“In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.”
Shunryu Suzuki, author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

After 15 years of teaching at the college level, I made a bold move and accepted a job teaching English in a local charter high school.  In one respect, this move has been something of a spiritual return; what is now Glenview College Preparatory High School used to be the junior high Catalina North.  My mother taught English at Catalina North before I was born, and many years later I attended as a 7th and 8th grader.  Now I teach here, and my middle son is a senior here, making three generations involved on this campus.

But in another respect, teaching high school is a whole different ballgame.   I knew that it would be different, and yet it is still more different than I expected.  While in many ways the teaching is the same as it’s been for most of my career, in other ways it is a whole other animal.  Parent contacts, detention, - there are so many small details that are not on the college professor’s radar.  And the students come into class with a different set of expectations and abilities.  I can clearly recognize the college students many of them will become, but they’re still obscured behind a cloudy screen of high schoolness. 

So I renew my commitment to my craft, to my students, and to the value of education and knowledge.  By embracing the challenge of teaching in a new and unfamiliar context, I get to see education from a new perspective and deepen my understanding of this art.

 

Perhaps the most elemental conflict in the western genre is the range war; the vying for power and physical resources between two or more interests lies at the heart of the American experience.  There have been many famous historical range wars, the great Lincoln County War that spawned Billy the Kid, the lesser-known Pleasant Valley War in Arizona, and others. 

The Ballad of the Laurie Swain is my attempt to chronicle a range war by reconstructing a fictional ranch owner, Gregory J. Eley, who is building a vast ranching empire and has hopes and dreams of becoming the largest ranch in all of Texas, lining his deep pockets with beef contracts to the Army.  He uses his money to peddle influence with local law enforcement and seeks to push out the smaller ranches that border his land, especially the sheep ranches.

Joseph McGinty is a northerner who has travelled west to seek his fortune by joining his uncle, “Armadillo” Jack Delancey in Texas.  Armadillo Jack has been on the frontier for long years, serving in the mounted Dragoons.  They are joined by Emmett Jackson, a former Confederate of immense passions whose love for fighting is rivaled only by his love for ladies and drink.

As one might expect, a misunderstanding turns deadly, and Jack finds himself on the wrong side of the law … one thing leads to another and soon enough the whole trio find themselves in the unwitting employ of Mr. Eley, serving in ranks of his personal ranger company, tasked with forcing the smaller family ranches into submission.

Follow the adventures of this unlikely threesome as they try to escape their bond to Eley before they become wanted for even greater crimes – or are killed! 

For a society that is plagued with obesity and solipsism, we have a peculiar tendency to give shout-outs to the idea of sucking up our discomfort and forging ahead for the common good.  This idea is called by many names, all linguistically related:  Cowboy Up, Cowgirl Up, and my personal favorite, Ranger UP.  This last one has been popularized by a clothing company of the same name, and in explanation they even put out a YouTube video to elaborate upon their claim.  You can see it here (go ahead, I’ll wait.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjWmmye4-fM

The primary point behind this video is that to ranger up to answer a call to service.  The video is put out by former military, and former Army Rangers, but they include EMS, police/fire and others in their rubric for who is in a position to “ranger up,” and this rather broadens the scope of what sorts of people this might apply to.

I Ranger Up, and I hope you do, too.

Now, let me be absolutely clear, here.  I am nobody's badass, and was never an Army Ranger – hell, the Navy told me to take a long walk off a short pier when I was 19, so not only was I not “special ops,” I was no “ops” at all.  What I am is a middle aged English teacher with an expansive girth and wheezy sort of way of being in the world.  But I Ranger Up just the same. 

How I do ranger up? I volunteer with the Arizona Rangers, which is an all-volunteer force dedicated to law enforcement support and community service.  We help our community on at least three fronts.  We perform duties that would otherwise be done by law enforcement, and thus reduce the cost to the state. We do a lot of private security-type duties, providing a uniform presence that helps keep the peace.  Our clients donate to our cause, which enables us to donate literally thousands of dollars each year to children’s charities.  We, as Arizona Rangers, are out there serving our communities in tangible ways.  In our own way, we protect and serve.  We are not police officers, and don’t fulfill the same role, but as ordinary citizens who choose to serve our communities, who choose to stand up – who choose to “Ranger Up.”  How do you Ranger Up in your community?