What the Head Thinks

Many, many years ago, it is told that a man on foot raced a steam engine train, to see whether man or technology was faster.  Though I don’t know how historically accurate the story is, nor do I know exactly who won this race — I am guessing that if the course had been over 100 miles long, it’s likely the man came in second.

What does this have to do with how fast cats can run, you ask?  I am imagining a similar race, but one brought more up to date: My cats racing against my tablet personal computer.  It’s very hard to picture, I know,  but think about this: Socks and Lucky vs. my tablet pc.  They are at the starting line, itching to take off!  The starting water pistol squirts (I don’t care so much for real hand guns) and the race begins!!

 The cats are racing from room to room at a furious pace!  They’ve circled from the living room to the dining room through the kitchen back to the living room through the dining hall and on and on.  It’s great!

 But by now, my tablet pc has already connected, via the Internet, to an ex-Olympic marathon runner in Lisbon.  He’s forwarded an email to a friend in Taiwan, who sends the message on to a guy running a small software company in northern California.  The millionnaire in California sends the message to me back in Atlanta.  Elapsed time?  33 seconds.  In 33 seconds, my cats have raced within the confines of my house 11 times.

So, who wins this absurd race?  The cats, or the tablet?  Actually — they both do!!  The email message travels around the world in less than a minute.  My cats have traveled around the house in the same time. 

But why do they both win??  Because the cats are running their race for fun, for craziness, and for my pure wild enjoyment.  And the tablet? Well, it gives me immense pleasure knowing I can communicate around the world.

 So, who ultimately wins?  I do, because  I love my cats, but in truth I can’t expect them to run around the world in 33 seconds.  And I love my tablet, but it doesn’t purr when I pet it, at least not yet.  So, in the race of felines vs high tech — everyone crosses each unique finish line first.  Yay!

I left my office yesterday a little tired, and ready for an easy drive home, by way of Barnes and Noble.  When I got to my car, however, I was greeted by a right front tire that was flatter than a dinner plate in Kansas.  It had been so long since I’d changed a tire that it took a minute to even remember where the spare was.  “In the trunk!” it finally came to me.

No sooner had I opened my trunk than another administrator with a heart larger than an elephant in Kansas stopped to help.  Only two minutes later, a Trinity dad drove by.  “Can I help?”  I had to admit, “Yes, please!”  And he immediately began to get the spare out and replaced it.  He had to get down and dirty to get it fixed, but he (and his Trinity daughter) had a holiday spirit bigger than a thousand-acre farm in Kansas.

I thanked everyone and headout out — and in less than five minutes my spare was flatter than a cold pancake on the hot wheat fields of Kansas.  The ka-lump-ka-lump was painful to hear.  I pulled off Northside Parkway and called AAA.  As soon as I hung up – another Trinity family stopped.  The mom called her service, loaned me her cell phone (mine was running out of juice), and did all kinds of things to help as her kids waited with immense patience.

Then, yet another Trinity mom and her daughter came and waited.  Then, my wife and three kids came by.  One family left and another came.  Then a Trinity dad pulled up and offered to help.  By then, even though an hour and a half had gone by — I had had more helpful and charming visitors than many people have in a year in Kansas.

Finally I got a new tire on the car, and pulled back into the Friday afternoon traffic.  It was getting dark, I was chilly, and I never got to Barnes and Noble.  But what I did get to was yet another tremendous realization about the warmth and care of this school community!!  I also know that all that holiday mood of helpfulness wasn’t just because of the holidays, or because of my role at the school.  It’s because our school is filled with hundreds of loving and caring and helpful people — parents, kids, teachers, administrators, trustees, grandparents, alums, and now, the guy from the road-side service.

As the holiday mood grows in my own spirit, I rest assured that the spirit every day is powerful for the people at Trinity.  And now that I have air in my tires, a song in my heart, and a holiday mood taller than the silos that hold all the wheat from the wheat fields in Kansas, I can concentrate on the next big thing I have to do: Find just that right Christmas present for Socks and Lucky!