The guy on the corner wants to s___ you up!

Plus a weekend recipe!

Maybe I’m old fashioned to think that people should keep their obscene thoughts to themselves and just a few close friends.

Yeah, I’m as out of date as a coal furnace. Kids are exposed to all sorts of sexual and violent language and imagery all the time, from a very young age. I see parents driving with kids in car seats in the car, blasting absolutely obscene rap. I hear about girls as young as fourth grade giving older boys oral sex in school bathrooms and on school busses. So why would I think that anything they hear in the neighborhood would make a difference?

Perhaps the horse is out of the barn and walking down I-95, like this cow who escaped from my old church’s live nativity scene did. But I still would rather not hear explicit anything, or anything really, blasted from a boom box on the corner of the major street where I have to walk to do anything or go anywhere.

I took a walk to the mailbox on the opposite corner to mail a ton of holiday cards. As is often the case, a man had a gigantic speaker out on the corner, playing rap and R&B. Not the nice old school stuff they play at the schools where I teach. That is school appropriate and cheerful! No, this was all about “Sex me baby…” “I want to take off your clothes…”

First, it’s 33 degrees and I don’t even want to think about taking off clothes. I’d be won over by a guy saying, “I want to buy you a new coat, a warm hat, and a space heater!”

Second, do we really have to blast this stuff in public where all manner of folks, from the homeless asking for money to the young folks walking to the bars to the families out on walks or errands with their dogs and kids to the childless cat lady for law and order have to listen to it?

Second, why is it okay to blast any music at all in the public sidewalk? This is not a street festival. This is a few hours before the start of the work week, for those of us who work weekday jobs.

You might say that I’ve turned into a curmudgeon in my old age, but I was always like this, so I assure you that age has nothing to do with it.

As a teacher, it makes my job harder when foul language and sexual discussion is normalized in public. How am I going to convince my students that it is in their interest to eschew these words and not discuss this stuff in school when they see adults blasting it on the sidewalk?

It’s not that kids don’t know about sex and violence. They do. It’s how we as adults behave about it that sends the messages that affect the way the kids talk and act.

If it were up to me, everyone would have to learn Latin, wear professional clothes and call each other by Mr. and Ms. or Dr., Professor, Judge, or whatever is appropriate until on a real first name basis.

I miss the formality of the Yale Political Union in the 1990’s.

Meanwhile, I made a delicious dinner last night for my friend in the neighborhood. Giant portabella mushrooms from the farmers’ market stuffed with farmers’ market ground beef, red peppers, and topped with cheddar cheese. Here is how I make this simple recipe:

Wash the mushrooms, remove the stems, and steam the caps in the microwave for three minutes.

Brown the ground beef, adding just a touch of sea salt and some garlic powder if you like. Before the ground beef is totally brown, add the diced red pepper and lightly saute it until it’s no longer raw but not flimsy either.

Stuff the mushroom caps with the pepper and beef mixture and put on a cookie sheet covered in tin foil. Place in the oven on 400. Bake for about ten to fifteen minutes and see if the mushrooms are starting to sweat and feel a little softer. If they are, take them out and top with shredded cheddar, Colby Jack or mozzarella cheese. Pepper jack would be interesting too. Really any shredded cheese would work here.

Put back in the over until the cheese is melted.

If you like your mushrooms soggier, bake longer, if you like them firmer, bake for a shorter time.

I was planning to make pumpkin chili today, but I ended up with both one leftover mushroom and the leftovers from an amazing Indian lunch we had at my Zendo today. It was the Jukai ceremony for some of my friends, an event I’ll describe in a later post. It’s a very serious ceremony involving the taking of formal vows in Zen and the whole community turned out. We rarely have a full lunch but this is a special occasion. I’m eating the leftovers now, so no need to cook supper!

Back to on call in the morning. I’m writing holiday cards to my favorite administrators and realized that I have a very unusual dilemma for a substitute teacher. There are five people who I could honestly say are my favorite Assistant Principal, and they may compare notes, so I can’t tell them all that they are my favorite! I’ll just say something nice. What an incredible blessing, to work with five different people at three different schools who are not just dedicated to educating the kids in a very tough situation, they actually get it done.

When I taught in some other places, watching kids run around like crazy, refuse to do work, throw things and hit each other with impunity, I would think to myself, “This is not what Frederick Douglass fought for.” When I go to these schools, I think to myself, “Frederick Douglass could never have envisioned this, but he is cheering for us from heaven.”

So again I will call on the ancestors, the Father and Mother Cat God and Goddess, Jesus Christ, the prophets of old, and anyone else willing to listen as I pray to serve these kids well.

This is a picture of me at the farmers’ market a few years ago. It looks like I’m holding a woodchuck or some other unfortunate animal, but that’s a mushroom at the same mushroom stand where I bought the portabellas for dinner on Caturday!