Freddogg Off The Chain

A retired school teacher walks into a neighborhood corner bar and the bartender says “the first one is on me just do me a favor and shut the freak up! I don’t want to hear about how much you have on your plate because this ain’t no Diner. I don’t want to hear “you are so busy now you don’t know how you ever had time for work?” You have grand children, so who cares, lots of people do, that doesn’t make you in the least bit unique. And kids today just aren’t as tough, you don’t say? Maybe it’s because leftist liberals like you teaching that process is more important than results created a culture where no one can be made fun of for stupid ideas based of a body of non existent facts.
‘Can you see a lunch menu? I don’t see why not unless you’re freaking blind. I’d like to recommend the number 5 which was my GPA in ninth grade before I dropped out.
Am I bitter? You want a club soda with a twist of lemon is that what you just ordered? My god, you teachers are even more boring outside of the classroom. Let me guess you used to drink every night and get up and go to work the next day. But now you just let that life go because you discovered sobriety all on your own. Well that’s pretty darn close to being almost interesting and inspiring.
Is that a 25 cent tip you are leaving me? What’s that you wrote on your napkin, “General Ed?” Who is General Ed? “

Traveling north on a crowded Route 1 last Thursday I saw a skinny black man by the side of the highway holding a sign”Music for a Song! Going Out of business. Everything 50 percent off!” The man was horizontal from the waist up resting his hand on top of his free arm. He was sound asleep.
Last Sunday inside the Eagles press box cafeteria and tall young black man in a hooded jacked took up an entire four person table. He was sitting in a chair but sprawled on the table sleeping, actually snoring. So what if 60 minutes of football takes three and a half hours?
Twenty five years ago I dropped three young black men I was supervising on a summer job off in the middle of a field to paint a small white block house. When I go back they were inside sleeping on shutters supported by saw horses. I got mad then one causally kicked an empty paint can on to the floor and they all said, “No paint, can’t paint, what do you want us to do, look busy like a white person who still ain’t doing nothing?”
Thirty years ago I dropped work study special student James off at his two hour custodial job at a restaurant. The owner came in at 9:30 and James was sleeping in a booth. The place was spotless James had cleaned it twice then napped waiting for me to pick him up.
Later that afternoon I began a round table discussion with my special workers on the concept of looking busy even when you're not. Suddenly they all fell out laughing because the other teacher-55 years old white guy-had fallen asleep at the table.
Thirty five years as a teacher I frequently walked into faculty rooms to the sight and sounds of teachers sleeping always men always on their backs with heads back and mouths open. I just thought it was wrong, you know, it’s not like they’re obstetricians on a 24 hour shift. It was their “planning period” and what they planned to do was sleep.
Personally I sleep so lightly and distrustfully that if a skinny cat walks across a soft carpet the noise pounds in my brain and I track his sounds and if he starts to scratch the mattress I scream and pounce snatching him by the scruff of the neck like a dissatisfied mother intent on eating him for the benefit of the greater good.
Sleeping in public is like sex in public, just a cultural taboo, no one wants to see it. But looking busy when you are not is just plain silly.
I’ve had the experience of having a student ask me a question then watching him fall asleep during my answer. I usually conclude it is drugs otherwise I just may be that boring.

A few years ago during halftime of a football game a young mother came up to me and asked,” is it true that you told your students that if they haven’t been arrested then they weren’t getting out much? What kind of message is that?”
“It simply means getting arrested is easy; that the branches of enforcement are tripping over each other to collar people and that teenagers are the easiest of targets from underage drinking to squealing tires after leaving a parking space.”
“And did you also tell them to never disrespect someone then just leave them standing there. That it is better to just follow through and kill them that way you know the person won’t go home and seethe before returning heavily armed on a mission to annihilate their entire family. What is the message there?”
The message is “don’t disrespect people especially if it involves the essence of whom they are whether that be student or a worker and never mess with a person inside their own family.”
Last week five students I know, all athletes or former athletes, were involved in a gun incident that involved actual shooting from a moving vehicle and shooting at a stationary vehicle.
The broader community has weighed in like a Jenny Craig encounter group using actual names and saying things like ‘where are the parents, what about the coaches and teachers”—did I mention dropping actual names?
Tens of thousands of innocent extended family members have had the experience of waking up one morning to a story that someone in their kinship matrix has been arrested for violating a cultural taboo or law. Families pull the protection circle in tightly because the community big guns will begin to fire like a pneumatic rifle that shoots ping-pong balls. What about offering help and support? Just a wild thought but the judicial system will kick into gear and teach many valuable lessons many of which will result in a temporary loss of freedoms and a permanent loss of opportunities.