks because they are attached to something beautiful, and you can hike, bike, climb, swim or ride a horse through whatever that beautiful thing is. I climbed to the top of Cape Perpetua and swam in the chilly Pacific in Oregon, and hiked through the lava flow rocks of Mt. St. Helen's in Washington.

What amazed me about my open air experiences in the U.S. was that on all of my excursions I was completely alone. I didn't see another soul, not even on treks that were outlined as some of the best in the country, despite the fact that the adjoining campgrounds were full to capacity.

Twice during my trip I was absolutely desperate to share what I was seeing with someone, but there was no one to be found. One experience took place at a whale watching centre in Depoe Bay, Oregon, which is strangely proud of its claim to fame as the "world's smallest harbour." I had been scanning the horizon for whales through my crappy binoculars for about 10 minutes when I was joined on the observation deck by a family of five. They glanced left, glanced right.

"Hmph. No whales. And we walked up all of those stairs!" the mother grumbled.

And off they went, back down the stairs. They had been on the observation deck for all of 30 seconds. This meant that I was all alone, fifteen minutes later, when three humpback whales began to breach and then continued to hurl their bodies out of the water for over twenty minutes. Alone on the observation deck, afraid to take my eyes off of them for a second, I kept calling out "Whale! Whale!" to anyone that was nearby and listening ... which of course, was no one.

During my visit to Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area (yep, that's what it's called) I decided to forgo the long line of people waiting to walk up the three flights of stairs in the historic lighthouse and to explore the winding paths and the black rock beach below. When I got to the shore, there was (of course) no one else there. As I trained my binoculars on a rock offshore to gaze at a group of harbour seals sunning themselves, I heard a strange sound on the sand by my feet. When I looked down I saw that a seal pup had launched himself out of the surf, and was wiggling his way up the beach towards me. He stopped, and looked at me with a quizzical look on his face, while I frantically looked around for someone to share this moment with. But again, there was no one.


My new friend

My gut reaction to these experiences was to encourage Americans to take advantage of their national park system. To go exploring. Then, something happened to change all of that. And that leads me to, as promised ...

An Open Letter to the Jackass who hiked the Falls Trail at Silver Falls State Park sometime before July 2, 2008.

Dear Idiot,

You don't know me, and I don't know you. But I do know that you are a grade-A jackass.

I know this because I camped at Silver Falls State Park on July 1 and 2 of this year. I picked that park specifically because I wanted to hike the legendary Ten Falls Trail - the eight mile loop that would take me past ten stunning waterfalls. Imagine how thrilled I was when I woke up early, drove to the trailhead and saw that no one else was parked there. Imagine how excited I was each time I encountered a new waterfall. Imagine how peaceful and tranquil my hike was as a result of the fact that everyone else in the park was still at their tent sites, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and watching movies on their portable DVD players.

Now imagine what it was like for me, almost three hours into my hike, to arrive at the ninth and tallest waterfall, to find the dirty diaper that you left rolled up on a rock next to the waterfall pool.

Now, here's how I see it, you jerk. You clearly put a clean diaper on your kid, because even taking the shortest route back would have been over an hour's walk. This means that you must have brought some kind of carrying device in which you transported the clean diaper that you put on your child. Now, I know that this is a radical idea, but ... and try to stay with me here, brainiac ... that same carrying device could have been used to transport the dirty diaper OUT of the waterfall grove.

Now, this isn't just about the fact that it ruined the beauty of the waterfall site, but the fact that I, as an environmentalist and a staunch NON-dickweed, felt compelled to carry the diaper out of the waterfall canyon in MY backpack. For over an hour. And I don't know EXACTLY what was inside the diaper, but I do know that there are only two options, and they are both gross. If it comes out of YOUR kid, you putz, it is YOUR job to carry it out of the area of natural beauty.

And if you just don't want to take that kind of responsibility for your kid's excrement, then let me know. I will personally buy you a portable DVD player and a lifetime supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon if you promise me that you will stay on your campsite and away from hiking trails or other pretty things from now on. Or ... maybe you should just stay in your own house.

Sincerely,

A

P.S. Jerk. The site of the crime!

Summer Vacation ... Ask Me How!

When I started writing today, I thought I
was going to write a blog about my 10-day camping trip in the Pacific Northwest, which, as a special bonus, would have included an open letter to a Jackass. But you'll have to wait a day or two for that one, because I just wanted to get this off my chest first.

I was in the elevator in my condo building today, taking my camping equipment back to my storage unit in the parking lot. A man that I hadn't met before got on the elevator and glanced at my backpack.

"Going on a camping trip?" he enquired.

"No, just getting back." I smiled.

"Oh, so back to work then. Too bad."

I should have just agreed with him. But no, I wasn't smart enough. "Well, I'm a teacher, so ..."

"Oh, a TEACHER," he said. "Two months off. Huh. Must be nice."

Okay. I never know what to say to this, and this is the response that every teacher gets from everyone they meet as soon as the teaching thing comes up. It may or may not be delivered as a "joke," but it is always spoken in the same disdainful, slightly accusatory tone of voice. It always makes me feel like I need to either a) apologize for my offending holidays or b) offer justification as to why teachers really do earn their vacation time. Up until recently, I did neither - just stared at my shoes and shuffled my feet apologetically, and maybe murmured something about all of the evening, weekend and yes, even summer commitments that teachers have.

Because here's the thing; it is nice. It's awesome. Teachers do get better vacations than pretty much anybody else - summer vacation, Christmas vacation, March break. We know this, and it's easy to feel guilty about it when a sensitive individual on an elevator focuses on the perks of the job rather than the monumental work involved. (Note: I wonder, what Mr. Elevator would say if he were introduced to a lawyer? Let me guess ... "So you're rich. Huh. Must be nice." Hmmmmm ... somehow I don't think so.)

But no more! I refuse to feel guilty about my summer vacation anymore, because I have EARNED it and I'll tell you how. Let's just assume that we all agree on the easy stuff here, shall we? The lesson planning, the marking, the coaching, the theatre club, the dance supervision, the lunch duties, the staff meetings and the parent/teacher interviews - yep, they all take lots of extra time above and beyond the normal workday. But it's another, lesser acknowledged reality that can take its toll on a teacher. I am speaking of the relative lack of anonymity, and the constant awareness that everything you do will be scrutinized by a larger community. This is true of your classes, your marking, your material (and of course, it SHOULD be) but it extends further than that. For example, whenever I am in a bar I am always worried that I will run into an underage student that has been able to sneak in. What are my responsibilities at that point? My night out at a bar shouldn't have anything to do with my job, but it's within the realm of possibility that it could, and that's unnerving.

A teacher's website or online blog can be a professional nightmare. Earlier this year, the head of a private day school in Toronto resigned after an anonymous email (I really have to wonder here WHY the email was anonymous, but I digress ... ) was circulated to the parent community which featured six of the several poems that were displayed on his website. Penned sometime between 1973 and 2003, these particular poems contained sexual and violent themes and material. His biggest mistake was arguably not actually writing the poems, but putting them on a website instead of hiding them in a place where no one would ever would ever see them, such as inside the pages of a book of poetry. As a result of the content of the poetry, questions immediately arose in the community as to whether or not he was an appropriate person to lead the school, despite the fact that he had been recruited from England for this specific position four years earlier.

Now, a few things about this. We should probably note that the guy has been writing poetry for twenty years, and only six poems were singled out as offensive (and really, they are not even very good poems.) We should also note that displaying the material on his website (now defunct) was not only dumb, but irresponsible. He knows what the Internet is after all, and he knows what a private school principal is. Finally, we should acknowledge that parents place a huge amount of trust in teachers and principals, and that they are absolutely right to be concerned about and protective of their children.

But is a writer one of the things that kids have to be protected from? One of the first things that I teach my students is that the AUTHOR is an entirely different entity than a NARRATOR or a CHARACTER (or in the case of poetry, a SPEAKER.) If we assume that the content of a literary work reveals the intention or personality of the author, then Stephen King would have to go to prison, and we should probably execute Thomas Harris, who wrote "The Silence of the Lambs." Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and Alice Munro would certainly have a lot to answer for in their writing if they were teachers. And Shakespeare wouldn't even be able to make it through the front doors of a school if we were to assume that he espoused the values of his characters (cannibalistic chef extraordinaire Titus Andronicus comes to mind.) You can pursue artistic interests if you are a teacher - but you'd better be careful that your art is appropriate and palatable and that it is not easily accessible ... and a pen name may be in order.

Being a teacher impacts your entire life, and once you have the enormous responsibility of educating and caring for children, your whole public persona needs to be evaluated and perhaps reconsidered. You agree to carry your professional responsibilities into your personal life to some degree, and you accept the fact that you are held to a higher moral standard than people in most other professions. I'm not saying that this is wrong - far from it. I'm just saying that THAT'S one of the ways that you earn your two months of summer vacation.

In the end, these consessions are worth it for me because I LOVE teaching. Love it, love it, love it. I love summer vacation too - that's part of the package. And, for all of you people who lurk in elevators and sneer resentfully at my vacation time, buck up! There's no need for jealousy! YOU TOO can have two months off a year! Just follow these six easy steps, and eight weeks of bliss will be yours:

1.) Quit your job.
2.) Go to teachers' college.
3.) Graduate.
4.) Acquire a teaching job.
5.) Spend every day with kids who are not yours. If you're a high school teacher like I am, that could translate easily to 75-100 different kids during 3 or 4 different periods in a day. Spend your weekends planning things you'll say to them in the next week and reading stuff that they write. Give up your lunches and do extra tutoring and coach and direct and challenge and comfort, and prepare to get barfed on during school dances/long, field-trip school bus rides.
6.) Take your summer vacation.

See? That's not so hard, is it?

A

P.S. Perhaps you should also include step 7 - establish a pen name. I may have to myself for my upcoming "Open Letter to a Jackass."