The Cheap Seats

I am a social studies teacher in a small, western Wisconsin town. Ironically, at the same time, I live in a Twin Cities suburb. Every year in my Geography classrooms during discussions of population change, I state the fact that most of the students will be living and working in a metropolitan area during adulthood. Every mention of this inevitable truth is met with the same looks of disbelief, shakes of the head and cries of "not me". In the past I smugly told them - like it or not - that their futures would take them away from their small hometown of Osceola, Wisconsin. "You can always come home and visit," I would say, echoing my own attitude. "Your town will still be here, unchanged." If only that were true. My hometown is Carlton, Minnesota. Carlton - located twenty miles south of Duluth - has a population somewhere around 1,000 people (I stopped trusting the city limits sign decades ago). Carlton is like many other small towns across the...

Innovation is a fancy word for change. I'm a big fan of innovation but - like most people - am uncomfortable with change. How can that be? Both words mean the same thing, but with a big difference. Innovation implies an impersonal, metallic, disembodied improvement for the bigger and better. Change means a gut-level -  this is aimed right at me, ready or not -  adjustment. This example is merely to suggest that words (and phrases) are fun. They are fun because they can be strung together to mean just about anything. And they aren't static, but flexible. Sick used to mean ill. Now, to the 20 and younger crowd, sick means cool, awesome, great. Who knew? The Happy Days-inspired nerd was not a label I wanted pinned on me 30 years ago. But to be a nerd today implies tremendous interest, knowledge and even accomplishment in a specific field. Then who among us isn't a nerd ? Like technological leaps, popular words and phras...

Memorial Day was hot in the Twin Cities. Despite the heat, I decided to go for a bike ride at mid-day. Somehow, I knew a drenching sweat would do me good. If there is one thing I've learned in adulthood (but have had to learn again and again), it's that I'm happiest when I maintain a reasonable exercise schedule. "Time to get back into the habit," I thought. My usual bike route starts immediately with a slow, punishing uphill which flattens out only after my legs are on fire. This day was no different except I narrowly avoided going "ass over teakettle" (can someone explain that expression) after swerving to avoid a softball-sized rock near the side of the road. I paused just long enough to shake my head at the sheer dumb luck of what almost happened and take a look back at my near-miss nemesis. And then I noticed the rock was moving. I doubled back. My rock was a turtle. "What's he doing in the road?" I wondered. Puzzled, I lo...

Wealthy people get a bad rap. They shoulder an immense tax burden, are largely responsible for scientific and technological innovation and also drive the engines of business. Nonetheless, the vast majority of Americans who are not in the privileged 1% seem to hold our financial elite in perpetual disdain. Of course the irony of this scorn is that the other 99% secretly, desperately want to be 1%ers. How else can the popularity of lotteries be explained? So what is the underlying basis for this thinly veiled contempt? My first thought - nothing more than a jealous reaction from the have-nots towards the haves. No - a simple answer to a layered question. The belief that the "club" is exclusive and by invitation-only? Again, I don't think so. I believe anyone with gumption, drive and perseverance can achieve some measure of wealth if that is their goal. So then what is it? Why the rancor? And then it hit me . . . Rich people are the focus of occasional ridicule because ...