Deo gratias; School starts tomorrow!

Over here in Santa Fe, NM, my wife Susan and I are getting the kids back in to school for half days starting tomorrow morning, thus I'll be taxi-ing (literally) back in and out of downtown to two school locations twice a day. The fuel consumption aspects of that are quite the bummer for me, from expense side and emissions, too. A Prius doesn't sound too appealing, but maybe someday we'll find an alternative that works for us, space-wise.

Yesterday evening, Monday, we went to a pot luck for the incoming pre-k parents at the Waldorf School where my 4 year old daughter Elena will be going starting Wednesday, and I met some really cool people, and characteristically with private school parents, they were well-traveled (or well-originated): one couple were "anglos" with exotic names like the dad Tias and mom Surya. I was so off my game I would have guessed Ukrainian, but turns out they were...Pennsylvanian! Surya, she explained in well-rehearsed fashion, is Sanskrit for "something cool" (I can't remember) and Tias, I'm guessing, is short for something like Mattias. She and her husband were yoga instructors, as if the Sanskrit wasn't a clue. There was a double Greek American couple speaking Greek to their child Ianandra, a true son of Hercules if there ever was one -- the little dude was moving the larger furniture around to the dismay of his mom, but I'm sure she was used to it and feigning surprise. There was a local NM hispanic dude and his Russian (?) wife Raya having arrived back home from a Russia visit earlier that morning...how about the Dutch dude Jon-Willem that is a environmental consultant or Donald the waiter that works at Dominic's Cafe?

A big challenge for me nowadays meeting folks with different or unusual names is I'm getting hard of hearing, and can't infer or deduce the name from the usual list because I'm not catching the consonants very well. I often reply with the earnest, but bad acknowledgment of the name and the person (victim) re-states it a time or two. That probably makes me come across as the "bonehead-american" archetype, but it's really just the "live music lovin' and probably ear damaged american".

Still, though, I cut myself some slack since nowadays we're dealing with the whole dang world's pool of names -- they don't make it easy for a lazy introduction while eyeing the fruit platter or while distracted by unusual hatwear.

That's the fun of being in a private school environment, the primary common denominator is as nondescript as "opting in" to the classroom, but if you can swallow the whole Waldorf educational philosophy at the risk of the poor public school alternative, it appears to attract very like-minded people: largely progressive, mobile, often older parents in non-traditional careers or lives. There's no financial commonality, other than "struggling to pay for private school." But in return, you get a really diverse group of people from around the continent and around the world, with neat stories to tell, and often with cool little kids that probably have been exposed to a lot of positive things and experiences. Boys are still boys and girls are still girls, but since the parents take the time to "opt in" this educational environment to find the best option for their kids, they probably won't be satisfied sending these 4 year olds to school with a lunchables vacuu-pak and a coke in their lunchbox. In addition, these kids also eschew baggy pants, super-huge athletic wear and the requisite gangsta haircuts, too. And they don't talk like miners in HBO's Deadwood.

Why do I make these unjust caricatures of some kids? Well, my wife sometimes substitutes for pre-k or primary school at other local institutions and that's what she deals with in those environments.

I'm not saying there aren't many conscientious families and children in our public schools, but overall, the grouping is not unlike taking twenty people out of line at the DMV or Post Office and throwing them in to a classroom together to learn together and grow together and basically share their lives. It's an extremely effective way to achieve the sometimes elusive quality called "random collision" and the even less desirable "not fun." And since our kids are spending many of their waking hours in the class environment interacting and learning from those classmates and bringing culture viruses and memes home, it's also kind of like inviting the aforementioned discoveries in line at the DMV to come live with us at home.

That raises a whole 'nother subject: "class" is not a rigid social barrier or membrane denoting caste, wealth or opportunity. Sometimes it just means...class. But I digress.

At the pot luck last night, there was a whole half of the gathering I never bumped into, so there will be more discovery later.

This year will be double the fun because we'll go through the same experience all over again tomorrow with my son Diego's kindergarten classmates and their families. And I'm not being sarcastic, I really think it will be fun.

As the former anchor for the CBS News used to say..."Courage".