Day 275, December 16, 2020

 The Siege 

Tonight's soundtrack: Buddy Guy Live from Red Rocks, 2013

Ah, Buddy Guy (wow 77 years young!) is almost too outrageous to watch while trying to write a blog. But I will try.

Franklin about to catch a treat.

There was a Christmas when I was little, maybe just before my brother was born, so I must have been around 5 years old and we lived in Quincy. I don't remember too much about the layout of the house, but I remember a Christmas tree near a railing by a stairwell. I'm guessing that's the Quincy house which I remember mainly through the steep driveway that led to the walk-in basement where an uncle stayed on a waterbed, which I thought was the most fantastic invention. I remember a screened in porch, the kitchen cabinets, a tabletop hardboil egg cooker on the kitchen table, an avocado green juicer, and a backyard swing made out of log sections. But as a child I was more in tune with the sledding hill on the far side of the graveyard, the veterans memorial with a retired canon, and my friends' homes. 

This particular Christmas, I remember waking up to find that my father had built an incredible intricate castle out of small plastic bricks complete with drawbridge and spires. It was a marvelous thing to wake up to. I wonder how much of that was my father's inability to restrain himself from opening the package and spending all night building this fortress, but I also suppose, if I was not yet five, the castle set must have been far beyond my skill level. Did they even print age guidelines on boxes back then? 

For years, a decade or longer, blocks from that castle set floated around in the boxes of incompatible Lego pieces and it was always a frustration that they could not be successfully integrated, those little stone colored bricks, the arrow slit windows, and plastic drawbridges.

Much to my father's dismay, I think the first thing I did was to start to disassemble the castle. I imagined a siege where walls succumbed to Matchbox cars fashioned into battering rams. Sections of the castle survived for months, cornerstones laid by the forbearers of Star Wars action figures and the like. This was probably the time my father taught me how to build a wall by staggering the blocks. If I had never dismantled his masterpiece, I would never have learned those skills. Though, I suppose I could have waited a little longer to appreciate the magnificence of the castle in its intact state. 

Two summers ago I got to visit Paris for the first time, and staring up at the burned out remains of the Cathedral Notre Dame, I think I felt something like what my father must have felt, like I had missed out on something tremendous. That what once existed here was something that was constructed for all time, and now, unexpectedly, it was in ruin. Well, maybe it was not that dramatic, but I too know the joy and heart ache of fatherhood and how close making and building something is to seeing it destroyed. And even as we have to smile and embrace the play of children, we need to suppress the disappointment and loss. And now, decades later, we can laugh and recognize that the castle wasn't important. What was important was the artifacts left behind, the imagination those bricks inspired, like the ruins of medieval castles in the landscape, those bricks were littered all through my childhood.

My kids are all grown and out of the house. I hope I've managed to inspire a few castle memories of my own... and if not, maybe it is not too late.

Here's to whatever holidays you celebrate, and the memories you create, on Zoom or otherwise.

Take care and be well,

Leo

The Sawmill River the day before a snowstorm.

From Our Friends:

From UMass:

Finding the Way Forward through Racial Justice in Action

UMass Amherst remains committed to addressing social justice issues and improving equity on and beyond campus. Join us for a virtual panel discussion with UMass faculty and alumni where you’ll learn about: • Anti-racism and social justice teaching and research at UMass • Opportunities to access and leverage this body of work to affect change • Barriers and challenges • Student engagement and activism Wednesday, January 27, 2021 7:00 – 8:00 PM ET Virtual via Zoom

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From Teaching Tolerance:

Resources for Supporting Students Through COVID-19

We have developed resources to support student well-being and virtual learning, including articles about culturally responsive online teaching, strategies for addressing coronavirus racism, trauma-informed approaches to teaching, family engagement and more. We’ll keep this page updated as we publish new pieces.

The Weaponization of Whiteness in Schools

Studies show that when educators perceive challenges to their power, they disproportionately view Black students as the source. In our Fall issue, Senior Writer Coshandra Dillard writes about why it’s time to recognize the pattern of educators weaponizing their whiteness and put a stop to it.

From Inside Higher Ed:

Academic Freedom and Responsibility

Discrimination against a race is vastly different from discrimination against an ideological viewpoint, argues Jennifer Ballengee. »

From David Dault's The Late World:

"On the best days, when I am most in my zone, I am able to remind my internal critic that how I work is how I work, and stuff seems to get done most of the time. I may not be doing it ‘right,’ by the standards of my internal critic, but maybe he should back off a bit, or pick up a wrench or a shovel and make himself useful."

From the Mass Cultural Council:

What We Heard During the Racial Equity Listening Series

This fall, Mass Cultural Council hosted four listening sessions to embark on a restart and refocus of our work as it relates to racial equity. Here’s a summary of what we heard.

From ACLS:

The American Council of Learned Societies is pleased to present “How Do We Get There? Accelerating Diversity in Slow-to-Change Humanities Fields,” on Thursday, December 17, 2020, at 4-5:30 PM EST.  This virtual roundtable discussion will offer a candid discourse exploring the history, current state, and solutions addressing humanities fields that remain largely homogeneous. This roundtable will be recorded and posted on the ACLS website.

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From Campus Compact:

January 14, 2021 3PM Eastern  2020-2021 NATIONAL WEBINAR SERIES Honoring Ways of Knowing for Biocultural Restoration and Resilience in the Face of Climate Change Learn more >

January 21, 2021 3PM Eastern  2020-2021 NATIONAL WEBINAR SERIES Innovations for Teaching the Deliberative Experience Online Learn more >

February 5, 2021 12PM - 4PM Eastern  VIRTUAL EVENT Anti-Racist Community Engagement Conference Hosted by Kentucky Campus Compact, Ohio Campus Compact, and the Greater Cincinnati Service Learning Network Learn more >

Save the date!  3/17, 4/8, 5/25  VIRTUAL REGIONAL CONFERENCE SERIES Full Participation: Resilience and Responsibility for Racial and Environmental Justice

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