I’m preparing to head home in a few days, back to my old grade school to share Kim & Jason with the students and help kick off a FUNdraising program. I can only speculate what it will be like, but I thought it would be fun to record my thoughts now, and then see how things actually pan out. One of the things I’m looking forward to is the smell. You know, grade schools have that distinct smell about them, and I’m curious to see if the place still smells the same. I’m sure I’ll be inundated with memories, and teachers and classmates will come to mind. I have this feeling that I’ll feel like a giant and completely out of place. I imagine tiny desks and tiny chairs, and pencil sharpeners that are fastened too low on the doorpost. I’m not sure if I’ll see any former teachers, but I figure I might. How will that go? Something out of a surrealists’ painting I’m sure. Now that we’re all adults, how exactly am I to address someone who taught me the names of the first thirteen colonies? I’m half afraid that if I call my seventh grade teacher Jim instead of Mr. Newland, I may get sent to the principal’s office… I haven’t even begun to imagine what’s changed. You kind of think that everything will be exactly as it was when you left, you know? I’ll have to be sure to hide my dismay if I’m to learn that they moved the library or repainted the stripe in the gym a different color. I’m not exactly expecting any kind of a hero’s welcome or anything. Probably most of the students and teachers have never heard of me. I mean, it’s not like I’ve invented a cure for some horrible disease or have become the next Charles Schulz…yet. In any case, it will be interesting. I‘d better get back to work preparing my presentations so that they won’t regret inviting me to come speak. And somewhere between now and then I’ll need to make a decision… Jim or Mr. Newland?

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I had the honor of speaking at a men’s breakfast this morning. At the table I was eating at, I struck up a conversation with an elderly gentlemen named Ewald, whom I discovered flew fighter jets in the Air Force. I asked him why he decided to join the Air Force in particular. I expected to hear either "I wanted an education" or "I wanted to save the world" type things. But he didn’t really specify any major intentions, just that after he graduated from high school, he decided to enlist. His original plan was to get into the Coast Artillery, as he called it. So, he traveled to a military base in Indianapolis and was there for about a week waiting for all the men ahead of him to be processed. Eventually, all of the Coast Artillery positions were filled. He was disappointed, but a recruiter asked him and a buddy if they’d like to be in the Air Force. Ewald thought that you had to have a college degree to in order to get into the Air Force, but the recruiter said no, and then asked where they’d like to be stationed. Their choices were Panama, Hawaii, the Philippines, and a few other places overseas. The wide-eyed young men chose a stop in Hawaii, which is exactly where they were during the attack on Pearl Harbor. So here I am, almost 28 years old, preparing to entertain a group of mostly retired men, hoping to say something mildly relevant, and I’m completely blown away. I want to know more, wishing I could give my microphone to him. I wanted to tell him how much I respected him, and what he and his fellow men have done for our country. I felt like it would be appropriate to bow down and say, "I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!" Just like in Wayne’s World. I managed to weakly ask if he had seen the movie Pearl Harbor and if he thought it was pretty realistic, or more "Hollywood". "Hollywood", he said, "but Saving Private Ryan, that was pretty good." It never ceases to amaze me the wealth of stories people carry around with them everyday. And it amazes me how life unfolds, where decisions and consequences are stirred together with fate and irony. Ewald was pretty reserved and humble about his war stories, probably because they’re not as glamourous and tidy as Hollywood would have us believe. I should have asked Ewald more specifically why he really got into the military. Perhaps he saw it as the best opportunity to make something of himself, or maybe his young spirit urged him to make a difference in the world. In any case, I am struck by the mystery that even though we don’t always set out to be heroes, sometimes life has a strange way of presenting us the opportunity to become one.

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