Midlife Meditation

It took me by surprise. Yesterday, a Reynolds High School freshman broke into his parents' gun locker and took an AR-15 type rifle, along with magazines capable of holding hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a semi-automatic pistol, and a large knife to school, where he shot another freshman to death and wounded a teacher. The teacher was able to escape to the office and initiate a lockdown. With police closing in, the shooter took his own life. I've written about my outrage over the laxness of American gun laws many times. The knowledge that, in this case, the gun had been locked away by "responsible" owners lends the lie to the notion that these weapons have any business being in the hands of enthusiasts. A teenager with a death wish will find a way around the locks. It's fortunate--if we can call it that--that there were just two deaths. Given the firepower and the quantity of ammunition, there could have been dozens. But I'm setting aside the outrage...

Friday night, Banks High School held graduation ceremonies outdoors, in the football stadium, for the first time in many years, and all in attendance were very nearly blown away.   I mean that in the literal sense. Friday afternoon saw the winds begin to pick up, and by 6:30, when the band was setting up to play "Pomp and Circumstance," it was becoming an issue. I had had the foresight to buy two bags of clothespins. It was not enough.   There was a great deal of unintentional humor to the proceedings. Aisles and seating areas had been carefully roped off earlier in the day, but when I first went out to the field to set up the keyboard for the choir performance, all the pedestals holding up the ropes had tipped over. They were unweighted. This caused a major scramble on the part of the custodial staff to find ways to anchor the pedestals and prevent further tipping. When the band members first went out with chairs and music stands, many of them took their music as...