Calling children by their full names

 We spent Thanksgiving this year with the family of one of our daughters. After dinner one night, one of her sons had a question for me.

He had noticed that all of the adults who know her address her by her first name, Kellie, except for me. I call her Kellie Jo, using both her first name and her middle name. He wanted to know why.

Hmm.

I think I gave him an adequate answer that night, but I have pondered on it ever since. I have often - not always, but often - called my children by their first and middle names. And I, myself, started to wonder why.

I got it figured out.

This week, my brother ran into a family friend from long ago - so long ago that they probably used to ride tricycles together. The boy's name was Greg. I have distinct memories of his mother yelling at him when he was in trouble, using his first and middle names: "Gregory Grant!" I heard it more than once. Sorry, Greg, I really didn't think you were that bad as a kid.

That reminded me of my own mother.  My mother was a great lady, but let's face it, she had anger-management issues. And when she yelled at us using our full names, we knew that she was really mad at us, or we were in deep trouble, or both. (And she didn't just use first and middle name, it was the whole enchilada.)

This next part of the story all happened in my subconscious. I admit that I have never given it any conscious thought. In fact, I didn't realize all of this until this week, when I put two and two (that is, "Kellie Jo" and "Gregory Grant!") together.

Subconsciously, I decided that I didn't want my own children to associate their names with an angry father, or with trouble. And besides, I was proud of the names we had given them.

So from the very start, I would address them using both their first and middle names. Not always, but often enough that it wasn't unusual.

Jason Daniel. Kellie Jo. Lori Dawn. Sandra Michelle. Christopher Michael (or "Chris Mike" for short).

 Whether it was a simple call to come to dinner, or a loving way to get their attention, or in the midst of playing a game or having fun, I would use both names. Over time (I hoped, subconsciously), they learned to associate their full names with love. And fun. And respect, and pride.

This many years later, when they hear their full name, I hope that it reminds them how much their father loves them.

Jason Daniel Depew: Gone way too soon

With his favorite plane, the Icon A5 seaplane

Possibly his first airplane.

This is a hard one to write. In fact, it's so hard to write that I'm going to copy and paste an excellent obituary written by someone else.

Our oldest son, Jason, was a pilot in the United States Air Force. When he quit the Air Force, he became a pilot for Delta Airlines. Jason always kept himself physically fit. The FAA requires all pilots to pass a cardiac health exam every six months. According to the doctors administering the exam, Jason's heart was in great shape.

Except for one day. On Thursday, October 31st, 2024, Jason and his wife, Jennifer, were out on a run. Jennifer turned one way to go home, and Jason turned the other way to go further. Some time later, a neighbor observed Jason running up the street, nearing his home, but "having trouble" as he ran. When Jason was in front of the next-door neighbor's house, he collapsed.

One neighbor called 911. Another neighbor checked his pulse and started CPR. Another neighbor ran to get Jen.

Depending on what statistics you glean from the Internet, only 10% to 40% of people who receive CPR after a heart attack survive. Jason was not one of the lucky ones. By the time the EMTs got there, he was turning blue. They had to shock him twice to get his heart going.

His brain did not recover from the extended lack of oxygen. Jason lingered on life support in the ICU of the Pepin Heart Institute at AdventHealth Tampa for five days, before his family chose to discontinue life support. His death affected many people, starting with his immediate family and radiating outward to touch hundreds, possibly thousands, of people worldwide. 

Here's the official obituary. Tailwinds and strong thermals, my son.

Cancer Strikes Again - not Me, but my Family

 I hate cancer.

Cancer is a vicious, ugly beast. It is mean. It is cruel. It is heartless.

I posted previously about my own experiences with cancer, and how I got to beat it twice, without going through the hard stuff.

Cancer didn't like that. So it attacked my loved ones instead.

Around December of last year, my daughter-in-law was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive breast cancer. We were worried that we would lose her. She underwent a double mastectomy, and then reconstructive surgery, and will take an estrogen blocker for the rest of her life (the doctor called it "instant menopause") to starve and kill any future tumors. She appears to be recovering and in good health. I cannot put into words how grateful we are for that.

I'm not the kind of father-in-law to call her up and say, "Hi, Jen! How are your boobs doing?" So I've been getting updates from my wife, my son, and what little bits my daughter-in-law passes along in casual conversation. However, I did find a great T-shirt online. I passed the idea to my sweet wife, who laughed about it with my daughter-in-law. It says "Of course they're fake! My real ones tried to kill me."

In August of this year, my youngest daughter was diagnosed with cancer in one lung. After a PET scan, doctors told her it had spread to her spine. That makes it Stage IV. The doctors are talking about starting with immunotherapy and radiation therapy. They don't expect to make it go away, only to stop it for now. That means it will eventually come back and kill her.

The tumors in her chest cause an accumulation of excess fluids in the cavity around her left lung. This causes her shortness of breath, increased heart rate, and severe discomfort -- maybe even pain. The tumors in her spine cause back pain, pain in other places because spine and nerves, you know, and numbness in one arm. It hurts that we will one day lose her, but it hurts even more to see such a gentle soul in such pain.

Neither of these women had any risk factors. My daughter-in-law is only (guessing; I'll correct it later) 44 years old. My daughter is only 37. 

In The Lord of the Rings, Theoden, king of Rohan, loses his son in battle. Theoden says, "No parent should have to bury their child." One day, that will be me.

I have many more thoughts about this, which I want to put down in this blog. However, it will take me a while to put them into words. Check back here for edits and updates.

Old Cowboys Never Die, They Just Ride off into the Sunset

October was a difficult month for me. It marked the death of one of the most influential men of the 20th Century, even though you may never have heard of him.

Donald Albert Depew was born on December 20, 1933, in Raymond, Alberta, Canada, in the Mormon farming and ranching colonies of southern Alberta. His father was William Warren Depew, and his mother was Leah Enid Lybbert Depew. The Depews were from Payson, Utah, and the Lybberts were from Vernal, Utah. They were all ranchers and horsemen, and lived on the plains of southern Alberta, east of the Canadian Rockies.

One day when Don was two years old, his father was in the barn taking care of the horses, when something spooked them and they ended up trampling him to death. The Depew and Lybbert clans rallied around Enid and her two young children. Don was raised as much by his aunts and uncles as he was by his mother, and never lacked for love, nurturing and good role models. 

When Don was 5 years old, Enid married a good man named Bill Hass. Enid and Bill had four children, which, together with Don and his older sister, made six children in the family. The family moved around Alberta as Bill pursued different jobs, ending up in Edmonton in 1945, at the end of World War II.

Starting at age 10 ½, Don would live with his family during the school year, and then spend summers on his uncles’ ranches in southern Alberta. He became a cowboy, working alongside the other cowboys on the ranch, learning about horsemanship and care of horses and cattle. He developed a deep love for horses, which stayed with him his whole life.

He also developed a solid work ethic, which guided his life and which he passed on to his children. In fact, I can remember working on the house with him, at age 17, and hearing him say to me, “I finally taught you how to work, and now you’re leaving.” It sounded like he was complaining, but I think he was pretty satisfied.

He got his first job at age 12, as a paper boy for the Edmonton Journal. This gave him money in his pocket and taught him independence and self-sufficiency. In the summers, he would line up substitutes for his paper route so he could go down south and work on the ranches. At age 16, he bought his first car, a 1940 Nash, and used it to drive the kids in Edmonton to early-morning seminary.

At a youth dance, he noticed a pretty little 16-year-old girl from school, named Patricia French. She was not a member of the church, but was attending the dance with some friends. She was quite different from the “pruny Church girls” his mother kept trying to set him up with, but who did not interest him at all. Don began dating Pat, got her connected with the missionaries, baptized her, and added her to the list of kids he would pick up for early-morning seminary.

Don wanted to go to college, and had applied to BYU to study geology, but then the Korean War broke out, and those plans were put on the shelf. 

Bill Hass decided to start a long-haul trucking business, and eighteen-year-old Don became one of his drivers. Don drove trucks across Canada and the United States, but he knew this wasn’t the kind of job he wanted to do long-term. Besides, he and Pat were courting by now, and he wanted to spend time in Edmonton with her.

In March 1954, Don and another driver were at the customs office on the border in Manitoba, when they received word that Bill had died of a massive heart attack. They hurried home, and the family ended up selling off the trucking business. Don and his mother used the money from the sale of the trucking business to build a boarding house, which they called the Hasshold. The income from the boarding house supported his mother for many years, and one of the boarders ended up marrying Don’s sister Carolyn.

With his mother taken care of financially, it was time for Don to start his own family.

Don and Pat got married in 1955. He was 21 and she was 19. Pat was working as a school teacher, and Don got a job as a lab technician in Edmonton, in the exciting new world of plastics, with an up-and-coming company called Canadian Industries Limited. They had four children: Cheryl, Ray, Craig, and Doug. After Doug was born, they put their station wagon and their children on a train and moved from Edmonton to Toronto, Ontario, again with CIL. 

From there, Don followed new job opportunities and promotions across the border, to West Chester PA, Wilmington DE, Montreal Quebec, Naperville IL, Detroit MI, Marietta GA, and Bainbridge GA. His willingness to work hard and to move around allowed him to work in sales, engineering, research and management, eventually retiring as VP of Engineering for Amoco Fabrics, in Atlanta, without ever having a college degree. He was proud, however, of his certificate for the Executive Management course he took at the University of Michigan late in his career.

Don and Pat added Susan to the family in Toronto, and Shelly in Wilmington, making a total of six children. Over the years, they have taken in strays, that is emancipated or foster teens, and young adults, single or married, who needed a hand up. So, depending on how you count it, you could say they have dozens of children.

In 1975, Pat started showing symptoms of what was finally diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. They soon moved to Georgia, so that Pat could get better medical care. Don arranged his work responsibilities and his residence and office locations, so that he could drop everything and be home in less than 15 minutes if Pat needed him. He took training to become her primary caregiver, and he took care of her for 12 years. His devotion to her, and his single-minded care for her, was a powerful example to his family and to others, who have attempted to emulate his devotion in their own marriages.

Pat passed away in 1988, at the age of 52. Don was 55. In Pat’s final years, one of the frequent visitors to Don and Pat’s house had been Pat’s best friend, Linda Bess. Before Pat passed away, she told Don and Linda (separately) that she wanted them to get married. So they did.

Don and Linda lived in Acworth GA and Dothan AL. They went on adventures, including trips to Ireland, Hawaii, the Mediterranean, and their timeshare in Colorado. Linda supported Don’s passion for horses, and they more or less adopted each other’s grandchildren. The marriage ended in 2014, after 25 years, but they kept in touch, and the grandchildren and Don are still close.

Don and Linda served a mission together in Nauvoo, Illinois. Don worked as a sealer in the Atlanta and Birmingham temples, and this gave him the chance to officiate at the marriages of many of his grandchildren.

Because Don was raised on the ranches in southern Alberta, he became an avid horseman and had a passion for horses his entire life. He had a special interest in quarter horses. In Montreal, he built a barn for two horses in the backyard, and arranged with the neighbors across the road to keep his horses in their pasture. He eventually acquired some real horse property in western Cobb county. Later, when his son Doug bought some property for a horse farm in Acworth, Don served as barn building contractor, groomer,  feeder, ranch foreman, head horse wrangler, chief hay thrower, bushhogger, fence fixer, horse shoeing supervisor, tree cutter, and ditch digger for as long as he was able. Doug has inherited Don’s passion for horses and continues the tradition of horsemanship. There will always be cowboys in the Depew clan.

In Don’s later years, Doug and his family made room for him in their home. They gave him a great deal of independence, dignity and private space that allowed him to grow old gracefully. He enjoyed holding court in his chair in the sunroom, entertaining the third and fourth generation, and driving around the ranch in his golf cart with the big knobby tires. The siblings from Way Out West acknowledge and appreciate the unmeasurable time and resources that Doug and Vicki, and also Sue, put into caring for Don all those years.

Don enjoyed presiding at family reunions, where four generations would get together to honor him, and to enjoy each other’s company. The first reunion was at Doug’s ranch in Acworth. It was organized by his 12-year-old granddaughter, Ashley, who has since turned event planning into a career. Since then, reunions have been held in Morganton, Georgia, and Estes Park Colorado. 

Don Depew leaves behind two sisters and a sister-in-law, six children, 28 Depew grandchildren, 4 Bess grandchildren, 37 great-grandchildren, many nieces and nephews, and the hundreds of people who have been affected by his generosity, his faith, his service, and his friendship. His legacy extends beyond his immediate descendants to include all of the people whom he and Pat took in and sheltered and nurtured over the years, and the many people that he touched in a lifetime of teaching and leadership.

Photo credit: Gene Praag

How to Fix the Teacher Shortage

America has a teacher shortage, and it's rapidly getting worse. Here's what we can do about it.

In these post-pandemic days, teachers are no longer hailed as the heroes that, in March 2020, overnight and on their own, transformed their classrooms into online classrooms and saved the American educational system.

(No, that's not an exaggeration. They really did that. It certainly wasn't the politicians or the buttheaded administrators that saved public education during the pandemic.)

Today, teachers are disrespected by their students and the students' parents, mistreated and abused by their school and district administrators, and exploited as pawns by politicians, ideologues, local activists, and greedy pirates masquerading as "private school corporations" and "charter school corporations."

After going to college or university for four years to earn a degree and a professional certification, they are paid less than babysitters and waiters, and held accountable for things beyond their control.

It's no wonder that teachers are quitting.

They're quitting in growing numbers, and they're not even waiting for the end of the school year. The Reddit group r/Teachers is full of stories of teachers quitting, and telling why they're quitting. It's heartbreaking.

And the rate at which teachers are permanently leaving the teaching profession is accelerating. Leaders are finally recognizing it, and they are starting to panic. The teacher shortage will soon become a genuine crisis, and it will affect every one of you, young and old, in profound ways.

What's to be done about it? I have some suggestions for the leaders who can do something about it.

Treat teachers like the professionals they are. 

Let the teachers design and execute the curriculum -- or give them the freedom to choose their curriculum from the many curricula offered by the textbook companies. Stop telling them how to do their jobs. And give them the budget and the tools they need to do their jobs.

It makes me furiously angry to see other people, non-teachers, trying to tell teachers how and what they should teach. Do you treat lawyers and doctors like this? How about computer engineers? Teachers are trained professionals. Leave them alone and let them do what they are trained to do.

Treat them with respect, and enforce that respectful treatment.

I could write an entire essay about this. 

Many teachers are leaving now because of the disrespect, the humiliation, the danger, that manifests itself daily, in many ways. Teachers deserve to be treated with respect -- from students, from parents, and especially from administrators.

And until they get that respect, they will keep marching out the door. Nobody pays them enough to treat them like this.

Also, protect and defend them. Wait a minute, I need to say that louder.

Protect and defend them!

Teachers are constantly threatened with physical violence, and they're not allowed to fight back. 

Likewise, teachers are harassed, both online and in person, by students and their parents -- and sometimes by members of the community -- and the administrators take no action to stop it.

In addition, teachers are falsely accused of all kinds of misconduct, usually by vindictive students and parents, and their cowardly administrators do not back them up.

For God's sake, keep politicians and ideologues out of the schools.

I really mean "for God's sake."

Here's one example of what happens when you let politicians and ideologues in the door.

Have you heard of Critical Race Theory (CRT)? Do you know a single school in your area where CRT is being taught? No, seriously: can you name a school near you, where CRT is part of the curriculum? Look as hard as you want. You won't find one.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) was developed in the 1970s and 1980s, and is an eye-opening way to view western history. The theory is debated at length at the university level, and some of its underlying ideas have been present in public schools since the 1970s. But the idea that CRT is taught in K-12 classrooms is a straw man, set up by politicians and ideologues just so they could knock it down, and so they could take control of the schoolhouse. Politicians, ideologues, and activists keep trying to force themselves into the educational process. No teaching will happen while we allow this. 

After the battle over CRT goes away, there will be something else to take its place.

Learning will happen, oh yes, but it will not be the kind of learning you want or expect. The unintended consequences of letting politicians and ideologues drive the educational process will haunt you, society, for at least an entire generation. 

Knock it off, already.

Get rid of standardized testing.

I could argue with you about this for hours. It's demeaning, it's misguided, it's a colossal waste of time and money, and it will go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes of this generation.

Standardized testing is a bullshit idea, promoted and administered by bullshitters. (Please excuse the profanity.)

PAY THEM PROFESSIONAL WAGES. 

I have written about this before.

Good grief, how can we expect a college-educated professional to stay motivated, when we pay them less than we pay our waiters and babysitters?! 

Teachers shouldn't have to go out and get second jobs, just to support their teaching habit.

Don't just give "more money" to the schools, or to "education". Make sure that money goes directly into the teachers' pockets.

Remember the old adage, "You get what you pay for."

Fix the family.

Teachers and public schools are not the cause of poor academic performance. Nor are they the cause of the problems with violence, disrespect, and dysfunction among the student body. Studies have testified to this, over and over again, and yet we keep laying the blame on the teachers and trying to fix things in the classroom. It's not the teachers' fault, and the fix isn't in the classroom.

The root cause of these problems lies with the family that each student comes from. Put the blame where it belongs, and fix the problem at the root cause: the family.