My petition was read by the powers that be and signed by all but two Dryer guys. Many thanks to Brenton, Bruce, and Dr. Nyquist for hearing our pleas.
Dear President Paul Nyquist and Trustees of our school,
The men of Dryer are a peculiar lot. Tucked a football field or two away from the rest of Moody’s campus, we are considered unsociable wild men by our sister floors. The Culbertson gentlemen seem to view the three floors of Dryer Hall as a bit of a mission field.
We are a shirttail-cousin of the other dorms, the black sheep, the aunt who never married. Our building is dilapidated, our satellite dish flickers and dies periodically, the rats outside the building have names. The most perfect definition of irony would have to be the out-of-order dryers populating the Dryer hall Laundromat. Indeed, Dryer Hall and the 150 men who call her home are a most unique addition to the Moody campus.
But may I say: we don’t mind being unique. We have our own fellowship; our own brotherhood here in our little Dryer Hall. I have confidence those students who are privileged enough to call her home desire to call her home always during their stay at Moody. For Dryer Hall has many advantages over her bigger sister Culby. Its distance from the campus hub makes us feel that we go to school and then come back home to our dorm. Culbertson residents do not understand this concept as clearly as a Dryer man. Through no fault of their own, they must suffer narrower hallways and shared bathrooms, and for what? A spot closer to the lunchroom.
Yes, Mr. President, Dryer has much that she can boast southward down LaSalle boulevard. But she boasts the loudest of her crown. Her rooftop porch.
For once one walks onto the rooftop and shuts the porch door, all the doubt about who is queen of the dormitories is swept away by sheer power of the wind that hits your body. It peels back all the layers of dates and facts and bible references and leaves the student standing there basking in the fierce glory of God.
Imagine yourself on our porch. It is midnight. It is cold now, it is night, it should be black, yet the Hancock building is lit up big as day on your left hand side, only the tip of a star is visible. You look down on the Moody campus and realize how small you are and how big God is and the reason you’ve come to this massive city. We’ve come to seek God.
Dryer’s roof is a place of solitude, a precious commodity in the hustle-bustle, bright flashing city of Chicago. One can ease back and relax in an outdoor place of safety.
At times, the porch is also a place of fraternity and brotherhood. Dryer 2 hosted its end of the year farewell on the rooftop porch. Students do homework, discuss God, and spit sunflower seeds together on the rooftop. This is a gathering place, just like Culby 2. Does one shut down Culby 2? The porch means so much.
Our building is decrepit, but Dryer-the people Dryer, not the building- are strong in the Lord. We understand finances are tough. We would survive without a roof. The Lord teaches us to be joyful in all circumstances.
But if we abandon the roof and dismiss it as old and unmanageable, we men of Dryer would lose so much of what makes Moody special to us-the feeling of safety, the visions of beauty, and the power of one-on-one communion with God in one of the best vistas many of us have ever seen.
What follows are the signatures of those who desire to keep the roof open for Dryer residential use. We strongly urge you to come before our Lord in prayer and reconsider your decision. Hoping that God leads you to his sovereign will, and knowing His will is best, we remain faithfully yours.
Unanimously,
The Men of Dryers 1, 2, and 3
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
How I Learned to Read
1861 McKail Rd
Leonard MI, 48367
Circa 1994-95
Mom sits down on our ratty yellow couch. It is four in the afternoon, Dad is at work, and my little sister can be heard snoring upstairs. I sit down beside Mom.
She takes out a book. This book is much bigger and heavier than any other book I’ve read before (previous titles browsed included such classics as "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Mickey's Safari Adventure". It has some letters on the front. I pick out an A and an O.
Mom opens it up and shows me the first page. All gibberish. The letters swim in front of me and I look up at her. Her eyes smile at me as she patiently nods toward the book. “Cat.” she says.
I look down where she’s pointing. “Cat.” Her hand slides down to another word. “Bat”, she says.
I think I understand. Both words have “at” on the end, and a letter corresponding to the sound she says at the beginning. The next word has an S in place of the C or the B.
“Sat!” I say triumphantly. I am congratulated, for apparently that’s the gist of it.
We progress through the big book over the course of the next few weeks, through the “ribs” and the “bibs”, the “farms” and “alarms”, although I admit that last one was a bit of a puzzler for me the first time. I’m learning each letter has a sound, and a certain group of letters has a certain group of sounds.
Gradually I get it, and then pretty much everything becomes a target.
Shel Silverstien, Dr. Seuss.
Sunken ship ghost stories, books on mummies, and Bob Dylan song lyrics.
World War I flying aces, King Arthur and his knights, Sherlock Holmes and Watson, Christian on the Pilgrim's road and Odysseus on his quest.
Whitman, Bradbury, Poe, Chekhov, Tolkien.
Leaves of Grass, Dandelion Wine, Masques of Red Death, Russian Peasants, and Hobbits.
The big, heavy book has mellowed out a bit in the course I’ve known it. It hides secrets no longer; now the words Alpha Phonics are plainly visible on the cover.
Now it’s two years later. I’m sitting in the living room reading Homer Price. Mom sits my little sister down on our ratty yellow couch…
“Cat.” I hear her say..
-Josh Grablowski
Leonard MI, 48367
Circa 1994-95
Mom sits down on our ratty yellow couch. It is four in the afternoon, Dad is at work, and my little sister can be heard snoring upstairs. I sit down beside Mom.
She takes out a book. This book is much bigger and heavier than any other book I’ve read before (previous titles browsed included such classics as "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Mickey's Safari Adventure". It has some letters on the front. I pick out an A and an O.
Mom opens it up and shows me the first page. All gibberish. The letters swim in front of me and I look up at her. Her eyes smile at me as she patiently nods toward the book. “Cat.” she says.
I look down where she’s pointing. “Cat.” Her hand slides down to another word. “Bat”, she says.
I think I understand. Both words have “at” on the end, and a letter corresponding to the sound she says at the beginning. The next word has an S in place of the C or the B.
“Sat!” I say triumphantly. I am congratulated, for apparently that’s the gist of it.
We progress through the big book over the course of the next few weeks, through the “ribs” and the “bibs”, the “farms” and “alarms”, although I admit that last one was a bit of a puzzler for me the first time. I’m learning each letter has a sound, and a certain group of letters has a certain group of sounds.
Gradually I get it, and then pretty much everything becomes a target.
Shel Silverstien, Dr. Seuss.
Sunken ship ghost stories, books on mummies, and Bob Dylan song lyrics.
World War I flying aces, King Arthur and his knights, Sherlock Holmes and Watson, Christian on the Pilgrim's road and Odysseus on his quest.
Whitman, Bradbury, Poe, Chekhov, Tolkien.
Leaves of Grass, Dandelion Wine, Masques of Red Death, Russian Peasants, and Hobbits.
The big, heavy book has mellowed out a bit in the course I’ve known it. It hides secrets no longer; now the words Alpha Phonics are plainly visible on the cover.
Now it’s two years later. I’m sitting in the living room reading Homer Price. Mom sits my little sister down on our ratty yellow couch…
“Cat.” I hear her say..
-Josh Grablowski
Monday, August 23, 2010
A Comparison Betwixt Lake Superior and Chicago
William Ratigan told me a story once of an old Great Lakes captain. He had been sailing the pleasant, sunny climates of Huron and Michigan, but his true love was Lake Superior, with all of it's majestically rough wilderness, it's terribly inclement weather, and it's ferociously unforgiving beaches.
He traveled back to his native habitat of Superior, buttoning up his jacket against the cold and looking cheerfully at the grey, overcast clouds as if they were old friends. He breathed in the cold whipping air as if he were relishing the smoke of a choice cigar.
"Now that's what I call living" he said. "None of your monotonous blues skies around here!"
Many people love more what is considered to be less. For me, my return to Chicago is yet another example of this strange phenomenon, along with my lo-fi music affinity and my penchant for Ramen as a side to filet mignon rather then baked potato. In a beauty contest of the world's great cities, Chicago has her make-up off and she still is drop dead gorgeous.
He traveled back to his native habitat of Superior, buttoning up his jacket against the cold and looking cheerfully at the grey, overcast clouds as if they were old friends. He breathed in the cold whipping air as if he were relishing the smoke of a choice cigar.
"Now that's what I call living" he said. "None of your monotonous blues skies around here!"
Many people love more what is considered to be less. For me, my return to Chicago is yet another example of this strange phenomenon, along with my lo-fi music affinity and my penchant for Ramen as a side to filet mignon rather then baked potato. In a beauty contest of the world's great cities, Chicago has her make-up off and she still is drop dead gorgeous.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The Lions Den is a Happy Place to Be, or, Narraration on Optimism
Originally Composed 10/5/2008
Optimism is not something acquired at birth; it is a virtue to be mastered. The best way to learn the virtue of good spirits is to become a fan of the Detroit Lions.
A typical Detroit Lions football fan is psyched in September, optimistic in October, and dejected in December. However, this dejection recycles back into resilient cheer as soon as February commences. This has been the case for the 50-odd years the Lions have been the NFL’s worst team.
Now before last season, my friend Clayton Campbell was a very pessimistic guy. You know the type. This man was the kind who insists the pool water temperature is either hypothermia inducing or someone must have peed in it. He would refuse to go on roller coasters on the basis they were unsafe, stocked up water during Y2K, and read Ecclesiastes often.
I thought football was a natural waterfall over which to paddle his little pessimistic canoe.
Football has a sixteen week season, which is the same amount of time most school semesters
are. I figured my hapless Lions could transform his outlook on life in that period of time. Clayton was interested in football, but never actually followed the sport throughout the season before. He was eager to begin, and Week 1 he was there in front of the TV, Lions jersey on, popcorn in hand, brimming with hopes and expectations.
The Lions’ first play resulted in a touchdown for the other team. Clayton sat in front of the TV, dumbfounded.
“Way to start the season. Their luck had better turn around.”
“Just watch.” I said, smiling to myself. I had a feeling everything would go according to plan.
He sat and watched the whole game, and I watched him. The Lions lost the game in typical Lions fashion, and I asked him his thoughts. He responded, “Well, it was the first game of the season. I can see that happening. All the nerves, all that pent-up energy from eight months of inaction. They’ll get it next week.”
“They’ll get it next week.” In the hardest, rockiest of soil, the seeds of optimism had taken root and sprouted in the space of a 60-minute football game.
You see, my idea was to get him to take pleasure in something so utterly hopeless, he would be forced to maintain a positive outlook in order to continue enjoying the activity. The Lions were a reliable, ideal choice for this experiment; as the season progresses they always get steadily worse. You know the cliché, how a team “finds ways to win.” Well, the Lions find ways to lose, and Clayton found ways to justify their atrocious play.
Week 2 the defense played poorly because the middle linebackers’ dog died, Week 3 the receiver dropped the game winning touchdown pass because the sun was in his eyes. When their record became 0-4, Clay finally admitted that yes, they did suck, but still had unwavering faith in the management and staff of the Detroit Lions organization.
This faith was dispelled, however, during Week 5 when our defensive coach was fired for driving thru a Burger King unclothed.
Clayton now became a firm believer in “team spirit”, the crowd’s moral support and love for their team, buoying up the footballs for a second longer, and inspiring the players to victory. But by Week 10 the crowd was booing the Lions, chanting FIRE MILLEN (the manager)and, in short, doing everything to bring judgment upon the Lions other then marching seven times around their stadium and blowing trumpets.
He was, by Weeks 12-16, thoroughly displeased by the season’s course of events. Many times he would slump back in his chair, sigh despondently, and say “stupid Lions” to no one in particular.
I waited. I knew right after the season ended in December, a cocoon of discouragement surrounded him. The Lions finished dead last, and for a month or two he returned to his pessimistic ways. Then about mid-February, an amazing change took place. He began to miss football, miss the Lions. By August all the negativity had melted away, and Clayton stood there, foam finger on hand, ready for another season, another beating.
The optimism transferred over to other things, as well. He began to give positive comments on my ping-pong playing, and corrected me when I stated Hannah Montana had no talent. (“She’s in a learning stage as a singer. Give her time.”) His belief in politicians hasn’t changed that much, but now he does admit not all candidates form from the slime underneath rocks at the beach.
In short, football was able to show Clayton what many people fail to see; though something may be flawed, it doesn’t mean you have to view that something in a negative way. Sometimes by squinting at the television, you can almost see the football score being 14-8 instead of 14-0.
No? Well maybe the scoreboard’s broken…
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Pool and Its Cleansing
The first part being excerpted from a facebook wall post I left my friend Emily Mueller
We have spent the weekend cleaning our inground pool, which hasn't been cleaned or covered in two years. Prior to the operation's undertaking, we extracted two dead squirrels and a large mole, all bloated, floating, and looking like they wouldn't be out of place in the Dead Marshes of Middle-Earth.
We also had the pleasure of discovering a new friend. Naomi and I found a turtle and named him Kroijcek; this morning I went to the park and put him in a God-made swamp where he belongs.
We found a frog the last time the pool was cleansed, so I have formed a theory. When we found the frog, it had been a year since we last opened the pool. We waited two years and discovered a turtle, Kroijcek.
Hoping your pool is clean and your turtle is happy,
Joshua
We have spent the weekend cleaning our inground pool, which hasn't been cleaned or covered in two years. Prior to the operation's undertaking, we extracted two dead squirrels and a large mole, all bloated, floating, and looking like they wouldn't be out of place in the Dead Marshes of Middle-Earth.
We emptied the water out with a large red bilge pump and were left with several square feet of decayed leaves and muck. Twas most disgusting and toward the end I was in the bottom of the pool scooping out sewage with a large bucket, whilst my sister stood and ground level laughing at my predicament and doing her best to assist me with the rope she was hardly using and the bucket she was barely pulling. The leaf slop had to be emptied from the pool's deep end manually and dumped in the grass, it was too thick for the bilge pump to suck. I was basically moving a swamp up a 15 foot cliff, bucket by bucket, in the sweltering July heat.
Although some elements of the job were horrifically nauseating, other moments were very exciting. When Naomi finally consented to come into the drained pool and help, she found herself helplessly sliding on the slimy incline of the pool liner toward the muck awaiting her at the deep end. She screamed bloody murder the whole way, a redhead penguin careening toward the jaws of a hungry, slimy polar bear.
We also had the pleasure of discovering a new friend. Naomi and I found a turtle and named him Kroijcek; this morning I went to the park and put him in a God-made swamp where he belongs.
We found a frog the last time the pool was cleansed, so I have formed a theory. When we found the frog, it had been a year since we last opened the pool. We waited two years and discovered a turtle, Kroijcek.
It is only the natural evolution of things to find an alligator or something if we don't clean it for three years. The only downside to this experiment is we a cesspool of stagnant water as the centerpiece to our backyard for half a decade, and I'm not sure the rest of my family shares enthusiasm for such sacrifices in the name of discovery.
Hoping your pool is clean and your turtle is happy,
Joshua
Friday, July 9, 2010
Polish Cruising
Dear Reader,
The blog site requested I give a title to this cohesion of rambling tripe. Insomuch as the current title may mislead some in my complete ethnic affiliation, it will do no small amount of good to state that I am not altogether Polish. I believe sections of my genetic pool consist of Irish, German, and Mandolorian, for I enjoy four-leaf clovers, Bach, and bounty hunting. Plus Mom told me.
If it is at all possible to replace the title with "Polish Cruising", I would hasten to do so. Thus far, I have not progressed to a knowlegeable level of the website's limitations, whether I am to be consigned to text alone, or whether I may program the service so that, in the course of reading said blog, a large rubber chicken may appear on your screen and squawk, bringing your trusting nerves to fever-pitch hysteria. In any case "Polish Cruising" seems to me a far more appropriate title for this blog.
For a Pole, the nationality, not the object, there is but one particular vice which grips him beyond all others. Other nationalities have vices; Americans, for instance, vest too much interest in the mindless activity of the cookout; Filipinos are friendly almost to vomit-inducing levels. For Polish people, thier vice consists of "Polish Cruising, and it occurs the moment he enters a parking lot with an automobile.
Even if it is a sleet storm with forty mile-an-hour gusts and there is a large crack forming in the pavement from an earthquake due to the planet's core melting, the Pole will daintily drive from parking space to parking space, sometimes circling the entire parking lot to find the ideal resting place for his vehicle.
What constitutes an ideal location? It can depend on many factors. If it is a hot day and he doesn't want the sunlight hitting his seat so it's egg-fry level temperature when he returns to the car, he'll park driver's side shadeward. He could drive around looking at the Denny's from all angles to determine which window seat he wants so he can view his car from there and possibly chase down the auto thieves because none of the doors lock on his car. Sometimes the genetics kick in and he putzes around the parking lot for no reason at all.
In any case, this vice grips me steadily, and it tends to bleed over into this typical typed tripe you see before you. If I look like I'm arriving at a point in my musings, oftentimes I'll drive right past it, and you'll wonder why that wasn't as good a place as any to pull the car in and end it. Now you notice this post is just as much warning as explanation.
Thanks for reading,
Josh GrablowSki
The blog site requested I give a title to this cohesion of rambling tripe. Insomuch as the current title may mislead some in my complete ethnic affiliation, it will do no small amount of good to state that I am not altogether Polish. I believe sections of my genetic pool consist of Irish, German, and Mandolorian, for I enjoy four-leaf clovers, Bach, and bounty hunting. Plus Mom told me.
If it is at all possible to replace the title with "Polish Cruising", I would hasten to do so. Thus far, I have not progressed to a knowlegeable level of the website's limitations, whether I am to be consigned to text alone, or whether I may program the service so that, in the course of reading said blog, a large rubber chicken may appear on your screen and squawk, bringing your trusting nerves to fever-pitch hysteria. In any case "Polish Cruising" seems to me a far more appropriate title for this blog.
For a Pole, the nationality, not the object, there is but one particular vice which grips him beyond all others. Other nationalities have vices; Americans, for instance, vest too much interest in the mindless activity of the cookout; Filipinos are friendly almost to vomit-inducing levels. For Polish people, thier vice consists of "Polish Cruising, and it occurs the moment he enters a parking lot with an automobile.
Even if it is a sleet storm with forty mile-an-hour gusts and there is a large crack forming in the pavement from an earthquake due to the planet's core melting, the Pole will daintily drive from parking space to parking space, sometimes circling the entire parking lot to find the ideal resting place for his vehicle.
What constitutes an ideal location? It can depend on many factors. If it is a hot day and he doesn't want the sunlight hitting his seat so it's egg-fry level temperature when he returns to the car, he'll park driver's side shadeward. He could drive around looking at the Denny's from all angles to determine which window seat he wants so he can view his car from there and possibly chase down the auto thieves because none of the doors lock on his car. Sometimes the genetics kick in and he putzes around the parking lot for no reason at all.
In any case, this vice grips me steadily, and it tends to bleed over into this typical typed tripe you see before you. If I look like I'm arriving at a point in my musings, oftentimes I'll drive right past it, and you'll wonder why that wasn't as good a place as any to pull the car in and end it. Now you notice this post is just as much warning as explanation.
Thanks for reading,
Josh GrablowSki
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