What I Needed to Hear This Week

Last Sunday morning I met a friend at the boarded-up gas station on Bannock Highway. We biked a 43 mile round trip trek to McCammon. The workout took four hours as we visited, stopped for snacks and took in the green hills that cradle our valley in June. I saw headlines about a shooting in Orlando before the ride, but it wasn’t until I was home and reaching for ibuprofen that the monstrous nature of the attack became clear.

I’m getting married to a wonderful woman this September. She’s beautiful and smart and loves everything about me. OK, almost everything.  We took our engagement pictures this week up Cusic Creek amidst the lush wildflowers, and last Sunday morning while I was biking to McCammon oblivious to the desecration in Orlando, the photos started coming in on my phone.

I expected to have the usual engagement questions last Sunday afternoon: How’s my hair? Do I have a double chin? Do you think people can tell I’ve gained 25 pounds in the last six months as I’ve struggled to balance my diet and exercise plan in this prelude to step-parenthood? 

But instead, we asked each other: Do we really want to announce this in the paper? Are you sure we’ll be safe at an outdoor, highly populated, public reception? Does the newspaper always print the names of marriage licenses? Our wedding planning was interrupted with severe and immediate concerns for safety.

I’ve heard people say “It doesn’t matter that the victims were gay”, and in one sense, I appreciate that LGBT people are included in the general classification of humanity and any loss of life is tragic. On the other hand, it matters very much to me that the victims were gay because it highlights why many of us still live in fear.  When any group you belong to is targeted, it takes on a different element of meaning.

As I went back and forth between news stories and engagement pictures last Sunday, I didn’t need to hear that my hair was fine, my chin was singular and the extra weight looks good on me. I needed to hear much, much more. 

I needed to hear Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad speak at the vigil at Caldwell Park acknowledging our humanity, and I needed to hear the local Muslim Iman offer the kind words and prayers that he did.

I received an email from Idaho U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson. I met Ms. Olson at a community conversation at City Hall a few weeks ago. After an hour long conversation on building community trust between residents and the Pocatello Police Department, a sign-in sheet was passed around to gather emails and phone numbers. I didn’t expect her to use my email address for a personal correspondence in which she began “I am reaching out to check in on members and supporters of the LGBTQ community in various parts of Idaho in light of yesterday’s horrific events at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. While any words I have are insufficient to describe the magnitude of the horror in Orlando, please know that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Idaho stands ready to support all LGBTQ persons in Idaho.” I didn’t realize until after I read those words, but I needed to hear them this week.

I also had an exchange with Pocatello Police Chief Scott Marchand. He asked for ideas and discussed ways to build, maintain and strengthen the Police Department’s relationship with the LGBT community. He also noted plans to have officers at the Pocatello Pride event for both community interaction and to add a touch of security so people can enjoy the event. I needed to hear that this week.

Some of the most poignant words I needed to hear this week came in a speech from a self-proclaimed “balding, youngish, middle-aged, straight, white, male, Republican politician with all of the expectations and privileges that come with those labels.”  Utah LT Gov Spencer Cox choked on a heartfelt apology for his past treatment of LGBT individuals; talked of his anger, sadness and confusion over the attack—words I’ve used to describe my own feelings; and he called for “less politics and more kindness.” Great words for any audience.

I know actions are needed in response to the many facets of the Orlando shooting, but actions begin with thoughts and words, and perhaps my favorite words that spilled out on social media were inspired by a stranger’s viral post.

“I love you. I want you to be alive. I will stand with you.” It doesn’t get more basic or simple than that. I don’t like to blanketly speak for others, but I’ll go ahead and say that LGBT people needed to hear that this week.

 

Remembering on Memorial Day

I was 19 and driving on South Fourth Street in Pocatello where Whittier Elementary used to be. The vacant building was still there and I turned my eyes from the road to take it in. Then - SLAM! I rear-ended the car in front of me. It was an elderly couple on their way to the cemetery to put flowers on their son's grave.

Thoughts were zipping through my head. At the forefront should have been these people, their late son and the trouble I’d just caused, but my mind was elsewhere. My mom was going to kill me. My insurance was going to go up, and the yelling I was going to endure would be the worst of my life. This was my fault, and I was going to get a ticket. I was going to lose my car. My independence. My freedom.

When the police arrived, the senior couple explained how a car had run the stop sign between the Elmer's parking lot and what is now Coho. They stopped abruptly to avoid it but I hadn’t been able to react as quickly. They gave a description of the vehicle, and officers tracked it down during the course of questioning us. That driver was cited for causing the accident. I was not cited. 

The officer who questioned me was so kind. His kindness stung. I wasn't entirely truthful with him. I didn’t deserve his soothing tone or sympathetic ear.  I likely could have avoided the accident if I hadn’t been looking away and been lost in the memory of a terrible time in Kindergarten.

Photo taken about 3 years after Kindergarten. (Photo by Cindy McMichael and used with permission.)

I was remembering how I climbed the monkey bars to get away from an older boy. As my legs dangled, he grabbed the cuffs of my pant legs and pulled. My elastic-banded pants fell to my ankles. I started kicking and flailing. I was embarrassed and mortified and wanted to let go and pull up my pants, but then I'd be on the ground with him. This was during recess, so we were not alone and I didn’t feel like I was truly in danger, but I was extremely humiliated with so many other kids around staring at me in my underwear. I had difficulty kicking, but I held on for dear life while my little five year old legs whirred like a helicopter so no one could get near me. Especially the mean boy. 

When I hit the old couple's car, the crash sling-shotted my focus back to the present. My gut was filled with embarrassment and shame from that memory, and then with the crash, a different embarrassment and shame emerged. The swirl of those emotions from past and present swelled and stayed with me for days. 

Shortly after the crash, my mom marched me to the store and picked out a thank-you card. She called the police station and tracked down the name of the officer who interviewed me. We sent him a "thank you" for his kindness and understanding “on Memorial Day”. I never told her I had been distracted. 

About a decade later when I coached junior varsity volleyball at Poky High, the officer’s daughter was on the team. I see him around town often. He's still in the ranks here in Pocatello and has had a notable and noble career in various capacities in law enforcement. 

My Memorial Day’s often begin with remembering him and this incident and his compassion I didn’t deserve. I wonder about the son of the elderly couple and how he died. Considering their ages at the time, he might have been killed in Vietnam, but that’s conjecture on my part. I should have asked them about their son. From there, my reflections spread to the countless others in our military and law enforcement who have died in the line of duty.

Of course I'm grateful for them and so many others, but for me on Memorial Day, that gratitude is counterbalanced with a heaping side of guilt over the accident I caused on a Memorial Day years ago and never fessing up about it.  And while both guilt and gratitude are formidable guides in my life's path, it's always a challenge for me to lead with more gratitude and less guilt on this day.  At 19 I was worried about losing my freedom and independence due to a fender bender when this day is about how my freedom and independence are even able to exist—through the service and sacrifice of so many American men and women. I’m not only grateful for them, but also that I’ve grown up enough to grasp exactly what I should be remembering on Memorial Day.

The ISJ and Me

I celebrated my birthday last week on the Winter Solstice. When I learned that it’s the shortest day of the year and excitedly told my mom such, she replied “Well, in 1972 it was the longest day in history!”  Despite a long and miserable labor, she ensured each birthday’s gifts comprised things I wanted or needed or something she wanted me to have. I could count on socks and underwear along with action figures and athletic equipment.

As I got older and it got weirder for her to buy me underwear, she switched up her routine and found a different yearly gift: an annual subscription to the Idaho State Journal. 

 

I had graduated from college, lived in my own house, and could easily afford a subscription, but it wasn’t on my radar. Mom got dreadfully tired of trying to have conversations with me about current events and having to fill me in on the facts first. In those days when the Internet was so young, the Idaho State Journal was our source for news, commentary and keeping a pulse on southeast Idaho. 

My relationship with “the paper” goes back farther than my first subscription. The comics were as much a part of my childhood as Care Bears and Ninja Turtles, and I ruined many an egg of Silly Putty flattening it over the characters to see it lift the print.

In middle school, I won $10 and a Webster’s dictionary when I submitted a question to the Junior Editor’s Quiz asking what a terrapin was. I’d had my box turtle Myrtle for 3-4 years at the time and knew darn well what a terrapin was, but I couldn’t believe how many people didn’t.  That was the first time my picture was in the paper, and I still have a yellowed, tattered copy in a bin of keepsakes in the basement.

How about those turtle pins on the denim jacket? (which had been soaked in Polo cologne)

“Dear Abby” was another favorite. Her well-reasoned advice, along with respectful dissenting opinions from readers and her occasional mea-culpa shaped how I view many issues as well as how I argue or discuss, but it was my tenure as a high school and college athlete that had me most looking forward to the Idaho State Journal. The times I had a volleyball action shot appear in my hometown paper may have been as thrilling as the plays themselves.

The form. The hair. The shorts.  Bam!

A couple years ago, when I became a somewhat regular columnist for the ISJ, I’d never really written before. I don’t keep a journal or a diary, so I got to experience a new-to-me kind of growth and reflection with each piece. On more than one occasion, I sat down with a guiding thought only to have something totally different sprout from the text. I love to experience that self-evolution as I write, and I hold fast to the hope that if I can grow and change with critical thinking and reflection, others can too. 

That hope’s been tested this week as I’ve watched the story of the fired lunch lady go viral.  Where is the critical thinking on the part of the readers? People are responding vehemently—not to the firing of the worker—but rather to the media coverage of the firing and Ms. Bowden's either sheer luck or brilliant mastering of social media to bolster her side of this story.

It has spun so sadly and shockingly out of control and while I credit the ISJ headlines for such sensationalism, come on People. Think.  There’s got to be more to the story. This isn’t a tale of a hungry child; it’s an account of workplace insubordination. By following protocol, the child would have still been fed, Ms. Bowden would have kept her job, and the school wouldn’t be put in a position of risking federal funding.  And I’d bet my bin of keepsakes in the basement, that there’s even more behind this than we know.

My Idaho State Journal renewal notice is currently mixed in with my stack of bills. Although I get disappointed or frustrated with headlines, reporting and commentary, I also see wonderful stories of our community.  I want to see my hometown newspaper sustain, and I want to keep up on local happenings. I realize I’m not always going to agree with what I see, but I can think for myself, and gather as many facts as possible while developing opinions, spreading news, and engaging in constructive discussion. I encourage others and the Idaho State Journal to do the same. Please do the same. 

Other reasons aside, as I tackle that stack of post-Christmas bills and send in my renewal, my main reason for doing so will be memories of birthdays past and recalling that once upon a time the Idaho State Journal was a gift from my mother.