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Below are selected previous messages:
 Personal Growth of Each Student
Twelve Lessons
Tomato Plants
On the Basketball Court
Why We Should Teach Students about World
Religions
At the Ice Pond
The first lavendars and pinks were still streaking the horizon behind silhouettes of bare trees as Jamie, Josh, Zack, Kip and Uncle Sal started crunching the hardened snow under their winter boots. As they walked across the cow fields,
Jamie looked up and saw Venus poised brilliantly on the cusp of the rising crescent moon. He took a deep breath and felt the cold night air surge into his lungs, sending a jolt of energy throughout his body. Jamie felt a sense of adventure as they trudged through the woods and down the hillside, toting their supplies in packs on their backs. As they arrived at the pond's edge, darkness was encroaching from the surrounding woods. But as Jamie looked out across the pond he saw a blackness deeper than the descending night. The ice seemed more like a void than a surface. It was hard for Jamie to imagine skating on it; it appeared to have so little substance. Standing next to Jamie, Sal said, "It's a good thing it froze after the snowstorm and not before, otherwise there wouldn't be any skating." Then Sal moved off a little ways into the woods. As Jamie's eyes began to adjust to the dim light he saw that Sal had begun carefully gathering small sticks into a pile in his arms.
"C'mon you guys," said Sal. "We have a fire to build. We're going to need some kindling."
Jamie wasn't one hundred percent sure what kindling was, but he watched Sal closely and tried to find the same kind of sticks.
Without looking up, Sal said, "You need to find the dry ones, nice and thin. You can tell they're dry enough if they break between your fingers like this," he said, as he snapped a twig brusquely between his first and ring fingers, using his middle finger as the snapping point. "Then you can get a feel for how the dry ones look."
Sal was the only adult on the trip. Jamie admired him because he was wise in the ways of the woods. Sal was an expert fisherman, and though he no longer felt a need to hunt, he often told stories about tricking
animals, trapping and hunting, gathering edible plants, nuts, roots, and berries and surviving in the wild. Jamie loved listening to Sal's stories. They reminded him of his favorite book, My Side of the Mountain, in which a boy makes a home inside a huge tree trunk and lives by himself in the forest. Now Jamie watched as Sal gathered larger and larger sticks.
As he put down a large pile of medium-sized logs, Sal said, "These will make the embers that will keep our fire going." Jamie and the others watched as Sal deftly built the kindling and the logs into a careful pattern that only he seemed to understand. He piled the logs onto each other in silence, with the care and skill of a bird building a nest. At the bottom were three crumpled sheets of newspaper. "All we will need," Sal said. As he pulled a wooden match out of the matchbox he explained that the Native Americans had needed neither the newspaper nor the match. As he struck the match into flame and touched it to the newspaper, the boys watched as the flame ignited the kindling in an instant conflagration. They had never been allowed that close to a fire before; never been part of building one; never sat next to one outside.
As their bodies shivered in the night air they squatted around the fire, putting their hands out in an ancient gesture over its elemental warmth.
"This beats sitting at home watching T.V. huh?" asked Sal, breaking the silence.
"Yeah," said the boys simply, in unison. They gazed as one into the raw beauty of the flames.
"Well" said Sal, "we better put in the potatoes or it'll be midnight before they're done." Sal reached in his knapsack and started pulling out potatoes and putting them onto a cloth he had spread on hardened snow. As Jamie and the others watched, Sal held each potato firmly in one hand while he punched holes with a fork around each potato. Then he wrapped each potato in a piece of tin foil and, using two sticks like
chopsticks, he placed each potato amidst the now red hot embers. He pushed each potato deeper with on of the sticks until it was fully cradled by the embers.
"These will cook up in no time," said Sal. "We've got some nice embers there." Jamie watched the care with which Sal prepared each potato, and how artfully he placed them in the embers. He watched the fire flicker
its light onto the faces of the group. The flames leaped into the night air, creating strange moving shadows in the woods behind them and casting reflections off the surface of the ice at the edge of the slope
below. Jamie felt a deep contentment and peace.
"Sal was right," he thought, "This is a totally different experience than sitting inside and watching television. Even though it's cold and there's no comfortable place to sit, it's fun being out here in nature close to the earth."
"You boys better get out there skating before you freeze," said Sal.
Suddenly Jamie remembered the main reason they had come - to skate on the pond's smooth ice under the light of the full moon. Jamie and his brother and cousins began strapping on their ice skates. Soon Jamie was gliding along in circles around the pond. As the moon began to rise, he could see the trees around the pond and even the snow-covered pasture behind it. As Jamie skated he felt the frigid winter air against his
face. He closed his eyes momentarily and felt like he was floating, like he could fly away at any moment. He had no thoughts in his mind; he wholly existed inside a feeling of total freedom that kept expanding and
expanding.
Suddenly Kip yelled, "Jamie, watch out!" Jamie opened his eyes and realized he was about to crash into his cousin. He leaned sharply to the right, barely missing Kip, but in the process he fell and slid on his side into the snow bank at the edge of the pond. Jamie felt his shoulder crunch into the frozen ground. He was stunned momentarily, but after Skip and Josh helped him up, he realized he was allright.
Soon Jamie was digging the sides of his hockey skates into the ice and pushing off into the night once again. He skated through streams of moonlight that now were beaming through the upper reaches of the tree branches and reflecting off the ice. As Jamie moved in an out of light beams and shadows he felt as if he was looking trough a kaleidoscope; a totally new world he was seeing. It was a world of pulsating
luminescence, of mysterious shadows, of crystalline air, and of primeval flames. This world was completely different than the ordinary warm comfort of home to which Jamie was accustomed. This was a stark,
ethereal, somewhat forbidding world that filled Jamie's senses with strange, bewitching images. Jamie became aware of a visceral, organic connection between himself and the natural world, and this awareness brought with it a sense of well-being much different than the familiar security of his house.
"Alright you guys, it's time to try out the potatoes," hollered Sal.
As he heard Sal's words, Jamie realized that he was famished. Being out in the elements had brought on an aching hunger. Jamie could smell the potatoes from all the way across the pond. He raced the others over to
the fire. Their skates skidded to a stop, showering Sal and the fire with ice dust.
"Whoa, take it easy there! This fire is our hearth and our stove! Sit down on your coats so your bottoms don't freeze off," said Sal.
The boys had already shed their coats after working up a sweat out on the ice. They gathered up their coats and sat down on them. Sal was reaching into the fire with his two long sticks. Then he peeled back some aluminum foil, trying not to burn his fingers. What emerged was a steaming, blackened orb that Sal promptly cut in two and placed on a paper plate. He then unwrapped a separate tin foil package and from it he cut off a chunk of butter. This he squished into the hot potato with a fork until it melted into it and oozed down the sides of the skin.
Jamie watched all this with the anticipation of a baby robin about to be fed by his mother. His mouth watered as he watched Sal carefully sprinkle salt and pepper onto the potato as though he were touching up his masterpiece. Jamie's olfactory sense was inundated with the complex aroma emanating from Sal's creation. Jamie had never dreamed that a simple potato would provide so much anticipation. Then again, as he was about to find out, this was not merely a potato.
Sal divided up his handiwork into several sections. He carefully pushed each portion onto plates and handed one to each of the boys. As Sal unwrapped the rest of the potatoes, the boys proceeded to taste his culinary delight. Jamie placed a small morsel onto his fork and blew several breaths to cool it down. Then he placed it on top of his tongue and let it rest there momentarily. The sensation was - an exquisite melange of earthy potato, seasoning, butter, charcoal, dirt, and tinged with the wildness of night and the light of the moon. It was transcendental. As Jamie ate the rest of his portion he had the distinct impression that he had never really tasted a potato before - at least not like this. It was as if Sal, like a tribal shaman using a mystical rite, had been able to invoke the inner spirit of the potato to emerge and be palpable to the company present.
Judging by the quiet focus of the others, they too were overcome by the experience of Sal's potato. All that could be heard was soft crunching of jaws, the smacking of lips, and echoes of "hmmm" intermingled with the snaps and pops of the burning branches. Sal now handed each of the boys their own halved potato, which they were eager to dress in the manner Sal had shown them. Jamie tried to follow the procedure exactly as Sal had done and he was quite pleased with the result; it tasted almost as good as Sal's.
After the boys had partaken of this now sacred ceremony, they were up on their skates again. With the moon now higher in the sky, they could see each other much better. Their bellies full, they hooted with exuberance as they weaved in and out of each others' paths. Playing a modified version of tag they howled taunts at the one who was it, whom they did their best to elude - a task much more awkward than it was on land. They were not the least bit tired when Sal yelled that it was time to pack up. They groaned in disapproval.
Grudgingly, Jamie and the others skated over to what remained of the fire - now just a few smoldering embers. Sal had already packed up the supplies. He asked the boys to each grab a pile of snow to snuff out the remaining embers.
"We want the woods to still be here the next time we come," said Sal.
Jamie reached down and broke off a chunk of hardened snow which he methodically broke apart over the fire pit. The embers sizzled their resistance as the snow from the boys' hands came down, but they soon were overwhelmed entirely. The boys watched silently, sadly, as the last plumes of smoke rose up from what was once a roaring blaze.
"On we go," said Sal breaking the ceremonial-like silence. "We've got to get you guys to bed before midnight. Tomorrow's another day."
"Tomorrow's another day." Those words echoed in Jamie's head as they crunched up the snowy hillside toward home.
"Tomorrow will be another day," thought Jamie, "but it won't be anything like this day." As they made their way across the pasture and climbed over the last fence, Jamie could see the front door light still on at his house. Standing on his moonlit front lawn, Jamie and his brother said goodbye to Sal and the others.
"We'll have to do it again soon if the ice stays thick," said Sal, reassuringly.
"Yeah!" said the whole group in unison. But Jamie wondered if they really would have a chance to do it again that winter - with all of them together. This brought on a sudden feeling of emptiness inside Jamie.
"You know," said Sal, with a twinkle in this eye as if he had read Jamie's mind, "You guys can go down to the pond anytime you want to. You don't need me to go there with you. You know the trails. You know how to build the fire and put it out. You know how to make the potatoes..."
Sal's words transformed Jamie's mood instantly. Sal was right. He and the others could go to the pond anytime - every day if they wanted to! They didn't have to wait for some other special time. And they didn't need Sal to be with them. They were old enough to go without an adult.
Jamie felt a new sense of happiness and independence. He also felt a deep sense of gratitude toward Sal for helping him discover a whole new world.
"Thanks," said Jamie simply as he waved goodbye to Sal. As Sal and the others got into his station wagon and drove off down the road, Jamie and his brother Josh headed into their house. Once inside, Jamie had a very odd feeling that he was entering a foreign environment. For several moments he didn't recognize anything. The air seemed stagnant. The walls seemed like artificial props for a play.
Jamie's mother had already gone to sleep, and he found his father snoozing in the living room, a football game blaring on the television.
Jamie saw the television in a way he had never experienced before. The television appeared to him as an alien entity, as a machine that was alive, reaching out with its tentacles of sound and images to capture his conscious awareness. He felt the energy of the television as an assault on his psychic being. He didn't want it to touch him, to dissipate what he had just experienced at the ice pond. Jamie had a compelling urge to snap the television off. As he did so his father awoke, stretching and yawning.
"So tell me about the ice pond. Did you guys build a fire and roast potatoes?" he asked inquisitively. His eyes glimmered like a child's as Jamie sat down and told him the story. Jamie's father listened attentively to all of it, nodding knowingly on several occasions.
"Boy," said dad when Jamie was finished. "You guys will never forget that night."
"Yeah," said Jamie. "I don't think we ever will." Then Jamie got up and gave his dad a hug goodnight.
"You must be beat, after all that skating," said dad.
"Yeah, better get to bed," said Jamie. "Tomorrow's another day."
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