Try rooting for the whole team

From today's Briefing:

A sign of parental growth: You watch a performance or a game without nonstop laser focus on your own child.

If you’ve achieved this feat with 100 percent accuracy, I congratulate you. Perhaps you can share your secret with the rest of us. I’ve been parenting for more than 16 years, and it’s a skill I’m still working toward.

Soccer games, musicals, band concerts. It’s all the same. Yes, I’m happy that my child is part of a group, and yes, isn’t it great they’re all working together so well, but where can I sit to get the best photo and/or video of my child?

For the first two years of Cooper’s marching band career, I knew on precisely which yard-line he would begin and end each movement of the show. After watching so many rehearsals, halftimes and competitions, I could easily discern if he was in synch with his line or if there was a tiny misstep.

What were all the other kids doing? I was a little fuzzy on the details.

This year has been different. I know that Cooper begins the show way in the back, just in front of a sousaphone. (He’s the tallest kid out there, so he’s easy to find.) I know that at some point he and his clarinet end up on the opposite side of the field, in front. There’s a whole lot of marching and playing in between, but I don’t track his every move.

Instead, I’ve been focused on the big picture and details not necessarily related to my child. 

I’m listening more purposefully to the music. I’m mesmerized by the color guard flags. I watch with fascination as the whole group of about 120 teenagers creates precise images on the field.

This year I’m a bigger fan of the whole band.

And, oh, these kids have earned their fan base. They give up a month of summer break to prep for the fall. They practice together eight hours a week outside of school hours, arriving by 6:45 a.m. most weekdays and staying until 7 or 8:30 p.m. one night a week. (There always seems to be a bigger pile of homework on late practice nights.)

They provide the soundtrack to football games. They entertain at halftime. They spend most Saturdays in October in a stadium far from home, prepping and waiting to compete – and then waiting to hear contest results.

Every one of those kids deserves admiration – not only for their individual contributions but for their willingness and ability to work as a cohesive unit.

Today as I’m watching our band perform at the UIL area marching competition, I’ll check for Cooper in the back, smile and wave in his direction (though he’ll have no idea where I am) and settle in for the big show.

I’ll watch for Brian and Madison, Jonathan and Sruthi, Ethan and Jill, Kenneth and Malini. I’ll take a couple of photos of the whole field, not bothering to zoom in on Cooper or anyone else. This is a team effort, and I’m rooting for the whole team, including but not limited to my own child.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. You can reach her at tyradamm@gmail.com.

How I spent my summer break ...

One of my projects this summer was reporting and writing for construction magazines:

• Bremik Construction: Midsized firm grows with Portland
• Coastal Quality Construction: Banking on trust and transparency

We all have work to do

A year ago I wrote about raising children to protect their bodies and to respect the bodies that belong to every other living soul. The conversation was forced, as they often are, by current events. Here we are again, discussing as a nation the same story, just a different man in a powerful position taking advantage of women with less power. (Click here for last year's column.)
All of the "Me, too" comments are heartbreaking and not the least bit shocking.
I was a fresh college graduate, working at my first daily newspaper as a copy editor. The editor walked through the backshop as we were checking proofs on deadline. He pointed to a headline and told me I could do better. (He was right.) I returned to my desk, wrote a better headline and was proofing the page again when walked through the backshop a second time.
"This headline sings, Tyra," he said, and he placed his hands on my shoulders, pulled me toward him and kissed my forehead.
I was barely 21.
My freckled face turned crimson. The backshop went silent. He walked one way, I walked the other, my eyes on the floor and stinging with tears. I cried most of the drive home that late night.
So, "Me, too," that one time.
I'm now 45 and quick to correct and redirect sexist comments in my classroom. I pray that not a single one of the girls I've taught will ever have to say, "Me, too." I pray that not a single one of the boys I've taught will exert their power unfairly over another human.
We all have work to do

Shining a light on the good

From today's Briefing:

The aftermath of the vicious attack in Las Vegas makes me want to gather my children, lock the front door and hide under the covers for a week, for a month, for maybe forever.

I haven’t, though, and I won’t.

Our plan is to continue enjoying as much of the world as we can reach, to give more than we take, to live the gift of the days we’ve been granted.

For the past couple of weeks, in an effort to push away fear, I’ve been focusing on heroes. I think of them, with fondness and a nod to the great author Madeleine L’Engle, as light bearers.

In her classic novel A Wrinkle in Time, L’Engle points to the heavy-hitters: Leonardo da Vinci, William Shakespeare, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Buddha, Jesus Christ. They are among the “very best fighters” and “lights for us to see by.”

We are surrounded by light bearers.

Think of the people who threw their bodies atop others to protect loved ones and strangers as a madman terrorized the concert crowd in Vegas.

Think of the first responders who risked their lives that night and who risk their lives every day to take care of everyone else.

Their light dissipates the darkness.

In my own little community, heroes abound.

There’s Aerin Thomas, daughter of a friend. Aerin was 12 when her father suffered a heart attack in their home. She administered CPR until the paramedics arrived and helped keep her dad alive.

There are the Tamney girls – Cathryn, a freshman in college, and Victoria, a high school junior – who have devoted hundreds of hours serving children with special needs. 

There are Pete and Gracie Hosp. The most darling couple in Frisco, Texas.

They married here 60 years ago, and they’ve been bearing light ever since.

Gracie and her husband volunteered in Sunday school classes and homeroom classes, on football fields and school buses. Pete served on the City Council and on the school board. He served on city committees that no doubt met for infinite hours, requiring all kinds of support at home from Gracie. He was a volunteer firefighter and a Boy Scout leader. He was one of Santa’s most reliable helpers, filling in for the jolly elf all over town.

Pete and Gracie helped to build this community that more than 168,000 people now call home. 

Pete and Gracie aren’t the kind of people who seek glory, but they were recognized for their commitment to their town and its people with a namesake school.

Pete and Gracie Hosp Elementary opened in August 2014, about a mile from my home. I had the honor to help launch Hosp Elementary as a staff member and to visit occasionally with our namesakes.

Teachers and students alike were awestruck when Pete would walk the halls, pop in to a classroom or surprise us at a Friday morning assembly. Teachers and students alike would line up each December to have their photos taken with the Santa who looked suspiciously like Mr. Hosp.

That dear man passed away this week, survived by his sweetheart and two adult children. His light, though, will never extinguish.

Pete and Gracie have been heroes to children who are now grownups, are heroes to children who are still learning to read, will be heroes to children who will never get to meet them.

Among that big bunch of Hosp children are future light bearers, sacred souls who will refuse to define the world as scary and out of control, who will serve their own communities and, in turn, inspire a whole new batch of heroes.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. She can be reached at tyradamm@gmail.com

On the cusp of adulthood

From Saturday's Briefing:

When I think of Cooper the Boy Scout, I’m usually visualizing his first year.

He was actually a Cub Scout then, a tiny Tiger Cub with an orange neckerchief under his blue uniform collar, round haircut that accentuated his chubby cheeks and a slightly mischievous smile.

He had just started first grade, and he and his daddy were looking forward to learning about camping together.

Cooper embraced the Cub Scout experience, and he continued after his daddy’s death. He grew from Tiger to Wolf to Bear to Webelos and earned the Arrow of Light.

At last, in fifth grade, he was a real Boy Scout, with many more opportunities to camp and learn about all kinds of disciplines, including sailing, photography and American cultures.

And now, just after starting his junior year in high school, Cooper is an Eagle Scout, having earned the highest rank in the organization.

He’ll wear a red, white and blue neckerchief – the kind reserved for Eagle Scouts – under the khaki collar of the same uniform shirt he’s been wearing since 2012 – the one we bought oversized for longevity and now barely fits.

He long ago shed the round haircut, and there’s zero evidence of baby fat on his chiseled face. Yet I’m still surprised sometimes to hear his deep voice in the house, irrationally expecting the squeaky Tiger Cub voice from a decade ago.

I had the same feeling last weekend, as Cooper joined a big group of friends to celebrate homecoming. 

(Technically it’s called forthcoming because his high school hasn’t yet had a graduating class and therefore hasn’t had alums to come home. And most students don’t actually go to the homecoming dance. They get dressed up, take photos, eat dinner out and gather at someone’s home. That’s another topic for another day.)

There were 20 teens, all gussied up, posing in front of fountains and sculptures at an office park not far from home. Every possible combination was documented: All the boys. All the girls. All the soccer players. All the drill team members. All the couples. One couple at a time.

Cooper and his date posed in front of a peculiar water feature – a metal sculpture of a toothy gar devouring a small house.

When Cooper was tiny, we would drive by that same sculpture, and Steve would shout out silly things like, “It’s a fish eating a hotdog!” or “It’s a house eating a fish!” Cooper would giggle and correct him every time: “No! It’s a fish eating a house!”

Those days are long gone. Saturday afternoon, there was Cooper, all 6-foot-4 of him, wearing a charcoal suit and taking a lovely young lady to dinner, yet all I could hear was his toddler laugh.

As the photo session continued, I giggled a few times myself – mostly at the parents, including me. We shouted instructions. We angled for the best shots. We marveled at our children, so dashing and beautiful, so patient with our demands.

We captured images of teenagers in fancy clothes, all while we recalled preschoolers playing dress-up and first days of kindergarten and a time when boys or girls were to be avoided at all cost.

Those teenagers are still our babies, our toddlers, our 6-year-olds, our 10-year-olds. They are all those ages wrapped up in bodies almost fully grown, young people eager to grow up and yet still dependent on the necessities and comforts of home. One day we’ll let them go, but none of us are ready yet.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. She can be reached at tyradamm@gmail.com.