Family Christmas

Sometime during my childhood, I had a dentist appointment on December 23. The friendly receptionist, thinking of Christmas excitement, asked me, "So, is anyone special coming to your house tomorrow night?"

"Yes!" I replied. "Mamaw and Papaw and Uncle Joe, and..."

She, of course, meant Santa. But I was thinking of my family's Christmas eve tradition. Though I lived nearer to my mother's side of the family, when I think of Christmas, I always think of the Byerleys' annual gathering.

I won't tell you just how many of those I've attended, but I can tell you that they still feel special. Last night, the Byerleys gathered at my house. There are 16 of us now -- we're a fairly small clan -- and 15 of us made it to dinner. The locale has shifted over the years, but the routine never does.

Everyone arrives bearing presents and covered dishes. Each cook brings his or her specialty and, beginning with my dad's generation, that includes the men.

Though he isn't quite up to it now, traditionally my dad brought barbecued beef and cherry cream cheese cake. My uncle bakes a ham and brings slaw or a dessert. One sister brings deviled eggs on any of her collection of deviled egg plates. Another sister brings her sweet potato casserole. My great-aunt brings her home-preserved green beans or creamed corn -- so good because they've been picked ripe, and fresh preserved. My mom was known for her special iced tea, my grandmother for her boiled custard. And as other family members grow up or "marry in," they become known for a special dish, too.

The kitchen bustles with activity until we all stop to ask the blessing. Then we eat. Any children struggle to wait patiently through that long and happy meal to the big event -- present time. When the adults can be dragged or cajoled into the living room, the children distribute the gifts. Camera flashes punctuate the stories, exclamations and laughter.

All too soon, it's over. Everyone takes home samples of favorite dishes for the next day. And we hope to be together again -- all of us -- the next year.

It isn't the tradition that's so special, I guess, but the people. And it's always my favorite family night of the year.

Ms. Wanza

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Wanza Sharp, died Jan. 27, 2008, at the age of 92. That she of all people should live to be 92 probably surprised very few who knew her. Ms. Wanza was perpetual energy and motion. She was active, enthusiastic and very involved with her students. She was born to be a teacher.

She was born into a family of educators, actually. At a place and time when even going to high school was luxury, Ms. Wanza's family produced teachers and school administrators who were well known and respected in Union County, Tennessee. One sister was a much-loved high school biology teacher. A brother became superintendent of schools. Her youngest brother went to Harvard and became a professor of at the University of Tennessee.

Ms. Wanza began teaching at Horace Maynard High School, but eventually settled into a fourth grade classroom at Maynardville Elementary. That's where I met her.

I'd had wonderful teachers before, but none quite like her. We were going to have fun, she said. If we finished our work, we'd do dictionary drills. We would compete to see who could find definitions the fastest, and that would be fun. We were going to have fun with math, of all things. We would learn long division and, when we did, we'd have so much fun we might just spend all day doing long division. She made us believe this might actually be true.

And it was. We worked long division problems in chalk on a green board for hours at a time. We did spend a couple days doing just math, which none of my other teachers had ever seemed all that enthusiastic about.

Ms. Wanza was enthusiasm itself. We would learn what we needed, even if it wasn't in the book. She got us workbooks on maps and graphs, something no other fourth graders in the area had. That material would be on our achievement tests, she said. It was. But the knowledge would be basic to the rest of our lives.

Ms. Wanza's natural ability to teach touched all of us, but especially a few kids in the classroom. These were the kids, especially a few boys, who seemed to fade into the classroom woodwork all the other years. They were quiet; they were badly behind; they wanted to be somewhere else -- probably just about anywhere other than school. Come high school, most of them disappeared.

But not in Ms. Wanza's class. With her, they had identities. She knew their grandpas, she said, and their cousins and their moms and dads. She tousled their hair when she walked by and gave them affectionate nicknames. In return she got grins, and wonder-of-wonders, some actual progress. For that one year, if no other, these kids actually seemed to like school, at least a little, and to feel at home there enough to learn.

Later, after she retired, Ms. Wanza came back to school as a substitute teacher. She seemed to know a little bit about every subject as she roamed from class to class at the high school. She seemed to be there at least half the time. And she was just as fun as ever. Ms. Wanza in class meant a good school day.

Now she's no longer with us. If they happen to need someone to teach long division in heaven, she'd be perfect for the job.

I've always thought that heaven would be a place to get answers to all the things you ever wanted to know -- and to find out what really matters. If that's the case, I hope Ms. Wanza gets to see how much her life's work mattered. I hope she gets to see all the lives she touched, and that her legacy lives on.

Just Gimme Some Soup! (I Ain't Givin' You No Soup.)

On the kids' TV show, iCarly, some young teens produce a popular web show. In one recent episode, Carly and her friend, Sam, perform a skit Sam wrote for class. It's about a prisoner who wanted some soup and the man who refused to give him any. The dialogue is simple:

"Just gimme some soup!" 

"I ain't givin' you no soup."

"Just gimme some soup!"

"I ain't givin' you no soup." 

Repeat several times.  That's the entire skit. 

This is funny to viewers, I guess, based partly on demographics. It's repetitive. It's contentious. It's dramatic. It's good kid humor. 

In real life, this kind of dialogue is not so funny. I know, because I recently engaged in a similar exchange with my son. Only ours went something like this: 

Me: "Just wear your coat." 

Son: "I ain't wearin' no coat." 

Me: "Just wear your coat."

Son: "I ain't wearin' no coat."

Son is finishing up with middle school, and is busy establishing his independence. That's what teenagers do. So I pick my battles and let him determine for himself whenever possible. Only sometimes that just isn't possible.

Case in point. Son was going to a football game. Gametime weather was set to be in the mid- 30s with gusty wind. Son wants to be cool in his football fan gear. He wants to be middle-school guy tough. Thus, our exchange. 

I told him if he wanted to go to the game, he had to wear the coat. No coat, no game. 

Turns out, it was pretty cold at the game. That coat wasn't such a bad idea, after all. Only the next time the situation arises, he definitely won't need a coat. 

I've always heard that, the older the child gets, the smarter the parent gets.  We have a ways to go just yet.