Archive for the ‘Humor’ category
July 5, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. July 5, 2019
Maybe I’m getting crotchety in my advancing age! Maybe, just maybe, I’m not the only one who gets annoyed by certain things.
It’s like this…I get tired of the word “like”! It…like…gets used too much! I grind my teeth when the word “was” is placed in front of it. “I was like, I’m not sure I can like do that this week, like I don’t know if it will work out.”
Reality TV shows…like…”Teen Mom” have destroyed the easy flow of conversational language. They use “like” more often in 30 minutes than a lifetime of Facebook “likes” for my blogs.
Two nights ago I was at a Cincinnati Reds baseball game. My sister had purchased tickets that were…like, really, really great seats. Two women sitting in the row behind my brother-in-law talked non-talk in steady streams of meaningless dialogue punctuated frequently with “like”. My brother-in-law thought he was being afflicted with an audio episode of “Days of Our Lives.” He was…like, I can’t stand it!
“Like” gets used as filler space to complete useless information or incomplete sentences. Mrs. Blauvelt, my 7th Grade English teacher back in Williamstown, West Virginia, would have had a hissy fit if we had used “like” back in those more grammatically correct times. She may have “sentenced” us to diagram the sentence, or lack of sentence, we just said. Sentence diagrams were Satan’s tool to make us despise Language Arts!
The two women sitting behind my brother-in-law would have needed three pages of notebook paper to complete one sentence. Both of them seemed to be reluctant to bring a period into the conversation. If the game had gone extra innings my brother-in-law might have gone…like, ballistic on them!
There are other annoying words…like “Gucci”, “extra”, and “adult” that come out in the dialogue of young folk to confuse and isolate old people like me. On those I just shake my head like I know what they’re talking about, and try to make my escape.
I’m annoyed also by folk who can’t complete a sentence without inserting an expletive. Someone who says “I was like” and then transitions immediately to an expletive, I can’t handle. I mean, like, learn how to talk like Mrs. Blauvelt is your teacher!
Like’s reputation has been tarnished by how carelessly it now gets thrown around. It needs to regain its proper place in the English language. We need to return to the days when it was used in statements such as these: “Joan likes you. She wants to know if you like her?” “I like how that outfit looks on you!” “I would like to stay for dinner, if it’s okay?” Each of those statements would bring a smile to Mrs. Blauvelt’s face…and would be easily diagrammed.
In her eyes that would be extra Gucci sic!
Categories: children, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: diagramming sentences, extra, Facebook Likes, Gucci, incomplete sentences, Like, meaningless dialogue, popular terms, proper English, Reality TV, slang, slang terms, Teen Mom, Williamstown West Virginia
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July 2, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. July 2, 2019
I’m not sure when it became okay, because it was never quite okay with my mom. She was kinda’ proper and well-mannered. I say kinda’ because I can still see her looking my dad in the eye and saying, “Kiss me, slobber lips! I can swim!”
So for me to be comfortable with bathroom humor must have happened away from our home. It may have started in high school while I was hanging out with my friends Dave Hughes and Mike Fairchild. For some reason belching and farting became normal and welcomed. All of us coming from families where such actions were shunned, perhaps we felt freed when we were together to live on the wild side and exercise the fine art of the fart.
It could have also started as a result of using the outhouse at my grandparents’ farm in Oil Springs, Kentucky. Long before there were port-a-johns there were outhouses. My grandparents’ outhouse was balanced precariously beside the creek that flowed behind their house. No one went swimming in that creek!
So by the time I got to college I had been well-versed in bathroom humor. Bill Schultz at Judson College was known for playing “Bombardier” while he stood on his toilet. Your mind can probably figure out the reason for the name!
Artie Powers used to come into the restroom where I was “sitting”, take paper towels, get them wet, and then throw them over the partition into the stall I was occupying. There was more than one time where he had a direct hit on me, leaving a nice big wet spot on my shirt or pants.
We started creating a new kind of language to fit the crime…er, humor. “SBD’s” stood for “Silent But Deadly”. There were certain people that disguised themselves as conversationalists, but were just biding their time before infecting the scene. We categorized various types of flatulence like the “Squeaker”, “The Blow-out”, “The Great Escape”, “Time Released Capsule”, “Eighth Wonder”, and “Rhythm and Blues”. Marc Didier was known for his “Blue Flame” performed for the Sunday evening restaurant crew at the Ramada Inn across the street from the Judson College campus. All of us who worked there on Sunday nights were college classmates. We were awed by his “talent”!
Bathroom humor is a gift from God. There, I said it! It breaks the stiffness of overly-rigid religious people who seem to believe that Jesus never smiled, laughed, or ate beans. It’s not a part of our fallen nature, but rather a sign of how God created our physical bodies to properly function. Guys I’ve been in bible studies with, on mission teams with, prayed with, and been in deep spiritual conversations with I’ve also laughed with uncontrollably because of a category of bathroom humor.
My oldest daughter, who teaches third graders, lets her students know at the beginning of the year that flatulence is a natural part of what we do. There are giggles that ripple across the classroom, but it calms the nerves of her new students and their anxiety about their new teacher.
My friend, Ron McKinney, another teacher, has mastered the SBD around me. I always try to stay upwind from him. When he seems to be trying to extend a conversation while standing close to me it’s a sign that the air raid siren is sounding. One year he abstained from eating meat during Lent. The increase consumption of bean dishes made him a potent weapon until the resurrection of Jesus.
If you asked my family who the best belcher is our youngest daughter, Lizi, would be the unanimous selection. She is amazing in her deep burping proclamation voice. It’s her gift! Our family has come to expect to be amused by it.
Some might read this and frown at the uncouthness of it. BUT (one ’t’) my guess is that most people will smile and chuckle…and maybe wonder exactly what Marc Didier’s “Blue Flame” was?
Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: bathroom humor, beans, belch, belching, burp, burping, classroom, fart, farting, flatulence, Judson College, outhouses, passing gas, properness, SBD, uncouth
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July 1, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. June 30, 2019
My wife is a “yelpster”! She uses Yelp to see what people have said about restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions, and businesses. On vacation we choose the eating establishment on the basis of what the Yelp reviews tell us. Sometimes we’ve been thankful for what the review has said and we’ve experienced. Other times we’ve wondered if the reviewer was at a different restaurant than the one we went to.
It’s amazing how one customer can talk about a restaurant in such glowing terms and another person can give a review that makes it less appealing than the school cafeteria. One gives it five stars and the other one star. Amazing the difference!
I noticed that people can now give church reviews on Yelp. The Bible refers to the followers of Jesus being “the salt of the earth”, but a person needs to take the Yelp church reviews with a grain of salt. One review talks about how friendly and welcoming a church is and that they have coffee and snacks available. Another talks about the biblical application to everyday living that the sermon emphasized. Still another talked about how great the music was, almost like being at a concert.
OR there were reviews that criticized the music, trashed the sermon, made fun of the pastor, lambasted the greeters for not greeting. And these were reviews of the same churches where reviewers had experienced almost divine encounters.
Yelp is the new proclaimer! So when you invite your new neighbors to come to Sunday worship with you they may very well say that they will talk it over and get back to you…and then bring your church up on Yelp for the decision. (Church strategy: Have its members flood Yelp with great reviews!)
Here’s the thing! Yelp is all about the customer…where she can get the best service, where the best steak is served, where a trustworthy mechanic is located…it’s all about the buyer, the customer. How many times can I write that word…customer?
The church is all about the Christ. For many of us our “custom” has been to worship on Sunday morning as a part of a congregation where the name of Jesus Christ is proclaimed and worshiped. That’s our custom, but we aren’t customers.
It’s a sign of how the proclamation of the gospel has been altered when we get the idea that we’re looking for the best deal, the best music, the greatest preacher.
I get murmurings and open admissions from so many people- followers of Jesus, mind you- who talk about swapping churches, changing churches, trying a different church, as if they are changing their bed linens. There’s no connecting commitment, no sense of being a part of a spiritual community. In fact, “community” is seen more and more as existing in other places and other groups- the school they teach at, their softball team, the Starbucks they hang out at, the folks they watch the football game with.
Perhaps Yelp is just another analyzing method for showing what the church no longer is.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: commitment, congregation, criticism, critics, critique, customer, praising, proclaimers, proclaiming, proclamation, review, Worship, Yelp
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June 26, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. June 26, 2019
There are numerous reasons as to why I should no longer be alive. They mostly fall into two categories: 1) Stupid Acts and 2) The Times We Lived In. I suppose I could do a third category, kind of a hybrid…”The Times We Lived In and The Things We Didn’t Realize Were Stupid!”
You be the judge. For instance, when we were growing up, and before kids were strapped into seatbelts, we roamed the back section of our family car freely. There were always the siblings’ squawks about my brother, Charlie, touching my sister, Rena, or me. Being the oldest, Charlie felt he had the right to antagonize us.
To make more room in the back seat I’d sometimes lay down on that console under the back window, you know the area where the box of Kleenex would be set. It was nice and warm back there and on my family’s perilous road trips from Winchester to Paintsville, Kentucky, I’d take rear window naps. If, during one of the numerous curves in the road, my dad had collided with another vehicle I would have been a dead goose…a “flying through the front window” dead goose.
Imagine if a law enforcement officer saw a kid laying in the back window nowadays as the Buick went down the road!
Yes, we gambled encounters with Death and came out without a road scratch.
And then there was the fog machine in Williamstown, West Virginia, that rumbled through town each evening in the summertime. Williamstown, being situated on the banks of the Ohio River, had its healthy share of mosquitoes that sought to take over the town. The fog machine pumped out some kind of pesticide fog to do battle with them. And what did we do as kids? We heard the fog machine coming and we’d run along behind it, inhaling the smoke and staying within the fog as long as we could.
That couldn’t have been good for us!
We didn’t know that we shouldn’t have been doing those things, staying warm in the back window and breathing in toxins. We were just doing normal!
And then there was my personal encounters with stupidity! Like when I was experimenting with my brother’s chemistry set, mixed a couple of chemicals together, and decided to drink the mixture! I don’t know what it was I drank. I remember that it tasted bitter, like my mom’s perfume…not that I tasted her perfume, but I remember that being the thought that came into my mind.
I was into experimenting. Like when I did an experiment with a facial tissue. I wanted to see how quickly it would burn, so I lit it with a match.
Experiment Conclusion: A facial tissue will burn very quickly.
Teachable Moment: When setting a facial tissue on fire make sure you are a safe distance away from the kitchen curtains!
I was lucky enough to not set the whole house on fire, but unlucky enough to leave scorch marks on the curtains in the kitchen…right next to the table where we ate dinner. My parents were suspicious of the pile of books that suddenly had been stacked in front of the curtains that night. Busted!
And then there was the time I tried to light firecrackers in a pill bottle and put the cap on before it went off. The firecrackers I used were the next level up in potential danger, but I thought it would be cool to see want would happen.
Well, what happened is that I was not quick enough to get the cap back on and it exploded in my hand. I can still remember the stinging sensation in my fingers and the ringing in my ears. Stupidity had made a special visit to me and exploded before leaving.
And I survived!
When you think about it, it’s a miracle that any of us survived! We all did stupid things, stuffed ourselves (and still do) with processed food, and acted the fool! We thought “organic” had something to do with playing the church organ, Caster Oil was the cure for everything, and the more Coppertone you lathered on your skin to bake in the midst of a hot sunny summer afternoon the better. The browner we were the more awesome we thought we were!
How are we still alive? There’s only one reason, and that is so that we can tell the younger generations to not do the stupid things that we did!
Categories: children, Community, Death, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: being kids, Coppertone, dumb, dumb decisions, dumb people, mosquitoes, seatbelts, stupidity, sun bathing, sun tan lotion, Williamstown West Virginia
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June 9, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. June 8, 2019
Dear Body,
You were asked to do more today than you are accustomed to. After all, climbing scaffolding and ladders, doing demolition work on a deck, and painting that required you to twist more times than Chubby Checker are things that you have not been asked to participate in.
But since you’re hanging around with five other men several years younger than you…and you’re on a mission work trip with them to British Columbia…and you’re the one who organized it then you felt the obligation…dare I say the pressure…to go beyond!
You’ll be feeling the effects tomorrow, but at least tomorrow is Sunday so you can be an example to the others and REST!
Don’t worry! Aleve is in the suitcase. There’s more than one that have your name on them.
Remember that you’re 65! Not 25, not even a number that begins with 5. The reason you feel the way you do is because you’re an old body that still lives under the illusion that you’re young. You know, jumping out of the gym, running like lightning, showing agility.
Guess what? Those days have passed and they aren’t coming back.
Back. There’s another sore point, or should I say sore area. Lower back and upper back. They’re doing a tug-of-war to determine who hurts more.
Don’t worry! In less than an hour you can tell the guys that you’re going to go to your room and…read! You don’t have to tell them how much you’re going to read, just that you’re going to read. One paragraph in and you can feel free to drift off and dream about Biofreeze and full body massages.
Here’s the thing. You’re doing what you have wanted to do: Be used by God. That’s what you did today. You were used by God to help out dear people who run a camp for children who need some rays of hope in their lives.
So it’s okay to hurt, to groan, and to feel your age. God thinks you’re pretty special…and old.
Categories: children, Christianity, coaching, Community, Freedom, Humor, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: aches and pains, Aleve, Chubby Checker, feeling old, health, Old age, physical, physical healthy, volunteering
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May 31, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. May 31, 2019
Some (I wish a multitude!) have been wondering about the status of my first novel, Red Hot: New Life In Fleming. Let me use my space to give an update for those who are interested.
First of all, I’m getting an education about the tangled world of publishing. I’ve learned about the inner workings of “vanity presses”, the self-publishing world, and the maze of even getting heard in the traditional publishing enterprises.
There are a multitude of writing voices that hunger to be heard. A writer can self-publish for a price if he so desires. The costs can range from $1,000 to $6,000, and the adage “You get what you pay for!” is proved correct in this area.
Traditional publishers HAVE to be sure a writing project is going to be profitable for them. Too many bad decisions will result in their doors being permanently closed. Publishers are not risk takers these days!
That takes me to step two! Having the book edited. Two dear friends of mine have partnered with me in the writing to this point. They’ve checked for punctuation, made suggestions, read the story for clarity, and offered encouragement that has kept me going. They keep telling me that THIS BOOK NEEDS TO BE PUBLISHED! There have been several occasions where, after meeting with them, I’ve gone off excited and motivated to continue writing the story. (I’m actually about a quarter of the way through Book 3, and I give them the credit for cheering me on!) Now, with their encouragement, I’m contracting with someone to do a professional edit of the manuscript. It is a person I’ve met and talked with who has extensive experience editing and publishing.
When the editing is concluded, with the guidance of my friends and editor, we’ll figure out the next step in the journey. One of the common mistakes that authors fall into is being impatient and rushing the process. Realizing I’m not getting any younger, that has been one scenario that my friends have cautioned me about.
Writing is a joy for me. I enjoy the creating of the storyline, the twists in the plot, and the development of characters. My perspective on life comes out in my storytelling. So much of fiction is dark and depressing. Fiction does not have to be fantasy or inhabited by zombies. It can be a story that causes laughter on one page and tears a few pages after that. The two main characters in my book are very real to me. I see the image of who I was back in my middle school years in one of the characters…and who I wanted to be in the other.
There have been other learnings along the way. Terms like “building a platform” and “what’s your hook?” keep coming up. I’m a clueless writer who is gradually getting a clue.
You see, there’s the writing…and then there’s all the other stuff! It’s kind of like a basketball game being the main event, but then there’s all the preparation and practice that happens before the game is played.
HOW MIGHT YOU HELP? Go to my blog site (WordsfromWW.com) and become a follower if you aren’t already. Publishers look to who the writer’s audience is and how large it is. They want to know if anyone is listening? AND tell others about it and ask them to become followers.
It may be another year or longer before Red Hot gets into print. I’ll let you know if and when that happens. In the mean time I keep substitute teaching and coaching at our middle school. It gives me a constant stream of new writing material!
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Novels, Parenting, Pastor, Story
Tags: middle school, middle schoolers, Parenting, publishing, Red Hot Series, storytelling, substitute, vanity press, W.D. Wolfe, writing, writing a book, writing fiction
Comments: 2 Comments
May 31, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. May 30, 2019
Today was my last day of substitute teaching for this school year. Tomorrow I’m having a root canal. Some of the middle school teachers were willing to trade places with me if I took their classes.
I said no!
Today, however, I had several students come to me with their yearbooks and ask me to sign them. I can’t just sign my name like a doofus! I HAVE to write something, a few words of wisdom, or some inspirational jargon with a personal spin to it.
One 8th grade girl begged me to come and sub in high school next year. I let her have some hope that I would consider it, but I think I’d rather gargle with spoiled milk!
End-of-the-school year emotions run the whole spectrum. At one end are students who are crying their eyes out and at the other are students counting down the minutes like a NASA rocket launch just waiting for the final bell to ring.
“Mr. Wolfe, would you sign my yearbook?”
“Sure!” I take it in hand and glance at the words already written by others, hoping someone wrote this young lady’s name in their greeting. If not, I create a nickname on the spot, like “K-Factor”, “Brainiac”, and “Groovy Girl!” (No, just kidding on that last one!).
“K-Factor! What an awesome young lady you are! Every time I see a Snicker’s bar next year I’ll think of you!”
“Steady Freddy! You brought a smile to my face every time I had you in class this year. You are something else! Have a great summer!”
“Jill! Keep being as awesome as you are and the sky’s the limit!”
“Judy! Eat your veggies!”
The yearbook signings are diverse in message, some funny and some serious, some meaningless and others with words that will bring back a smile years from now. I didn’t have yearbooks from my middle school days. My first yearbook, still on my shelf, is from my freshman year at Maysville High School in Zanesville, Ohio. I was 4’10” with eyeglasses that kept sliding down my nose. In fact, I was runner-up in the school chess tournament that year. There is a picture in the yearbook where I am shaking the hand of the champion, a junior, and my glasses look like they’re about to fall off my face. I look at that picture now, 50 years later, and cringe but also chuckle. Some of these students will have the same reactions when they look at their pictures sometime in the future.
“Good Lord, what was I doing with my hair back then?”
“Look at my facial expression! Was I constipated that day?”
“Thank God, I stopped wearing that stupid headband by the time I got out of high school!”
And the signings. They will look at what Johnny wrote and laugh, or what Andrew wrote that makes no sense, or what Kyle wrote that a handwriting interpreter wouldn’t be able to figure out.
Students who have caused my underwear to get into a wad suddenly want me to sign their yearbook. I am honored that they value my signature so much. Some of the students who have caused me to run screaming to my car after school are the ones who want me to plant a few “Words from WW” in the center of their page. In 2039 when they pull their copies off their shelves many of them will get perplexed looks on their faces as they try to remember who Mr. Wolfe was…and that’s okay!
Categories: children, coaching, Grace, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Maysville High School, memories, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school students, middle school teachers, school yearbook, signing yearbooks, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, yearbook
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May 26, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. May 26, 2019
A teacher friend of mine has been on a mission to create an app that would be able to measure the number of stupid decisions that occur in a typical school day at our middle school. He’s estimating that it’s around 200 acts of unintelligence AN HOUR! Fridays seem to be more, as if the students are gearing up for the weekend. Wednesdays are less, as if their energy level is lacking the ability to achieve the ridiculous!
Sometimes middle school kids clump stupidity together in such a rapid fire mass that it’s near impossible for the clicker to keep up with the number. For instance, any cafeteria lunch period is as populated with dumb decisions as Disney World is with Mickey Mouse ears.
It’s kind of like this! Jimmy tries to squirt water from his water bottle into his mouth from three feet away (#1), but misses and hits Jenny in the back of the head with the spray (#2). Jenny’s friend, Molly, takes exception to the dousing and launches an apple slice back at Jimmy (#3), who dodges it and allows it to land smack dab in the middle of Dawson’s yogurt cup (#4). Strawberry yogurt ricochets from the container onto Dawson’s necktie (#5), which he is wearing in order to look impressive for a school interview activity. Sam, sitting next to Dawson, laughs at the sight of the yogurt on the neck tie so Dawson wipes it off with his hand and then rubs it into Sam’s hair (#6). The whole scene takes ten seconds, and yet is filled with 6 acts of stupidity.
A few years ago a 7th grade football player was dared by two of his teammates (#1) to go into the girl’s locker room. He did (#2), and received a five day suspension, which caused him to miss two football games (#3).
Then there’s the boy who tried to slide down the stairway railing on his stomach and fell a few feet to the bottom (#1), resulting in paramedics being called.
Or the 8th grade boy that I reprimanded last week for whipping a volleyball at top speed into a crowd of four students (#1), and then rolling his eyes at me (#2) when I called him on it! He offered excuses (#3) to explain his action, and then smiled at me (#4).
On second thought, two hundred acts of stupidity an hour might be low!
Further analysis has revealed the effect of other factors on the count. Language Arts, for example, mostly experiences stupidity on the basis of boredom, like taking a marker and suddenly writing on the arm of the student sitting beside the bored classmate; or a student remembering that chewing gum is not allowed, so he slips it from his mouth to the underside of his desk to join with the other gobs attached there.
Science stupid acts usually come during class periods where lab work is being done. The presence of test tubes, beakers, and microscopes are often seen as being tools for the accomplishment of mental dumbness.
And, of course, there’s the substitute teacher factor. Students tend to do stupid with greater frequency when a substitute is overseeing the class. Like the boy who was using his cell phone in class in non-academic ways (#1). I told him to put his cell phone on my desk. Two minutes later one of his classmates informed me that he had put his cell phone case on my desk upside-down, but had kept his cell phone (#2). I told the offending student to take his cell phone to the office, where it would be held for the rest of the day. He took it in that direction, but when I checked a few minutes later the office secretary informed me that he hadn’t turned it into them (#3). The assistant principal for his grade and a long chat with him!
Next week it will be hard to keep up with the errors of the student’s ways. We’ll be cleaning out the locker room. They’ve been told, told, told, and retold to empty their lockers. Anything still in the locker room will be contributed to a local charity. I know that we’ll gather an unbelievable amount of expensive athletic wear, from $150 pairs of shoes to NBA player jerseys to baseball and wide receiver gloves. Numerous parents will have fallen for the whining excuse from their sons and daughters that the infamous criminal known as “Someone” stole their items!
And the parents will believe it!
And that’s just as stupid!
Categories: children, coaching, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: eighth grade, making good decisions, middle school, middle school boys, middle school cafeteria, middle school girls, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, random acts, school lunch, Seventh Grade, stupid acts, stupidity
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May 25, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. May 25, 2019
They hoot and holler as I emerge from the locker room wearing gym shorts, tee shirt, and lily white Air Jordan sneakers. Most of them haven’t seen me in anything but sweat pants or jeans. The paleness of the skin IS a bit alarming!
I’ve been their coach, but never competed against them. Today, however, is the Student-Staff basketball game, an event each year where players who were part of the school 8th grade basketball teams strut onto the court to teach their science, math, and social studies teachers a lesson.
To them I’m just an old man who knows his “x’s’ and o’s”. They don’t realize that I have a jump shot and can see the court well, even though I take my glasses off when I play. The staff also has “Big Matt”, who measures at about 6’6”, a former college football player who can’t jump or shoot, but…hey! He’s 6’6” and beefy! He causes some of students to “reconsider” every time they have an opportunity to take the basketball into the lane.
Mr. Williams, seventh grade science teacher, has been playing at lunchtime with his students. He’s developed into a shooter, at least for this annual game! Mr. McKinney, despite a sore knee, is fundamentally sound and my coaching compadre!
But the students think that they are all that and a slice of Swiss Cheese! They only have five more days of middle school, and it’s time to leave their mark on the staff! To dominate and then leave like Clint Eastwood at the end of each of his westerns, riding off into the sunset.
One thing, however, that has remained consistent through the years about these basketball games is that the staff plays “team ball” and the students play as individuals. The bodies of the staff might be a bit achy and moving slower, but we know that the whole is better than the sum of the parts.
Big Matt towers in the lane like Shaq and Mr. Reynolds, who teaches most of the players in social studies, is making them pay for not remembering the three branches of our government. He’s administering “justice” to them, “legislating” pain, and “executing” the game plan. By the middle of the third quarter the lead has hit double figures and keeps growing.
The crowd of students and staff watching from the bleachers cheer on their friends and foes and by the fourth quarter everyone is simply enjoying the event. I close out the game with a half court swish shot at the buzzer and smiles emerge from both sides. For the students, their teachers have become human. For the staff, the students have minimized their swag and enjoyed the moment.
The next day the kids who I competed against greet me with high fives and looks of amazement. Instead of mentioning my pale-skinned legs they tell me that my sneakers are cool! Instead of my slow defense they talk about my half court shot!
And what I don’t tell them is that I maxed out on Motrin the night before and soaked my aching body in the hot tub! They are the epilogue to the finished story!
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Air Jordans, Baseball, basketball coaching, basketball players, coaching basketball, junior high, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school sports, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, playing basketball, playing hoops, students versus staff, teaching middle school, teaching three year olds
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May 17, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. May 15, 2019
Dear Kids!
Perhaps a few of you have been asking the question this week that needs answering: Where is Mr. Wolfe?
Perhaps not!…but just pretend, okay!
I could not be with you because I had to be in another place, sailing down the Rhine River in Germany! It was a tough choice…spending a few days controlling the Timberview Middle School chaos, conversing with snotty—nosed sixth graders; trying to keep the attention of overly dramatic seventh grade girls, who are still under the allusion that Johnny with bad breath, facial hair, and an inflated ego, likes them; keeping an eye on Peter Picker, who has the unfortunate habit of picking his nose and eating the treasures; and providing security for any eighth grade class to make sure no criminal offenses are committed!
Yes, sailing down the Rhine on a riverboat cruise, being pampered with exceptional cuisine, and twice-a-day maid service…or substitute teaching middle schoolers…tough choice!
But I DO miss you! Paris was lovely and romantic, but subbing for Mr. Frasca and PE class is the bomb!
I miss having to say to Gaming Gary “Are you on your cell phone?”, and then having the gaming guru get all offended and disrespectful because, as all of his classmates know, the world revolves around him and his ability to rise to Level 1,893!
I miss the high fives and singing “Happy Birthday” to Ava in my operatic voice, even though her special day has been in the rear view mirror for two months.
I miss tupperware salad lunches!
I miss the bleary-eyed looks and frizzy hair of the students, who obviously fell out of bed at 7:20 and were seated in the classroom 20 minutes later.
I miss the sharing of sarcastic humor with students who appreciate the personal attention and the fact that I actually know their names.
I miss the stories that are being created, although sailing along the Rhine with my wife is creating some new memories that are meaningful and do not involve any references to Sponge Bob.
I miss Mr. McKinney and how we play off one another in comedic dialogue.
I miss the high-pitched voices of the next rocket scientists and the apathetic attitudes of those future fast-food restaurant employees who are about as exciting as generic cereal!
I miss the opportunities to just hang around with awesome kids, be youth-enized by their perspectives and verbiage, and be delighted by their potential.
Some days when I substitute teach could be compared to discovering you have a big pimple on the end of your nose, but most days are more like adventures into a brave new world! Just keep bad breath Johnny away from me and remind me never to shake hands with Peter Picker!
Categories: children, Grandchildren, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: middle school, middle school boys, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, Rhine River, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, vacation
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Words from WW Blog 