Fortune's Fool

I've journeyed back around to my love of Shakespeare recently.  Every night when I put Jude to sleep I'll watch something on Netflix.  Currently I'm watching Shakespeare in Love.  I think it is an incredible story and the boy inside of me would love for it to be true; that Romeo and Juliet actually came about that way.  The adult on the surface realizes that it is simply one writer's creation, but that just goes to show you how important story is.  That story in particular always renews my love affair with the written word, whether a drama by Shakespeare, an epic from Homer, a great mystery from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or a well written article in the New York Times.  I've reached a season, finally, where I can focus on reading all sorts of things.  One of the first things I love to do in the morning is to check USA Today, and the BBC on my iPad to see what I may have missed in my narrow world from the previous day.  I love reading Shakespeare because he is the classic wordsmith.  I love reading Homer because of his story telling ability, to make the absurd come to life.  I love reading Doyle because one of the great contrasts in characters is how he writes Watson in light of Holmes.  I'm a sucker for classic literature because of the lack of the 24 hour gossip cycle that authors had to compete with.  The reader was at the mercy of the author's ability to weave the narrative and force the reader to create a visual in their mind.  I want to write like that.  Too often I start out and inferences are made in character development and the story falls flat because I am a casualty of the tech age and lack focus to draw all of my thoughts and ideas to the surface.  I've set some pretty lofty goals before, but this year I am focusing on creating a short story, and hopefully a character that has staying power.  The more I read the more my soul awakens, so along with writing everyday, I also want to read something meaningful everyday.  I'm going to go do that now, it's time to read!

The Other Side

Has anyone else been following the officer involved shooting in Brownsville, Texas?  If you haven't heard about it you can check out the story here before you read on.  This is a tragedy.  It is tragic because an 8th grade boy had to die for unknown reasons.  It is a tragedy that he felt the need to bring a pellet gun to school that looks like the real thing.  It is a tragedy that he chose not to listen to the officers telling the boy to put the gun down, forcing their hand.

There are many questions that as the story unfolds will remain unanswered.  Why did the police have to kill him will not be one of those questions.

One of my biggest pet peeves when I read or hear quotes from family members of the deceased, or even just regular citizens , is the questioning of why the police shoot to kill.  With out going into great detail, police are trained to stop action.  The reason police aim at the torso is because it is the biggest part of the body.

There are a lot of considerations that go into a shoot/don't shoot situation.

First you have to assess the threat level.  This boy had a gun.  He was in a school.  He had already assaulted a student.  If you see the pictures of the gun there is no way you can tell it is a pellet gun unless you are holding it in your hand.  The police on scene gave the command to drop the weapon.  Most likely it was given numerous times.  The boy, for whatever reason, didn't comply and the unthinkable had to happen.

Second, you have to think about what your background is in case you miss.  The last thing you want is someone in the background who has nothing to do with the situation getting hit.  This is why the police don't shoot at hands, or try to shoot weapons out of peoples hands.  I'm not saying that it can't be done, but there is an incredible amount of stress that comes along with pulling that trigger.  Even the most seasoned veteran police officer is going to have trouble focusing at that moment.  Which brings me to my next point...

Police Officers do not want to shoot people.  It is a byproduct of the profession but it is not something most cops look to do.  I can't imagine what those officers are going through right now knowing that they had to kill a kid, and there was nothing else they could do about it.  Those officers believed that was a real gun and they couldn't take the chance that the boy might begin shooting at them.  Now that they know that it was a pellet gun they will begin to second guess themselves.

Fact is that they made the right decision.  Unfortunately, it is something that could very well haunt them for the rest of their lives.

That family lost their son and that is a tragedy.

Those officers are now faced with the image of the shooting tattooed on their brains and the knowledge that they killed a child for the rest of their lives, and that is a tragedy as well.

Who I am

For a long time I have had aspirations of being a writer.  I've often felt that I have this story inside of me that I just couldn't get out.  Then life happened.  A wife and two kids later and I am still trying to find the time to get that story out.

I love my life.  I love my wife and I love my kids.  I enjoy my job and aggressively dive into new challenges.  I enjoy the time I give to the students at the church I attend.  God has blessed me.  He has given me gifts of communication and discernment.  He has given me gifts of teaching and writing.  I want to expand on these gifts.

I've tried my hand at blogs before.  I never took the time to write.  I always felt I had to write something amazing for people to read.  Frankly, I don't care if people read.  I read a blog this morning that inspired me in a way.  It was shared by one of my Facebook and twitter friends who is a blogger and writer.  It was about another writer who goes through the process of how he gets words down on paper.

I found it enlightening.

The irony was that he shared something that I recently heard from my brother in law.  My brother in law Josh is the youth pastor at the church my family attends.  He has gotten more into a teaching role during the main services and I am always amazed at his ability to deliver a solid, biblical message as if he is having a conversation with someone in a coffee shop.  No notes.  Everything off the top of his head.  And he shows evidence of his preparedness by not stumbling or stammering.  I asked him recently how he does it.  How he is so prepared that he is able to communicate eloquently without sounding like he has his message memorized.  What spurned the question was that I heard someone else ask him about it and his response was that he tried to internalize it.  I asked him what he meant by that.  He said that he often carries a pocket size moleskin and whenever he has thoughts about his message he will write something down.  He spends all of his free time, driving, working out, whatever, thinking about crafting his message.

This morning while I was reading said blog the writer said the same thing.  He will carry a pocket size moleskin with him and write down things that come to mind that he can look back on down the line and create a story out of it.

In a sense this is my pocket size moleskin.  I will get a physical one also, but I want this space to be for anything and everything.

I like baseball and basketball.  I'm going to write about them.

I like politics.  I'm going to write about them.

I like culture and current events.  I will offer commentary on them.

Currently I write a monthly column for the town paper where I work as part of my professional duties.  I want to increase my writing skills and I want this space to be about that.

The title, "Long Road North," comes from a story that I had in my head during my college years that I never got down on paper.  My hope is that I can finally make that happen.

Welcome to my journey.