Ukiah High Milk Club: Building community over bowls of Lucky Charms

I recently visited with a group of students at Ukiah High School that meet once a week to enjoy milk with cereal and cookies. They call themselves the Milk Club.

That was cool.

Club president John Gonzalez admitted that many of the kids first came to the club because of “the absurdity” of it, then stay because of the supportive culture.

 

“It’s just a great place to have lunch,” said one student, and Gonzalez said he chose the classroom they meet in because it has lots of circular tables where students can eat in small groups like a family around a dinner table.

 
While the students eat bowls of Lucky Charms (some choose the “healthier” cereal options available) they often invite members of other clubs to speak, a practice Gonzalez said is meant to create a sense of community, rather than competition, among the students.

 
Making a practice of sitting down to eat with people who aren’t members of their current club will serve these students well when navigating a world full of people who don’t think like them, and who now more than ever seem divided into tribes that spend no time listening to, let alone trying to understand, the other side.

 
Because sitting down and talking with someone over food is one of the easiest and most effective ways to build connections with anyone: your family, your co-workers and every other human we share the earth with.  And even if you’ll never agree on who should be president or that Lucky Charms are magically delicious (they’re not, Frosted Flakes have all the magic), odds are you can always find to something to agree on, even if it’s only your favorite ice cream flavor.

What was even cooler than watching the kids sit down together and enjoying cold cereal, however, was the behavior Gonzalez was modeling outside of the club, which was more respectful and considerate than most adults three times his age. 

 

After realizing he couldn’t keep the first appointment we made over the phone, he tracked me down online and suggested we meet two weeks later. The evening before our appointment, he sent me a very polite and friendly reminder.

 

After I met with the group, he sent me some more helpful information and an enthusiastic thank you for attending, followed by a final thank you from the club when the article came out (featuring a handmade card put in an envelope made out of a recycled paper grocery bag).

Of course, I don’t need to be thanked for doing my job, but it was much appreciated.

 

In a time when so many people seem to just be lying in wait for the next the psychic wound to be inflicted on them by their fellow humans, it was inspiring to meet a teenager so focused on what he could do for others, then leading by example. I sincerely wished him luck in his future endeavors, but I doubt he will need it.

Coolest of all, however, was when a couple of kids came near the end. Neither of them drank cow milk because one was vegan and one opposed to dairy milk for “environmental reasons,” but they still came because they felt the club was more about friends spending time together than anything else.

 

And then they entertained those friends by one picking up his trombone and sounding like a car accelerating and the second acting like he was shifting gears and steering.

 

When I showed my husband the video I took of their pantomime, he exclaimed, “Could those kids BE more wholesome?!” 
 

No, I don’t think they could.

Read the story here.

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Westerns With Dad: Man launches podcast with dying father, but they don't talk about cancer. They talk about movies.

After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a man launched a podcast with his son. But the men didn't talk about his illness. Instead, they talked about the movies he taught his son to love, calling their show Westerns With Dad.

That was cool.

What a great gift for both of them. And an “enormous gift” is exactly how the son described the podcast in his farewell episode this month.
“This was a means for my father and I to work together on something, to be speaking to each other frequently, but not about his diagnosis,” the son said on the last episode of the podcast, which they did 50 episodes of over the past 50 months.

 I was introduced to the podcast by my husband, who also loves westerns and liked the men’s easy rapport. But when he saw the farewell episode explaining that “Dad” had died, he did not want a sad blanket of reality dropped on one of his means of escape.
I had a very different reaction.

“What a great idea,” I said. “That must have been why they started the podcast.”

 I knew how I would treasure having so many  conversations with my mother to listen to any time I wanted. 
She died long before we could record every second of our lives with the phones in our pockets, so my only hope at the time was a training video shot recently at her work. She only told me about it because she had been surprised by how many of her facial expressions she recognized in her own.

I called to ask about getting the video, and I still remember the pain in the man’s voice as he told a teenager he already taped over perhaps the last footage of her mother.

So of course I think the episodes are wonderful for the son to have, but what better gift could he have given his dad than to just sit down and talk with him?

I read once that the amount of time your adult kids want to spend with you is a direct result of how much time you spent with them growing up. Take the song “Cat’s in the Cradle” by
Harry Chapin. It’s about a father who can’t get his son to hang out with him because he never stopped to hang out with him when he was a boy.  
This podcast is the opposite story. And if my son had done that for me, it would tell me I raised a great human being who thought I was pretty great, too.  
Here is a link to the last episode they did together:

http://westernswithdad.com/godless/

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Poem: How to Stay Married

Getting married is all about   

Finding that chocolate you like

More than all the others in the box.

But staying married is all about

Picking up that chocolate and brushing it off

Every time it falls on the floor and gets covered in crap. 

- Justine Frederiksen

I kept my mother's binoculars after the crash. Thirty years later, her friend still recognized them.

I kept my mother's binoculars after the crash, though at the time I was still a teenager who resented the passion I blamed for her death. And I was very glad to have them when I finally saw one of her birding pals again 30 years later and her binoculars brought him to tears.

That was cool.

Cool not because I like to make people sad. Cool because I knew how much he missed my mother, too. 

It was healing for me to learn what bird they were all looking for that day, a Spotted Redshank. And that he still agonized over how my mother had been riding with the newest and youngest member of their bird club because his car was full.

One of the few things that can truly ease the grief of losing someone is being with another person who feels their absence. They understand that no matter how long it has been, no matter how fine you look, you are still among the walking wounded.

Losing a loved one in a sudden event feels like someone ripped out your lungs and told you to breathe a different way.

You find a way to adapt, but you never forget how it felt to be whole. And the pain never really goes away, though you soon stop talking about it, because the only thing worse than feeling pain is having to explain it.

But you don’t have to say anything to someone with the same scar. You don’t have to paint your mother in their head: she already lives there.

As you both picture her, your pain feels lighter and her image grows brighter. Maybe it can even grow bright enough for her to see it, and know we still think of her.

Of course, it was even cooler that my grandfather saved the binoculars for me in the first place.

They were damaged in the crash that killed her, but my grandfather retrieved them and had them repaired before returning them to me.

I don’t keep them tucked under my driver’s seat as she did, so she could whip them out whenever she saw anything other than a turkey vulture flying overhead. They now sit on a shelf where I can look at them and smile, but sometimes I do take them out to look for birds. And when I see one, I like to think that she can see it, too. 

And maybe some day I will see a Spotted Redshank for her.

Sometimes you just want a cup of coffee. And to pretend that everything's normal.

A few days after the recent fires erupted in Mendocino County, three of us who work for the Ukiah newspaper were decompressing in Black Oak Coffee when one of the owners walked up to our table.

“I just wanted to say ‘thank you’ for all that you guys are doing,” he said. “You probably aren’t getting a lot of sleep right now, so I appreciate all the information you are providing.”

That was cool.

Photo by Chris Pugh - Ukiah Daily Journal

But what was even cooler was how much space in the coffee shop had been devoted to making sure that anyone who needed help would know where to find it.

Outside, a sign invited evacuees to enjoy a free cup of coffee. Inside, much of the free counter and wall space was devoted to signs explaining where to find food, clothing, toiletries, a place to sleep and even a place for kids to play indoors.

For those without a way to access the internet, an iPad was set up on the counter for anyone to get the latest information on the fires, since at the time they were nowhere near under control.

All of these were small gestures to be sure, but I find the small, unobtrusive gestures – ones that don’t require you to ask for or even accept them – to be the most comforting. I know one of the first things I’d look for a day or two after being chased from my home would be a calm place where I could sit and drink some good coffee while everyone went about their normal lives.

Seeing people eating, gossiping about their day and yes, even buried in their phones, would be a much-needed reminder that the world was still spinning and eventually my life would return to normal as well.

But in the meantime, I’d know exactly where to get some shampoo and toothpaste, all without anyone knowing I had needed anything more than a cup of coffee.

Why pick up litter? Because it's there. And I feel so much better when it's gone!

I pick up trash whenever I walk. And one day on my way up a trail I found some bottles and cans that I couldn't carry up the hill, so I put them in a spot I knew I’d see on the way down. But by the time I returned, someone else had picked them up.

That was cool.

What’s even cooler is that has happened more than once, so I know it wasn’t a fluke. I also know the man hired to pick up trash at the park isn’t doing it, because he only goes up as far as he can drive. So it’s up to us hikers to keep the trail up above clean, and I love knowing there are others on my trash-picking team.

Many people can't understand wanting to pick up other people’s trash, while I can’t understand how anyone can walk by litter without wanting to pick it up. I don’t care who left the litter or why. I just know that unless I pick it up, I’ll be looking at it again and again. And I don’t walk on trails to look at McDonald’s and Starbucks cups. I walk outside to look at trees and flowers.

Sometimes I wish I could just toss something on the ground and not give it another thought, like the person I saw get in their car after buying a fancy coffee drink and take one sip before tossing it out the window while driving away. But I can't throw away something I just spent money on, and I can’t litter.

And now, with so much that seemed stable now imploding in front of our eyes, I've found that picking up trash is one of the few things that gives me any control over the world around me. As long as I can still go outside and pick up trash, keeping the paths I walk every day clean, it makes me feel a bit better. And knowing there are others doing the same helps even more. Because feeling a bit of control, and a bit less alone, are things I really need right now.

Teen learns the hard way that his mom was right. (And is nice to reporter documenting his lesson!)

I got a report one day that a car had driven into a house and dashed over to find instead that a teen’s Honda had rolled down the hill and onto his neighbors’ lawn after knocking over their mailbox.

“I guess my mom was right about always leaving the car in gear,” the boy told me soon after I arrived.

That was cool.

Not only because he quickly admitted that his habit of leaving the car in neutral to save him from having to pop it out of gear before he could start the engine was bad, but because he was so calm about a reporter arriving to document his embarrassing afternoon.

“I was just in the paper last week,” he said, explaining that his sports accomplishments had earned him the earlier attention. Maybe that positive coverage helped him accept my presence; whatever the reason, I definitely appreciated his willingness to talk to me.

Understandably, that’s not always the case when people’s lives are disrupted, particularly during much more traumatic events.

Another time, I was taking pictures of a home engulfed in flames while the resident stood crying in a friend’s embrace. When I asked the friend if either of them wanted to talk to me she stiffly declined, then after a pause added, “You know, I never understood why you guys never have more details about stuff like this. But I get it now.”

I appreciated her realizing that while many of us feel entitled to as many details as possible when things happen to other people, when those events happen to us, we usually want them to remain as private as possible.

I also appreciated her calmly asking me to give them privacy, which I did.

And although the teen whose car had rolled onto the neighbor’s lawn gave me his name, I decided not to print it and instead let his sports achievement dominate his press coverage.

As I turned to leave, he steeled himself for a conversation with someone he wanted to talk to even less than a reporter: his mother.

“This should be a fun one,” he said with a sheepish grin as he sat down in the car to dial his cell phone.

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