I’m a sucker.

I can’t help it. When I see people on the corners downtown, shaking their cans like handfuls of bells, the cash in my purse seems to burn a hole and show itself to them. I feel I have no choice but to give even a little. I know they might spend it on booze or drugs or whatever does it for them. But I somehow cannot believe that unless I see it. Maybe all they need is to make a phone call…buy a sandwich…pay one bill…just to get back on their feet. I know it’s not realistic, but it’s a permanent part of my mentality that has somehow survived for 25 years.

And sometimes I don’t feel I can do enough because I myself have been so blessed. But a recent situation taught me that I may never know if what I’ve done is enough.

She didn’t strike me as peculiar when she jumped out of the pickup truck in the driveway of the feed barn where my husband works. From a distance, she simply looked like a short black woman wearing a dress and carrying a purse. I had stopped by to pick up mulch for our back yard and was hanging out with Cody and his coworkers when she came walking up.

As she got closer, I realized her dress was actually a very short miniskirt with a matching shirt. And she herself wasn’t just short…she was a midget. She asked us how to get to the local Mormon church. She spoke quickly, said that her name was Maria and her grandmother had passed away. She needed to speak to someone at the church. Micah, the owner of the feed barn, explained the directions to her, and she was gone.

We all kind of shrugged and returned to our bantering. Customers pulled through, ordering feed and landscaping materials. It was a lazy Saturday afternoon and people were anxious to work on their yard.

About 30 minutes later, a van pulled up, and the same woman jumped out and walked in our direction. She asked to speak to Micah again as the van pulled away behind her. The two walked off a distance, talked quietly, and before they walked back over to us, Micah stuffed some money into her hand.

“Is anyone leaving here soon?” she asked brashly, picking a sucker from a tin on the counter. “My Greyhound bus leaves for Atlanta at 2 and I need to get home.”

“I am,” I said, ready to go home. Surely she only needed to go someplace close. “Where do you need a ride?”

“Oh, just to Cornerstone Christian Church,” she said. It wasn’t completely on the way, but would only deter me about 10 minutes.

“I can drop you off,” I said, looking at Cody and shrugging. “Might as well. I’m leaving anyways.”

I noticed Cody, Micah, and another coworker, Lindsay, exchanging confused glances as I headed out to my car. Lindsay came running up.

“This is kind of weird,” she said. “Should I go with you?”

“Sure, that’s fine. I can bring you back,” I said.

As we walked to the car, I noticed the back of Maria’s neck look wrinkled and scarred, like she had been burned. In fact, her whole neck looked flat, as if the scar ran past her shirt onto her back. Her hair was tight and frizzy, her toenails were long, jagged, and partially painted, and I noticed an unpleasant smell as we all got into the car.

What began as a quick trip turned in to an afternoon ordeal. While I never saw it coming, I inevitably get youshouldhaveknown nods from everyone I tell the story to.

The church was closed. Of course…it was, after all, a Saturday afternoon. So she said to just drop her off at her apartment “by the track,” meaning the Indy 500 racetrack. Again…not too far away. Yet we passed the track and kept driving, me waiting the whole time for her to tell me where to turn so I could drop her off.

“Where is it?” I asked her, as I watched her look out the window and finish her sucker.

“Oh, not far.”

Silence. I gave Lindsay a raised eyebrow in the rearview mirror and she shrugged.

We proceeded to drive across town, stopping to get Maria something to eat. I let her use my cell phone as she lead us into the sketchy part of town. Cody called a couple times, wondering why we were taking so long and why in the world we were on the near East side of town. I told him I’d call back. I tried making conversation with her but it was difficult, as she kept changing the subject and trying to call different family members for help.

I wasn’t particularly nervous until she started telling stories. She mentioned her friend kept a gun in her house (a story I have no space to relay in this entry), pulled out lots of old pictures of her family from her purse, and called a car dealership we passed to see if they would spot her some money so she could buy her bus ticket because her grandfather used to do a lot of business there. She even offered to wait as we stopped by a bank so I could withdraw money to give her. When I assured her I really didn’t have more than the small amount of cash I already handed her (not to mention gas money) her sass level heightened significantly.

Finally, after multiple turns into a maze of narrow roads, broken down homes, and lots of stares, we found the house she was looking for. We stopped, she stuffed her trash between the passenger seat and the console, and waved as she got out of the car and walked down the street.

Silence. Lindsay walked around to the front seat and we sat for a second.

“What just happened?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

And on the way home, we discussed. Did we do the right thing? If not, what would have been the right thing? Was her grandmother really dead? Did she have family? Friends? Anyone to help her? Did she have mental problems? Was she sad? Did she have a job? Was she homeless? Did we really show her love? How many are there like her? Is there a line between helping someone who asks for it and drawing the line before you get walked all over? Did we get taken advantage of? Does it matter?
I tend to believe that it doesn’t matter…if I got taken advantage of, that is. Maria matters. She matters because she is a person. I don’t know what she needs. For the moments she was in my life, she told me what she needed and I did my best to give it to her. Maybe I got trampled on. Maybe I’m a sucker. But I tried. And sometimes that’s what love means…trying.

I turned 25 recently, which turned into a week’s worth of festivities with friends, which then turned into a week’s worth of a severe cold. During my week-long celebration, work was hectic. I was in such a bad mood one night that all I wanted to do was go home and hole myself in my room, preventing my wrath from lashing out at anyone (I thought this was pretty considerate of myself). I walked through Times Square after work, cursing under my breath at tourists clustered on sidewalks. And then I had to wait forever for a train — only for it to stall between every stop. Add to it that I got squished between two really big people and you can understand why I just wanted to get away from everyone. And it was just my luck that as a squishy neighbor left, some lady with a big purse sat next to me and paid no attention to her purse straps that were falling all over me. AH! Personal space is obviously not in New York’s vocabulary, so it’s no surprise that I dream about barriers between passengers, successfully preventing me from being touched, squished or slept on by strangers.

Thankfully I forced myself to go out and not cancel plans, despite my mood. Which was a very good choice.

Normally, I think that shutting myself away from everyone when I’m pissy spares them from dealing with me. But it wasn’t until I read The Geography of Bliss, in which author Eric Weiner visits 10 countries trying to define happiness, that I looked at it from a new perspective. Weiner says, “Social scientists estimate that about 70 percent of our happiness stems from our relationships, both quantity and quality, with friends, family, coworkers and neighbors. During life’s difficult patches, camaraderie blunts our misery; during the good times, it boosts our happiness. So the greatest source of happiness is other people.”

I’d always assumed that self-imposed solitary confinement — away from the noise and chaos of New York — was the best cure for feeling overwhelmed or angry. If all the people and noise were stressing me out, I thought the best option was to remove myself from them.

I was wrong.

I wasn’t even giving my friends the chance to cheer me up. Turns out just catching up with someone I hadn’t seen in months or relaxing in Central Park and staring at the sky was exactly what I needed to forget the stress that tourists, trains and trash give me. My friends didn’t even have to do anything besides spend time with me. Just having their companionship for coffee or a movie with was enough to counteract my mood (It helps that they’re pretty witty and stellar storytellers). I’m not sure I’m quite ready to say that the greatest source of happiness is other people, but it’s sure a better solution than being angry by yourself.

I think the Goo Goo Dolls said it best: “The only way to feel again is let love in.”

Writer’s note: I had this idea to write about three of my former teachers who continue to impact the way I live. Other than my mom, no one has had a greater influence on my life than my teachers. They give so much and even though I think teachers have the most rewarding job, I don’t think we can ever thank them enough. So I began to write and I had too many stories I wanted to tell and too much I wanted to say about each one. It went on too long. It would have been a thisordinaryday.com word-count record, and then some. The three teachers I wanted to write about meant so much to me that they each deserved their own entry. So I decided to break this into three entries, all called heroes, because that’s who these women are to me. They are my heroes. This is entry No. 2.

Susan Massy

This weekend I took a trip to my mom’s basement to look for inspiration and memories of Susan Massy, my high school journalism teacher.

My mom has boxes of old newspapers from my high school days leading up to where I am now. As I look at some of my first experiments as a sports writer, I started to think about how in the heck I ended up in this field.

As a kid, I was a math whiz. I was even a mathlete. I never considered myself much of a writer. For those who have read my previous post about the journal I kept when I was 10, you can imagine why I didn’t fancy myself a writer.

When I enrolled in high school, for some reason I picked journalism as an elective. I don’t remember what went into this decision. Most likely, I was running out of options. I’m guessing my mom suggested it, and I usually tend to listen to my mom.

I don’t recall loving the curriculum in Journalism 1, but I instantly fell in love with the teacher. I’ve always respected people who have a passion for something, and I’ve always excelled in classes where the teachers love the subject matter.

I could tell from the start that Susan Massy (a.k.a. Cough to her students) loved journalism and loved her students. Somehow she made me feel like I had the talent to be a good reporter.

So my sophomore year I joined the newspaper staff because I felt encouraged by Cough to continue with journalism. The senior editors and Cough made me feel like a star. For some reason, they thought I was a good reporter, probably because I’ve always been a hard worker and it’s tough to find kids in high school who will work hard for the student newspaper.

My junior year I became sports editor. That’s also when I decided to study journalism in college and started seeing myself as a sports writer when I grew up. I also decided that I would be the editor of the paper as a senior, because I felt like being the editor of the high school paper would help me land a job some day. That’s pretty silly when I look back now, because I would never consider putting my high school paper on my resume and I don’t think that would impress employers.

So I applied for editor and I thought it was a given that I would get the job. It wasn’t my position to lose, but my position. If odds had been set, I would have been USC and the other candidate was Florida International*.

*For the none-sports fans, imagine if Obama were running against Republican candidate Paris Hilton. I was Obama.

When I went in for my interview, my nerves got the best of my confidence. I was being interviewed by the seniors and Cough, all people I knew well, but it played out like a bad first date. I stared at the ground. My voice quivered. I wasn’t showing much confidence or leadership qualities.

But still, I had proven my worth the year before and I thought I was the most qualified.

When they posted the staff for the next year, the name next to “Editor” was a girl who had only joined the staff that year as a staff writer. The next position in line was another relative newbie I didn’t like and I felt wasn’t qualified. My name was next to sports editor.

I was upset. I knew tears were about to come so I ran to the bathroom. I punched the wall and cried. I remember the drive home, screaming in my car in between sobs, cursing my teacher and people who I thought were my friends. I just wanted to get home to my mom. I needed a hug.

It was really the first time in my life when I didn’t get something that I wanted, the first time I felt like a failure. I thought about quitting, but my mom told me I could not do that. I knew she was right. She told me what a mom is supposed to say: You have to make the best of this; everything happens for a reason.

I blamed Cough for the slight. It was supposed to be the seniors who made the decisions for the next year’s staff, but, really, I knew they did what she wanted.

The next year I decided not to be bitter and to work as hard as I could and show Cough that she had made a mistake. I decided I would make the sports section the best thing in the paper every week. I would not be bitter. It was my senior year and I wanted to have fun.

So I did.

That year I became a man and I started to become a real journalist.

I remember writing stories that mattered. Real journalism. One story was about high school athletes using creatine and performance-enhancing drugs, a tough issue for a high school kid to tackle. I wrote a column criticizing my classmates for showing up to football games drunk. When I turned in my draft, Cough told me I was holding back. She told me I could do better and 30 minutes later I handed her back a column that was honest and didn’t tiptoe around the subject.

When the column came out, some of my classmates were furious with me.

One guy I had known since kindergarten essentially told me to go to hell, but he wasn’t that nice. Administrators were upset because my column made our school (more so them) look bad. But many of my classmates, even some who had been showing up drunk, respected me for having the courage to write the story. And teachers around school told me I had done a good thing.

That story brought about change. Not everyone quit showing up drunk, but it got better.

Cough showed me the power a journalist could have, and she also showed me how writing honestly is the only way to write.

That year I went through a lot. My basketball coach told me before the season I would sit the bench, but I could stay on the team. I knew from how I had made the best out of the editor situation that quitting was not the answer. Proving him wrong was. By the third game, I was a starter.

My senior year of high school still ranks as one of the greatest years of my life. I figured out who I was and how successful I could be when I brought energy and positivity to a situation.

As I was going through old drawers and boxes, I came across a card Cough gave me in the spring of my senior year.

She wrote:

“The other day a newspaper staffer commented to me, ‘I just love C.J. He is such a positive force on the paper.’ I’ve been thinking about that comment and watching you (and you know I have lots of opportunities* to watch you each day!) I’ve come to realize just how true that observation is… I’ve been thinking about how upset you were last year and, in some ways, remain so this year and yet you are the most positive element in room 151 this year…”

*Four of my seven classes that year were in journalism. Like I said, I wanted to have fun my senior year. There was no need for math and science.

At the end of the year, Cough wrote a long message in my yearbook. My final column in the paper had been about how much I had grown because a couple things had not gone right for me that year.

Cough wrote:

“Every now and then this year, your heart was out there on your sleeve… When I read the article that you wrote about your experience, I cried. For I knew how much pain I caused you. I never wanted that. And yet, I think you gained more in the long run than you would have gotten from being EIC.”

Cough was right. I gained much more, and I had a lot more fun than I would have had if I was editor. I’m a sports guy and that’s where I belonged. That’s where I wanted to be.

Cough didn’t know a lot about sports or about sports writing. But when I went to college, I knew more about journalism and more about myself than many of my classmates. And you better believe I knew how to act in an interview. Ever since then, I’ve always had great job interviews. Now when I apply for a job, I’m confident I’ll have a chance if I can just get an interview.

On my drive home last night, I realized why I became a journalist. It was Cough. If she would have never come into my life, I’d probably be an accountant. She helped me find my voice and my passion.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Christy Bradford and how she was the only teacher I’ve ever had who nobody disliked. Well, Cough was probably the teacher who has been loved the most by her students. And her love and passion led me into journalism. I’m not the only one. Just on this site, Jacky works for a magazine and fell in love with design in Cough’s yearbook class. Becka will graduate in journalism from KU and is going to work for a yearbook company. She fell in love with yearbooks in Cough’s class. And Sammi became a teacher. I bet if you asked her, part of the reason was because she wanted to impact lives like Cough impacted hers.

They all have stories to tell about Cough. I just beat them to it. I’m sure they’ve told Cough thank you before. I’m sure I have too. But she deserves many more. For her influences and lessons aren’t hiding in my basement, they’re on display in my life and on my sleeve every day.

I was called a nerd last week, and for the first time since around 8th grade, it offended me.

A nerd. A computer nerd, specifically. And the insult had no merit and no substance — I think that’s what bothers me. On the surface, I can deal with the nerd accusation. I play fantasy football. I love my Super Nintendo. Hell, I’ll go with stereotypes — I’m a skinny white guy with glasses. But to be called a computer nerd? It’s just not…true.

Granted, the circumstance had much to do with sending my generally mild temperament into a full-fledged outrage. I was fresh off a two-hour car ride, sitting in a crowded senior citizens center, surrounded almost entirely by strangers. Showing up to a former co-worker’s 50th wedding anniversary party was my way of lending support to the old guy I worked with for a summer after my freshman year of college.

Also in attendance was our “boss” for that summer, a scraggly old bag of a woman who looks a little like that “Tales from the Crypt” guy, except with a little less life. (If it seems like I’m just venting hostility for the comment she was about to make, I assure you that’s not the case. I spoke this viciously of “Jane” from the day I met her and nothing’s happened to change my tone. She’s a terrible person.)

The comment was made in passing, just sort of dropped into conversation like some reference to an old funny story that everyone was familiar with. She was talking about God knows what — some author of some book she was reading (my attention was focused mostly on the man across the room who looked to be roughly 16 months pregnant, throwing handful after handful of after dinner mints into his mouth — a breathtaking scene, really) when I heard just on the outer periphery of audibility, the following sentence:

“Erick would like this…”

I turned my attention to Jane, who wore a proud smirk as if waiting for a reaction. If she was looking to lure me in, she succeeded.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

Now maybe she did, maybe she didn’t, but I’ll swear to my dying day that she snickered when she said it:

“Because you’re a computer nerd.”

I was stunned. I’ve been called names before. Mean names, dirty names, some accurate, some not. For some reason, on this particular day, “computer nerd” drew more reaction than many others that had come before it.

Computer nerd? I don’t even know where she would get that.

Fast forward to about half an hour later, because nothing of real interest happened after that, aside from the fact that the dinner mint guy drooled colorful spittle down the front of his shirt. The story she had been telling devolved into nothingness. Along with my parents, I said my goodbyes, my faux “great to see you’s” and got the hell out. To tell the truth, most of that time rushed by as a blur created by my leftover hostility for Jane and what she’d said.

The door had barely closed behind us on our way out when I ripped into her.

“She’s so awkward…where does she get off…who does she think she is, etc.”

My family did their best to pretend they heard the comment and were equally offended. They’re nice like that. Deep down, they probably thought I was being unreasonable, and maybe they’re right. But four days and a subsequent return car ride later, I’m halfway through my week and I can’t forgive or forget being called something as off-the-wall as a computer nerd.

The question, I suppose, is why this got to me so much. I would have been less ashamed if I actually were a computer nerd than I am ashamed that this woman thought of me as such. Is it more offensive to be thought of as something you’re not than as something you are but just don’t want to be? If she had called me just an out-and-out nerd, would I have been so bothered?

Or does it have more to do with who makes the assumptions? If, because they were in the room too, my parents called me a computer nerd, I would disregard it as a ludicrous statement, I would have called them out on it in a high-pitched squeal and it would have been forgotten. But this misguided backhand verbal attack was released by someone I disliked all along and who I had been given the privilege to mostly forget in the past four years. Thrust back into her presence, I was bound to be upset at something, and the nerd comment happened to catch my ire.

Now I find myself attempting to come up with all the inaccurate things I’ve been called over the years. As a lifelong fan of Top 5 lists, it intrigues to think that others out there may have lists of inaccurate insults of their own. I’m wondering if this is something common enough that other people have them stored up — the worst INACCURATE things you’ve ever been called. I doubt that there’s someone out there with a Top 5 (if you’re out there, both congratulations and my apologies) but I’d be interested to hear some examples.

“Cut or go home!” yelled the captain of my ultimate Frisbee team, but not at me. He yelled at some other guy. I don’t even really know the guy. I’ve seen him once or twice.

Whether I know him or not doesn’t matter. What matters was that the guy stopped.

He stopped cutting.

He stopped talking.

He just stopped.

Then he turned, and slouched off the field.

The field was large, so he walked for some time before he reached his equipment bag. He de-cleated. He removed his socks. He put both the socks and the cleats in his bag.

He picked up his bag. He laid the strap over his shoulder just so. He suspended the bag from the strap. He walked to his car.

He left.

The captain was not paying attention to any of this. He was giving more instructions. “When the defense moves forward there, we have to swing it! We can’t just sit around and hope that some passing lane miraculously opens. We have to swing it immediately! And then cut! Do it again!”

The drill restarted. The guy wasn’t there. The drill stopped.

“Where did he go?”
“I think he left.”
“He hadn’t been making any cuts anyway.”
“Actually, I was guarding him and he was pretty much open every time.”
“Well, then it was at the wrong time. The handler has to be able to get him the disc.”
“No, I think he was pretty much open. You guys just didn’t throw it.”
“Whatever. He came in with an attitude.”

Practice resumed, one man down. We needed that guy for full strength teams. Now he was gone.

The guy was frustrated because he was working, working, working; running, running, running; trying to help his team to score; trying to get open. And apparently he was open. He just never got the disc. We never threw it to him.

Honestly, I was kind of shocked he left. Shocked because, well, I have felt like that.

I have felt like that playing ultimate – “Why won’t they throw it to me?? I am WIDE open. What do I need? A strobe light? Neon clothes?”

I have felt like that in other sports. About school. About work. About relationships. I felt like that with God. “When will it be my turn? When will I get to be the one who has it together?”

But I have never done what that guy did. I have never just walked away.

Where did he go? Did he drive to the Exxon station and smoke a cigarette while sitting on the curb, cursing about the captain? Did he make it home to complain to his mom or dad or brother or friend about what assholes this ultimate team is? Did he go make a sandwich?

Honestly, what did he do?

I need to know what he did because his actions seem to indict my choice – my decision to stay. I do not know if he got some benefit from leaving. I do not know if he understands the world better, or has more life options, or knows himself better on account of this decision. I don’t know what potential good comes of it, but I still think I won’t be imitating him anytime soon. The reason being that I know whatever I leave behind will still be there the next day.

That game will still be there.
That problem will still be there.
That desire to prove myself will still be there.
That selfishness will still be there.

I admire the boldness of the guy, but ultimately, I hope to be bigger than that.

I hope that I will remember the election of 2008 as the first of many in which I was engaged. I am more interested in politics, news, candidates and democracy now than I ever have been — by a long shot. I couldn’t vote in 2000; I barely knew what was going on in 2004 and I didn’t really understand what “caucus” meant until about six months ago. I also retained the beliefs of my VERY Republican upbringing until spring 2005, when I studied abroad, and basically everything I had ever thought was turned inside-out, upside-down and subjected to criticism and analysis.

Now, my world is like this: mostly liberal co-workers at a SoCal newspaper; mostly liberal/ambivalent friends. This, after five years at a university and heavy influence of liberal professors. And a few months in ITALY.

I’m not a news freak. I basically just work at a paper, skim the wires, peruse the top e-mailed on The New York Times Web site and try to provoke debate among my co-workers (”So, like, how do you guys feel about Obama’s tax plan?”). I do this because I’m sincerely curious about their beliefs — because mine are still under construction. Lately, I watch The Daily Show too.

But most of all, I e-mail my dad, whose world is like this: second-generation family-owned business, conservative family, country club, heavy Catholic church involvement.

Dad is a terrific Republican. He and his company donate lots of money to Republican causes — including some pretty loud pro-life groups in our hometown, Wichita, Kan. He dislikes taxes, loves the military, is fond of guns and listens to lots of AM talk radio. He works hard and tithes generously. He makes statements that are jaw-droppingly politically incorrect. In addition to a sharp intellect and love of talk, my dad has an abiding — and frequently fierce — love for, and sense of obligation to, his community and family.

One of the most inspirational lines I ever heard was one afternoon when Dad and I were driving in an area of Wichita whose plans for growth were stunted. We were also discussing a new venture his company was getting into that had sky-high possibilities. “If this goes well, Nat,” he said, passing a half-constructed building in a deserted lot, “there is so much we could do for this community.” His first thought at a windfall was not a vacation, or sports car or even jewelry for Mom — but of how he could help his city.

So that’s what I grew up in. I moseyed a little left after Italy, but the journey was (is) painful and fraught with uncertainty.

The e-mails with Dad fuel the journey. I get sassy about rich people; he lambastes government waste. I confess sympathy for gay marriage; he offers profound (and/or offensive) commentary on marriage and family. I try to gain ground with emotional tales of the children I work with; he spins it back at me, then levies tear-jerking words about how he’s proud of me. I ask, ask, ask — Dad, what do you think about evolution and creationism; Dad, what do you think about California raising sales tax; Dad, why are we in Iraq?

I send him links to Frank Rich columns; he urges me to check out Drudge Report. I ask; he answers. Bit by bit, he’s asking too.

I sometimes wonder if a mark of adulthood is realizing in the moment — not just much later — that it’s one you’ll cherish forever. Because right now, something important is going on — in me, as I relate to America, and in how I’ll relate to everything else, ever. I have a stake in Election 2008; I’m a participant; my politics will never be the same.

And in My Beliefs Journey ‘08, Dad is a participant — perhaps THE participant. That, I believe, will prove to be more important than where I end up.