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Last week was filled with art and music events at the school.  On Wednesday, Josiah and Abby played for their middle school band concert.  Josiah plays the baritone and Abby plays the flute.  They both started band 4 months ago and have improved greatly since.  Dale was able to hear the band play at chapel when he was home for R&R.  In fact the blog picture shows them wearing their band uniforms of white shirts and blue ties.  The band played Turkish March, March Militaire, Rock Island Express, and Jump Street Boogie.  For Jump Street Boogie, they donned gold satin vests, black shiny hats, and sunglasses.  I found it quite amusing.  I am now going to have them play Rock Island Express for halftime of Bears games to fire up the crowd.  The crowd, of course, is Zeke and I and the “Defense Defense” chant.  On Friday, I attended the Art Show with Abby and Gabe.  Gabe won a third place ribbon for 2nd grade with his colored paper flower pot and Abby won Honorable Mention for 6th grade with her drawing of an abandoned building.  The High School hosted the Art Show and the work of all the winners K-12 was displayed.  They had live music in each room.  A boy played piano in the main room and two girls played violin in the hallways.  Everyone was dressed up.  Gabe was happy to wear his tie.  Josiah, however, opted to stay home and watch Zeke rather than subject himself to another mandatory tie event.  The level of artwork was impressive.  One student’s scratch off artwork was phenomenal in the detail, some of the paintings were lovely, and the robot created out of junk was clever.  They served hors d’oeuvres and a lovely red punch.  Gabe in his crisp, clean white shirt wanted very much to have a glass of that tasty punch, but he was denied by his unfeeling Mother.

On Saturday, Josiah participated in the ACSI National Spelling Bee.  There was a reception the night prior for the students to meet and get to know each other.  They were each given a list of statements (I live east of the Mississippi.  I am the oldest in my family, etc) and they were supposed to find students who matched the criteria.  I know it will surprise many of you to discover that Josiah was not wandering around asking questions of kids he didn’t know.  However, he could not avoid those who came to ask him.  And so, we met Jack, a 6th grader.  He walked up to Josiah and said, “So, where are you on this list, son?”  Josiah offered him a couple options and upon seeing Josiah’s name badge said, “You’re from Fredericksburg, Eh.  You must know all about the battle of Fredericksburg then.”  When Josiah replied that he did not, Jack spent the next several minutes explaining the battle to Josiah.  Jack finished his military history lesson with “The bottom line, south won!”  Then off he went to harangue the next unsuspecting speller.  Later in the evening, each speller got up to introduce themselves.  They had to say their name, grade, school, and claim to fame.  Jack said, “I am mostly known for my shy and reserved demeanor.”  Even though the students had only known each other for 30 minutes, plenty of people laughed.  Josiah’s claim to fame was that he had lived in Australia for 2 years.  He even said, “Good Day, Mate!”  Another boy’s claim to fame was that he had memorized the Gettysburg address in 1st grade.  Some students were mortified to speak and others relished the spotlight.  I was greatly entertained by all their uniqueness.  On Saturday morning, the spelling bee started and it was very obvious that most of the students had memorized the published words list.  For the practice round, Josiah had to spell eventual.  In the 1st round, he spelled lingcod.  In the 2nd round, he spelled cavil.  In the 3rd round, he spelled geriatrics.  In the 4th round, he spelled toponymy.  In the 5th round, the judge went to the unpublished list and Josiah had to spell, escritoire.  When she said it, I knew he was done.  Unlike some of the other parents in the room, I had not provided my son with a French tutor to prepare him for the Bee.  He gave it a go and almost had it.  He spelled it escritoir.  He left off the last e, and he was out.  If only my Grandfather had not taken the e off of the end of Meloche, Josiah may have thought it best to always throw an e on the end of a French word.  He finished 25th out of 46 spellers.  Of course, including all the students who participated in the Bees leading up to the Nationals, he finished 25th out of 7000.  It sounds more impressive.  I’m fairly sure, Jack will use a similar statistic throughout his life.  Josiah was disappointed, but as the Bee went on and he began to realize the skill level of his competitors, he leaned over to me and said, “I could have never won”.  By the 6th round, there were 12 students left.  One girl asked every question she could before she spelled a word. “May I have a definition?  Is the language of origin French?  Is the root word …?, and on and on and on.”  It took her 5 minutes to spell a word.  The Gettysburg address boy was eliminated and his father protested twice to the arbitrator.  His father had a laptop computer that he showed to the judge to try to prove that something unjust had occurred.   I leaned over and told Josiah that he needed a better arbitrator.  I didn’t even have a dictionary, let alone a computer, and I certainly didn’t have a French tutor.  The boy’s father was denied twice.  The Gettysburg address boy was officially eliminated.  Jack was eliminated as well.  There was one boy who upon receiving a word, would scan his eyes back and forth as if reading pages of the dictionary in his mind.  He was eliminated by an Italian musical term.  By round 13 there were 2 students left.  The girl spelled without asking a question,  The boy only occasionally asked for a definition.  The boy spelled words I had never heard of.  He would spell with double p’s, or l’s or oui’s and I would think, “There’s no way that word is spelled that way.”  Yet, he was always correct.  I thought for sure he was going to win and yet he got thrown off by a dog breed.  He misspelled dachshund.  The girl, who never paused, then spelled susurration and cetacean to win.  When it was all over, I was happy to consider that the seemingly endless spelling hours were over.  We picked up Zeke, and on the way home he started, “M-O-M, mom, D-A-D, dad, N-O, no, Y-E-S, yes.  Apparently, it’s never going to end.

My and Josiah’s transportation adventure to Atlanta provided us with much suspense. On Friday, the day we flew there were thunderstorms, tornado watches and equipment malfunctions in Atlanta. We checked in quite early for our flight and I noticed that all the flights ahead of us were delayed 2 hours. I asked the representative why our flight was not delayed and she replied, “Oh, they must have caught up.” “Sure they did”, I thought. “More likely it just hasn’t been posted yet”. As suspected, by the time we sat down at the gate, the flight was delayed. An hour after the flight’s scheduled departure, they started to load the plane. Josiah and I had seats toward the front, so we were waiting for our turn. With the plane 3/4 full, they stopped loading because Atlanta had completely shut down for a hail storm. 30 minutes later, we loaded the plane full of pessimistic travelers who were convinced we were not leaving Virginia that night. Once everyone was loaded, we waited another 30 minutes for permission from Atlanta to leave Virginia. The flight had a bit of turbulence, so the cabin crew decided not to offer the meager service that was due: a bag of peanuts, cookies, or crackers and a drink. At some point they must have felt a bit of remorse and walked through the plane handing out bags of peanuts and a cup of water. I thought fondly of flight service in Australia which is so far above any flight service in America. When we landed, Atlanta airport was a madhouse, full of travelers who had missed connections because of the delays and cancellations. Josiah and I made our way over to the MARTA (Atlanta train system). On the way, I bought 2 individual pizzas for dinner thinking we would eat on the train. Well, you are not allowed to eat on the train. The airport is in south Atlanta and our hotel was all the way north. The train ride took 40 minutes. My favorite comment from the train driver was when he said, “We are axing you to be careful when you exit the train because the platforms are slippery.” I know if people are axing me something, I am in the south. After we got off the train, we had to get a cab to the hotel. I do know that English is not the primary language of cab drivers. However, for some strange reason, I expect them to speak at least a little English and to know where they are going. We got into the cab and I told the driver the name and suburb of the hotel. I asked him if he knew where that was. He mumbled something that sounded in the affirmative. He called back to his dispatcher and only Spanish could be heard in the cab. After he had driven around for awhile he asked me if he should turn right or left. Having no idea where I was or where I was going, I was at a loss. I remembered that I had the hotel information with driving directions and pulled it out and tried to hand it to him. The directions were written in English, of course, and he couldn’t read them. I started reading off road numbers and names in the hopes of arriving at a common location. When I said, “La Vista Road,” He got all excited. “La Vista Road! La Vista Road!”, he repeated. Then he asked me, “Right or Left?” At one point in this mini recreation of planes, trains, and automobiles, Josiah looked at me and said, “All this for a spelling bee?” “Yes, son, all this for a spelling Bee.” We finally got to the hotel at 10 pm, ate our cold pizza and went to bed. The next day after the bee, we wanted to take the train into downtown Atlanta. So, this involved another cab driver. The hotel called the cab and the driver spoke English fairly well although his native tongue was from Africa. We did manage to find a train station although it wasn’t the one I had asked to go to. I helped him out by pointing out places to drop us off while he was making u turns apparently at a loss as to which way to go. On the train ride home, Josiah and I tried to guess what language our cab driver would speak this time. Josiah went for French and I guessed he would be from India. We entered the cab to Spanish singing island music. He didn’t speak English either, but he did know where he was going. Friends who also attended the bee spared us from another cab ride by giving us a ride to the airport. Thus ended my pursuit of an English speaking cab driver who knew where he was going. If ever I find one, I’ll ax him if he’s the only one.

The children’s piano teacher, Mr Matthews, is a survivor of the Battle of Iwo Jima. When he was recovering on Maui after the battle, he wrote a piece of music that we heard played today. Another student of Mr Matthews played the piece, accompanied by an orchestral cd that Mr Matthews had created on the computer. The student was 15 years old. He played the entire piece which was quite complicated and lengthy from memory. The student had only practiced on a digital piano and prior to that day had never played on a grand piano. The orchestral cd started and the student began to play and the grief and sorrow and loss of war contained in that music filled that room. It was a moment that left me in awe. Music not only written with great emotion, but a musician who captured it. Both talents rare and unique, separated by generations, but working together to create something stunning.

Gabe had his eighth birthday and I can still remember the cold and snowy day in New York when he was born. No cold and snow for his 8th however. We had a heat wave. He had his party on Saturday at Build A Bear, a shop that is conveniently located everywhere we’ve lived. We even found one in Melbourne at Chadstone. Chadstone also had a 3 story Borders Book Store with an escalator. If I got paid money for all the times I mention Borders in this blog, I’d be rich. Chadstone is as close as you get to an American mall in Australia. In fact, when our Aussie friend Martyn went to an American mall, he told his wife that it was just like Chadstone. Build a Bear parties involve being led around the shop by a cheery worker who helps you choose, stuff, and name a bear. The kids had to jump up and down, kiss a heart, hug their bears, and take a pledge of responsibility. Gabe wanted to buy his stuffed dog a football uniform to wear while watching the Super Bowl and Zeke wanted to buy his bear a High School Musical t-shirt. When we finally left the shop, Josiah declared that he could never get a job at Build A Bear. All that smiling and happy talk would be impossible. For Gabe’s birthday dinner, we went to Chuck E Cheese. On the drive there the kids did a sing along to Gabe’s new High School Musical CD thoughtfully given by his Aunt Marie. She sent the CD and a whoopie cushion. I’m not sure which one will eventually annoy me more. I had high hopes for a night at Chuck E Cheese that wasn’t full on. I thought, “it’s Tuesday night, hardly anyone will be there.” Silly me. A school had an event going on and it was it’s usual madhouse. The kids got busy spending their coins on the games. Abby loves to punch the ducks, Zeke loves to squish the spiders, Gabe declared moving magnets easy, and Josiah couldn’t figure out why some little kid can win millions of tickets on ski ball when he can only win two tickets every time. After we left the madness, I told Josiah that just as he could never work at Build A Bear, I could never work at Chuck E Cheese. Abby asked why not. Josiah said, “Because it’s loud and crowded and filled with obnoxious children.” There are somethings the boy does notice, but his giant baritone sitting in his classroom for him to take home today was not one of them. For dessert we went to Krispy Kreme in honor of Dale and conveniently arrived while the donuts were hot. When we were choosing the donuts, the donut guy said that if the kids brought in their report cards, they could get a free donut for every A. Too bad their father isn’t here to steal all the donuts they’ll soon be collecting. On the way home, Abby decided to ask everyone in the car if they were an optimist or a pessimist. Josiah’s reply was, “I am not the guy who would say the glass is half full and I am not the guy who would say the glass is half empty. I am the guy who would say, What glass?”