GRAVES: Seeking community

Recently I had the melancholy experience of cleaning out the house of a relative who had passed away. Many of the possessions were actually easy to deal with, since one family member or another wanted them. But you can’t count on everything being so easy to address. Some things sit, beloved, but ultimately unwanted for one reason or another.
Such was the situation with the enormous oak table that dwelt in the recesses of the basement. Usually just a large nondescript square, during family gatherings it would extend out on each end to roughly three times its usual size, its round, carved legs more than sturdy enough to handle this monumental length without any sign of splaying. It was an incredibly functional piece of furniture which had seen a seemingly endless series of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter dinners. But only seemingly endless. For now time had caught up to it and it was needed no more. In fact, its size and its weight - both characteristics which had allowed it to serve the family so well - had now turned against it. It wouldn’t fit in the vehicles family members had available to them and, even if it had, it wouldn’t fit within their homes, in any case. And so it was advertised for sale on one of those web-based “trash and treasure” sites. Its antiquity and a very reasonable price combined to quickly produce a buyer. Being a sentimental sort, I had steeled myself for the exchange. The couple who came for it seemed very nice, and I shook their hands congenially. Then they asked if I would take less. Frankly, I didn’t really care. Ten bucks here or there didn’t matter much, and I wasn’t the recipient of the sale anyway. But, I hate to admit, it raised my hackles. As I looked at the darkly stained surface of the table, devoid of Thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas hams and Easter chocolates, cold and orphaned in the unheated garage, I wanted nothing more than to embrace it, to anthropomorphize it, to pull up a chair up to it and assure it I would not sell it to these pretenders, these Philistines who did not, could not understand what it had provided to the family over the years - a communal experience of family that repeatedly filled my belly to bursting with sumptuous repasts and my memory to overflowing with happier, more innocent, more populated times. In today’s world of smartphones and social media, we are increasingly connected to more and more people even as we are less and less intimate with any of them. (Not intimate in the prurient sense but rather in the sense of emotional closeness.) We are strangers in a crowded room, so crowded that we constantly bump up against others without knowing who any of them really are - like a subway ride in New York during rush hour. This modern trend has even infected education. As we seek to find more effective and efficient methods - and we absolutely should do so - sometimes the unintended consequence is a lack of the social interaction we treasure, a dearth of the communal experiences that make us feel like a part of something bigger than ourselves. Last Friday, however, I can tell you that the elementary-aged children of the Mitchell School District shared one of those experiences in a boisterous gathering for Christmas carols. With the classroom Christmas parties and gift exchanges completed, at the very end of the school day in most cases, the children throughout the school gathered in their respective commons and, led usually by the music teacher, belted out a stream of kid-beloved Christmas songs at decibel levels which rivaled the combined pealing of all the bells in Christendom. Kindergartners and fifth-graders - and all the grades in between - joined with their teachers and paras and custodians and kitchen staff and secretaries and principal (and in one building even the superintendent) in a communal sharing of a cultural deposit known by all. Based on the smiles that broke over those lustily singing voices, it meant more than just a fun 20 minutes to the children present. It was an occasion of relating to others, of sharing with others, of being part of a larger group of friends and people, an experience of “we-ness” in a culture more and more exemplified by “me-hood.” Speaking as someone who is constantly insisting on the intensive, efficient use of instructional time, on keeping our focus on student achievement and academic learning, on making every effort to use every smidgen of time we have available to us (for time is, of course, both the stuff that makes up life but also the stuff that makes up a school year), I must also admit that the communal experiences of childhood and school are still relevant, are still meaningful. Last Friday’s choral fest was one of those, one of the better ones. And if my heart didn’t grow three sizes that day, well, I can at least admit that all the Who’s down in Whoville (and LBW, GBR and Longfellow) will probably long remember the times when their whole school gathered to sing and relish a shared joy.Recently I had the melancholy experience of cleaning out the house of a relative who had passed away. Many of the possessions were actually easy to deal with, since one family member or another wanted them. But you can’t count on everything being so easy to address. Some things sit, beloved, but ultimately unwanted for one reason or another.
Such was the situation with the enormous oak table that dwelt in the recesses of the basement. Usually just a large nondescript square, during family gatherings it would extend out on each end to roughly three times its usual size, its round, carved legs more than sturdy enough to handle this monumental length without any sign of splaying. It was an incredibly functional piece of furniture which had seen a seemingly endless series of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter dinners. But only seemingly endless. For now time had caught up to it and it was needed no more. In fact, its size and its weight - both characteristics which had allowed it to serve the family so well - had now turned against it. It wouldn’t fit in the vehicles family members had available to them and, even if it had, it wouldn’t fit within their homes, in any case.And so it was advertised for sale on one of those web-based “trash and treasure” sites. Its antiquity and a very reasonable price combined to quickly produce a buyer. Being a sentimental sort, I had steeled myself for the exchange. The couple who came for it seemed very nice, and I shook their hands congenially. Then they asked if I would take less. Frankly, I didn’t really care. Ten bucks here or there didn’t matter much, and I wasn’t the recipient of the sale anyway. But, I hate to admit, it raised my hackles.As I looked at the darkly stained surface of the table, devoid of Thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas hams and Easter chocolates, cold and orphaned in the unheated garage, I wanted nothing more than to embrace it, to anthropomorphize it, to pull up a chair up to it and assure it I would not sell it to these pretenders, these Philistines who did not, could not understand what it had provided to the family over the years - a communal experience of family that repeatedly filled my belly to bursting with sumptuous repasts and my memory to overflowing with happier, more innocent, more populated times.In today’s world of smartphones and social media, we are increasingly connected to more and more people even as we are less and less intimate with any of them. (Not intimate in the prurient sense but rather in the sense of emotional closeness.) We are strangers in a crowded room, so crowded that we constantly bump up against others without knowing who any of them really are - like a subway ride in New York during rush hour.This modern trend has even infected education. As we seek to find more effective and efficient methods - and we absolutely should do so - sometimes the unintended consequence is a lack of the social interaction we treasure, a dearth of the communal experiences that make us feel like a part of something bigger than ourselves.Last Friday, however, I can tell you that the elementary-aged children of the Mitchell School District shared one of those experiences in a boisterous gathering for Christmas carols. With the classroom Christmas parties and gift exchanges completed, at the very end of the school day in most cases, the children throughout the school gathered in their respective commons and, led usually by the music teacher, belted out a stream of kid-beloved Christmas songs at decibel levels which rivaled the combined pealing of all the bells in Christendom. Kindergartners and fifth-graders - and all the grades in between - joined with their teachers and paras and custodians and kitchen staff and secretaries and principal (and in one building even the superintendent) in a communal sharing of a cultural deposit known by all. Based on the smiles that broke over those lustily singing voices, it meant more than just a fun 20 minutes to the children present. It was an occasion of relating to others, of sharing with others, of being part of a larger group of friends and people, an experience of “we-ness” in a culture more and more exemplified by “me-hood.”Speaking as someone who is constantly insisting on the intensive, efficient use of instructional time, on keeping our focus on student achievement and academic learning, on making every effort to use every smidgen of time we have available to us (for time is, of course, both the stuff that makes up life but also the stuff that makes up a school year), I must also admit that the communal experiences of childhood and school are still relevant, are still meaningful. Last Friday’s choral fest was one of those, one of the better ones. And if my heart didn’t grow three sizes that day, well, I can at least admit that all the Who’s down in Whoville (and LBW, GBR and Longfellow) will probably long remember the times when their whole school gathered to sing and relish a shared joy.