My mind is clearer now...

I had the chance to do some time-traveling this week, playing Judas in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services at St. Luke's. The services included selected songs from the 1970 rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar," along with a more traditional choir hymn or two, remarks about the musical (penned by me), and some "sermon light" material from the two ministers.

To say I have had a long relationship with the Lloyd-Webber/Tim Rice musical would be an understatement. The album preceded the stage version and I spent so many hours listening to the LPs and eventually memorizing the lyrics to most every part. I did most of this while living in my parents' basement between driving to Cedar Rapids to Kirkwood Community College for college classes -- the result of me flunking out of Carthage College after my freshman year (68-69). That's a long and chaotic story for another time, but my appalling GPA meant only a community college would accept me. Kirkwood had one brick and mortar building then, plus dozens of temporary units scattered over what is now a thriving campus.

So I spent the 69-70 school year back living in the basement with a trusty record player and plenty of time on my hands.

Bottom line: I have been a fan of the musical for nearly 54 years. It's become part of my DNA, so to speak. 

Imagine my surprise when, in the fall of 2004, St. Luke's members and friends were told that there would be auditions in early September for the stage musical of JCS, to be performed by the Wesley Players theater company, which had been producing various shows since 2000 (two years before we moved to Colorado). 

This may say more about me than is wise, but Judas was always my preferred character in the show. He is the antagonist to Jesus as protagonist, technically, but Judas gets some great songs, with lots of emotion and rock 'n' roll vocals. In many ways, Judas is the main character.

A slight issue was that I had never been in a stage musical or play, my only performing experience being as lead singer for a little college band (one of the reasons I flunked out of school). But the musical director and now long-time friend, Jim Ramsey, was surprised in a positive way when a somewhat timid tenor from the church choir demonstrated some rock talent. I got the part.

That show was the first of what would grow to many roles in musicals through the Wesley Players, but it remains my favorite... partially because there are no lines to memorize and I came to the role without any anxiety about simply remembering the words. We did four shows that November and I always say I was the oldest and whitest Judas ever. Another guy who became a friend, Patrick Griggs, played Jesus, and we have supported each other in various shows ever since. 

Church choirs are not known for their rock voices, it turns out, and Patrick and I share the background of starting as rock singers, capable of more traditional musical theater roles.

Since 2004, St. Luke's has returned to JCS three more times. First, selected songs were combined with parts of a more traditional requiem which produced a mash-up "Requiem for a Superstar." In 2019, the church again used selections from the show, this time along with some material written by me (as designated "expert" in the musical). Patrick and I reprised our roles in both of those... and this week we "resurrected" that approach yet again. Patrick just turned 65, so it could be called the Medicare version of the show.

Each service was a little over an hour and featured about six songs, with "The Last Supper" ending the Thursday service (and leading directly to communion) and also beginning the Good Friday service (leading directly to "Gethsemane," Jesus's big number). 

The time-traveling applied to my singing, which was a bit strenuous for a 73-year-old without any voice training, but I did OK, at least according to my bride and lots of others who mostly seemed shocked that an old, white-haired guy could hit those notes. Honestly, I was confident... singing those songs ONCE. 

There were a few moments where I felt much younger, if only for a few fleeting moments. I walked away from Good Friday smiling. Maybe not the traditional response to such a dark day.

But that's what happens when you are time-traveling.

22 and on top of the world

It's March 22 and the coincidence of the date being the number of the most famous and scrutinized basketball player in the country, along with a deluge of "think pieces" and deep dives into how that player got to this level, and the fact that she and her team will begin NCAA tournament play tomorrow... well, that's difficult to resist.

Yes, that #22 belongs to Caitlin Clark. Heck, even brother Tim, out in SoCal, has weighed in (today) on this phenomenon, and brother Mike has shared a longform piece from ESPN with us that provides this young woman's sports history... and the immediate family has a little NCAA Women's pool going through CBS... 

It's a bit nutty, and my innate "Iowaness" tugs at my consciousness: How can a young person keep her head on straight when everyone seems to be praising her or questioning her or predicting unimaginable successes for her? When you are an Iowa fan, or maybe it's just part of an Iowa upbringing, a plain truth of life is that we should never brag or even predict success... doing so invites doom.

After all, the crops may look great in June before being ravaged by vagaries of weather. The Democratic caucuses can be taken away from the state, despite years of success and producing some significant upsets. The Field of Dreams can become just another giant corporate ballpark that overshadows the dusty infield that you could visit on a whim with just a dozen other curiosity-seekers only a few years ago. 

A true Iowa fan absolutely knows that Ronnie Lester will injure his knee in the national semifinal game in 1980 after hitting all four shots and two free throws in the first 12 minutes of the game. He never returned and Iowa lost. Yes, I know it was almost 44 years ago, but Iowa fans don't get over things like that.

As my dad often said, "Keep your expectations low to avoid deeper disappointment." Good advice in many aspects of life, but those expectations just keep bubbling up, despite our best efforts. He also was a devotee of never allowing your opponent to see your emotions, so I learned to keep a blank face whether a shot went in or not. 

I wonder what he would say about Caitlin Clark, who shares every emotion with everyone, at least on the court. Nah, I know he would not approve... 

When I saw the potential opponents in the Iowa section of the tournament bracket, I immediately started imagining the worst... Iowa going cold and suffering an early upset. Caitlin being smacked to the floor by some frustrated center and being carried to the locker room. A last-second shot that was an inch too long bouncing harmlessly away as the buzzer sounded... leaving the Hawks just short. 

Tomorrow afternoon I will become increasingly tense, bemoaning every missed free throw or careless turnover. I will mention to Kathleen how those miscues may come back to cost us later. She will ignore me and quite properly focus on the next play. 

For both of us, the very thought of the Hawks losing, as all but one team in the tournament certainly will, is both unimaginable and inevitable. We are Iowans, in the end.

No one can possibly understand what it's like to be Caitlin Clark, of course, and her bravado leaves Iowans bemused at times. We are wary of anything resembling hubris. 

But she is unique and, for once, that word is accurate, so we cut her a break. The tougher the situation, the calmer she seems. Almost everyone has felt overwhelming pressure, if only for a few moments and much more privately, and in various circumstances. That means we can feel some tenuous connection to a star athlete at the height of her powers, with the whole world watching. We so viscerally want her to do well, for the Hawks to triumph.

Here's a personal fleeting moment of pressure: 

I was a mediocre high school basketball player on a mediocre team but that didn't mean each game wasn't vital (to us). As a junior I was literally the 15th man on the team, remaining firmly seated as far from the coaches as was possible, silently hoping for a blowout (one way or the other)... the only chance I would see the floor. 

We were at Dubuque Wahlert in February of 1967 and, for once, we were handling them nicely. In fact, as the fourth quarter dwindled away, Regina was so far in front that Coach Norton had no choice but to insert the "final five" into the game. After about three minutes of mostly running back and forth as each team's subs fired up errant shots or tossed horrible passes, I found myself with the ball in my hands with the score stuck at 98-73, under ten seconds left on the clock (yes, there was more run-and-gun basketball in those days). A Wahlert player stumbled into me as I attempted a drive to the basket, and a foul was called by the dedicated refs. The crowd was appalled, just wanting the game to end, and that got their dander up, so to speak.

I stepped to the line to shoot two and I swear I had an out-of-body experience as the crowd went nuts, and all the noise joined together as a ringing in my ears. I made the first shot with no conscious thought. Well, I must have made it since the scoreboard added a point. The Wahlert crowd now had one goal: to keep their rivals (with me as the representative) from hitting 100 points... and they got even louder, if that were possible. 

Then I made the second foul shot, again with trembling limbs and not even having the wits to mumble a quick prayer before the ball left my hand (though since both teams were from Catholic schools, there is some doubt as to the deity weighing in). 

We had hit 100 and just seconds later the final horn sounded. There were pats on the back and smiles and a departing crowd that had at least enjoyed a cathartic experience of momentary but complete hatred for some skinny kid they would never think about again. 

I assume they all immediately forgot about it all. Clearly, I did not, despite those two free throws having no effect beyond the fleeting oddity of scoring 100 points. 

Caitlin Clark must feel that almost crazy enthusiasm constantly and it is evident that she welcomes the pressure. She claims to never get nervous during a game, though that's hard to believe... but there she is: doing amazing things time and again, no matter the score. There are times when it appears that Caitlin is functioning on some elevated level where we mere mortals can't intrude. 

Tomorrow, watching from 800 miles away, I will tense up during each foul shot she takes, silently lending my support and wondering if she ever gets used to crowd noise so loud that only ringing can be heard.

Then she will calmly swish two.

Ignorance plus apathy equals modern education?

Time flies when... well, it certainly flies whether we like it or not. And suddenly it's been three weeks since my last post. My excuse for two Fridays ago is that I was in the midst of the "Beauty and the Beast" show (as Belle's father, Maurice) and I didn't have the bandwidth to think about much else. The March 8 excuse? I was critiquing four Florida high school publications and was on deadline.

Could I have found a few minutes to post something? No excuse there. I was lazy... but I'm back. Were I in charge of my own snow shoveling, I might be using that for yet another excuse. We had about two feet of snow and the storm did not end until last night. It's that wet spring Colorado snow that we tend to get during our snowiest month of the year, and that might be a bit too much for an old guy to handle. Glad to see trucks with blades clearing our shared drive. If I had to I could get out and drive somewhere. 

I don't have to.

Interestingly, the "official snow total" for Denver was only 5.7 inches. That is the amount measured at DIA, which is the place such official measurements are taken, according to the National Weather Service. Another reminder that we should look for facts but never forget context.

But let's get to "top of mind."

I spent the morning grading Metro essays where I asked the students to analyze the rhetoric in six Super Bowl ads that I chose based on their popularity along with their varying uses of the three rhetorical appeals. The experience was an eye-opener. Most of those college students have only the most tenuous grasp of what each appeal might be. They really like to mix up ethos and pathos, with some students freely citing the same emotional appeals almost randomly as examples of appeals to ethos or pathos. 

Several students are quite certain that "ethics" is basically the same as "ethos," which leads to all sorts of weird theories and claims. 

It may have been the timing of the assignment -- it was due Tuesday and spring break starts after today (Friday) -- so maybe I'm reading too much into this. But the entire group of 17 completed assignments was, in a word, appalling. Childish (though I never can state this elsewhere -- the poor, well, children), vague, riddled with typos and comma splices and fragments, not to mention logical lapses that a fifth grader would laugh about... it was a tour de force of ignorance and apathy. 

The ignorance part is forgivable. Many younger college students don't connect with what mainstream TV commercials expect their viewers to possess. If you've never even heard of Flashdance (the T-Mobile ad), good luck seeing the allusion. If it wasn't on TikTok or YouTube, forget about it. But the apathy indicated by college students who can't be bothered to run spell check or grammar check and who clearly hit "submit" the moment they feel they have completed the minimum amount of writing to get by... that's not forgivable. 

If I had a relationship with those students I might be able to use some combination of shame, humor, sarcasm, and inspiration to push them to at least read over their work before they turn it in. But I don't, and I won't, and, in the end, none of us may care enough to find a solution. 

Of course, I typed for hours (the online version of interacting), questioning and supplying "correct words" they meant to type, and proposing places where some sort of proof should go. If sheer effort and time invested counts as caring, maybe I do care. 

Perhaps some of my students will read my comments and consider approaching their writing in different ways. I really do think they have things to share. There is at least some evidence that they don't read my comments, nor do they read the readings I share.

The problem, and I may have stated this many times before in the blog, is that they hate writing so much that they can't wait one moment to get it off their "to do" list and get back to scrolling on their phones. 

I know I will later -- in a couple weeks -- feel refreshed and willing to face another set of papers with optimism and courage... but today I know this: my Metro students are not clear communicators and their future professional writing is likely to be ineffective, if not ludicrous. 

Yet we press on.