Some thoughts on Aurora

My heart goes out to the Aurora shooting victims and their families. They should be the focus right now. However, I do have a few words for that sanctimonious sack of shit, Rep. Gohmert, and anyone else who believes that a law-abiding gun-wielding citizen could have stopped this. Gohmert asked, "Did no one else in that Aurora theater have a gun?" No, asshole, because that's not the kind of society--the kind where one feels one must be armed at all times--in which most people want to live. And I say this as a 2nd Amendment supporter.

But, that's a whole other argument. Let's say one or two, or even ten of those moviegoers were armed. Maybe then only 35 people would have been shot instead of 71. Then again, maybe not. It took the entire fucking LAPD an hour to contain TWO armed and armored bank robbers in 1997, and they were in broad daylight in the middle of the fucking street, and even still, one of those guys offed himself only after his weapon jammed. If 40 or 50 police officers, who I assume regularly trained with firearms and for violent situations, had that much difficulty taking down two perpetrators with body armor and weapons out the ass walking down the middle of the street in broad daylight, you can't fucking tell me that Joe Blow in Aurora, who goes to the range to pop a few caps once a month, could have done any better. (I absolutely mean NO disrespect to the police who responded to this incident--they are much braver than I.)

Let's just destroy this myth that once you put a gun in someone's hand they suddenly become Jason Bourne. You might be able to handle a gun. You might even be able to shoot smiley faces in targets at the range when there's no pressure, no surprise, no confusion, no darkness, no teargas, and oh yeah, no bat-shit crazy motherfucker wearing body armor and shooting at you with a much bigger and faster-firing weapon than yours. However, add a few of those conditions, much less ALL of them, and you have a much more fucked up situation than any normal person (normal person=non-Navy Seal), armed or not, is equipped to handle. You're probably doing well just to get down and hide and hopefully save your own ass.

So, fuck you, Rep. Gohmert. I know you would have been down on the floor, shitting your pants like any other normal person, or maybe trying to escape, and that's ok. The world which you envision, where we all walk around strapped and blowing holes in criminals like Dirty Harry is not realistic, and even if it was, I would not want to fucking inhabit it.

I could learn a thing or two from my daughter

The 21 hours in between 10 a.m. on Tuesday September 8 and 7 a.m on Wednesday September 9 were the darkest hours of my life. My wife, Leigh, had taken our then 1 year-old daughter, Eleanor, in to the pediatrician's office that morning because of a slight fever and what appeared to be a rash. The threat level rose to orange when the pediatrician suggested Eleanor's blood be tested. DEFCON 2 was reached when doctor called back with the results but wouldn't tell Leigh anything specific other than we had a room waiting on us at Children's Mercy Hospital--pack a bag and get there as fast as you can. These are words no parent thinks they will ever hear. We clung to a dissipating hope that this was just Eleanor's immune system overreacting to a minor infection she had a week prior.

The strange new surroundings were probably enough to prevent Eleanor, an already touchy sleeper, from reaching dreamland; the seemingly constant interruptions to check her vitals and the struggle to place an IV sealed the deal. This is not to mention the 10,000 lb. metaphorical weight of the question "Why are we here?" and all its possible answers. The twin mattress Leigh and I had to share didn't help either.

That weight finally dropped on us at 7 in the morning, only that weight turned out to be a hydrogen bomb. Leukemia. Specifically, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. But, none of those words really matter. We know what this is. This is cancer and cancer=death.

Regrettably, shamefully, my first thoughts: "She's gone. We celebrated her goddamn first birthday three weeks ago and you better have enjoyed it because it's the last one. She's gone."

And then from the doctor's next words, hope. "We cure 85% of kids with this disease. Most of my patients stop seeing me because they get too old." And right then ended any negative thought that wasn't immediately followed by a new mantra--"This is what we must do. Once we get through this, it will work out."

We did what we had to do, and it looks like it will work out. We are almost done with what are supposed to be the hard parts of this journey. We couldn't have been luckier or more grateful that things have progressed the way they have since Eleanor's diagnosis back on September 9. It could have gone differently.

Since that moment, that introduction of hope, every single day has been a revelation to me of Eleanor's indomitable character and strength. As I sat at the dinner table tonight watching her eat, I was suddenly overcome with emotion. Every bad thing she had to endure over the past 8 months came back and hit me all at once--every needle stick, every milliliter of blood drawn, every day spent in a hospital, every spinal tap, every bout of nausea, weakness, and pain caused by every dose of every drug necessarily given to poison her just enough--all of it. There she sat, happily chowing down on her favorite meal of whole wheat penne and Prego and chatting up a storm. And the reason for this wave of emotion finally dawned on me--she's been this happy through all but the very worst of her treatment.

Life's big lessons can come from all walks: philosophers, scientists, religious figures, educators...the list goes on. Today, mine came from a 20 month-old girl fighting leukemia who just happens to be my daughter.

The smartest person in the world is the one who knows the limits of his own knowledge

We were called to what was the best fire of my short career the other night. It was a great experience, and, when I sit back and think about it for a while, it's amazing how much I learned from that one incident. One could spend 16 weeks or 160 weeks in the academy, but there's no teacher like the real thing. That's not a knock on training--I think we should train more than we do...a lot more. I just don't think it's possible to create the same environment in a training situation that exists at a real incident. But, that's a tangent I don't want to explore right now.

The real point of this drivel was my realization of how much I don't know. It's a huge wake-up call. I now know that I've been skating by. It's pretty easy to sit around and get lulled into thinking you know everything when you work at a station like mine--one of the highest call volumes in the department but a low occurrence of fire, especially first-in fire. Then, I get one of those fires, and I end up feeling like I'm bumbling around while all the people who know what they are doing act quickly and with purpose. They intuit things that I'd actually have to see happening. I can bury my head in the books, and I will, but there's a lot of knowledge that doesn't lie within those books. I sure hope that knowledge comes with experience. If it's instead an innate knowledge, I might as well find another vocation.

So, I'll reopen the books, but, I'll also hope for more fire (sorry, property owners) and take every bit of knowledge I can from both. On a side note, it was pretty fulfilling to finally have a "good" fire. It makes you feel a little less like a social worker in a KCFD uniform and more like a firefighter.

Missed moments? Not really.

I'm a firefighter. I work a 24-hour shift. Within a three week period, I will have worked every day of the week. I'm either working a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday every week--in short a lot of weekends. As a result, I miss many of the social outings my friends have. The 24-hour shift means I miss many of the events at home too. With an 11-month old daughter at home, this would seem to take on an even greater magnitude as she is starting to complete "the firsts"--first steps, first words, first time sleeping through the night (still waiting on that), etc. I'm going to miss a lot of these firsts. But, it doesn't really bother me. I may miss "The First," but there will always be a first time for me, and it's just as good. I liken to Uluru in Australia. That rock has been around for a few million years and millions of people have seen it. But, it was still quite a moving experience when I saw it the first time. This is some solace for me, as the worst part of my job is that every third day, I leave my family for 24 hours. The reconciliation of that is that I get the next 48 hours with them. That's 48 hours of make-up time, and I'm grateful for it.

Legacies

Here we go--I'm sure all the world needed was another take on Michael Jackson's death. But, it drives me nuts how crappy people are suddenly canonized just because they die. Michael Jackson paid at least $15 million to a family to shut them up about abuse allegations. We seem to have forgotten that now that he's recently died. He's the King of Pop again and was just "eccentric." This I know--innocent people, even eccentric ones, don't pay $15 million. Steve McNair was killed by the woman with whom he was engaging in an illicit affair, yet we're constantly being told what a great player and person he was. NO!! If there is anything that should be illustrated by his death, it's that he's dead because he cheated on his wife. How else can one sum up these men's lives? What mitigates all these horrible acts committed in order for people to see them in the best possible light after they have died?

A "victory" for abstinence-only education

Somewhere, deep inside a dark cave, there's a drawing done by ancient people depicting a story of an unwed pregnancy. Of course, Gov. Sarah Palin and other abstinence-only advocates would dismiss as irrelevant the implications of this--the fact that pregnancies out of wedlock have been occurring since man and woman discovered they could get it on, or at least since Adam and Eve took a bite out of that apple. This is the reality. Of course, reality obviously isn't really a consideration for these wackos--witness the following explanation of why the couple would have sex by a poster on another forum to which I subscribe:

they loved each other to have sex, why shouldn't they love each other to tie the knot? If there is no desire for commitment, then what they have isn't love and since there is no love, they have no business having sex and bringing a baby into the world.

That's certainly an effective way to approach the problem! Start out with a false premise--love is required to have sex. Follow that up with a ridiculous conclusion-whatever love, if any, was present allowing them to have sex is enough to sustain a marriage. Finally, give unwed teenage parents an abstinence lecture.

Naturally, the proposed answer to teen pregnancy is, what else, to get married. Why not top one of the most stressful and life-altering occurrences in a young teen's life with, you guessed it..another of the most stressful and life-altering occurrences in a young teen's life? Would someone please tell me why, other than to uphold some already obliterated facade of morality, this is the first option? If you watch the RNC, anybody present commenting on the situation feels the need to happily exclaim "And they're going to get married!" Well-intentioned people will claim that this is for the good of the child, the child needs a mom and a dad, and that the two teenagers should step up and "do the responsible thing." Folks, they've already proven they CAN'T DO THE RESPONSIBLE THING--not have sex, or at the very least, use birth control. If they can't do it once, why is the response to their mistake entering into a covenant which requires them to do the responsible thing over and over forever? Let them build up to it and if it works, then that's a beautiful thing. The child can still have two parents--they just don't have to be married at first, or if it doesn't work out, ever. This is a set-up for failure--teenage marriages are two to three times more likely to end in the first 5 years. They made a mistake--why pile it on?

In Memoriam--Keith Barnes

My high school biology teacher, Keith Barnes, passed away June 6, 2008. He was so much more than just a teacher, though. He was my good friend and probably even a mentor. I've known him since I was a little kid and he and my mother were co-workers.

Like many of his former students, Barnes was my favorite teacher. According to my grade card, he taught biology and genetics, both being studies of life. However, his teachings weren't limited to the scientific realm--he also taught us about life in a much more general sense...and he loved what he taught. That was one of his most important qualities. I think we might have had textbooks in his class, but I don't ever remember him telling us to read them. I think this was because it was important enough to him that an outdated textbook would be a failure to his students. So, the source of what he taught was always the latest article on genetic disorders or DNA replication, and the old man had it all in his head.

Barnes always made it a point to recognize the efforts of his students--how many of us did he nominate for the Who's Who Among American High Schools? He knew he ran a tough class. He was never hesitant to push us harder if he thought we were lagging, either. I'm sure every one of his students remembers a particular class when getting answers and class participation was akin to pulling teeth. Barnes was more than happy to play the dentist. He would get all riled up, possibly chucking an eraser at the chalkboard or yelling at the top of his lungs "THINK, PEOPLE!" He was never mad, he just cared that much. That caring resulted in relationships lasting well beyond high school. I can remember his annual Thanksgiving dinners when the line of alumni was 40 deep.

I don't know how many people know this, but he was one of the most charitable people I've ever known with his time. He volunteered at various times at the Nelson-Atkins Museum and Union Station. He always had the some hidden hobby or interest that would pop up and surprise you. These were all symbolic of his love of life.

Barnes probably blurred the line between teacher and student moreso than most teachers would. I mean that in this way: he was one of only two former teachers with whom I ever drank. Maybe some other teachers would frown upon drinking with their former students who are of age. Maybe you could talk to Barnes in a way that other teachers would not appreciate. Maybe, on senior skip day, he'd take those of us too goody-two-shoes to skip out to lunch despite a closed campus policy. He probably caught a little flak for these actions, but I can tell you this--I learned more from him than any other teacher I've ever had.

Most importantly, Keith was a wonderful friend to my mother. They helped eachother through the shared experience of losing a parent. They went to lunch or cultural events together at least once a month. Probably most importantly, they never passed up a chance to give eachother a little good-natured shit--in my opinion, one of the most important components of a strong friendship. He was, after all, older than dirt. Yup, had to get that last one in, my friend.

I know my mom is hurting right now. The only thing I can tell her is this:

Keith Barnes' passing saddens me deeply. I feel like I lost a member of my family. His charity, compassion, humor, enthusiasm, thirst for knowledge, belief in his students, and friendship will be missed. However, you only need to read the messages on his memorial web site to feel a little better (and keep in mind that there are hundreds more who feel the same way but maybe didn't write.) It is then you realize that he left a little piece of himself with the many family and friends he had and the students he taught, and, in that way, he'll live on for a long, long time.

Garrett Wood
Olathe South High School '95

There will be a celebration of Keith's life on Friday, June13, from 3-8pm at the Ball Conference Center, 21350 W. 153rd Street, Olathe, KS. Memorials are suggested to the Keith Barnes Educational Memorial Fund, in care of First National Bank of Olathe, P.O. Box 150 Olathe, KS 66051.