My little town - merit pay & Horses
Looked at suicides in Greenland and Barrington, Illinois in my last post.
Some more about Barrington, ILL: 7th wealthiest zip code in the country among areas with populations of 20,000 or more.
Got a flavor of that back when my folks were doing house-hunting up here back in the summer of 1964. Dad had accepted a job in the math department working for Grace Wandke, the math department head, with whom he had met while doing post-graduate work at Purdue. At that time, Barrington (a unit school district - which means the high school and the grade school teacher salaries were on the same scale) had a merit pay system. Dad came here for the same base salary he was making at Streator Community High School. Very shortly he learned what "merit pay" meant, back in the day. "Merit pay" meant that when his department head told him to take lunch supervision duty, he had to do. "Merit pay" meant that when told to take study hall, he had to. In Streator, where he had been involved in unionizing the teachers back in the early 50's, lunch supervision and study hall had been negotiated to be extra duties, above and beyond teaching, and therefore, duties for which compensation was paid. But the teachers here did not have a union then. And they had all been admonished to not talk amongst each other about what salaries they made.
Mom returned from one of the house-hunting adventures and related this story to us. They had been driving deliberately around Barrington looking at houses for sale, when one of the local children called out, "Get a horse." Mom that it was the funniest thing. I didn't, for in that moment of her story-telling, I realized we were going to be poor. Because the point of most things is not lost on children. Mom tells the story of how, after we bought a house and got settled, when our family used to go out in the car to drive somewhere, I would hide on the floor in the back seat. The shame of it, oh, the shame.
One day after we'd lived here more than a year, I asked my friend, fellow caddie, and freshman basketball teammate George Harris, "What's wrong with the way I dress?" Clearly, he must have said something to make me ask. I had been talking with Becky Harlan, one of the only girls shorter than I was when I posed the question. George, bless him, answered honestly. "Ganzer, look at you. You wear tie hush puppies shoes, white socks, you button your top shirt button, your shirt collars don't have buttons, and your pants are funny."
George is the only high school friend I've had any regular contact with over the years. And I really did appreciate his honesty, because a quick survey of the situation revealed that the "dress code" amongst the cool guys consisted of: burgundy penny loafers, dark colored wool socks, tight-fitting Levi jeans -black, burgundy or light blue, that ended about six inches above the ankle, and button down collar shirts always of a single color - pink, light blue or yellow. Yes, I saw it all, and knew that I had to go to my savings account and make a big withdrawal, in order that I should be able to dress the part.
Here's the thing about high school, at least the high school I went to, or maybe it's just about high school kids. In that moment of atomic insight, I made a vow to myself, that one day, when I was done with high school, I would dress however I wanted, I would not let myself be ruled by the fashion dictates of "the in crowd."
But, of course, that was not a decision I was neither strong enough nor brave enough to make in the face of my peers and contemporaries. And if there is one thing that THIS high school kid wanted to do, it was to fit in. To fit in here. In Barrington.
Get a horse.
Hell, we GOT a horse. My sister has dreamed horses since she was in the womb. And my father tried to do one pretty nice "big thing" for all of his children. For me, it was the gift of his time. First born sons have that advantage. He'd walk me around the block talking mathematics to me, he'd talk about positive numbers, and negative numbers. At least this is the story he told me. And then the day I asked him, "But dad, isn't zero a number too?" he decided we didn't need to talk about numbers any more.
But when we moved here, to horse country, my folks decided that my sister Gay should be able to have a horse, PROVIDED ... that dad could ride it. She was so excited. Dad tells the story that, had it been Gay's decision, they would have bought ever horse they looked at, on the spot. Nope. Dad made her wait, he had his principles, and he was not going to back down here. Besides, he well knew that horses could be dangerous animals. Then they found Sputnik. That was the horse for Gay, and for dad too, because Sputnik was smart enough to know how much my sister would love him, and care for him, and how important it was that he make the decision as easy as possible. I think Sputnik was 8 when we bought him, and 32 when he had to be put down. I swear, the last five years of his life were lived on my sister's love alone.
Sometimes, love alone is enough.
And then, other times, not even love can get through.
The first Barrington High School suicide I remember might not count, because the young man had graduated and gone to college. He returned, early to the front lawn of the high school in the fall and shot himself there. He had been the president of the National Honor Society and Captain of the Golf team, and was a very attractive young man. Heather W., my then girl friend told me about it. She and he had been classmates. I didn't know enough then. I asked myself, "What kind of statement is that?" I didn't understand how the fog of depression can surround you, overtake you, overpower you, to do its ultimate bidding.
Another suicide I became aware of involved the son of one of the members I sometimes caddied for at the Jack Nicklaus gated community & private country club. The man always seemed distant, barely bearing the loss a few years later. It was a hanging. The family sold the house, and bought another one, some gated community, same private country club.
I'm 59 years old now. Have attended none of my high school reunions. Didn't even attend the 10th when I had for all outward appearances a very successful career. Nor the 25th for which I had let my hair grow long for about two years, because dammit, I might not have then had a job, or money, or a wife, or home, but by God, I had my hair. Well, at least I considered that one. But I didn't go. Because there is something, something that makes me either afraid or ashamed, or both.
These demons too must one day be faced.
Or not.
After our first year here, dad got an offer to teach mathematics and coach wrestling at Waukegan High School. The story is told that I was the only one to say, "No. Please. I don't want to move again." And this sealed the deal. We would stay. Other times, perhaps kids go from the specific to the general in the blink of an eye. And maybe that is why they seemed trapped, with only one way out.
Sometimes, not even love can get through.
Some more about Barrington, ILL: 7th wealthiest zip code in the country among areas with populations of 20,000 or more.
Got a flavor of that back when my folks were doing house-hunting up here back in the summer of 1964. Dad had accepted a job in the math department working for Grace Wandke, the math department head, with whom he had met while doing post-graduate work at Purdue. At that time, Barrington (a unit school district - which means the high school and the grade school teacher salaries were on the same scale) had a merit pay system. Dad came here for the same base salary he was making at Streator Community High School. Very shortly he learned what "merit pay" meant, back in the day. "Merit pay" meant that when his department head told him to take lunch supervision duty, he had to do. "Merit pay" meant that when told to take study hall, he had to. In Streator, where he had been involved in unionizing the teachers back in the early 50's, lunch supervision and study hall had been negotiated to be extra duties, above and beyond teaching, and therefore, duties for which compensation was paid. But the teachers here did not have a union then. And they had all been admonished to not talk amongst each other about what salaries they made.
Mom returned from one of the house-hunting adventures and related this story to us. They had been driving deliberately around Barrington looking at houses for sale, when one of the local children called out, "Get a horse." Mom that it was the funniest thing. I didn't, for in that moment of her story-telling, I realized we were going to be poor. Because the point of most things is not lost on children. Mom tells the story of how, after we bought a house and got settled, when our family used to go out in the car to drive somewhere, I would hide on the floor in the back seat. The shame of it, oh, the shame.
One day after we'd lived here more than a year, I asked my friend, fellow caddie, and freshman basketball teammate George Harris, "What's wrong with the way I dress?" Clearly, he must have said something to make me ask. I had been talking with Becky Harlan, one of the only girls shorter than I was when I posed the question. George, bless him, answered honestly. "Ganzer, look at you. You wear tie hush puppies shoes, white socks, you button your top shirt button, your shirt collars don't have buttons, and your pants are funny."
George is the only high school friend I've had any regular contact with over the years. And I really did appreciate his honesty, because a quick survey of the situation revealed that the "dress code" amongst the cool guys consisted of: burgundy penny loafers, dark colored wool socks, tight-fitting Levi jeans -black, burgundy or light blue, that ended about six inches above the ankle, and button down collar shirts always of a single color - pink, light blue or yellow. Yes, I saw it all, and knew that I had to go to my savings account and make a big withdrawal, in order that I should be able to dress the part.
Here's the thing about high school, at least the high school I went to, or maybe it's just about high school kids. In that moment of atomic insight, I made a vow to myself, that one day, when I was done with high school, I would dress however I wanted, I would not let myself be ruled by the fashion dictates of "the in crowd."
But, of course, that was not a decision I was neither strong enough nor brave enough to make in the face of my peers and contemporaries. And if there is one thing that THIS high school kid wanted to do, it was to fit in. To fit in here. In Barrington.
Get a horse.
Hell, we GOT a horse. My sister has dreamed horses since she was in the womb. And my father tried to do one pretty nice "big thing" for all of his children. For me, it was the gift of his time. First born sons have that advantage. He'd walk me around the block talking mathematics to me, he'd talk about positive numbers, and negative numbers. At least this is the story he told me. And then the day I asked him, "But dad, isn't zero a number too?" he decided we didn't need to talk about numbers any more.
But when we moved here, to horse country, my folks decided that my sister Gay should be able to have a horse, PROVIDED ... that dad could ride it. She was so excited. Dad tells the story that, had it been Gay's decision, they would have bought ever horse they looked at, on the spot. Nope. Dad made her wait, he had his principles, and he was not going to back down here. Besides, he well knew that horses could be dangerous animals. Then they found Sputnik. That was the horse for Gay, and for dad too, because Sputnik was smart enough to know how much my sister would love him, and care for him, and how important it was that he make the decision as easy as possible. I think Sputnik was 8 when we bought him, and 32 when he had to be put down. I swear, the last five years of his life were lived on my sister's love alone.
Sometimes, love alone is enough.
And then, other times, not even love can get through.
The first Barrington High School suicide I remember might not count, because the young man had graduated and gone to college. He returned, early to the front lawn of the high school in the fall and shot himself there. He had been the president of the National Honor Society and Captain of the Golf team, and was a very attractive young man. Heather W., my then girl friend told me about it. She and he had been classmates. I didn't know enough then. I asked myself, "What kind of statement is that?" I didn't understand how the fog of depression can surround you, overtake you, overpower you, to do its ultimate bidding.
Another suicide I became aware of involved the son of one of the members I sometimes caddied for at the Jack Nicklaus gated community & private country club. The man always seemed distant, barely bearing the loss a few years later. It was a hanging. The family sold the house, and bought another one, some gated community, same private country club.
I'm 59 years old now. Have attended none of my high school reunions. Didn't even attend the 10th when I had for all outward appearances a very successful career. Nor the 25th for which I had let my hair grow long for about two years, because dammit, I might not have then had a job, or money, or a wife, or home, but by God, I had my hair. Well, at least I considered that one. But I didn't go. Because there is something, something that makes me either afraid or ashamed, or both.
These demons too must one day be faced.
Or not.
After our first year here, dad got an offer to teach mathematics and coach wrestling at Waukegan High School. The story is told that I was the only one to say, "No. Please. I don't want to move again." And this sealed the deal. We would stay. Other times, perhaps kids go from the specific to the general in the blink of an eye. And maybe that is why they seemed trapped, with only one way out.
Sometimes, not even love can get through.
In my little town
I grew up believ--ing
God keeps his eye on us all
And he used to lean upon me
As I pledged allegiance to the wall
Lord I recall
My little town
Coming home after school
Flying my bike past the gates
Of the factories
My mom doing the laundry
Hanging our shirts
In the dirty breeze
And after it rains
There's a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It's not that the colors aren't there
It's just imagin-ation they lack
Everything's the same
Back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town
In my little town
I never meant nothin'
I was just my fathers son
Saving my money
Dreaming of glory
Twitching like a finger
On the trigger of a gun
Leaving nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town
Repeat and fade:
Nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town
Suicides - in Greenland & in Barrington, Illiiois
This article about suicide in Greenland by Al-Jazeera blogger Nazanine Moshiri caught my eye
About a year ago, Slate published an article about Greenland's suicides:
Slate notes that suicide is a relatively recent phenomenon:
Neither article speculated that this might have an impact on how these young people might view the future of their world, an a life that was stolen from them circa 1950, as incredibly bleak:
So what does all this have to do with Barrington Illinois, the village where I live?
In the past three years, six Barrington Consolidated High School students have committed suicide. With an enrollment of about 3,000 students, that is the equivalent of about 67 suicides per 100,000 population. And that might very well be something the school board would want to take seriously.
Julianna, my dentist, chalked it up to a bunch of spoiled rich kids with too much time on their hands. I beg to differ.
One needs to be very depressed to contemplate suicide. Very depressed. Their life must appear hopeless, their future bleak, and this hopelessness and bleakness looms emminently on the horizon.
This I know, for I once tried suicide, in those woods that I now so love to walk, with a knife to cut my jugular. The knife was dull, and more likely, there was enough of a spark, enough of a hope, that I couldn't go through with it. That was 1986. Later, and not all that long ago, really, I contemplated suicide by train - standing in the tracks to be run down. But I decided that was an unfair thing to do to the engineer.
Damn, but I've come a long way in the past three years, since I dropped off my manic-high chair like an anchor tossed from a ship.
Until you've been swallowed up in that suffocating black fog that works to convince you that the only solution is to end it all, you do not have the right to sit in judgment. Your are not part of the peer group. And you ought to get down on your knees and offer sincere prayers of thankfulness to the One who made you, and allowed you to find circumstances in your life that permitted you to ward off that evil that can permeate you mind, body, and soul.
Greenland has the ignominious title of being the suicide capital of the world. On the largest island that isn't a continent, and the least densely populated dependent country in the world, the government says 1 in 5 people have tried to kill themselves, while other research claims 1 in 4.Note: 89% of Greenland's population is Inuit Indian.
The simple white wooden crosses that dot the landscape are a stark reminder that many of those people have succeeded.
...
Most of the victims are teenagers, more than half of them boys aged 15 to 19.
...
"It's difficult to verbalise how [the Inuit people] feel, they find it hard to explain why they are sad, or angry. They keep it inside them and carry it around for a long time. That's one of the explanations for the suicide.
"But also, that they aren't being offered therapy or psychological help...
Some also blame the rapid modernisation of this traditional Inuit community for what's happening. Greenland became a part of the Kingdom of Denmark in 1953.
The Danes brought with them the infamous G60 policy – when many Inuit communities were resettled in soviet style apartment blocks. Fishing and hunting people who had lived off the land for thousands of years were plunged into a town life they could not adapt to. More than half a century on, the deep social problems created by that doomed policy still exist today.
Some connect the alcoholism that came in this period to the high suicide rate. The dark winters have been dismissed as a reason for suicide, as the rates actually seem to be higher during the summer, when you have the midnight sun and people can't sleep.
...
There is no doubt that there is more awareness of the issue, and more government campaigns as well as a special suicide prevention helpline. That is why experts are baffled and extremely concerned about a recent rise in suicides, 42 so far in 2010, which is around one death a week.
About a year ago, Slate published an article about Greenland's suicides:
Greenland is the country with the world's highest suicide rate. The rate here is 24 times that seen in the United States. Even Japan—a nation with a well-documented suicide epidemic—has an annual rate of only about 51 people per 100,000 inhabitants. Greenland's is 100 per 100,000.
... the majority of Greenlanders who kill themselves are teenagers and young adults. (In most other countries, the elderly dominate suicide statistics.) Young men here are especially prone to an early exit and account for more than half of all suicides, although the girls hold their own. In a 2008 survey, one in four young women in Greenland admitted to trying to kill herself.
Slate notes that suicide is a relatively recent phenomenon:
... for the first half of the 20th century, Greenlanders lived much as they had for the previous 4,000 years: They hunted and fished, clustering in small, remote villages that hug the rocky coastline. They also boasted a suicide rate among the world's lowest. One Danish analysis found that from 1900 to 1930, Greenland had an annual suicide rate of just 0.3 people per 100,000. And "as late as 1960 there was still the occasional year when there were no recorded suicides by Greenlanders," reports Jack Hicks, a Canadian expert on suicide in the arctic region.
...
One reason for Greenland's high suicide rate is that people are particularly proficient at the act, employing methods that leave little chance for survival. Shootings and hangings account for 91 percent of male suicides and 70 percent of female suicides. (Almost every Greenland home has at least one rifle for the annual caribou and musk-ox hunts. Of course, any rope, fishing net, or electric cord can be fashioned into a noose, which in the Greenlandic language is called "our Lord's lasso.")
...
Peter Bjerregaard from Denmark's National Institute of Public Health has noted that while Greenland's suicide problem began in 1970, almost all the deaths involved people born after 1950—the same year that Greenland began its transformation from remote colony to welfare state, as the Danes resettled residents to give them modern services and tuberculosis inoculations. Hicks, the Canadian researcher, said the correlation is present in other Inuit societies as well.
"It happened first in Alaska, then Greenland, and finally in Canada's Eastern Arctic," he told me. "It's not the people who were coerced into the communities as adults who began to exhibit elevated rates of suicidal behavior—it was their children, the first generation to grow up in the towns."
...
... most people kill themselves in summer, according to a trio of Scandinavian and U.S. scientists who analyzed Greenland's mortality data from 1968 to 2002.
The researchers theorize that the brief and bright summer sun disrupts winter sleep cycles, alters serotonin levels, and causes some Greenlanders to snap, especially those in the far north, where the sun stays above the horizon for weeks on end.
"It's sort of impulsive self-violence that is different from the melancholic winter suicides, which are more associated with [seasonal affective disorder] and depression," said Daniel F. Kripke of California's Scripps Clinic Sleep Center, one of the researchers.
Neither article speculated that this might have an impact on how these young people might view the future of their world, an a life that was stolen from them circa 1950, as incredibly bleak:
Scientists in Greenland have told Al Jazeera that an ice sheet that covers 80 per cent of the territory is shrinking much faster than expected.
In recent months, unusually large chunks of ice have broken off its glaciers - one of them four times the size of the US city of Manhattan. Some experts are worried this increasing rate of melting could raise sea levels across the globe.
So what does all this have to do with Barrington Illinois, the village where I live?
In the past three years, six Barrington Consolidated High School students have committed suicide. With an enrollment of about 3,000 students, that is the equivalent of about 67 suicides per 100,000 population. And that might very well be something the school board would want to take seriously.
Julianna, my dentist, chalked it up to a bunch of spoiled rich kids with too much time on their hands. I beg to differ.
One needs to be very depressed to contemplate suicide. Very depressed. Their life must appear hopeless, their future bleak, and this hopelessness and bleakness looms emminently on the horizon.
This I know, for I once tried suicide, in those woods that I now so love to walk, with a knife to cut my jugular. The knife was dull, and more likely, there was enough of a spark, enough of a hope, that I couldn't go through with it. That was 1986. Later, and not all that long ago, really, I contemplated suicide by train - standing in the tracks to be run down. But I decided that was an unfair thing to do to the engineer.
Damn, but I've come a long way in the past three years, since I dropped off my manic-high chair like an anchor tossed from a ship.
Until you've been swallowed up in that suffocating black fog that works to convince you that the only solution is to end it all, you do not have the right to sit in judgment. Your are not part of the peer group. And you ought to get down on your knees and offer sincere prayers of thankfulness to the One who made you, and allowed you to find circumstances in your life that permitted you to ward off that evil that can permeate you mind, body, and soul.
Grant me compassion oh Lord, above all else
And humility, that I not dare to judge
That I not forget my own foibles
That I strive to give comfort at all times to those in discomfort
And thank You, for the many gifts you have given me
For drawing me back from the edge
When I looked into the abyss
And saw no other way out.
While you can, tell the people you love that you love them
I've spent hours at Rainbow Records here in town; hours spent venting, hours spent learning, hours spent talking and sharing with store-owner John Thominet, who coached my son, Adam James his first year in the major-minors little league system here.
At the store now, the Tuesday regulars always talk Chicago Bears football. They're all passionate about it. Me, I don't really get worked up about any sports any more. The grandest sports season of all for me was 1992, when I whiled the summer away watching Adam James play baseball for John; playing catch with him between innings of the games, practice pitching (badly) to him in the back yard.
Here's a Kodak moment from that 1992 season: I'm pitching to my 3' 10" son when out of the blue, I lose all control One pitch goes over his head. He blinks in shocked disbelief. The next pitch goes behind his back. Deliberately sets down the bat, turns to me, and says "nice" making an okay signal with his right hand, "pitch" making another okay signal with his left hand, his eyes opening wider in sarcastic sardonism. A greater put down than this, no man hath known. Yeah verily, in that moment, I fully understood, that my boy would grow to be a man; able to dish it out with delicious irony and wit, free form put down, stand-up improv, the kind of thing that guys just do -- fully cognizant on a gut level of all the not-so-nuanced subtleties that say, "Hey bozo, you messed up. Get some competence. Throw the damn ball across the plate already." But, unlike the father, the son can do it in two words, plus visuals. Hot damn! A succinct one.
But back to the record store. Corporate takeover. The wine store next door wanted to expand their operations, and knocking down the wall between the two businesses was their choice. The mall owner, seeing bigger bucks, offered to let John relocate down to what had formerly been the animal grooming shop. Jeez, Lew-eez! As if John was born a rube? No way, so John made a counter offer, and they compromised. John got an lease extension to the end of January, so the store will be in full operation for Christmas holidays. After that, John's going out to New Jersey, to be with his wife Jennifer.
I cannot begin to tell how much I will miss this man, who has put up with my nonsense, called me on my nonsense, endorsed me in some of my nonsense, and has never judged me, except to say, "I'm glad I don't have to carry that load that you've got on your shoulder."
His store is one of those treasures, a neighborhood enterprise that people of a certain persuasion find, and just keep coming back to, to linger, to listen, to browse, to be, to just kick it back, knowing that they are respected because they are part of that insane community of humanity that has compassion, that renders caring, kindness, snark and sarcasm, as the situation dictates -- he said Come on Come in I'll give you shelter from the storm.
I will miss you John. But I will always carry in my heart as treasure the hours you gave to me of your time, your honesty, your integrity, you.
I love you John. Thanks for all of it. Here's my prayer:
Oh Lord, please grant
That there be Karma on this earth
So that the good that Your good ones do
Shall feed them in their hour of hunger
Shall shelter them from the storms
Shall bind them safely unto their own
That they always know their own,
And their own shall know thee.
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