November 23, 1978

Thanksgiving is like the two-minute warning in football. Time-out is called, the players and coaches are informed the game's end is near, and then the action continues with hasty zeal. Such is Thanksgiving.
It is a brief time-out when we slow down, assess the preceeding months, and ponder the remaining five weeks of the year.
The weather has changed quickly; days are now cold and short, the brightness that was summer is gone, replaced with first a colorful splash of autumn and then the grey of winter. Change is all around. We have new politicians, new coats, new tires. Talk is of football and basketball instead of baseball. Christmas lists are beginning to fill in. We are building quickly toward the culmination of another year.
Then, in the midst of all that change, we are presented with a soothing tradition-Thanksgiving. A day that has not really changed in the last 100 years. Oh, we do require turkey now instead of chicken. And instead of going down into the basement for embellishments we just open a can. We watch television now when the dinner is complete instead of pitching horseshoes in the yard. But the most important thing about Thanksgiving has remained unaltered-the family is still the heart and soul of the celebration.
Norman Rockwell, who will be keenly missed this holiday season, captured the essence of the day in his precise painting of the Thanksgiving table; a family of young and old line the table with knowing winds and expectant smiles, while at the center is the smoking, juicy turkey. The picture radiates warmth, comfort, and love; the feelings of Thanksgiving.
The timing of Thanksgiving is one of its finest elements. (Would turkey and dressing taste the same in July?) It comes after the hardest work of the year is over, and just before we are confronted with the chaos of Christmas and New Year.
It is the two-minute warning of the year; the calming time-out.
Yet, it is also a notice that time does continue to slip by. A subtle reminder that we are all getting older. A mention that the game is yet to be finished.... ~T.Stucky

November 22, 1984

“But just for a moment now we’re all together, Mama, just for a moment let’s be happy. Let’s look at one another. It goes so fast.”
The words are Emily’s in Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town.” The sentiments are universal.
Emily is talking of childhood, of family, of life. Before we can hold it, examine it, and love it as we should, it slips from us. We never seem to appreciate what we have until it’s gone.
Home is that magical, mystical, terrible place where most of our life passes. “Home,” wrote Robert Frost, “is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” It is the place we “somehow haven’t to deserve.”
Home is where life is capsulized. It is the place where hallmarks are preserved—those pencil marks on the wall measuring the growth of children, the family album with the important photographs, the box of mementos in the closet. Home is the secret place where the Christmas presents are hid.
Home is where little girls dress up in mom’s old clothes and cover their faces with makeup. It’s where boys toss baseballs through windows. Home is also where children suddenly grow too big to sit on dad’s lap. It’s where they outgrow Halloween and the Easter Bunny. Home is where the true identity of Santa Claus is revealed.
Home is for laughter. The delight of first steps, the chuckles of last laughs, the snickers of sisters and the giggles of brothers fill the home with the best of life.
Home is also raised voices and silent quarrels. It’s where the phone rings in the middle of the night to tell of a relative’s death. Home is where you go to cry.
But we are so close to home, so caught up in life, that we can’t see it clearly. We treat our days like habits. The joys come, the sorrows follow. First New Year, then July 4th, then Christmas. The field must be worked, the deadline must be met, the dishes must be washed, the dog must be fed. And we do work the field and we meet the deadline and we wash the dishes and feed the dog. The machinery continues to rumble on. And only when it rumbles past do we catch a glimpse of what we have lost.
“It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Oh earth, you’re too wonderful for anyone to realize.” The words are Wilder’s, the thoughts are everyone’s.
Yet, there is one time of year we have granted ourselves a breathtaking. Thanksgiving is the ideal holiday at the perfect time of year. The year’s work is winding down, the chaos of Christmas is weeks away, the cool days beckon for a slower pace. Thanksgiving is the holiday for reflection—for assessing our accomplishments, for setting our goals, for looking at each other, for checking the marks in the hall, for adding new photos to the album, for holding children close.
Thanksgiving is a time for stopping for a moment and being happy with what we have. Tomorrow new marks may be added in the hall, the phone may ring in the night, a joy may be lost.
But we have today. It may go fast and we may not deserve it, but we can realize it if only we will take the time to look at each other…. ~T.Stucky

November 20, 1986

How many times while sitting in algebra class did you ask yourself why in the world you were there? The obvious response was that you had to pass algebra to get out of high school. But the obvious response didn't come close to answering the larger question.
How is the quality of life improved by knowing how to solve the unknowns in an algebraic equation? The question has been asked by struggling students since the days of Socrates. ("oh, come on, Socrates! Couldn't you just tell us another nice allegory about a cave rather than make us solve this equation?)
Similar questions about the merits of English class, geography class and even beginning math class are given prompt and satisfying replies. We will always, even in our adult stage, have a need for speaking properly. We will always, even in advancing age, need to know which way is up.
But do we really need to know how to solve for x in the equation 4x+c=a-(x+3)? Understanding the rudiments of logic, we were told back in high school, will prove of great worth in the theatre of life. We responded by saying every theatre we had ever been in posted the price of popcorn in dollars and cents, not x's and a's.
So then the teacher, who must have long ago discovered teaching algebra was easier than justifying it, said algebra was something that would come in handy when we were older, regardless of what our occupation would be. The only kid in the class who knew what he wanted to be when he grew up (a nuclear physicist) nodded his head in agreement. The rest of us had no inkling what our future held, but we knew if it held algebra we would cling tenaciously to the past.
We kept asking throughout the year, as the equations got more and more complicated, what the point of all this figuring was. Often we asked the question when papers were returned covered with more red ink than the federal deficit. The response, from a teacher weary of responding, was simply a silent glare.
We stumbled through the course, passed narrowly, and graduated into the real world. As the years went by our journey toward being grown up was haunted by the thought that sooner or later we would be forced to solve an algebraic equation, we would have to use advanced mathematical logic. Like some ghost concocted of x's, a's and b's, it loomed over our path.
But it never came down. We went from this job to that, experienced these and those, went hither and yon, and not once were we asked to be logical, not once did we have to solve for x. We kept expecting the worst and it never came. That fear, instilled when we were impressionable youths, we decided was merely a mean-spirited ploy of an algebra teacher intent on making us complete our homework. The answer to "Why am I in algebra class" we concluded was "For no reason at all."
Or so we thought.
Last week the tallest of the short people came home from school with an innocent looking piece of paper. At the top was mimeographed "A real world problem." Below was printed.
"A certain breed of cow has the following characteristics: at the age of 3, and every year thereafter, it gives birth to a new female; each of these goes through the same cycle. Now, disregarding males and deaths, how many cows would there be in the herd after 20 years if a farmer started with one such animal at birth?"
There it was! The ghost we thought we had dispelled. Brought to us on a white piece of paper by our first born!
"Can you help me with this?" she asked, knowing from experience that we would.
We read the question, shrugged our shoulders, handed it back to her and walked away, shoulders down. She stood there in painful disbelief, looking like a child who has just had her fingers inadvertently slammed in a door by a parent.
In that look the answer to the eternal question of why we take algebra class was revealed.... ~T.Stucky

November 2, 1989

(Offered without apology to Robert Fulghum but with apologies to school teachers everywhere.)

Everything I really needed to know I learned the first day of Little League practice.
* Prepare for life with the proper equipment. If you're going to be a first baseman, get a first baseman's glove. If you're going to be an outfielder, get yourself an outfielder's glove, and if you want to be a catcher make sure all your important parts are adequately protected.
* It's all right if teammates slap you on the butt.
* If the opposing pitcher throws the ball at your head, duck.
* Be pleasant to umpires; they hold a ball/strike counter in one hand, and your fate in the other.
* Smile at your parents in the bleachers; they are the only ones who won't hate you if you strike out with the bases loaded.
* Never strike out with the bases loaded. Even parents can take only so much.
* Keep your eye on the ball at all times. A line drive to the nose can ruin an otherwise good day and spoil your chances to be a television newscaster.
* Sometimes the best team doesn't win.
* If you hit the ball, run. If you miss, try again.
* Use excuses (The sun got in my eyes. It took a bad bounce. The wind must have caught it.) as seldom as possible.
* When you win, shake the other teams' hands. When you lose, shake the other team's hands.
* If you get hit by a hard grounder, throw the runner out before crying.
* If you hit a home run, make sure your mother is watching.
* Coaches think they know everything' humor them by pretending they do.
* Backup your teammates.
* Even if you are scared senseless, step into the batter's box confidently. Everybody's scared, some just don't show it.
* Don't chatter. If you have something important to say, speak, clearly and loudly.
* Don't laugh at your teammates' mistakes. Your mistakes will come and teammates have long memories.
* Make sure your hat is on straight.
* If you hit a home run, smile to yourself. If someone else hits a home run, smile to them.
* If you are at bat in the bottom of the last inning with the score tied and a runner at third, remember this: we reside on a small planet on the inner edge of a galaxy which is one hundred thousand light years across-one of some hundred thousand million known galaxies. ~T.Stucky