Of all the tragic things that come with Alzheimer’s disease, its tendency to sneak up on people is one of the toughest to deal with. That’s because by the time the condition is even detectable, there’s a good chance it’s already too late to turn back…
There’s one truth in life — email sucks. The painful process of organizing and cleaning up your inbox daily can be cumbersome, and hanging onto emails for later response often proves annoying. A new email platform called Inbox wants to change email at its core, but is that necessary? Inbox isn’t a new app — or even an app at … Continue reading
CHICAGO (AP) — Tearful relatives appealed for clemency Tuesday for an Illinois woman they say was wrongly convicted nearly three decades ago of taking part in in a macabre kidnap-for-ransom plot in which a businessman was lured from his home and buried alive.
Testifying before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board in Chicago, Nancy Rish’s supporters described her as a woman ensnared in an abusive relationship with the drug dealer who concocted the 1987 kidnapping of Kankakee businessman Stephen Small. They said she knew nothing of her boyfriend’s plans even as he had her pick him up from the remote, wooded burial site and drive him between phone booths where he made ransom calls. “She doesn’t have it in her to do something so horrendous,” Rish’s sister Lori Guimond told the panel, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.
Small was a member of a prominent media family from Kankakee, in eastern Illinois, and a great-grandson of Len Small, Illinois’ governor in the 1920s. He was buried alive in a plywood box under several feet of sand and suffocated when a crudely fashioned breathing tube running to the surface failed before a ransom could be paid.
Rish’s boyfriend, Daniel Edwards, told police after his arrest that he acted alone, but he did not say that at trial as he fought to avoid the death penalty. Now, having abandoned his own appeals, Edwards has provided two affidavits stating that he alone committed the crime and concealed his plans from Rish.
Assistant Illinois Attorney General Erin O’Connell told the review board the state still firmly believes Rish was a willing participant.
“There’s been some suggestion that what happened to her was horrible, but let’s be more direct: Stephen Small was buried alive,” O’Connell said. “He was buried alive because Nancy Rish and Danny Edwards wanted to coerce $1 million from his family.”
The panel could vote within weeks. If clemency is recommended, Gov. Pat Quinn would have no deadline for a decision.
Edwards put Small in the box with water, candy bars and a light. He recorded a message from Small in which the terrified man asks his wife to deliver $1 million to his kidnapper with the plea, “It’s no joke. I’m inside … a box. Grave.” Edwards played the recording into the phone during ransom calls.
Besides the affidavits from Edwards, the clemency petition details missteps by Rish’s trial attorneys. It says her lawyers, to the detriment of her defense, instructed her not to testify about conversations with Edwards, including her repeated demands to know what was going on and his violent refusals.
The petition also accuses prosecutors of withholding information and misstating facts. It mentions the prosecution’s assertion at trial that Rish had made the first call to lure Small from his house, even though Small’s son, who first picked up the phone, told police still searching for a suspect that it was a man’s voice.
In one of several victim impact letters filed with the review board, Small’s son, Ramsey, now refers to Rish having made that call.
Rish’s attorney, Margaret Byrne, challenged that.
“I would just like to state respectfully that the evidence does not support what Mr. Small says,” she told the panel.
Members of the Small family did not attend.
Rish’s son from an earlier marriage was 8 when she was arrested. Now 36 and with two sons of his own, he is hopeful.
“It’s time for her to come home,” he said in an interview before the hearing. “I see her being a grandmother to my children, I see her taking care of her elderly mother and just being back with her family. That’s all we want.”
Better schools and teachers aren’t always enough to help disadvantaged kids.
Many students in the U.S. can’t continue attending good schools once they reach the eighth or ninth grade level, and it has nothing to do with the school. Sometimes such students need to find work and help provide for their families. Sometimes school gets too challenging, because the students’ parents also dropped out before graduation and can no longer offer homework help. Sometimes life at home lacks routine, so it’s hard to prioritize catching the bus every day.
These aren’t just rationalizations from rebellious teenagers. They are realities for smart students with ever-loosening grips on a better future. It takes more than being smart to graduate, much less think about a first-generation higher education. It takes a learning environment, one that nourishes ambition and emphasizes routine.
A national private organization is working to provide the right elements to foster such an environment.
Ann Rice, board chair for Boys Hope Girls Hope of Colorado, insists there’s no magic to the program. People ask if it’s magic all the time, though, because they see the change. Kids involved in the program start talking about college, where it was never a conversation topic. They do their homework every day, and participate in extracurricular activities. They are eager to learn, and they’re not getting caught under poverty’s vicious wheel.
“It’s probably what you had, it’s what I had,” Rice says. “Nurturing adults.”
Boys Hope Girls Hope of Colorado runs two programs. The residential program gives scholars a second home during the week, and they visit their families on weekends. The academy program assists scholars who have more stable homes, but need help to prepare for college. The Colorado organization is part of a national network of Boys Hope Girls Hope programs, serving about 500 kids with 17 homes across the country.
The leaders of Boys Hope Girls Hope aren’t making mere students. They refer to the children as scholars.
The residential program consists of two homes, one for boys and one for girls. Each is home to eight to ten children, and has two live-in counselors. Other adults work part-time to help cook, clean, and give rides to various activities. Volunteer tutors visit the homes after school to assist with homework, and each scholar is paired with a volunteer mentor. The scholars join in middle school or high school, and stay with the program until they graduate.
Brandi Sampson, one of the resident counselors, says that living in the Girls Hope home is like being a surrogate mother. “Kids don’t generally wake up in the morning and say, ‘Thank you, mom, for making me breakfast or taking me to school and paying the bills on time,’ but that’s basically what we’re doing here.”
Sampson is in her early twenties. The other residential counselor for the girls’ home, Aimee, is about ten years older. They work together to provide a consistent routine for the kids. Each week begins on Sunday night, when the scholars come back from visiting home. They meet with volunteer tutors to do any last homework for Monday. Each weekday begins at 6 a.m., and the counselors prepare a healthy breakfast. “Mornings are pretty relaxed,” says Sampson. “We give them breakfast and get them off to school.”
Work at the house starts again for Sampson at 2 o’clock, when she and the other counselor prepare snacks and check the calendar. The scholars may have various after-school activities scheduled, including counseling and involvement with sports teams, mock trial club, diversity club, and others. Outside of the program, the scholars might not get consistent rides to and from these activities.
Dinner is strictly at 5:30, and Boys Hope Girls Hope emphasizes this routine for health and a sense of stability. “Meal moms,” most of whom are from Regis Jesuit High School, the local high school, bring dinner three nights a week. Mary Fran Tharp, the executive director of the program, remembers a recent visit to the Boys Hope house for dinner.
Listening to the conversation, Tharp marveled at the change she’s seen in the scholars since they first joined the program. “They were talking about basketball and colleges, and which college basketball teams they like,” she says. Then the youngest scholar went around the table, asking the adults where they went to college, and asking the other scholars where they wanted to go to college.
“It’s a typical conversation for many, many families to have at the dinner table, but not for our scholars,” Tharp says. She adds that the older scholars know where they want to go to college, and are talking about what they want to study. They are building plans to afford higher education. “What really struck me was these kids are the first in their families, most of the time, to finish high school. They’re the first to go to college.”
After dinner, each scholar helps with a chore, and then puts in two hours of homework time before bed. Scholars who need more help sit at the table and work with tutors, and those who have shown enough responsibility can work alone if they wish.
With this routine, Boys Hope Girls Hope emphasizes and practices basic life lessons.
It reinforces consistency. “If you repeat and you repeat and you repeat,” Rice says after explaining the daily schedule, “You get amazing opportunities.”
It focuses on practicality. “What we’re trying to teach them,” says Tharp, “Is that there’s no great magic in success.”
It provides a safe place to fail and try again. “Sometimes things go your way,” Tharp says, “And sometimes things don’t…more than anything, we teach our kids that it’s okay to screw up, it’s okay to fail at something, but you have to try it again and do it better next time. You can’t just walk away and not do anything. Where they own up to it and then try it again, that’s where we’ve been successful in teaching them about how to deal with failure.”
Boys Hope Girls Hope is in its twenty-first year as an organization. The newly-developed academy program is designed to help kids in schools become college-ready, and it started at Aurora Central High School. It serves about thirty-six scholars, and is projected to grow each year.
“These are kids who don’t need the residential component.” Tharp explains. “Aurora Central has a graduation rate of 43 percent.” Teachers at the school identify students with a high risk of dropping out, and nominate them for the program.
The academy program was Tharp’s idea, and she had to convince Rice that it would be a good move. Rice remembers about the discussion about a year ago: “She approached me at a time when we were going through this recession, and fundraising was down. I mean, it’s a difficult time to put something on the table that’s going to require the extra money, but she could see long-term.”
Tharp said it was a good use of resources and return on investment. As Rice quotes her, “It’s what we are, it’s who we serve, and it’s what we need to do.”
“She had to sell that first to me.” Rice says. “I had to get my brain wrapped around it, and then sell it to the board, and then find the resources to get the program up and running. Which all has happened.”
Once a child has been nominated or referred — usually by a teacher, social worker, or school resource officer — the leaders at Boys Hope Girls Hope meet with the child’s family. The decision to join the program is ultimately left up to the child.
Because the child must want to be in the program and work as a participant, some students leave. “It’s a disappointment,” Tharp says, “But overall the kids learn that it’s hard work.”
Tharp shares that there are little frustrations, “Like anybody else’s house. There are some days where you find the leak behind the toilet that’s running down to the first floor. Now you need to get somebody to come in and repair the drywall. Or sometimes the kids don’t do as well as you’d hoped that they would do. They’re good kids, but they still do stupid stuff because they’re teenagers.”
Brightening, Tharp adds, “I always say we’re a funny little family, even though we all look different, and have different last names and all that. It’s still that family environment. You still have the same issues that happen in any family.”
“It’s the little moments.” Sampson says of being a full-time counselor. “Just last week I got a text from one of the girls. I’d told her that I might not be able to come get her from school, so she was going to have to walk, and I ended up being able to, so I texted her and let her know that I was coming. She texted back and said, ‘wow, you’re so wonderful, you deserve an award for everything you do for me.’ That will stick with me forever. It’s those little moments that just make you feel like, ‘okay, they really do appreciate me, and I really am making a difference in their life.'”
Rice shares that she loves spending spare time with the scholars. She has a pool in her backyard, and every summer the kids come over to swim. “I love watching them engage as brothers and sisters,” she says. “Sometimes one of them will get out, and sit there next to me, and will start talking to me about a gym class that they’ve taken, or some summer experience that they’ve had, or something that would never happen in their lives except for getting to be a part of this program.” Her other favorite moments are when the scholars visit to make Christmas cookies in the winter.
And, of course, she loves attending the scholars’ high school graduations.
Mom as a 20-something, circa 1975.
Death is kind of like a bad break-up. There’s a lot of ugly crying, fetal position dry heaves, binge drinking and subsequent after-hours spent reaching for the phone. The only difference is that, this time, there’s no chance of reconcile in the corner of a crowded bar three Cuervo shots/cries for help deep. There’s no 4 a.m. call to say “I miss you” or late-night text turning words like “I still love you” into “I stilk loke tou.” (You want to wish they hadn’t sent it but really you’re just glad there’s something in writing that says you aren’t the only one riding front-car of this emotional roller coaster.)
There’s no “one more chance” or “last goodbye.” Goodbye was goodbye and it’s actually forever (not just early episodes of One Tree Hill “forever”). The dead can’t come back like Hayley does for Nathan, and they certainly won’t pick up the phone when you ass-dial them at the bottom of a bottle on a Friday night.
It was Friday the 13th (go figure) and I was one whole White Zin wine-product in at a Christmas party as I caught a glimpse of what should’ve been my lock screen (once a photo of Jessica Lange, now a shot of my mom riding a bike on a Bermuda beach in 1975). What I saw instead was “Mom” and the seconds ticking slowly.
0:16, 0:17, 0:18.
I ended the call, finished the rest of my “wine” in one sip and slipped into a spiraling panic that prompted stress hives and a refill. I fled from a room full of friends decorating a Christmas tree to “All Star” by Smash Mouth and threw my phone on the kitchen table under loaves of bread and behind a box of beer. I stared at it for what felt like an hour but was probably just seconds and poured myself another glass of Rite Aid brand wine-product.
I took a deep breath and resumed position, hanging one of what had to be a dozen penguin-themed ornaments belonging to the family of the friend whose house we were decorating. A collection of both his mother and his dead stepdad. They both really loved penguins.
There’s a quiet comfort in those friends who share a similar loss. It’s like getting broken up with the same week as your best friend, both of you left for dead and drastic weight gain. It’s not often spoken about but it’s assumed and understood. You develop a special Lassie-like sense that tingles whenever the other needs a hand packing up their house, a hard hug or a stiff drink (Everclear, please). You go to them first and they’re the last ones standing by your side, no matter how many mid-afternoon margaritas you’ve both downed. They don’t waste their breath with 10 too many “you’ll be okay”s because they’ve been there and they know right now you’re not.
Just like when the walls of what you consider “can’t sleep, can’t eat, reality over dreams” love come tumbling down, death comes crashing in like an eerily similar heartbreak, only it’s on steroids and a power trip. It’s a jackhammer and your heart’s roped off for construction.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been emotionally triggered to the point of panic.
Like in the days, weeks and months following a brutal break up, the weirdest things remind you of a person you’ve lost — things you never thought twice about when they were still here. A stoop you shared a kiss on. A bus stop you waited at together. A bar you got free buy-backs in. The air.
My first-ever breakup left me with a crippling fear of the sound of skateboards, the second with a year-long disdain for Brand New (thank God that strike is over). The third left me with an eerie sadness during the movie Elf, a six-month hatred for bagpipes and an unhealthy urge to kill off his character in our shared Sims game (I held back for the sake of our two kids and the three-story glass house we built together).
The world moves on around you but you’re stuck in between a rock and a fucking boulder and everything feels bigger than you. You’ll never feel more alone than at the bad end of a breakup or front row at a funeral. (Maybe at the bottom of a box of Franzia while watching Blue Valentine. It’s a close second.)
When my father died, I couldn’t listen to Shillelagh Law, eat KFC or even catch a glimpse of golf. I’m still learning what sights and sounds hurt most since mom passed, oftentimes leading to a gruesome display of public depression. To anyone who’s ever seen (or been) that girl sobbing on the sidewalk, mascara running down her face faster than she can wipe her nose on her North Face: you know damn well that those displays are even worse than any public display of affection.
Unless you’re that couple making out on the subway. I still hate you. We all still hate you.
Almost three months in and I’m emotionally triggered by Five Guys Burgers and Fries, all 100 seasons of Survivor and the chicken teriyaki Subway sandwich. It’s the last meal she ever asked me to bring her and Siri couldn’t even find the Subway that was six blocks away from her high-rise New York City hospital. Instead, I brought her a some shitty wrap that someone down the hall stole out of their communal fridge before she could even eat it.
Bastard.
I’m also partial to a travel-sized hotel lotion sample sitting on my desk at work. Bath and Body Works’ Rain-kissed Leaves (it was a Hilton, and we could barely afford it). We pocketed two and some conditioner after a family wedding we both got white-girl-wasted at. It was the first and last wedding we’d attend together and actually enjoy. The half-ounce bottle reminds me she won’t be at my own.
I’m emotionally triggered by Coors Light, Sister Act (one and two), “Amazing Grace” (bye again, bagpipes) and Google Maps because the satellite image of our South Brooklyn block includes a shot of her pushing a shopping cart and wearing an Iona College Rugby shirt.
“Does your daughter date a rugby player?,” asked everyone, always. “No.” “Does she date anyone?” “No.”
Most of all, I’m emotionally triggered by any walk more than 10 blocks long. It took us 22 years to get where we were when she died. I’d finally shaken off the years of teen angst and general cuntiness, stopped blaming her for what wasn’t her fault and reserved coming home blackout for just Thanksgiving Eve. I called because I wanted to, almost every long walk I made, and missed her when she wasn’t around.
We fought until she died. About boys. About boobs. About how to spell the word “about” and about her going to the hospital because, come hell or high water and cancer aside, we were just like any other 20-something daughter/50-something mother combo.
Every now and then I reach to call her and, when I don’t, my ass does it for me.
Just like moving on from an ex that called it quits, these soft spots grow fonder over time. The skin around the wound grows thicker. The things that once cause emotional (bordering on physical) pain will one day, someday bring even the slightest smile to your face, reminding you of a former love, be it an ex-significant other or someone taken too soon. One day, you’ll make it through a saved voicemail without hanging up and reaching for wine. One day you’ll keep the TV on for their favorite part of their favorite movie. One day, you’ll order their go-to at Five Guys without ugly crying. One day, you’ll remove them from your phone favorites and maybe even delete their number.
Some days, you might not even think about them — and that’s okay, because one day, you’ll love with your whole heart again while holding close the love that came before. Everything happens for a reason way bigger than us. Every path is an important piece of some fucked up puzzle we may never put together but, finished or not, it’ll make a great story.
In my case, she’ll always be a part of mine, even after Google Maps sends out the truck for a retake.
Update: Seven months since this was written and I’m still emotionally triggered by Sister Act.
Previously published on MeaghanMcGoldrick.com.
Officer Joel Zwicky is the world’s coolest, and possibly only, skateboarding police officer.
Most police officers patrol in squad cars, on bikes or even on horseback, but Zwicky decided to take patrolling to a whole new level by mixing his love of skateboarding with his job. And thus, “Skateboard Cop” was born.
An officer with the Green Bay Police Department in Wisconsin for 10 years, 40-year-old Zwicky pitched the idea of a skateboard patrol to his commander two years ago, according to the Milwaukee Wisconson Journal Sentinel.
“Everyone says, do what you love. I thought, ‘how can I combine my love of skateboarding and surfing?'” he told the outlet. “I came up with all the arguments: ‘Hey, I’m saving gas, I could still take calls.'”
Zwicky now enjoys the time he spends outside the squad car, bonding with the youth and patrolling local parks, WFRV News reported. His special police board even has its own set of flashing lights and an official seal on the bottom.
“I wanted to break that down and show people that skateboarders are not just punk kids causing trouble,” Zwicky told the outlet. “They are all kinds of people in the community, and they are even your police force.”
Zwicky fights for skateboarder rights, as they are currently forbidden on the roadway by a state law and often not given the same access to public spaces as bicycles. So far, he has accomplished the goal of ending the ban on skateboards on the Fox River Trail in Brown County, which is a 25-mile-long trail that goes through Green Bay and surrounding areas, according to Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.
The skateboard cop also works to eliminate barriers between police officers and skater kids, according to The Washington Post. There are stereotypes both about skateboarders and about cops that he aspires to help eradicate.
“I certainly see that there’s challenges in breaking down some old ways of thinking,” he told the outlet. “I just hope that if I can conduct myself in a positive fashion, it’ll bring about some positive change.”
To keep up with the “Skateboard Cop,” check out his website.
If you’ve seen the Red Wedding in the Game of Thrones, the ongoing HBO series based on George R.R. Martin’s saga of warring kings in the late Middle ages (A Song of Fire and Ice), you may wonder whether you’ll ever again accept a wedding invitation.
The Red Wedding was meant to patch up a feud between King Robb Stark and his onetime ally Walder Frey. Having antagonized Lord Walder — aka Black Walder — by breaking an oath to marry his daughter Roslin, Robb tries to make amends by letting her marry his uncle Edmure instead. And when Stark arrives at Walder’s castle with his queen, his mother, and his entourage, they are all welcomed as “honored guests” by Walder himself, who confirms their status by formally eating salt and bread from the same bowl with them.
In the mythical continent of Westeros, where most of Game of Thrones takes place, nothing is more sacred than hospitality, which requires both guest and host to respect each other for the duration of the visit. Once the bond of “guest right” is forged, breaking it violates all the laws of gods and men. It is the worst crime imaginable.
But this is just the crime that Black Walder commits at the wedding of his daughter to Robb’s uncle. Once the newlyweds have left the great hall to consummate their marriage, Walder gives to Robb and all his other guests what he calls “the hospitality you deserve.” At Walder’s signal (a song played by his musicians, who are actually assassins), armed men come out to kill every one of them.
In masterminding such treachery, Black Walder re-enacts what hosts have done to their guests — and vice versa — throughout the history of literature, as explained in my latest book, Hospitality and Treachery in Treachery in Western Literature.
The Old English epic of Beowulf, for instance, includes a bloodstained wedding of its own. After the Danes have killed many Heathobards, the Danish King Hrothgar tries to make peace by promising his daughter Freawaru to the Heathobard King Ingeld. But Beowulf himself foresees what will happen at the wedding when the Heathobards find themselves entertaining the sons of their old enemies. Since those Danish sons will be wearing the very weapons that their fathers snatched from the Heathobard men they killed, Beowulf foresees that a young Heathobard will avenge the death of his father by killing one of their Danish guests and thus reviving the enmity the wedding was supposed to resolve.
As for the killing of a royal guest, consider what happens in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy when the Scottish King Duncan spends a night at the castle of Macbeth, who is at once his subject and his host. Though the sleeping king has two bodyguards, Lady Macbeth gets them both so drunk that Macbeth can butcher all three and then blame the guards for killing the king so as to justify his killing of them.
And that’s just for starters.
A few nights later, just after becoming king himself, Macbeth hosts a banquet for various Scottish lords including Banquo. But since Macbeth has been told that Banquo’s heirs will inherit the throne, he has Banquo murdered on the day of the feast. When Banquo shows up anyway — as a ghost — Macbeth alone can see him, rages at what looks to everyone else like thin air, and thus drives the ghost away — but also breaks up the party. After that, his reign is mercifully short.
Western literature is rife with stories of treacherous hosts. At the head of the line is a one-eyed giant named Polyphemos, who turns up in the middle of Homer’s Odyssey, the epic story of how the ancient, legendary Greek king Odysseus made his long voyage home after the Trojan war.
Having stopped at an island populated only by savage brutes, Odysseus and his men step into a cave, build a fire, and then help themselves to the cheeses they find there. When their absentee host –Polyphemos– returns with his sheep and goats, he is furious to find intruders in his cave. But instead of chucking them out, he blocks the exit with a vast boulder so as to make them his prisoners, which is one of the many nasty things that hosts can do to their guests. (Ever felt trapped at a party? Welcome to the club.)
When dinner time comes, Polyphemus doesn’t fret about what to serve his guests; he just eats two of them. And since he plans to do the same thing every night until he’s gobbled up all of the Greeks, Odysseus has to act. But instead of trying kill their host, which would leave them all trapped in the cave, the Greeks get the giant so drunk that he falls into a stupor — whereupon they drive a burning stake into his eye. The next morning, when the giant rolls back the boulder to let his livestock out of the cave, the Greeks sneak out by clinging to the underbellies of the sheep and then sail away.
You might say that Odysseus makes Polyphemos pay a bloody price for his brutal hospitality, but that’s exactly the point. When hosts or guests mistreat each other in works of literature, the benign reciprocity of hospitable payback — whereby your guest later becomes your host –gives way to malign reciprocity, where payback means retaliation.
In the Inferno, where treacherous hosts and guests are stuck in the deepest circle of hell, Dante recycles a true story of retaliation — the story of a Guelph lord named Alberigo, whose political power was threatened by a close relative named Manfred. Struck by Manfred in the midst of a dispute, Alberigo pretended to forgive the blow as an act of youthful impetuosity and then invited Manfred and one of his sons to a banquet. When the host said, “Bring the fruit,” armed men came from behind a curtain and butchered the guests. As a result, Alberigo is stuck forever in ice right in front of another treacherous host: Branca d’Oria, who killed his father-in-law after serving him dinner.
In more recent literature, treacherous hospitality takes more subtle forms. Near the end of Marcel Proust’s great novel, In Search of Time, a Parisian hostess takes brutal revenge on the Baron de Charlus. Though she draws not a single drop of blood, she is driven by a malice worthy of Dante’s Alberigo.
Desperate to meet the grandest people in Paris, the social-climbing Madame Verdurin holds a party to which — at her urging — the Baron invites all of his titled friends. But when they arrive, they fawn over him as their host and turn their backs on her. Worse still, none of them thanks her as they leave, much less invites her in return. So at the end of the party Madame Verdurin retaliates. She arranges for the baron’s boyfriend Charlie to be drawn off and fed a toxic cocktail of lies and insinuations about the baron. When Charlie returns to denounce the perversity of the baron, his normally irrepressible arrogance deserts him. Speechless and dumbfounded, he feels “struck as if by the Revolutionary guillotine”: a guest betrayed. She wounds him so deeply that it’s hard to know which of the two is more treacherous.
The stage, of course, is the perfect place for hospitality and treachery to meet–especially when a play is set in a living room, as is Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? When an older couple — George and Martha — ask a younger couple — Nick and Honey — for an evening of drinks, they play a series of games whose titles suggest just some of the ways in hosts and guests can do each other in. Superfueled with drink, George and Martha soon unmask the witlessness of Nick and the mousiness of Honey: that’s how they play Get the Guest. They also goad Nick into thinking that he can Hump the Hostess, which is one way of Humiliating the Host; but when Nick proves too drunk to perform in the bedroom, it’s he who’s humiliated — cut down to a houseboy. In all of these games the host and hostess use their guests as weapons in a war they have been waging with each other for years.
From Homer to George R.R. Martin, literature is fascinated with all the ways in which hosts and guests can betray each other. And as the author of a book on hospitality and treachery, I can’t resist the urge to say that if you’d like to know more about this topic, be my guest.
It was an NBA career with 977 games played and two championships won. Yet, beyond the games and accolades, perhaps the biggest mark newly retired NBA player, Shane Battier, made during his career was off of the court.
The line outside wrapped around the building and inched towards the street. It was filled with a who’s-who of Miami life — ritzy housewives, CEOs and models — all anxious to get inside for the night’s main event. The group had gathered to watch the Miami Heat perform — not on the hardwood — but on the stage. As the doors of the Filmore Miami Beach opened guests quickly took their seats, the lights were dimmed and the music sounded. This was going to be an evening with the Heat unlike one fans had ever experienced.
The third annual Battioke — a karaoke fundraiser for Shane Battier and his wife, Heidi’s, Battier Take Charge Foundation saw LeBron James and Michael Beasley singing Juvenile’s “Back That Thing Up,” Chris Bosh doing the Humpty Dance and Battier stealing the show to the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” with some help from Ken Jeong and Greg Oden.
While the event brings laughter, friendly competition and even some embarrassment, its ultimate goal is to help the young people that the Battier Take Charge Foundation serves. When it came to finding a way to give back, the Battier’s dug into their personal histories to find a cause to support.
When Shane was playing with the Memphis Grizzlies, Heidi spent some time teaching at schools in the Memphis area. She began at a private school, but later moved to the Grizzlies’ Academy, a charter school funded by the Memphis Grizzlies aimed at giving low income children a high quality education. “I went from a private school in Memphis to a school where kids were coming from some really rough areas. Being in that setting was super eye-opening. Shane and I both had two parents who everyday told us we could do anything. I realized that there are so many kids who don’t have that. In fact, they have people telling them they can’t. They tell them not to even daydream about college, because it’s not happening for them,” Heidi Battier reminisced.
Although Shane Battier’s parents told him as a young man that he could achieve anything, he believes that his college education opportunities could’ve been limited without his basketball talent. Noting that his parents did not have the means to fully fund a college education, Battier also notes that he would not have qualified for financial aid. Recognizing this gap in educational funding, along with Heidi’s experience working with students in Memphis, the Battier’s decided to address the issue and launch the Battier Take Charge Foundation. “Both Shane and I have the belief that there is no cap on learning. What you can learn in the college environment as a person should be there for anyone who wants it. Unfortunately, it’s not. We decided that if we can bridge that gap, then we were all in,” Heidi Battier noted.
Today, one of the main initiatives of the Battier Take Charge Foundation is its scholarship program. Through the program, the foundation awards four-year $20,000 college scholarships to young leaders in Miami, Houston and Detroit. “We kind of always knew we wanted to do something in terms of giving back. Shane has been very fortunate in his career. At the beginning of it, we weren’t sure how we wanted to give back. We are believers in higher education and the opportunity for that for everyone. After we started the foundation, it was one of those things that when your parents tell you when you’re younger on Christmas that it feels as good to give as it does to receive, that we realized they were right. This is all about giving kids opportunities. The feeling we get in being part of the process is indescribable,” Heidi Battier said.
While the Battier’s have two biological children of their own, Heidi dotes on the accomplishments of the Take Charge Foundation’s scholarship recipients like a proud mother. She mentions the college graduate who taught English in South Korea before heading to graduate school. She talks proudly about the tenacity of the young man who not only excels in school, but “hightails” it to a job where he’s put in “more hours than a 30-year-old has in their career” to help support his family. “These kids have been through everything. They’ve been through parents with drug addiction problems and were in prison. Yet, they stay on track,” she remarked.
Perhaps its those stories that Shane took into the locker room to motivate the Heat to participate in Battioke. Or maybe it was he and Heidi’s drive to change a generation that gets the Big Three on the stage singing and dancing in front of thousands. Whatever the motivation, though, Battioke has been a successful fundraising tool for the Take Charge Foundation. Heidi notes that the foundation is very close to endowing its scholarship fund, which will ensure that sixteen students will receive scholarships at all times. “One of our big things with the Take Charge Foundation, is we want to be part of a generational change. It just takes one generation to go from a negative experience to someone providing for a child to have something to change what might have been a negative outcome,” Heidi Battier said.
While Shane Battier hung up his sneakers following the Heat’s NBA Finals appearance and prepares for a broadcasting career, he remains committed to the foundation’s mission. “I take my civic responsibility very seriously and so does my wife. We have an amazing ability to reach out together for a great cause. We are both very passionate about education. We think that it is the key to unlocking your potential. It’s our duty and responsibility to make the Battier Take Charge Foundation as strong as we can and help as many people as we can,” he said.
We’ve heard rumors before that Samsung and Oculus were working together on a VR headset , and this leak of “Gear VR” from Sammobile might be it. It’s stripped down and simple; a plastic version of Google Cardboard .
Trolleys and light rail trains are great for getting around a city and all, but let’s face it, they’re just sitting there empty a lot of the time, just begging you to trip over them. So why not turn that underused resource into a new form of mobility: A DIY pallet-train for one?
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