Week Thirty-Three: April 19th

Missouri is also known as the Cave State, a fact known to few outside of the state. I had never heard such word prior to my arrival, thinking the mighty caves of the world lay elsewhere, at some distance from our Midwestern state.

While most caves are in state and local hands, there are a few new ones discovered each year, usually by some adventurous spelunker, or group of high school cronies looking for a new party spot. Perhaps this was on my mind as I took razor in hand this past week; the caves, not the revelry of inebriated high schoolers.

Capturing the craggy formations of stalactites and stalagmites was not as easy as it seemed in the mental image I formed in my head. This left me with pretty much the same look as you see above. I had people inquire about my "tiger stripes," "missing hair streaks," and "bald spots." To me, it looked like the points descending from the ceiling, grown through hundreds of years of dripping water to form soda straws and then centuries more to make the 'tites and 'mites of cave legend. In reality, what most people probably saw was something that looked a bit disheveled. Much like my current crop of hair, long enough to move around on its own, but too short to be tamed by any of my attempts at combing and brushing, the beard had a mind of its own. Perhaps a stiff breeze ruffled the 'tite into a position almost parallel to my chin-bottom, or the 'mite, sagging down toward the cave wall. The point is, it rarely looked as good as it did even in this picture. Sad, but true.

In a few short weeks, my hair will reach Mon-chi-chi status, and be the fuzzy halo-dome crowning my head. Perhaps I will allow the beard t do the same, just to really complete the look.

Or, perhaps not.

Week Thirty-Two: April 12th

In the time before hundreds of channels devoted almost entirely to cartoons, when cartoons ran on regular, episodic loops with mostly G-rated content, there was the classic cartoon villain.

You know him because he usually kidnapped some hapless damsel and lashed her to the always-handy train tracks. The derivation of these from the days of black and white movies and Buster Keaton's handiwork is evident.

Those villains would never fly nowadays, and not the least of which because almost all cartoons are cast in the mold of The Simpsons, with humor split on two levels, including numerous pop-culture references and vocal and visual candy for the parents who would "never" watch cartoons alongside their children (but probably should, based on the content of said cartoons.)

Really, there is no reason for adults to claim they know nothing of cartoons during this day and age. With networks like Adult Swim and its flagship Venture Brothers, and the success of Robot Chicken on the web, people over the age of eighteen are obviously tuning in. Give up and admit it!

My Cartoon Villain is nothing like the caricatures they pass off as villains these days. Modern day villains actually have a snarky chance for semi-success. Old-time, railroad-tying villains never stood a chance. Even the most bumbling of cartoon anti-heroes (cut from the Goofy cloth) could easily disrupt the plans of those old villains and still have time to make a sandwich, fall down a hole and still arrive home in time for dinner.

The serial incompetence of those old-time villains was what made the cartons so good. The message was all-too-clear: all bad guys were idiots. Now, kids aren't so sure.

Week Thirty-One: April 5th

You cannot live where I do without giving some measure of respect to "El Hombre," Albert Pujols. The Cardinals have rarely had a corner man who mashes and hits for average, and NO, Jack Clark does not count. In the post-McGwire shakeout of all things baseball, with on-going fan speculation about juicers and non-juicers, we can hope that Pujols falls into the latter camp.

If only I had been the beneficiary of the discriminating eye that The Man has...maybe I would not have set a personal and team record in 14/15 year-old Babe Ruth with 13 strikeouts in 25 at-bats. Call me Mark Reynolds and Ryan Howard before my time. Given a whole season to put up those kind of numbers, I might have set legendary Hudson Babe Ruth tallies that would be the Hall of Shame standards toward which all poor-eyesighted boys might strive.

Of course, I maintain, to this day, that my case was not helped much by my coach's insistence that I try to bunt on the first two strikes of every at-bat, using my "wheels" to leg-out infield singles. This was all good in theory, and during practices, when I could lay down nasty dying quail bunts on either baseline, almost at will. (I think it also helped that, as the third baseman on that same team, I was not at the position at the time, and was often replaced by someone just a shade better than a nose-picker and people-watcher.)

Never a master of plate discipline in the first place (my first Little League coach always told me to lay off the high ones, but neglected to give a nod to the fact that I could hit the high ones) I could do little more than flail at the third strike after putting myself in an 0-2 hole with foul-tips and dribblers that rode the chalk and fell foul before the base.

So, this facial tribute to a man whose coach likely never told him to lay one down, or take a strike of any kind. A man only "slightly" larger than me, and a man who never stole thirteen bases while wearing 1987 Air Jordans. Beat that one, El Hombre!

Week Thirty: March 29th

Coming into the homestretch for submission of my materials for National Board Certification, it was time for a rallying charge facial-hair change.

It just so happened that our school was about to begin the two-week journey that is state testing. This year we decided to do a pep rally of sorts to get the students excited about how well we believed they could do. I don't know how it all started, but someone floated the idea, and then there was mention of "Deal or No Deal," and the next thing I know, I am sporting "The Mandel."

The panicked and horrified looks in the kids' eyes was worth the price of admission and, despite my college roommate's fears that his hair would never grow back if he ever mustered the eggs to shave it all off, I have no such fears. If it doesn't grow back, well, then, that is OK too. (Of course, as I write this, I already have a nice dome-stubble forming, which tells me that this particular shaving will develop in much the same way that the other eleven have.)

Wrapping up National Boards was one thing; getting the chance to burn it all out in a performance in my own school, a place where I feel as though I am always playing a part (and hiding some of myself) is an entirely different thing. So, I suited up and played Mandel: germophobe-heavy and script-free. The kids in 3rd-5th grades did not quite know what to make of it, nor did the poor kid we selected to play the contestant. One of my students asked me afterward if we, "like, practiced that, or something," and I laughed, responding, "No, I made that up as I went along." She walked off with a look of semi-disbelief, knowing by now that she can never take everything I say completely seriously, but thinking this might be a rare time when I told the whole truth.

Week Twenty-Nine: March 22nd

Last week was my Spring Break and, though my days of Pompano Beach and Fort Lauderdale during Harley Week at Daytona are long past, I did travel to Colorado for the week.

Then again, "break" was hardly what I would call it: I spent about six to seven hours each day working on my computer, typing papers for my National Board Certification (for teaching.) It is a crazy year-long process that calls for you to collect student work samples, videotape several lessons and write four huge papers that feature little to no actual writing and lots of robotic regurgitation to prove you met their standards. I should have thought twice about this one, knowing how little I like to play other peoples' games and jump through other peoples' hoops. But, once I was in, I was in!

This was how I spent my Spring Break: typing in hotel bathrooms, trying to ignore the bloodstains at one Super 8 in North Platte, NE; typing in darkened corners after my family had gone to bed; typing in the car with a hat yanked far down over my eyes, as to avoid the nausea-inducing objects whipping past the windows; typing early in the morning in my sister-in-law's basement before anyone else woke up, and then repeating the process after they went to bed. And still, I returned home the following week with work left to do, knowing my late-nights and shirked sleep had only just begun.

So really, this look came more out of necessity: I didn't even bring my razor on the trip, and the grizzled look helped me stay angry as the snarl under my neck continually velcroed my short collars.

Week Twenty-Eight: March 8th

Back when I was doing bird shows at the Cincinnati Zoo, we used to get excited about shows at which the local Amish made an appearance. You generally knew the shows would go well on any given summer day, as the birds were well-trained and had been performing the same routines for years. But when the Amish arrived, you knew something amazing would happen.

Of course, I am not blind to the fact that we probably worked a little harder to get those crowds involved and cause them to laugh. My boss, Gary, used to time his lines to allow even more (perfect) pauses for dramatic humor, and he would celebrate after a show that he got an older Amish gentleman to smile or, better yet, to laugh. Gary claimed he once delivered a line that made an Amish elder fall from his seat. I was not there to witness this alleged event, so I cannot attest to its truth, but I have never known Gary to lie, so I would not put it past him. There was always more magic in the air on those Amish-crowd days.

Years later, as I worked at the Minnesota Zoo, I took this mysterious occurrence with me. I found that as I now hosted shows in our large, outdoor amphitheater, I would step up the frenzy on the days the Amish were in the audience. I relished the opportunity to discuss the birds and training with them after the show; at least far more than those Sunday crowds at my current zoo: those we dubbed "NASCAR Sunday" crowds. The Amish crowds had questions and expressed awe at the birds doing what they did naturally. The NASCAR Sunday crowds came up at the end of shows to tell us about how their brother or cousin (or both, simultaneously) had a bird whose tongue he cut to make it talk and the thing could swear in fifteen languages. Fascinating!

So, this look is my tribute to those times, when birds flew well, and the Amish crowd caused magic.