ends & oddvirtual children by Scott Warnock

Friends of all ages

The new year, 2024–we’re way into it. It’s been too late for a while to say happy new year to someone. You no longer accidentally write “2023.” We’ve plunged in, and that dive for many includes r-r-r-resolutions. Dry January. I’m gonna start hitting the gym. Book clubs.

Let’s do something maybe a little easier. How about this year commit to making a friend younger or older than you?

This Charley Locke article in VoxYou should have more friends of all ages” suggested just that, saying, “Making friends with those outside of your age range — people 10 or 20 years older or younger than you — can be challenging. But those relationships can widen your world, providing perspective and community beyond your current experiences.”

(As a pleasant surprise, I had bookmarked this article when I decided to write about this topic, and when I opened it discovered a former Drexel student I know well was featured! Go Devin!)

A person I much admired, my former neighbor (sigh) Bob Heck, was to me a model of this. He had friends of all ages, and it seemed to make him a considerably more well-rounded person. As he aged, of course, those intergenerational friendships tended to be with younger people, those he mentored but also simply seemed to enjoy sharing his numerous hobbies and pastimes with.

People can of course diversify friendships and relationships in many ways, but leaping age barriers can provide a unique lens for taking in life, for all the expected reasons: Our younger friendships can help us look at things in new, fresh ways, and with an older friend we could share their vantage of experience.

This doesn’t mean older people have to walk around with a bunch of 20-year-olds saying “fire” and “cap,” or if you’re in the “fire” and “cap” crowd to go see 80-year-olds perform in classic rock bands, but making friends outside of your age bracket can help our perspectives be more flexible and nimbler.

I often think life does tend to push us toward rigidity of belief, starting even when we’re young, and making achronological friends seems a way to slow this. A great divide in human experience seems to be viewing others without valuing the viewpoint their age brings, and we don’t do enough to experience the first-hand experiences of those outside our age range.

As my daughter is finishing up grad school and preparing for a major geographic move, she started babysitting, and she is having the incredible opportunity to be around a baby, whose developmental milestones amaze her. While of course you don’t have a friendship with a baby, her marveling at these daily developmental milestones made me think about how we don’t maintain that sense of wonder. We instead see chronological others through lenses like “Those kids today!” or “Old people are so lame”?

Okay, baby milestones are easy–and fun!–to see, but there are such markers we could find in all of our relationships. As Locke wrote in the Vox article, “Different life stages offer and require different abilities: In your 20s, you may be looking for career advice and are able to help parents connect with a distant teenager; a new parent may be looking for a support system that can become part of their extended family; a recent retiree may have plenty of time but seek more day-to-day connection.”

Developing a friendship with someone much older or younger provides you with opportunities, and I think as does any relationship built around appreciation of others, these opportunities in the end enable us to slow down.

No matter our age, we could all use more of that.

virtual children by Scott Warnock

AI overlord inevitability?: My fantasy team says no

Many of us spent 2023 wallowing in doubt and self-pity about the inevitable rise of AI. Unbridled academic cheating. Deep fakes. The death of creativity. We feared humanity was done for!

But as I sit perched atop my family fantasy football league–the champ!–I declare that humanity has a few more gasps left.

Last summer, my nephew organized an overpopulated 14-team family league: me, my three kids, their seven cousins, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and my one niece’s boyfriend (another niece had a GM/consultant family friend–the more the merrier!).

We’re geographically dispersed, so it was a great way to stay in touch (and talk trash).

In our chaotic draft, many “owners” had a low football acumen and auto-drafted, letting an enigmatic AI pick their players. After the draft, the AI spit this out about my team: “Scott was positioned nicely with a favorable draft pick, but assembled a team that will need to overachieve according to the pundits.” My prospects appeared dim, the AI starkly reported:

  • Draft grade: C
  • Projected record: 3-11
  • Projected finish: T12

12th place!

Ah, but what the AI didn’t know. The AI didn’t see it coming, but suspended Saints running back Alvin Kamara and injured Colts RB Jonathan Taylor returned to play at just the right time. I mixed them in with surprise stud RB from the Browns, Jerome Ford–go, Browns, go!

Sure, my man Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts had his struggles on the gridiron, but in fantasy world, he’s money (#2 ranked QB). Eagles kicker Jake Elliot did his job all season, as did the Kansas City defense and 49ers tight end George Kittle.

I picked up Packers rookie wide receiver Jayden Reed: Who knew he’d be so good? AI didn’t figure on my not only grabbing Steelers WR George Pickens but that he would blow it up in the final two games, including our championship, just when my normal starter Dolphins WR Jaylen Waddle was injured.

In that lopsided Super Bowl win against my brother-in-law–two old guys vindicated–I played six of nine players I drafted. I stuck to my guns. I looked like a genius!

Well, I’m not, but the AI certainly wasn’t either.

If AI can’t predict a silly thing like fantasy football, maybe natural language generators using predictive modeling for word choice aren’t quite there in capturing creativity the way a human does in choosing a sussever (my made-up word for “unique sequence of two words”).

I’m no Shakespeare, the great coiner of words, so “sussever” dies here, but humans will keep cementing words into the dictionary like we did again in 2023 and coming up with new ideas, and AI apps will comb their databases to catch up.

Maybe some day, AI. For now, I lord my championship over all. They were supposed to be better than me. Will I repeat next year? You have as good a chance as anyone or anything of figuring that one out.

virtual children by Scott Warnock

Three-volley salute–and fathers and sons

A few weeks ago we buried my dad’s ashes. He had a fitting send-off for an old vet: A small, somber ceremony at Washington Crossing National Cemetery, including a three-volley salute and taps.

It has to be said. My dad was a misanthropic, isolated, enigmatic person. As far as I can tell, he had tenuous relationships with everyone he ever encountered.

Later in the day after the funeral, I was working on a few tasks in my office. My middle child, Nate, typically reserved, mild, walked into the office, cat draped over his shoulder, a move I think was meant to drain the moment of too much gravity. He paused, seemingly uncertain, and said in his quiet way that the day was meaningful.

Yes, this was his grandfather, but he had barely seen my dad through the years. Those tenuous relationships included family. My kids didn’t know him that well.

My son measured me as he said the day was meaningful, and I realized he was not thinking about himself at all: He was gauging how I was doing with this complexity.

So I told him what I thought I was feeling. I told him a little about the peculiar, crossed-up feelings that accompanied a strange day like this. How my dad had been difficult and we all knew it. How the military ritual was appropriate for U.S. Marine Russell J. Warnock. How it was a shame there was no big send-off funeral, but I was fine.

I suppose I was trying to be profound, as we are wont to do when we talk to our children about cosmic matters. We want to rise to the occasion.

My sons and I do not have Iron John-type relationships, but, still, I was struck when he nodded at my pseudo wisdom, said he hoped I was okay, made his way around my way-too-big desk and embraced me.

Then he said, in direct response to my desultory, discursive comments: “But he’s still your dad.”

That was it. You get one dad. And to hear that from my son at that moment meant that he was trying to understand me through his perception of how this man sitting before him saw his own dad. I think he had at a deep level glimpsed the powerful contract between fathers and sons, and while he had always seen me as Dad, he was now also seeing me as Son.

virtual children by Scott Warnock

Trains do not keep a rollin’

I live in Burlington County and commute to West Philly. I support public transit, which is a tough sell in South Jersey, the land of the car, but it’s especially tough lately, because our transit systems appear to have given up.

Believe it or not, there’s an easy three-train commute from Western Burlington County to University City. I know because I did it for more than a decade. During rush hour, the RiverLine, PATCO, and the SEPTA El got it done: An easy RiverLine-PATCO connection at Walter Rand in Camden followed by an easy PATCO-SEPTA El (Blue Line) connection at 8th Street.

I loved surprising people by telling them you could board the RiverLine at 7:55 a.m. in Riverton and walk up the El stairs in West Philly before 8:30.

Those days are mostly gone. The commute started collapsing pre-pandemic. Now it’s often intolerable.

You may have seen news stories and press releases from SEPTA and the RiverLine. Jabber about faulty equipment, lack of operators, train unavailability–it’s a mess.

I’ll lay off PATCO, which is mostly fine. PATCO’s problem is the closure of the Walter Rand Transportation Center head house several years ago. Now, the transition between PATCO and the RiverLine involves walking across Broadway, and there’s little protection from the elements while you await the weakest link in this commute, the RiverLine.

Ah, the RiverLine. What could be… In a September 20 Philadelphia Inquirer article “NJ Transit apologizes for ‘less than satisfactory’ performance of River Line light rail” NJ Transit tries to explain away a rash of cancellations, delays, and packed trains.

But the story goes back a ways. Talk to RiverLine riders. Even my local public transit diehards are exasperated with the RiverLine. Many drive to PATCO’s Ferry Ave. Station. Some drive into Philly.

RiverLine passengers must punch a ticket or use an app, but there are only consequences for freeriding if you’re caught, and I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a ticket checker.

There’s also a meanness to the RiverLine. On numerous–really, numerous–occasions other riders and I would dash to the RiverLine from PATCO and were actually touching the train as it departed. We’d look at each other in disbelief as the operator, avoiding eye contact with us, would pull away. Three seconds and we’re on that train. With schedules stretched to every 30 minutes recently, you’re stranded at Walter Rand, rain or shine–and hope the next scheduled train arrives.

SEPTA has deteriorated too. Stand on the 30th Street platform and save money on your smoke of choice: Just suck in secondhand clouds. As a voice drones over the loudspeaker “Smoking is banned on all SEPTA properties,” people puff away.

SEPTA’s app lists schedules, but that information is a fiction. The EL should run every few minutes, but you can wait many minutes as the crowd builds and you get your smoke on–where’s the train?

I’m a frustrated commuter, but what about people who need public transit?: People without a car, the elderly, people with small kids? And note I’m not even touching safety issues here.

Where is an economic review of the lost revenue because people are fed up? The Inquirer ran a story about frustrations with SEPTA on October 8, but these systems are simply bad services. It’s a company/business death spiral: A terrible service means nobody uses it so you have no cash flow to improve it.

The RiverLine and SEPTA must put people in charge who can revitalize these systems. Do the minimum so riders return!

But then glimmers of hope… as I prepared to click “publish,” the RiverLine announced it is resuming normal service. And when the Phillies, the Flyers, and a Mexico-Germany soccer game took place on the same night last week, SEPTA offered free service from the sports complex.

I didn’t give up on public transit anyway. I do drive now, but only 3.8 miles to the Pennsauken Transit Center, where I take the NJ Transit AC Line one stop, about 20 minutes, to 30th Street Station. That train is on time and orderly, and conductors take your ticket.

Rarely, a conductor will race through, missing some riders. If they miss me, I still activate my e-ticket: Whether someone checks or not, it’s a ride worth paying for.

educationvirtual children by Scott Warnock

Why am I a teacher?

I was sending emails about this year’s Palmyra High School Foundation for Educational Excellence (PHSFEE) Casino Night–there’s a reason for this opening, I promise I’m not softening you up in an effort to sell tickets for our fundraiser–and as usual a few messages bounced.

One puzzled me. Initially it appeared as a cryptic series of letters before the @–and then I remembered it was the address of my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Roseann DiMeglio. We had connected online years ago and stayed in touch. Of course she would be on my education foundation mailing list.

When the message bounced, I got a bad feeling. Alas, I was right. A quick web search revealed that on June 22, 2021–more than two years ago!–my teacher Roseann DiMeglio died. I read her obituary.

Recently, I was asked a simple question by a student: When did you know you wanted to be a teacher? I’m sure I’ve been asked that, but I was struck with how dumbfounded I was in my response. I realized I didn’t have a thing, an incident, a concrete moment that I could point to.

I had some good teachers along the way. I enjoyed coaching after college. I wanted a teaching assistant position as I started my MA program. But… why?

When I received that bounced email, I reflected on my second-grade experiences with Mrs. DiMeglio. I loved her. Some of my friends recalled her as strict, but to me she wasn’t that way at all. She was kind to me and, more importantly, motivated in me an eagerness for learning and specifically writing and reading.

Running atop the chalkboard in her class was a banner that looked like a long strip of wide-ruled loose-leaf paper. On that banner each letter was represented in cursive, both upper and lower case. I remember staring at those cursive characters on the lined “paper,” and I recall being impatient as we proceeded through the alphabet. I remember I wrote a note to my mom one night, and I was frustrated because my note was flawed because I was using several letters before we had reviewed the correct way to form them in class. (I chuckled thinking that Mrs. DiMeglio might be the “cause” of my to-this-day wretched penmanship, because I never did learn to make some of these letters the right way.)

Early literacy memories–five decades ago.

I then considered my involvement with a public school education foundation and with my local school board(s). What spurred this education-focused civic engagement?

So I went back to the question the student asked me about my motivation to be a teacher.

Looking at that bounceback email (it strikes me what a melancholy genre the bounceback email is) I realized that our best teachers’ impact stretches into our lives for years, maybe decades. Sometimes only much later will we realize what they were doing for us: “Yes, I see it now.”

I had returned to Berlin Community School several times when I was in grad school, and I had caught up with Mrs. DiMeglio. So I did tell her how important she was to me. I don’t know if I had the perspective, though, at that time in my life, to really say that she was a model of good teaching for me perhaps when I was a learner, only seven and eight years old, just a little guy who wanted to make his cursive letters.

Of course this is bittersweet because I’m writing this now, two years after she has passed. But that’s the thing about writing in particular, that its force can carry on long beyond its source.

I still want it to be known that Mrs. DiMeglio supplied me with early inspiration to help me want to teach–and write. I may know it now more than I ever have.

virtual children by Scott Warnock

The perils of poker

I’m critical, including in this space, of the rash of gambling sites and apps, especially how they are fronted by big-name former athletes luring in young bettors. But I’m a hypocrite in dissin’ all these teenage traders and gamblers, because a primary way we got through the pandemic in my house was by establishing a Friday night poker pod consisting of my two sons with a friend each. (My wife played early but smartly evacuated after a few hands.)

Poker inspires nicknames, and it wasn’t long before we were playing with the likes of Riverboat Willie and Crazy 8s. Sure, it was fun, but money, even wee bits of money, was on the table. In karmic response to my corrupting influence I experienced a few horrific moments. I’ll share.

For one, and this should have been obvious to me, penny ante poker is useless. With penny stakes, the betting doesn’t matter, so dum–er, less experienced players, stay in hands no matter what they have. There’s no logic about bluffing, no human sense of reason.

Also, when you’re playing with these types of foo–er, neophytes, you have to get out of the habit of feeling sorry for them and forcing them to go with what they call as their best hand and not their best hand. I didn’t do this, continually reminding them what they really had: How many seven-card stud hands would I have won except the idio– er nice youngster next to me actually had a flush and not the two pair he called?

But the worst part has been the really big, rare wins that weren’t.

We play a game called 7-27. In 7-27, you get two cards to start, one up, one down. Cards are worth their value (e.g., six equals six points). Face cards are worth half a point. Aces can be one or eleven. The goal is to get as close as possible to seven or 27. Each round, the dealer asks each player if they want a card dealt face up, followed by betting. The game ends when no one takes a card, and then one person declares high and another declares low and those closest split the pot.

But do the math: If you get ace, ace, five, you have both seven and 27: You take the whole pot!

Well, of course one spring evening playing with these schlu– kind gents I get ace and ace to start, and I took an early hit: I got a five! But my excitement was short-lived, because what did they all do? They dropped. I won about 12 cents.

The game of 7-27 might be a little complicated for all audiences. But here’s something I think most of you will get.

One night, after eating tacos and while drinking root beer floats, we played a hand of five-card draw. My cards came in: 10 spades, Jack spaces, King spaces, Ace spaces–my god, could it be?!–Queen spades.

I had been dealt, in five cards, a royal flush.

The probability of being dealt a royal flush is the number of royal flushes divided by the total number of poker hands, a probability of 0.00015%. Much like very large numbers, a probability that small is difficult to wrap your head around. A way to put this in perspective is to ask how long it would take to go through 649,740 poker hands. If you were dealt 20 hands of poker every night, then this would only amount to 7,300 hands per year. in 89 years you should get your royal flush.

89 years.

In our game, suppressing my quivers of excitement, I kept the bet low: Two cents. We went around the table. In this group of moro… uh, fellows who stay in when they have NOTHING, three of them dropped. One put in another two cents.

When I took zero cards that last guy dropped. I collected a total pot of 9 cents, 3 of which was mine.

That’s right: 9 cents. Everyone dropped. If we had been playing for nickels, I’d at least have won 45 cents.

I try to show some restraint among my kids and their friends–you know, be a good role model and all–but I slammed the cards to the table and bellowed, “Do you know what this f*%#+ hand is worth in the casinos?”

By the way, you would think things would improve as the players get older, but older=drinking, and drinking=misdeals. In a recent sitting, I had to suffer through three misdeals in four hands. My head nearly exploded, and I blathered about oh just how shot they would all be if we were playing in an old-time Western saloon. Pow! I think my ramblings spooked them, but they had no idea what I was talking about.

As I sat watching them giggling and scraping the cards off the floor, I realized it’d be better for my long-term health if they just tapped around on FanDuel.

sportsvirtual children by Scott Warnock

One, two, three strikes… you’re IN

Way back when, as an assistant coach for my middle child Nate’s soccer team, we set up an early spring scrimmage one weekend against another squad. We needed someone to referee.

I volunteered. Before the game, I gathered the kids and then the parents and told them this: I’m no soccer expert, and I’m not going to be a good official. I’m happy to wield a whistle to help keep order, but it’s only a scrimmage. I will focus on preventing dangerous plays, but I will miss many calls (offsides?… forget it!).

Despite this pregame orientation, early on, things got chippy–these were two good teams with many competitive kids–and some parents from the other team started getting on me, complaining about the officiating.

No chance. After a few comments, I walked right up to one guy, and I dangled the whistle in front of him. “You wanna do it?” I asked.

In my long years involved with youth sports, I’ve had the experience many others have had: parents are the weak link. But the growing, well documented abuse of officials has gone too far, and the repercussions are tangible: For example, New Jersey is having trouble finding soccer officials at all levels.

Deptford Little League has come up with a plan: You wanna berate the umps? Then you’re gonna ump yourself. As reported in the May 21, 2023 Philadelphia Inquirer, “Fed up with parents cursing umpires, two of whom quit in April, Deptford Little League president Don Bozzuffi made international news last month by instituting a novel punishment: Unruly parents will be banned from attending games unless they umpire three contests themselves.”

I love it.

Take these jerks out of the bleachers and hand them the umpire jersey.

Watching pro sports, you can see how critiquing the officials has become part of the flow of the game. Announcers, dopes like Jeff Van Gundy and Cris Collingsworth, make such criticism a natural part of a broadcast. (Well, at least Van Gundy’s gone now, but I always wonder how these lousy announcers keep their jobs. How do you rate them? People are going to watch the great products of the NBA finals or the NFL playoffs no matter who blabs about it–sorry… spiteful digression…).

Disdain for officials is cross cultural, but consider how ingrained it is in American sports culture. In the song “Six Months Out of Every Year” from the old baseball musical Damn Yankees, givin’ it to the ump is just part of the game, part of the fandom chorus:

Strike three, ball four, walk a run’ll tie the score,
Yer blind Ump,
Yer blind Ump,
Ya mus’ be out-a yer mind, Ump!

Officiating human beings in motion is incredibly difficult, no matter the level. In my long experience, officials get the vast majority of it right, and when there is a weak official, they are just that: A weak official, and they are missing calls all over. It’s not some crooked person who’s calling everything against your team. (In my many years as coach and fan, I did have one moment I’m truly embarrassed about. I still want to find that ref and apologize.)

I know a missed call is frustrating, especially in the age of replay. Remember, I’m an Eagles fan, and I had to agonize over a Super Bowl frittered away after a tough call.

At its base, though, the abusive, frothy behavior of fans, which often begins as soon as a competition starts, demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect for another person. Deptford’s Little League approach makes the bad fan become that person. As Bozzuffi said, “I tried to think about the one thing in the world parents wouldn’t want to do. This was it.”

My hope is not that such fans will get a taste of their own medicine, because after all that means other fans are yelling at them, but that through this experience thet will understand that the person umpiring the game is earnestly trying to do a good, fair job.

They will, in other words, learn something bigger: They will learn empathy.

virtual children by Scott Warnock

First days of school, K to 17

My daughter, Elizabeth, is enrolled in a Nova Southeastern M.S. in Counseling program with a concentration in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. It is a low-residency program, meaning that most coursework involves rigorous online study while several times her cohort will assemble at Nova Fort Lauderdale for onsite, in-person practice and reflection.

Last week, near the end of term two, was her initial in-person experience. Preceding this visit, she had meticulously planned a two-week trip to a music festival and to visit friends in three states, building an itinerary that allowed to her to spend time working hard on school in friends’ homes, cafes, and other wi-fi sites. She would “grind out work,” she told me.

A few months ago, she asked if I wanted to join her in Fort Lauderdale. What an opportunity! Sure, she’d be immersed in school most of the time, but I was coming off another busy academic year and thought some downtime sounded pretty nice.

She set it all up, reserving cheap flights and a rental car via whiz-bang apps (these kids today!), and we even got a Marriott Courtyard for a great price. While she was in class, I finished a novel and cleaned up an issue of The Atlantic. Then we spent a day at the beach and another on a swamp tour. (We both held a scorpion.)

The campus was only a few miles from our hotel. I toted her around in this black Nissan SUV that made it look like she had a secret service escort.

That first morning of class, we drove over to campus. We strolled the beautiful campus–it really is sweet–and checked out the Nova bookstore. We soon found her building, and…

… we sent Elizabeth to kindergarten a few weeks after her fifth birthday. She was young for her class, but she was ready for school, we thought.

She certainly was a spirited child, a characterization that would last about, well, forever.

I remember that first day of kindergarten. She was all of 35 pounds and had this oversized backpack. We walked the few blocks to school, and my wife and I didn’t know what to expect. The Riverton School schoolyard was a chaotic mix of kids laughing and eager for school and others hanging on their parents’ legs, moaning and weeping.

At one point, while my wife and I were talking to someone on the playground, we turned around and realized Elizabeth was coolly walking into the school. We followed her and found she had hung up her backpack.

Okay, so much for needing us …

… and here we were, years later, in “17th grade.” As she and I parted ways in her Nova building, she smiled and said, “I’ll see you this afternoon. Love you!” and walked toward her classroom.

I felt an ache of parental love as this self-assured, proud young woman, still with a backpack, although one more appropriately sized, strode away from me, and before I turned a trick of the atrium light almost had me believing I saw a blurred image of her as that tiny five-year-old confidently entering school on day one of kindergarten: Moving to that next big challenge, a decade-plus later.

My daughter–my daughter!

virtual children by Scott Warnock

Empty nest? We barely got to snap a twig

Eight months as empty nesters. How was it? We’ve barely had time to branch out.

Because, and this is a little hawkward, but recently I received the starling information that our goose was cooked. With Junco-ming right around the corner, my nephew is moving from Indiana to good old NJay.

He’s alighting into that empty nest. When I first heard this news, I was like, “Is this fake, oriole?” I should’ve dove for cover, but I couldn’t duck: He was robin me of this time of my life! (And I kinda wondered if my sister-in-law was pulling the old mama bird cuckoo trick on us…) I suppose I could rail to Acanthis, grouse about it all I want …

… but w-hen I thought it over, I was like, you know, who’myna to complain? After all, he’s no turkey. He’s a good kid, and I feel we’re gonna be lucky to have him. My own kids might be a little bittern, a little thrush with jealousy, but he could become number one.

So we’ve warmed up to the idea of this guy flying into our roost. He’s a smart, talon-ted kid. He often grackles me up. He likes to talk, so he’ll keep me sharp with some nice chats, and I’m sure his “fascinating” stories will keep me rapt. Believe it or not, it will be nice to have a tanager in the house again. (We will have to get used to aerie-ting out the smell of those soccer cleats again (those things can get pretty fowl!).)

I would vulture to guess that he’ll probably help my diet too beak-ause he eats like a you know what with his salads and cucumbers–it’s owl down the nuthatch. He’ll provide another regular attendee at family-friend game nights, helping passerine the Balderdash box around the table.

Well, let osprey it goes well, but, still, is it a cardinal sin to look at this a little wistfully? It seems my time of rattling around the old house warbling away will be delayed, although the wait may make the time when I do become a loony old coot all the sweeter.

I’ll echo what Joe says to Pip in Great Eggpectations: “What larks!” are ahead of us! Even if he doesn’t pay any wren, overall, I’m sure the eggperience will be, you know, eggcellent.

moneytechnology

A Brush with Techno-Corporate-Bureaucracy

Even though I teach an entire 10-week undergrad course on Franz Kafka, sometimes the absurdity and our powerlessness in the face of techno-corporate-bureaucracy still take me by surprise. (I get that there are bigger problems in the world and I’m fortunate this is the worst thing that happened to me yesterday. But I’m going to tell you about it anyway.)

Our son lives in on-campus housing run by a company called American Campus Communities. Last year, we paid his rent monthly on a credit card and each month there was a $19.95 fee for a one-time payment. This year, we switched to automatic payments from our checking account so there would not be the $20 monthly fee and there’d be no chance of rent being paid late. That has been going smoothly since September 2022.

Yesterday, when I’m in the car on the way to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy, my son calls me because he is (along with friends) applying to live off campus and has to show his rent-payment history to the prospective new landlord, and when he went to print it he saw that there is a late fee for the current month and his rent hasn’t been paid yet. I’m sure that can’t be accurate, because we’re signed up for automatic payments and how can our payment be late if it’s automatic?

I call the property management office and ask them how it’s possible there’s a late fee and the rent hasn’t been withdrawn from our account when we are signed up for automatic payments. The worker who answers the phone doesn’t know, says I need to call a different company that processes the payments.

That company is Zego, which on its website describes itself as “a PropTech company that frees management companies to elevate the resident experience by easing friction, building connections, & making a difference.”

I wait on hold around 15 minutes. My friction is not feeling eased. The hold music is haunting, all intense, sad violins. Several times the hold music is interrupted and a voice tells me to remain on hold, my call will be answered in the order it was received, then more intense, sad violins. Finally, a person picks up.

The person is very nice, says some boilerplate line like, “How can I make your day better?” which is very encouraging. I explain about the automatic payment not being automatic and the late fee and that the property company said I had to call Zego.

I want my day to be better and the person is trying to be helpful, but it still takes a while for them to figure out why our automatic payment was not automatic. Why didn’t they withdraw the money from my bank, like I signed up for them to do and like they have done every month until now?

After consulting with others at Zego, the person I am talking to tells me that on the day of the scheduled withdrawal, the property’s website (or whatever it is) had “populated” (whatever that means) our balance to show zero money was owed, so nothing was withdrawn.

“Huh?” I ask.

It’s not Zego’s fault, they say. There must have been a problem on the property management’s site or portal or whatever they use. I don’t have to worry, though—Zego can take a one-time payment for the rent over the phone. By the way, they tell me, there is a $19.95 charge for making a one-time payment. I start laughing. Is there a hidden camera somewhere? No, and no, the charge can’t be waived. It’s automatic. I explain how absurd this is, but I pay the rent and the $20 for the one-time payment because my son’s rent is late even though we signed up for automatic payments. I ask, What about the late fee? Since I signed up for automatic payments, surely I’m not responsible for paying a late fee for some technical problem on their end, right? Zego doesn’t manage the late fee, they say. They tell me I have to talk to the property management company about that.

Yes, I have to call American Campus Communities, the people who told me I had to call Zego because that’s who processes payments. Meanwhile, my son is texting to see if this has been resolved yet because he has to print out his rent payment record to show to the potential future landlord.

I ask Zego if they can provide documentation of the error/problem on the part of American Campus Communities, and they tell me they cannot. I’m flabbergasted and ask, am I just supposed to tell the property manager this whole story without any evidence and hope they’ll believe me and remove the late fee? Yes, I’m told, Zego can’t give me documentation and that’s my only choice.

So, I call American Campus Communities and ask to talk to a manager. By now I am frustrated and wondering if my name has been changed to Josef K. I try to sound measured and calm but there’s an edge to my voice. The manager is immediately defensive. I try to explain the past hour of absurdity, how the automatic payments were not made automatically and how Zego told me to call the property manager because they handle late fees. Maybe I sound like a raving lunatic breathlessly recounting the whole thing, because the property manager asks, “Are you done?” They say the error can’t be on their end. Their records show we owed the rent. I understand, I say, but according to Zego, the system didn’t show that when the time came for the automatic withdrawal payment, so the automatic withdrawal payment wasn’t made. The manager says that’s not how it works, it’s not possible, and now I’m in The Twilight Zone.

Why am I trying to persuade the manager that American Campus Communities is responsible for the error? Why am I the go-between for these two corporations? I didn’t choose Zego. That’s the company American Campus Communities uses to process the payments. All I did was sign up for automatic payments, which should be automatic so I don’t have to navigate hellscape voicemail systems to talk about late payments in the first place.

The property manager is annoyed with me. This is not their fault—they don’t just give people late fees for no reason. I assure them I don’t think anyone intentionally gave me a late fee, I understand it’s automatic, but what am I supposed to do? I signed up for automatic payments using the company they told me to use, the link they provide on their site, my only option, and the automatic payment wasn’t made. How is that my fault?

Finally, the property manager agrees to remove the late fee, but they tell me I’d better check next time because they won’t remove the late fee if it happens again. That’s right. I have to make sure the company, Zego, that American Campus Communities uses to process automatic payments, does its job, even though Zego says it was American Campus Communities’ fault the bill didn’t get paid.

I ask how soon they can remove the late fee so my son can print out a clean record of on-time payments. The answer is whenever the bookkeeper gets to it. That’s all they can do and all I can do, so I tell my son to explain this to future landlord when he gives them the record of his rental payments. It’s been an hour since he first called me about the late charge. I’ve been pacing in the parking lot of the pharmacy the whole time talking to Zego and the property manager.

Now it’s 1:32 and I go into the store to get my prescription. There is a printed sign at the pharmacy counter informing customers that the pharmacy is closed from 1:30-2:00 for lunch. I almost laugh again, because I have read a lot of Kafka. I leave instead of standing around for a half hour waiting for the pharmacy.

I can go back to get my prescription later. And this absurdity will hopefully not interfere with my son getting the apartment he’s applying for. We’re fortunate to be able to afford to pay his rent and deal with this. There are worse problems to have. Obviously.

But I know not everyone has the time and resources to navigate this kind of thing. How many people can’t afford the $20 fee Zego made me pay? How many can’t spend an hour during a workday on the phone waiting to get through the voicemail system to talk to people who don’t have answers, and end up getting more late fees as a result? How much of this infects all of our systems, including the ones that put people in jail and decide if health insurance will pay for the liver transplant? It’s no wonder we’re all crazy.

technologyvirtual children by Scott Warnock

I’m getting ChatGPT’ed left and right–or at least I should be

Recently my daughter told me she was in the midst of an email feud over an injustice she had suffered at the hands of some organization.

I couldn’t be prouder.

There’s a chip off the old block. See, I have been known to write a bit in the genre of “customer/citizen discontent response”… alright, I’ll be honest: I’ve written about 1,000 letters of complaint to all kinds of organizations. It’s a special kind of madness. Organizations beware: You cross me, you’re gonna hear it. At one time, for better or worse, my most prolific published writing was op-eds and letters railing against the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA).

My friends, without a trace of humor, point out that there are certainly thick files on me out there in drawers labeled something like “Loonies.”

Organizations occasionally respond, usually wearily, and often with some kind of autoresponse.

Now there are AI chatbots like ChatGPT. I’m sticking to my guns that these AI language generators aren’t going to ruin the world, but they are out there for all to use.

As a teacher, I’m aware of AI’s potential. While I’m not up at night worrying about student authenticity, suddenly I have this new fascination that the organizations that receive my, uh, constructively critical e-missives should be mindful of these new technologies. In short, in replying, they can do better! A few examples will be instructive.

I recently complained to NJTransit about the inconsistency of the RiverLine (sigh, again). Equipment malfunctions, signal problems, equipment unavailability (?)–it’s always something. While I was at it, I tossed in a comment about how there are hardly ever any ticket checkers on the train. This is a light rail that requires riders to punch a ticket before riding: You don’t pass through a gate or agent to board. I ride the RiverLine several times a week, and I can’t remember the last time I saw a checker.

I let ’em know.

NJTransit punked me with an autoresponse, and they didn’t even try. Again, I complained about 1) inconsistent trains and 2) a lack of ticket checkers. It “wrote” this back:

NJ TRANSIT has an obligation to ensure that revenue is collected on all services to support operating and maintenance expenses, and to minimize our reliance on public support. Therefore, enforcement of our fare policies is a necessary responsibility of this agency.

I guarantee ChatGPT would hit the mark more accurately. You better believe NJT is getting another message.

Here’s another situation I have somehow found myself in: my American Airlines frequent flyer miles expired. Like many people during the pandemic, I didn’t fly. AA was generous in extending the deadline, but in March 2022, my miles were finally expiring. So I did what AA said I should: I used miles to buy something at their online store, thus extending my miles for 18 months. I bought some sporty (if I don’t mind saying) shorts to keep my 70,000+ miles.

But when I checked my miles balance, it was zero! I hastily wrote them to correct the situation. This was part of the reply:

I understand that you are concerned that your account is expiring. I have added 5 miles to your shopping account at this time. Please allow up to 3-5 business days for this to post to your account.

As for the missing rewards associated with your order # _ the order can’t be rewarded for missing miles as the order is over a year old.

They–yeah sure, there’s an “I” behind this–did nothing to address my problem and gave me a measly five miles!

Be confident I’m not done with them either.

A couple of my students have used AI chatbots. We talked it over. First, I’m mad at myself for the assignments, which I think left the door open for such plagiarism. Second, because in both cases it happened early in the writing process, I was able to push them to do better. In one case, the student took to the coaching and composed a great project.

At least they’re exploring this new technology, while companies and organizations are using the same old autoresponses to flick their customers’ communications off their shoulders like so much dialogic dandruff.

Oh great American entities, I’m hellbent on making sure you are aware that I’m onto to you, that at least until you try harder I know you’re not there.

sportsvirtual children by Scott Warnock

Girls’ and women’s wrestling on the rise

Last weekend I spent a day in a filled Phillipsburg High School gym for the N.J. State Girls’ Wrestling Championships with our freshman wrestler Samantha Domask. Sammy came out of nowhere this year, shocking the world in this year’s early season Queen of the East Tournament when she emerged from the 15th seed to reach the finals. She ended up placing 8th in the state last weekend.

She has a bright future ahead.

So does the sport of girls’/women’s wrestling: Numbers are up in both high school and college programs, and more and more states are sanctioning state championships.

I’m not much of a prognosticator (or I’d be a lot richer), but I remember all the way back around my college wrestling days in the late 80s/early 90s when Title IX rules were influencing universities to shutter men’s wrestling teams. I thought, “Why don’t colleges just start women’s programs?” For those coaches opposed to mixing genders in competition or even practices, completely separate activities could be run at the same time in the same facility.

The N.J. Girls’ States reflected the growing pains of the sport. In N.J. States, wrestlers compete for places one through eight. The girls in Phillipsburg wrestled for every medal except first and second. The final match was moved to Atlantic City a week later so the girls could wrestle before the boys’ finalists in front of the big AC crowd. The concept was good, but it split the championship girls’ matches from the other place winners, breaking up the tournament’s continuity.

Watching these hard-nosed competitors in Phillipsburg, I got amped about the girls’ path in this great sport. I also realized a little part of that is because of my growing frustration with boys’ wrestling in New Jersey. And I’m not the only one. As this nj.com article describes, team wrestling for boys “is in trouble.” Driven heavily by private schools that have no boundaries in populating their rosters, talent has polarized to fewer and fewer teams. The nj.com piece analyzes considerable chunks of match data to show the lopsided competitive direction the sport has been moving in.

(Help may be on the way, as during the course of drafting this post a proposed solution appeared in nj.com: the state will create private school districts that will funnel into one private school region before states. This is a long overdue move–but that’s a discussion for another time.)

Recruiting does not equal coaching. Right now, girls’ wrestling seems still at the stage at which coaches work hard with athletes in their own schools, in many cases building practices and competitive schedules for a few bold girls who sign up for wrestling in their schools.

Another thing I was heartened by in Phillipsburg was the number of boys who showed up, some traveling far, to support their teammates. This was after many of them had battled it out in the regions themselves all weekend, emphasizing the team nature of the sport.

N.J. Girls’ States was a great day of tough athletes gutting it out for medals. And, yeah, as a coach I had a difficult time the next week watching the 235-lb. state championship final streamed from AC, as I realized what could have been for Sammy. Her only losses to girls this year were to 2nd, 3rd, and 7th in N.J.

She’ll re-focus this spring and summer, hit the weight room, and wrestle those off-season tournaments. She’ll further commit.

It’s what wrestling has always been all about.

educationfamily & parenting

ChatGPT the end of writting?Nah.Probly not

ChatGPT has been out there since November. It’s an artificial intelligence language model that according to its developer OpenAI’s website, does this:

We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response.

A visitor to the site can type “input”–give it a try!–and the language-trained bot responds, right in front of you, sometimes quite “realistically.” The rumblings are out there. Is this the end of writing as we know it? Writing instruction? Thinking?!

Two very different friends contacted me about ChatGPT recently. I wrote back to the first, and then I based my email to the second on that initial message:

Happy 2023, and it’s always great to hear from you!

Yep, lots of dialogue—especially on the writing studies/composition forums I’m involved with—and plenty of hand-wringing from others.

The Office of the Provost [at Drexel] has assembled a Task Force about ChatGPT. I’m on it, and we meet in two weeks. I still have to get my head around all the conversations, but I’m not feeling like the sky is falling. Here’s a good piece: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/01/12/academic-experts-offer-advice-chatgpt?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=c8d2e06e36-DNU_2021_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-c8d2e06e36-236304341&mc_cid=c8d2e06e36&mc_eid=fccc03c8b1

Also, here’s a snip of an email I just wrote to another buddy of mine. He sent me a text about if ChatGPT means the “end of writing”:

“ChatpGPTthe airwaves are blowing up! Is it the end of writing? I think that’s premature. In fact, if you don’t mind, I’d like to use your message to me in a blog post (anonymously of course). I’m not ripping on you at all. Here’s exactly what your text said: ‘Chatgpt? The.end of writing’ It is going to be VERY challenging for this AI to capture this writing style. All lowercase app name. The period between ‘The’ and ‘end.’…”

It won’t end writing–I mean, in a way, text to speech could already do that–but it’s going to push writing instruction. A lot of teachers are wringing their hands on professional forums I’m part of, but I’m like, well, be more creative with your assignments. If you ask for essays on topics like ‘What do you think of Hamlet’s indecision?’ or ‘Argue for/against gun control in five paragraphs” you might be making the bar too low for students to plagiarize or cheat!

I’m digging into this more each day and can keep you posted.

Take care,
Scott

The communicative “nesting” here is significant. I wrote to one friend incorporating a previous email response to another. This is a deep rhetorical complexity that will be very challenging to reproduce by a machine. Not to mention, as I point out, the kind of quirks that appear for all of us in the fast-paced writing we compose via email, text, and chat.

In terms of teaching, as I say above and wrote on my other blog Online Writing Teacher (chugging away since 2004!), to paraphrase: It’s the assignment, stupid. In teaching, when we wanted to take the easy route with assignment instructions, there have always been consequences. Geez, I knew people in the 80s college scene who drove to a literal warehouse and bought papers on canned topics.

Ian Bogost provocatively said in The Atlantic, “… you may find comfort in knowing that the bot’s output, while fluent and persuasive as text, is consistently uninteresting as prose.”

ChatGPT doesn’t seem to be the end of writing or writing instruction (or humanity), but it will–and should–make teachers more aware of what we do. Stay tuned.

ends & oddvirtual children by Scott Warnock

Post holiday tale: Quest for the Bagel Slicer

This year’s holiday quest
Ranked neither naughtier nor nicer—
I simply wished to buy my wife
A humble bagel slicer.

“What could be easier,” thought I,
With a confident Christmas laugh,
“Than to find that mundane item
That cuts your bread in half?”

In the spirit of the season,
Out I ventured to the stores.
The holidays don’t grate on me–
I like strolling the mall’s floors.

But something unmagical occurred
As I went from shop to shop.
No bagel slicer could I find,
Despite my many stops.

Oh, I found tools for grating, chopping,
Liquidating, dicing, icing.
But nowhere could I seem to find
A device for bagel slicing.

Sure, I could zest some lemons,
Squeeze juice from silly limes–
Mist oil? Check. Cut grapes? Indeed.
But no bagel slicer could I find!?

Decapitate some broccoli!
Carefully measure out some tea.
Cleave tomatoes, mash potatoes—
What was happening to me!

I began to think I was the butt
Of some cruel anti-Santa joke:
Victim of the bagel slicer buy-out
By a Grinchy miser of a bloke.

I went to five stores, ten, then fifteen,
Enlisted shoppers much more able,
But I began to concede my wife
Would must hand slice her Christmas bagels.

Then rambling through South Jersey I saw—
A restaurant supply store!
“You don’t need to be a member!”
Cried the cheery fellow at the door.

I asked the manager in small voice,
“A bagel slicer—please, good sir?”
With a merry laugh he pointed,
And my goodness, there they were!

Bagel slicers stacked up all neatly
Both in metal and in plastic.
The amused cashier had never seen
A patron who found them so fantastic!

I’ve relayed my tale to many folks—
They sputter, “Yo dummy: Amazon!”
But they don’t seem to understand
That would have ruined all the fun.

Because on Christmas morning,
Hearing my wife’s bagel-slicing Splat!
I bragged to all those near me,
“Oh, the work I did for her to find that!”

educationvirtual children by Scott Warnock

The rating is the hardest part

Pardon my bad Tom Petty “pun,” as I was going to be more direct with this title: “School ratings: F—ed data (as if you didn’t know).”

Stories have been piling up recently that yet again illuminate the hopelessness of school rankings.

One of the most compelling is a Colombia University professor’s finding that the data that plopped his own institution at the top of the U.S. News rankings pile were dubious. In short, a math professor, Michael Thaddeus, showed that Colombia “had provided fraudulent data to the magazine,” and the magazine unranked it. Then, as Akil Bello, director of the advocacy group FairTest, wrote in October in The Chronicle of Higher Education, after Colombia provided only some updated data, the editors “assigned competitive set values.” Bellow says of what the editors did: “In other words, the magazine made up data to keep a popular university in its rankings.”

In another snowballing story, numerous highly ranked law schools are withdrawing from their participation in the rankings.

The problem is fundamental: Once you think you’re going to make any sense of rating schools, you’re in the world of mirrors.

There are things I suppose you might measure with schools–or are there? I was going to start my list with an easy “number of teachers” metric and then paused, realizing even a seemingly straightforward stat like that might need exploration: Full-time or part-time? Tenure-track or not? How is teaching valued at the institution and how in fact is that measured? And then to think that data will turn into a useful value to a particular human being… geez, when you put it like that…

Sports are fun, and it’s no wonder we’re so obsessed with them in our fractured society. There is an objective, agreed upon (for the vast majority of cases) outcome. Elections are like that too. Someone wins. Someone loses. The outcome is clear and accepted.

But almost anything with even a shade more depth doesn’t lend itself to the “clear and accepted.” Look at the effort online dating systems have made to create match algorithms (to be clear: Not that I would know).

What’s the best place to live? The best ice cream? Greatest rock band? (alright, so that’s Led Zeppelin. Sorry). These are fun listicles that provide hours (and hours) of harmless argument. How about your best friend? Your perfect soulmate? Things are circumstantial. Schools are multi-layered, complex entities like that.

In “The Rankings Farce,” Reed College president Colin Diver powerfully decries this “rankocracy,” saying “the entire structure rests on mostly unaudited, self-reported information of dubious reliability.” Diver lists not just U.S. News but other publications’ efforts to rank colleges and says, “Taken individually, most of the factors are plausibly relevant to an evaluation of colleges. But one can readily see that any process purporting to produce a single comprehensive ranking of best colleges rests on a very shaky foundation.”

Diver outlines six problems with such systems, ranging from the selection of variables to the weighting of variables (as an example, U.S. News, he said, “decreed” that six-year graduation rates were worth “precisely” 17.6%) to the overall issue of having the “chutzpah” to claim that an arbitrary, ever-changing formula “can produce a single, all-purpose measure of institutional quality.”

But here we are, almost 2023, and this is still the way many people talk about not just colleges but schools all the way down the line. “How do you unring the bell of the socially accepted rankings?” Bello said in another Chronicle of Higher Education article, “Do the ‘U.S. News’ Rankings Rely on Dubious Data?” “That’s the biggest challenge right now — is that the ‘These colleges are good’ and ‘These colleges are bad’ has entered the ether of the higher-ed admissions landscape.”

You’re not picking a taco. You’re not buying a potato peeler. You’re not even buying a car. When it comes to selecting a school, you’re making a complicated decision. Don’t let anyone fool you otherwise.

educationvirtual children by Scott Warnock

Successful Casino Night helps PHSFEE reach $100,000 goal

Driven by a Casino Night fundraiser that was the result of the hard work and generosity of scores of people, the Palmyra High School Foundation for Educational Excellence raised $25,000 for PHS–surpassing the group’s overall $100,000 fundraising target.

I was part of the group that founded PHSFEE in 2016, and we stated two primary goals in our bylaws:

  • Fundraising for PHS.
  • Community relations about the many good things about PHS and its talented students.

In terms of raising money, for one of the smallest public high schools in New Jersey, we’ve done well. We’ve conducted events including a Color Run and a pandemic-forced virtual 50/50, but our marquee event has been our fall Casino Night, which has taken place four times: 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022 (the pandemic led to our two-year pause).

Through these efforts, our donation total has crept up. At the start of 2021, we realized our total was $78,000. $100,000 seemed like an ideal target, and at a meeting one of our newer trustees, Vanessa Livingstone, did some quick math and pointed out that $22,000 would get us there. A slogan was born!: “$22k for ’22.”

Because of this year’s very successful Casino Night, which took place a few weeks ago, we surpassed that figure by nearly 15%, money that will go to initiatives identified by the high school, including diversity, equity, and inclusivity programming and the arts. We passed the motion for the $25,000 donation at our Trustee meeting last week.

Casino Night itself? It has lots of moving parts, but the result is a fun, energetic event that unites the PHS community, with parents, teachers, and administrators all coming out for a casino-themed (thanks to Tumbling Dice), Sweet Lucy’s barbecue-filled good time..

Also, I appreciate the support of those not directly connected with PHS (including several of my friends). It doesn’t matter if your kid attends PHS or even if you have kids, supporting the public school directly bolsters our community, and people recognized that. PHS, as public schools are, is always there for all the kids in the community.

The number of volunteers–and they are all volunteers–who helped do this? We had our 10 hard-working PHSFEE Trustees and about double that amount who closely coordinated Casino Night. But a small army of others pitched in, the many people and businesses who made direct donations (a list of our sponsors is on our Facebook page), bought or sold 50-50 and event tickets, provided items for our silent auction baskets (and there was some really cool stuff, assembled and themed by our incredibly creative team), or helped with facilities and supplies. In addition, a pleasant gaggle of PHS Interact students showed up to help set up Saturday afternoon.

At the end of the night, we knew we had done well, and as the gym cleared out, I looked around and saw yet more volunteers staying to help us break down and set up the gym so our host, Sacred Heart Church, could conduct a Sunday morning event; this was the communal spirit that has charged PHSFEE, a spirit of collective action for the good of all.

ends & oddvirtual children by Scott Warnock

Empty nest

It was exactly like they said it would be. We had three kids and it was this runaway train for years and then all of a sudden on September 9th youngest kid moves out and you look around and the house is empty. Just like that.

In a cosmic joke, I vowed when I was young to never have kids, but I’ve loved being a dad. Make no mistake, though, I lived through those 20+ years. Some of it was grinding–let no one tell you differently: Eight years of sleepless nights changes a person (and that person’s hair color). But when I look back, I mainly remember the good things. That’s a little ego integrity life reward: You hold on to the good things.

Now I’m 54 and everyone has moved on.

I was dragging the trash can out on Sunday night, a task that was the responsibility of others although I sometimes got stuck doing it. When I did, though, I could accompany my labor with a nasty text about why dad was doing someone else’s job: Hell to pay!

As I rattled the big green can through the dark that night, though, I realized I can’t “subcontract” this chore out now. And a thought hit me as I performed this most quotidian of jobs:

That’s the end of that.

For years, I’ve been arranging activities, clipping articles, logging movies and books geared around this home full of little people who grew big fast. Almost all parents start with a baby in a crib and a list of What are we gonna do next?

You’ll probably never get to it all. The homemade doll house. The tree fort. Getting that pool installed (which we may still do to spite them or lure them back home–you choose).

I don’t want this to seem all melancholy or sulky. My youngest was on three vacations without us this summer and all of them have been busy for years, so our house, once a perpetual hub of activity, gradually grew accustomed to quiet.

But the thought hits me everywhere.

We went over to watch some Palmyra high school soccer, and for the first time since 2013, there was no Warnock out there.

That’s the end of that.

I was on the phone wandering the house, and I went into Zachary’s room. He had cleared out most of his stuff, and I was jolted by the echo; it was as if I was in a room in a new house. I hustled out as if I were in danger of being bespelled.

[Screeching tires indicating an abrupt halt]

Then, while writing this as a way of doing a little empty nest processing, I got (finally, after 2.5 years) COVID. I was flattened for a week. Forget the nest, my brain felt empty; I was as sick as I’ve been in 20 years.

I’m slowly getting back my energy, and I’m among the living. People have asked me what it’s like “to be an empty nester,” and I say that the COVID thing broke my stride of experiencing what it was really like.

But I do look at the agenda of what’s before us.

I get up on weekends, and the house is calm. I want to ask whoever is home what their previous evening was like, but there’s no one to ask.

That’s the end of that.

I had vowed not to be the father of Harry Chapin or Everclear ballads, and I feel a sense of triumph that I overcame and wasn’t that. We didn’t build the tree house, my kids and me, but we did plenty. I was there the whole time. No regrets.

But daily, as Zachary thrives during his first year at school, something happens that reminds me:

That is the end of that.

virtual children by Scott Warnock

A “dad outfit” deserves a “dad question”

Let me start by saying that if my youngest puts as much study time into school as he put into researching a new computer–credit to the boy, he used Mom’s computer during high school without a complaint–he’s going to do well. I was amazed at the amount of effort he put into it.

Of course, all this investigation took place online. At one point, I said, “Hey, do you want to put your hands on something? Let’s take a ride to Best Buy.” He agreed, and off we went.

I admit that I was, uh, not dressed all that sharp. I was in a hurry. I had on longish, droopy khaki shorts with no belt, an oversized white t-shirt that was tucked in here and there, and my [new] black sneakers. As we walked in the store, he looked me up and down and said, “You are dressed like such a dad!”

We started looking at computers, and because my wife wasn’t involved, neither of us had the sense to check closing time, which was in 10 minutes. We did get a lot done in that 10 minutes, thanks to a helpful Best Buy dude. We checked out several laptops, and my son developed a clearer sense of what he wanted.

We were about to walk out, but, oh no, I wasn’t done. I waited until our dude came back around, cleaning things up for the night.

I gestured to him from an aisle away and said, “Hey, can I ask you one more question?

“Sure,” he said, walking over to us.

My son gave me a puzzled look, and I wagged my thumb hitchhiker-like toward one of the computers and asked, “Do, er, these things, er, help you connect to the Interweb?” Every part of the dude’s face started shrinking toward its center–he was bemused. Then my son and I burst out laughing, and the dude caught on, laughed and shook his head and walked away.

As we walked out of the store, and my son started punching me: “I can’t believe you asked him that!”

We chuckled all the way to our car, and when I hopped in, I said something like, “Insult my outfit, that’s what you get.”

I can’t wait to meet his new pals from college.

virtual children by Scott Warnock

Digging for the past

I have a memory that when we were kids, my brother, several friends, and I buried a time capsule in our backyard in a large hole that we would dig some summers.

This hole that we would dig was a source of great fun. We would dig it and then spend most of our time in there with our Micronauts and Star Wars figures and toys like that (what we collectively called “men”).

It had other purposes too. A favorite game was “find the hole”: Someone would be blindfolded and wander around the yard while the rest of us called out “hot” and “cold.” The goal was to “find” the hole, which meant you would topple (painfully) into it. Once you did, it was the next person’s turn.

Some laughs!

Following my dad’s passing, my brother and I (rather quickly) sold the old house. Pete and I decided, after years of occasional discussion about the actual existence of the time capsule, that we had one last chance.

Pete lived eight houses from me, and we have been best friends since third grade. He was in on all of it: wiffleball, jarts (including the punctured gutter incident), side-yard football, and playing with those mini dudes.

On a hot Memorial Day with the closing of the old place looming, he and I met down in Berlin.

Locating the site of the former hole was easy. The indentation from our dig-the-hole days was surprisingly obvious, right next to a derelict shed that was covered with a blue tarp secured by binder clips. (The old man was nothing if not resourceful.)

We each brought a shovel. As he cruises into his golden years, Pete may not be svelte, but he can still wield a shovel. Down we went, digging away and wishing we hadn’t turned down the neighbor’s offer of Gatorades after we had given him a ladder.

We didn’t know exactly what we were after. I told a somewhat skeptical Pete that in my mind’s eye, we had buried in some kind of secure plastic container (such as a two-liter Coke bottle) notes and other mementos of that era. Pete had some doubt that we had done this at all, but my brother provided at least the causality by reminding us that Berlin, during our nation’s bi-centennial, had buried its own time capsule. Not only did that create the likely source of own capsule idea, but it put a timestamp on when we buried it, probably from 1976 to 1978!

We came across a rusted tire iron, but it was close to the surface, so we decided that was a relic of some other event.

We dug deeper and deeper, widening the hole as we went. We dug to the point where we figured our nine- or eleven-year-old selves would have reached their limits, and then a little beyond. Nothing. We started feeling despondent.

Then we saw something. Something metal glinting at the bottom of the hole. We were almost giddy. We reached into the dirt and pulled out…

…a spoon?

This was stupid and unsatisfying, but the spoon was too far down to be a random find. We were onto something. We became excited, and we traded time in the hole in rapid shifts, scooping up earth. Then we found… another spoon. Then another. In all, we found five mismatched spoons.

We also started finding shards of plastic. It seemed clear they were part of Leggs eggs pantyhose holders. Did we put stuff in them, ignorant to the fact that these flimsy containers would surely crack–perhaps even as soon as we buried them?!

We found a metal toy gun. Then a badly broken plastic toy gun. A Tropicana orange juice lid.

We kept at it, but that was it. In one final tease, I thought I saw the side of a condensation-filled two-liter bottle, but it was merely a glittering rock. We were becoming delusional.

Here is the total take:

Digging for gold? Hardly.

Looking at it, we wondered if we had once again, as we all do sometimes, inflated the reality of youth with hopeful memories. Weren’t we these precocious kids, cleverly storing away wisdom for our future selves? In actuality, it appeared we couldn’t even muster the smarts to find suitable containers.

On the other hand, we were creative and innovative enough, had the wherewithal, to devise a time capsule, to envision future selves and think about communicating with those strangers. And we made it there: We made it to 40+ years later, still friends, giving us at least an opportunity to play as archaeologists seeking our mini-civilization of mid- to late-70s Berlin, NJ. Maybe we were child geniuses!

But, still, what was with all the damn spoons?!

ends & oddvirtual children by Scott Warnock

Battery-powered yard tools have made me a better human but much angrier dad

A few years ago, because she wanted me to cut something down and my gas chainsaw was decrepit, my wife bought me a battery-powered DeWalt chainsaw. For my limited purposes, its battery oomph works great.

Last year, I added a battery-powered DeWalt lawn mower. Suddenly, including the hand-me-down battery-powered weed whacker I got a few years ago, I’m close to green landscaping!

A general side effect of battery and electric power is you get metrics, even simple ones like the three little green power indicators on the lawnmower. There’s no doubt this information has made me a better fellow traveler on our planet.

Now, as I mow my grass (and I’m even working to rid myself of this grass and go for natural landscaping to be even more eco friendly), I’m determined to get it all done–front, sides, and back–before the batteries drain. Where I would once make these neat, (spouse-pleasing) angular rows, I now hustle. I make wide, curvy turns instead of hairpins. My mowing is eddy shaped.

I mow faster. I’m more in tune with the world.

(In moments of mid landscaping despair, I reflect on the gas I wasted during past gas-powered lawn cuttings.)

But all good things have a revenge effect, and now I have a new kind of strife–family strife. More than ever, I’m on my son to “cut that there grass right!”

This draconian lawn-cutting oversight I engage in is a perfect breeding ground for passive-aggressive male child behavior. He pushes the button and pulls the lever. From there, he lollygags. He saunters. He strolls.

I watch him pausing in a state of dreamy oblivion and making these sharp, time-consuming, double-back turns. I grow exasperated. I know what those little green lights are doing.

I bully. I fulminate. I yell.

I eventually use my latest go-to line of disdain, going for the jugular on my soon-to-be Drexel University student. I let him have it: “And you’re going to be a civil engineer?!” I sneer the last two words, knowing full well he can hear me because of the purr-like quiet of the battery mower.

To his credit, he is unfazed. He feels not flogged nor stunned by my verbal fusillade but in fact stumbles through it as he continues his wasteful landscaping.

And he gets his vengeance… the battery lights dim from 3, to 2, to 1.

He’s not even finished the backyard, and the mower is out of juice. Kaput. I howl in anger.

For Father’s Day, my wife got more batteries. (Surprise!)

So now when the batteries die, he calmly goes in, has a lemonade, and gets the replacement packs. He’s in the house for hours, maybe weeks.

While I seethe.

It is not lost on me that now even my rage is battery powered.