THUMP! -- it sounded like something had landed on the roof. For a moment I imagined a migrating goose falling out of the clear sky, succumbing to the sub-zero chill, then dismissed the thought. A quick walkaround revealed no clues. Strange.
I returned to my desk, puzzled. Five minutes later...
POP! POP! -- two gunshots, right outside. As I rolled my chair away from the window and shifted my mindset toward defense, the sleepy-eyed homebound teenager shuffled into the room.
"Did you see that?" he asked.
A car had struck a deer on the road in front of our house, and the thump we'd heard apparently was the echo of bumper on bone. The two shots were fired by a village police officer, putting the badly injured creature out of its misery. The 17-year-old had watched the scene from his bedroom window.
Life in rural suburbia. You just never know.
* * *
Our younger spawn won't be back in school 'til Thursday, owing to a three-day suspension -- for fighting.
We've taught the spawns to walk away rather than engage in a physical confrontation. They've both been trained in hand-to-hand defense, mind you, but we've always emphasized that the goal is not to fight, but to win -- and that winning almost always happens outside the fight.
Yesterday after school, according to an adult witness, the 13-year-old was taunted and then punched by a classmate. He retaliated with a headlock and two body blows, ultimately prompting the instigator to flee the scene.
What happened next surprised the hell out of me -- our spawn picked himself up, dusted himself off and marched into the school office to report what had happened, knowing full well that he'd be assessed an automatic three-day suspension. He acted responsibly and told the truth, and that's commendable.
My wife and I are somewhat conflicted about the incident. We're unapologetically proud that the youngster stood up for himself -- in a society bent on pussifying an entire generation, we'll never condemn our spawns for defending themselves.
Based on what we know, however, our spawn didn't defend himself -- he retaliated, and that's something entirely different. He had all the skills he needed for self-defense but made another choice, an undisciplined one. For that reason, and in addition to the suspension, we'll ground him for a couple of weeks.
To do otherwise would be inconsistent with our previous guidance to him and could cultivate disrespect for the school's authority. Mrs. KintlaLake and I support that authority even though we recoil from the whole mass-pussification thing.
So we'll walk a fine line between discipline and affirmation -- both of which, as we see it, he deserves.
Parenting is more art than science, isn't it?
* * *
Over the course of the week, I spent a lot of time culling and editing photos from last Saturday night's concert. I ended up with about 700MB of image files -- too beefy to e-mail, so I decided to hand-deliver a CD, a contact sheet and a few prints. That gave Mrs. KintlaLake and me a good excuse to catch John Schwab and Mike Nugen last night at Cementos, a North End joint.
In sharp contrast to the relatively cavernous venue that had hosted Zachariah's Red-Eye Reunion six days earlier, Cementos is a cramped bar with a floor-level "stage" not much bigger than a dining-room table. The Reunion crowd of 2,000 was replaced by a hundred or so attentive patrons, two dozen players by just two.
Small as it is, Cementos has inherited some of the spirit I remember from the original Zach's. It's not unusual to see many well-known local musicians in the crowd, and such was the case last night.
Nugen, a brilliant guitarist who drove north from Florida to play this year's Reunion, released an album, "Ain't Live Funny," with Schwab back in 1994. The Cementos gig was a playful, extended encore of that concert, showcasing the pair's remarkable personal and musical chemistry, especially on their signature "Crack of Dawn" and a cover of Bob Seger's "Turn the Page."
Most striking, at least to me, was the knowledge that until a week ago, John and Mike hadn't played together in over a year. It was like no time had passed -- truly special.John, by the way, had nothing but praise for my photos of the Reunion, and I can't begin to express how gratifying that is. The probability of more work, at a time when I need work, is welcome, to say the least.
Life continues to swirl around us, and not all of it is pleasant, but this was one great week.
