A Vacation from Vacation

June 5th, 2012 | 157th day | 75°, clear, winds E 10 mph | Waning Gibbous |

OREGON, IL. – At long last, it’s time for me to take temporary leave from my habitual daily postings in this little polemic journal of mine.  In around twenty minutes, I will be heading to Lowden-Miller State Forest (specifically, BSA Camp Lowden) in Ogle County. This afternoon is the start of Director’s week, when the camp will be returned to working order before troops start camping. I will be employed here - though it’s more of a vacation than a job – until mid-August, by which time I will have returned to my obsession with camping, just in time for school to resume.

There’s really not much for me to say now; each Saturday I’ll be home and it’s likely I’ll add a few photos and type up some of the short stories I’m revising while away. Two weeks of blogging has been an unique experience thus far, and I cannot wait to continue, but something greater is just so happening to intervene.

One thing I’d like to add to this site when time allows is a page for “Travels”. Even though I am not well-traveled at this time, I hope to be someday! Another cool feature in my mind would be to add both a map of my adventures and of the locations I’ve received business cards from (over 8,000 cards, 6 continents, 49 states, 33 countries).

Time to go, for me, at least. Thank you, my eight followers, for giving me reason to keep this project going!

Pleasant Valley Conservation Area

June 4th, 2012 | 156th day | 78°, sunny, winds WNW 8 mph | Full Moon |

WOODSTOCK, IL. -I rather like the idea of a photomontage, being that it is not a simple task to explain a whole day with just one picture.  Top row, from left: Common Buckeye, Pale Purple Coneflower, Tall Buttercup;  Bottom row: Crownvetch and Prairie Cinquefoil, Dickcissel, Solomon’s Seal.

For the last two days, I’ve spent some time in a local park in the McHenry County Conservation District named Pleasant Valley. I am humiliated to say I had not ventured to this very proximate locale, but now that I have, I will be returning often. Contained within the park’s boundaries are roughly 1800 acres of low-lying prairie, a few ponds, a creek, as well as extensive oak savannahs and pine plantations. I’ve spotted 59 species of birds in a few short hours there, including the following additions to the year list:

153. Orchard Oriole
154. Ring-necked Pheasant
155. Sedge Wren

With my recent interest in prairie plants blossoming, I was more keen than ever before in picking out different species during my hike. I was informed on Sunday that the pine forests on site pretty much guarantee sightings of Long-eared Owls in the winter, with occasional Short-ears and Saw-whets, too!

The Merits of Scouting

June 3rd, 2012 | 155th day | 74°, partly cloudy, winds NW 12 mph | Waxing Gibbous |

BULL VALLEY, IL. – In the company of peer and pyre, I have joined the brotherhood of the Eagle Scout.

Though a solemn ceremony of decoration - granted to few – I feel no different today from the day before. Badge or no badge, this award is more ingrained within my being than can be shown on a uniform.  Though I have worked hard, I will not permit this recognition to unduly enlarge my worth as a person, for I have not worked alone.

What this award does signify is that I can and will continue to learn. I have earned 29 merit badges and somewhere around 350 various requirements to get to where I am now. What I am most proud of in my scouting experience is that I have withheld that which was taught to me, but also that I am incomparably motivated to keep learning. Now is not the time for me to become a teacher among my troop; I have been teaching for many years.

At an Eagle Scout ceremony, it is customary to speak on one’s history in the program as well as what he has gained. Below is are some excerpts from an incredibly prolix (but not loquacious) speech that I delivered to an exceptional audience.

           As a good friend once explained to me, I may work diligently and learn much during my years as a Boy Scout, but if I never managed to obtain the rank of Eagle, I would forever be a Turkey. What he meant by this, of course, is that all my efforts to climb the Eagle trail would be pointless if I did not follow through and reach the trail’s end, as I have now done. To me, having the Eagle badge alone would mean nothing. What does matter, however, is the work I’ve put into earning the badge. You see, an Eagle Scout is one who stands out from the rest – he is more determined to do right than the average man. An Eagle Scout has made mistakes, but has not let them defeat him. An Eagle Scout is both sensible and sensitive, yet would risk personal danger to help someone in need. After all that, though, an Eagle Scout would not ask for reward.

         To exemplify the skills I’ve acquired through Scouting, I chose to pursue a particularly challenging leadership project. I wanted to do something that to my knowledge has not been done before knowing full well that it would not be easy. I wanted to leave a lasting impression on the community as well. I developed and successfully brought together an expo with over 40 organizations and 60 volunteers, totaling over 600 hours of donated labor. I would have done it no other way, though; I wanted a challenge, and found one, and met it accordingly…

            Nine short years ago, in 2003, a good friend of mine introduced me to a group for grade school boys eager for adventure. He spoke fondly of the camping trips, the raucous meetings, the car races, and most importantly, the snacks. All of these fun-filled activities piqued my curiosity, though it was probably the snacks that sealed the deal. Shortly thereafter, I became a member of Cub Scout Pack 456.

           My days as a Cub Scout now seem part of a distant past, but there are a few moments that I distinctly remember. I won’t soon be forgetting the sore throats I acquired after each weekly meeting spent yelling my loudest to earn our den the spirit stick…I cannot remember all the games we played, nor all the crafts we made, but what I do remember – and will always remember – are the lasting friendships I’ve built, the numerous life lessons I’ve learned, and the steps I took to become who I am today.

           My very first camping trip with the troop took place on a notoriously rainy April at the Grant Pilgrimage in Galena. The first night was freezing cold and terribly windy. It downpoured for the entire weekend, turning the campsite into a massive mud-wrestling arena. Suddenly, a powerful gust of wind uprooted our canopy tent, sending it sailing through the air until crushing my tent. Though thoroughly drenched, the five scouts now piled into one two-person tent were not by any means under the weather. All night long, we played card games, told stories and made shadow puppets as the rainwater flooded the tent. After the trip, my Scoutmaster was surprised to see that any of the new scouts would come back for the next trip! Since then, I’ve been on somewhere over 50 camping trips and outings.

           The memories I’ve made in Boy Scouts, as well as the skills I’ve learned, will remain with me for the rest of my life, and I’m happy to apply what I’ve learned every day. Fishing, hiking, swimming, geocaching, canoeing, creating skits, playing board games, learning knots with Mr. Bruchsaler and knife safety with Mr. Niese, gaining merit badges, and playing some intense games of capture the flag are times that prove there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with my troop. I helped to build sleds for the Klondike Derby, troop gadgets and monkey bridges. I learned to shoot with bow and arrow and start a fire my first time at Camp Lowden. In two days’ time, I will be leaving for the summer to serve as Quartermaster at that very same campground. Believe it or not, I even love the cooking, and there’s not a meal we’ve made when I haven’t asked for seconds. Who would think something cooked in a cardboard box or garbage can would taste so good!

            Last night I made a list of all the kids who have been in Troop 456 since I’ve been a member, and at last count I could name 48. That’s 48 scouts I’ve either looked up to or have had look up to me. Four are Eagle Scouts. Two more are on the way. If asked, I could definitely rattle off a few stories about each one of them, and no story would come without a smile. I can only hope my fellow scouts are gaining as much from their time in the troop as I have.

            I have served as Scribe, Assistant Senior Patrol Leader (twice) and Senior Patrol Leader in this troop and now have the rank of Eagle Scout to prove what I’ve accomplished. But don’t think my ambition to be involved ends there. I plan to regularly participate in activities as an adult leader so that I am able to return the favor given to me by my peers and leaders. I still have much to learn in Scouting, but I have one more year as a youth in the troop to do so, and a lifetime after that.

          I often wonder where I would be if I hadn’t joined Scouting back in second grade. For certain, I would not be as accomplished as a speaker, as organized, or as good a teacher. Boy Scouts has prepared me for a life of enjoyment and success and has instilled in me the mindset to never give up. I have gained respect for people of all backgrounds, but also the ability to make lasting friendships based in trust, loyalty and honesty. In short, my involvement in Boy Scouts has opened a world of possibilities for me and those I have yet to influence.

 The night’s over with. The bonfire remains as a heap of smoldering coals, wistfully smoking in the still air. The presents are opened, the thank-you lists drafted, and the leftover pasta is parceled up to be given away. I’m about to fall asleep in the same bed as I slept in as a non-Eagle. I would have it no other way.

NO TEST MATERIAL ON THIS PAGE.

June 2nd, 2012 | 154rd day | 73°, partly cloudy, winds WSW 18 mph | Waxing Gibbous |

WOODSTOCK, IL. – I cannot count on my fingers or toes the number of student peers that live for moments like this.

With an adequate supply of No. 2 pencils, myself and about half a million high school students were shut in a motivationally-sterile room for four hours to take the SAT exam. My mother, eager for me to express by supposedly superior bubble-filling skills, had ordered a study guide of biblical proportions to prepare me for my future, which apparently is synonymous with this test. I was happy to receive it – I needed a new paperweight.

Because “my score may be cancelled” were I to do so, I am explicitly forbidden to discuss the specific questions of the test either in person, by phone or Internet. (What about smoke signals?)

TOTALLY INDEPENDENTLY FROM THE CONTENTS OF TODAY’S TEST, I may or may not have begun to ponder the relationship between progress and problem-solving today. Also, I came across an excerpt of a scholarly work entitled “Save The World on Your Own Time” by Prof. Stanley Fish that posits his anti-foundationalist regard for the roles of teachers (Fish urges professors to keep the “we-are-going-to-save-the-world” mentality from the classroom and to focus solely on the academics) that I found highly intriguing.

Teaching to the test has been a substantial point for debate among a select few colleagues and my profound ex-Statistics teacher. We believe that standardized testing performance is worthy of minimal recognition, since the only things definitively shown by these exams appear to be 1) how much the student has studied and 2) the socio-economic background of the same. To me, the SAT is just another empty acronym…literally.

Someone really needs to develop a street-smarts or a common sense placement test. Seriously.

I’ve taken the ACT once and scored a 29, not what I’d consider exemplary of my academic standing. Timing is my chief problem in that sort of test; I scored a 36 in Reading and English categories, while my deliberation on the Math and Science portions yielded scores of 24. I’m not embarassed to say I performed poorly for my standards, in part because my standards are not entirely evident by what shows up on any answer form. For the record, I did not review for one minute for the ACT.

The whole No Child Left Behind thing is working really well, according to the mean SAT scores, below. Nevertheless, there’s a strong correlation between the g factor and SAT score, but this is data worth noting. (Note also that the test is designed for mean score of 500 of 800, and was rescaled in 1995.)

The whole No Child Left Behind thing is working really well, according to the mean SAT scores, below. Nevertheless, there’s a strong correlation between the g factor and SAT score, but this is data worth noting. (Note also that the test is designed for mean score of 500 of 800, and was rescaled in 1995.)

If my path to college would not be totally jeopardized by doing so, I would have worked for a score of 1 on the ACT. Statistically, it is actually nearly impossible since the test-taker is required to know all the wrong answers. Maybe universities would pick up on that.

When dealing with the whole ‘career path’ business, I’ve never given the same answer twice; it wouldn’t be fair to! I will never limit myself to one interest, nor will I be able to honestly find a job, hobby, or field of interest I can’t stand. I love life and everything it offers, is that so bad? For the heck of it, I marked my ethnicity as Pacific Islander on some standardized test back in the 3rd grade – I was paranoid for weeks that something terrible would happen.

Aside from this academia ad nauseam, I had reason to be unnaturally happy today – my grandfather bequeathed unto me his copy ofOur Brokaw-Bragaw Heritage! I’d like to draw from that for its biographical passages as I continue to prepare my own family history book. I’m about 190 pages in, but I imagine I’ll never be finished (not that I want to be, anyway.)

To wrap this up:

My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.
-Anais Nin

Writer’s Bloc

June 1st, 2012 | 153rd day | 54°, dreary, winds negligible | Waxing Gibbous |

You read this earlier as a freshly pressed post:

Writers of the world, please check out  Active Fiction (NEW!). Here’s something avant-garde – let’s write fiction together! I’ll think of a couple paragraphs to start a story and let anyone else who joins in help develop it. Add a paragraph or a phrase or two, or even a whole chapter, and see what we can come up with. I encourage everybody’s help! Let’s keep the story somewhat comprehendable though.

In all its hecticity, this was a very prolific Friday. I could sleep no longer by 4 AM, and took to actually exploring the WordPress community, but also got in some reading time (now on Edward Bellamy’s “Looking Backward”). At 9 AM, I moseyed over to a friend’s garage sale in the portentious quest for collectible cameras.

Typically, I’m a grossly frugal kid. I’ve been known to go to questionable lengths to gain money. I gathered $37 dollars from a Border’s (R.I.P.) parking lot puddle and got my record time in a 2-mile race after seeing a buffalo nickel on the track. Nevertheless, when books, cameras, music and art are involved, I turn into the most uneconomical shopper you’ll ever know. Added to my small assortment of cameras after the excursion were a 1948 Bell & Howell Double-8 Filmo Sportster (with film!) and $2-dollar 1972 Kodak XL55. I felt responsible only spending $40…it could have been much worse. (My five cameras can be seen on the P.O.D.)

I have had the surprising fortune to be admitted as a blogger to this grouping of talented literary bloggers, but I definitely feel like a novice now! The members of the 20 Lines A Day team are what I’d describe as purveyors of fine cathartic written episodes, in both senses of the word. Starting in September, you’ll be able to find my newest prose and poetry on their page, authored as Didactic|for|hire.

Before errands-running and the transportation of a gross of chairs and tables to my grandfather’s house, I jotted down six full pages in my 11th volume “thought journal”. I was to eager to leave my Active Fiction page untouched, so I started my own unadulterated version to be added when the comments start flowing on the alternate plot.

For this post’s featured photo,  I’ve included a candid shot of my grandfather as we dropped off the tables for my upcoming Eagle Scout Ceremony at his house in his It was just an unwonted moment, so I had to record it by whatever means possible. His true blue 1947 Ford pickup – not a jalopy, mind you, she’s very well maintained – shuttled the ridiculous assemblage of lawn furniture. The whole effort lasted about an hour and left me mildly asthmatic and drenched in sweat.

The Pidgin Tongue of Fate

May 31st, 2012 | 152nd day | 48°, raining, winds NE 10 mph | Waxing Gibbous |

CRYSTAL LAKE, IL. – One of the innumerable rewards of eating Chinese food is the crafty Confucian adages you find in fortune cookies. It seems as though the bottom fortune is the pre-21st century-Westerner’s strongest rebuke to the Eastern philosophies of old.

This afternoon was not a very eventful one, so I have an excuse to be brief.

My dad’s father, who hails from the recently tornado-struck town of Kimberling City, Missouri, arrived in town yesterday, so the three generations of Brokaws and my stepbrother supped at a family restaurant, perpetuating the tradition of awkward mealtime quietude. Afterwards I hosted a rehearsal for Sunday’s event which quickly digressed into distracted-Boy-Scouts-touring-my-study-like-its-ADHD-day-at-the-museum night. Alas, there were dessert pastries.

I gave myself a 101 courses in cybernetics, creole languages and quantum tunnelling theory as well. If I die young, I’ll at least be well-rounded?

You’re probably tickled pink that this post is over with! Farewell.

 

The Problem with Bookworms

May 30th, 2012 | 151st day | 77°, partly cloudy, winds NNW 12 mph | Waxing Gibbous |

BULL VALLEY, IL. – With inexplicable gusto, I was once again able to add a 1,000th book to my bookshelf.

The original #1,000 was a 1929 copy of Anthology of Negro Literature, but that musty tome now resides on a desk at my father’s house. Taking its place this morning was Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski, a rather peculiar novel given to me by my Creative Writing teacher at the end of last year.

I possess works of literature ranging from Russian romance novels to 65 incomplete years worth of National Geographic magazines (yellow stripe above bookshelf), from the collected plays of Moliere to a history of the world salt trade, and from the Time Life Home Repair series to the exquisite Lo! and The Odd Book of Data. At last count, I could call 1,048 books my own.

Today was another day spent chiefly in cleaning, rearranging and sorting (with the books, not so much). I dumped several additional stacks of business cards into my collection to be catalogued at a later date (see Picture of the Day) and resorted to gathering bird photos for this blog.

My grand furcate skill - that congruous strength and weakness - is that I think best (and worst) about thinking. Truly, I don’t have any right to a grandiose image where I am portrayed as noteworthy for knowing my flaws. I may lust for a Right Livelihood Award, but that end is on a different course than what my present means can meet.

We, the bibliophagous, are learned, yet are faulty. The problem with bookworms is that we do not always draft our corrigenda; we may know the death-watch borer is prone to riddling our works, but we never hear the sound of it. Books can educate a man, but a people lives on practicalities.

The modern American education system and society at large commend book smarts. The ability to fill in bubbles determines our fate. Those whose genius lies in hands and their physical manifestations are discounted when a college-prepared logician is added to the lineup. I’m almost sorry that I want to change the world, and help others to do it, since the new classical education gets suspicious of the nonconforming.

Nonconforming, of course, is the fad. If we sidestep the moral morass (or maze, if you’re a structuralist), there’s more fun charting the unknown, defining ourselves, but with books alone, we leave out the crucial contextual component.

Ironically, I’ve observed the most originality from the theoreticians, while the change-makers – the practitioners – live the simple life of following the flow. What a poor, reversed fate for us all!

Because I know I’ll be far removed from this monitor in less than a week (I cannot express my joy in words, and I’m not being sarcastic!) I’m skimming as much as the broad world of Wikipedia can offer. Today I researched Mordechai Vanunu and the Xhosa people and the relationship between the metaphysical works of Gilles Deleuze and experimental music. Looking through this hodge-podge collection of works gives my youthful wanderings a path to avoid.

It’s a start.

I’m definitely meant to be a collector; thoughts, bird names on crumpled paper lists, songs of experience and newfound terms I’ll forget by next Thursday all seem like the natural extension of my bookishness. I hoardknowledge, letting it ferment in the best-furnished of chambers. I don’t even realize there’s an alternative. The very scent of knowledge wasting away is ecstasy!

Now I’ll describe what has certainly occurred today, for the rest, I suppose, is indeterminable. After errands and a haircut I passed briefly through MCCD’s Glacial Park in hopes of spotting a few easy marshland species for the McHenry County Audubon’s year list competition (I’m in 4th!), and was successful. The dickcissel is a new life list species.

150. Dickcissel
151. Wilson’s Phalarope
152. Black Tern

254. Dickcissel (Spiza americana) – 5/30/2012 – Glacial Park, Ringwood, IL
This prairie species, somewhere between a sparrow and a finch, but with plumage patterns most closely resembling that of a meadowlark, is not a difficult find. After entering the park, I pulled over by the Powers-Walker House to scan the Lost Valley Marsh, inhabited by the usual egrets, great blue herons and blackbirds – no Yellow-headed, though. Meadowlarks, a bobolink and the dickcissel were flushed out of the tallgrass as my Pontiac rumbled across the gravel lane over to the kettle marsh. There was observed the tern and phalarope, a sora,  phoebe and a boisterous Hispanic family.

To end this fickle little post…

I know that there are many persons to whom it seems derogatory to link a body of philosophic ideas to the social life and culture of their epoch. They seem to accept a dogma of immaculate conception of philosophical systems.

-John Dewey