The McCollumn - 1/25: "Growing up on 'the Street'"

Last week, Amie White’s 2nd grade class at Southview Elementary was kind enough to extend me an invitation to come and read to and have lunch with them, so I gladly took them up on their offer.

We read a book about the life and lessons we can learn from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (and, a credit to Mrs. White - the kids knew more than I did, a sign of a phenomenal teacher).

We then proceeded to head to Southview’s oddly-arranged cafetorium, half cafeteria and half auditorium, where I sat with my young friends and held court on several hard-hitting issues of importance: whether or not ice cream was good, what we wanted to be when we grew up (I’m still not sure) and what was wrong with Auburn’s football team this year (several dozen second graders and I can’t answer that one, either, other than “They were bad.”)

What gave me pause during our dining conversation was when one young girl told me she had gotten her cell phone taken away for talking back to her mother.

I reminded her that such behavior was wrong (though I talk back to my mother a frequent amount, but usually only when she’s quoting Fox News at me), and then I was struck with what should have been my first response:

“You’re in second grade! Why do you need a cell phone? Who do you call - Elmo?”

The girl and several of her classmates stared at me with blank expressions.

“Who is Elmo?” they asked, with genuine confusion and mystery.

Who is Elmo, indeed.

While the boisterous, red-furred puppet is known to my generation and a few that came before us - he and the rest of the gang located on “Sesame Street” is largely unknown to this current crop of youngsters.

I repeated the name, hoping to get some flicker of recognition in their eyes, but, alas, none was to be found.

I tried other names: the Count (who was always my favorite), Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird.

I had begun to give up hope, but upon saying “Cookie Monster,” they began to light up.

“Thank the good Lord,” I thought to myself. “They know Cookie Monster.”

And what did they say about my gluttonous, blue-furred pal?

“He used to eat lots of cookies, but now he only eats some cookies after he eats other foods like carrots and broccoli.”

Carrots? Broccoli? Being eaten by the Cookie Monster?

Such statements seemed like blasphemy to a Reagan-era child like myself, but, sure enough, a quick Googling back at the office confirmed my fears: Cookie Monster had been co-opted into preaching the merits of balanced meals.

I wasn’t allowed much reaction time to that news, as the kids then began to tell me the shows that they did watch.

They were all on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon, and I had never heard of any of them. In fact, I don’t think some of them contained any real words, just random letters and numbers garbled together (either that, or I don’t speak second grader fluently enough to understand my young friends).

The era of Sesame Street has, apparently, come to a close, as its target audience of youngsters has moved on to other, less educational based content.

Soon, Big Bird and the others may have to pack up and move to another locale, going the way of Mr. Rogers, Captain Kangaroo and even ol’ Howdy Doody - left to gather dust in the basement of adults’ memories.

So many of us grew up on “the Street.” We learned our letters, numbers and other vital facts for everyday life from the good people at the Children’s Television Workshop.

We laughed strange laughs with our friend The Count and pondered what it would be like to live in a garbage can like Oscar did.

I can even recall tuning in a few weeks to PBS one summer in college when I learned that Big Bird’s nest had been destroyed by fire.

My roommates gave me odd looks, but joined me in watching the crisis, until, at the week’s end, former President Jimmy Carter (and the good people at Habitat for Humanity) had built Big Bird a new nest (though it did look suspiciously like the old one - exactly like it, in fact.)

Children’s tastes change - no one can dispute this.

I shouldn’t expect that kids today would still enjoy a program I watched more than 20 years ago now, but ... on some level, I suppose I do still expect that.

Sesame Street has always represented the brighter, positive and, most importantly, thoroughly educational viewing experience for youngsters and it comes on public television to boot - public TV being brought to those kids by viewers like us.

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But, these kids don’t know the Street.

They don’t seem to want to know about it, either.

So, give the small ones their cell phones and let them call Brobee from “Yo Gabba Gabba” or coax Spongebob from his grill at the Krusty Krab.

Me - well, I’ll keep the Cookie Monster on speed dial - just in case we need him again.

The McCollumn - 1/18: "For Fitz"

Fitz didn't like to be interrupted when watching TV.

By all odds, he probably shouldn’t have survived as long as he did.

He experienced cruelty and hatred early in his young life, as he and his two sisters were abandoned along a semi-forgotten stretch of county road up in Walker County, Alabama.

There was no telling how long they suffered out there in the wild - alone, cold, hungry and likely wondering where the mother they had been violently snatched from was.

When the small brown puppy made his way to me a few weeks’ later, you could still see the scars of his abandonment.

His tiny ribs were clearly visible through his lackluster fur.

He would shy away from human contact, as if he had only known these sort of hands that brought anger or torment.

He savored his food, eating slowly, perhaps wondering if it would be the last he ever got, if tomorrow he’d be thrown back into the wild to fend for himself.

So went the first few weeks of the Cliff and Fitz experiment: me, learning to care for and show kindness to another living creature, and Fitz, learning to trust me and getting acclimated to his new home.

There were the inevitable battles of puppyhood.

Bathroom training was an interesting experience - my first foray into the field.

Swift discipline and a small amount of yelling made sure that no yellow puddle would appear elsewhere in the house after the Bedspread Incident.

The random gnawing of any and everything tiny Fitz could get his paws on ... well, a dog has to be allowed some joys, even if one of the front porch’s wicker chairs did get completely destroyed.

We slowly began to settle into the normal routines of pet ownership: the wake-ups, the lunchtime stop-by, the afternoon playtimes and the complete freedom of the evening, where Fitz would be allowed (supervised) to watch television in the living room on the sofa.

He always loved “The Wire”; he never fidgeted or barked during the hours it was up on the projector. 

Perhaps he found the storyline of drug-riddled Baltimore to be as riveting as I did. Or perhaps there were always barking dog noises in the background, and he simply zeroed in on them better than I did.

He learned “Sit” and “Shake,” and would be required to demonstrate the practice before each and every meal.

He was always overjoyed when my mother would send home various treats and bones for him, “for little Fitzy,” she’d always say.

Any bone given to him would be gone within an hour or so; he’d chew right through them.

Every time I ever let him out into the front yard, he always made a beeline for the huge azalea bush in the center of the yard, disappearing into its leafy magnificence, unable to be seen.

(The joke was that the azalea bush contained a portal to Narnia; Fitz was just popping over for some tea with Mr. Tumnus, and he’d be right back.)

We had a good life, Fitz and I. It wasn’t much, it wasn’t perfect, but it was ours and we liked it. No frills, no fuss - just us.

That is, until last Thursday afternoon.

I gave him a bit more time than usual in the front yard for his afternoon session, only to open the door to find he had escaped the fenced-in portion of my front yard.

I assumed he had bolted to the chicken coop next door, his favorite spot to harass, but when I made it to the coop and saw my little dog was nowhere to be found - then the sinking feeling came into the pit of my stomach.

It was then that I heard the eerie screech of a car’s breaks, the heart-wrenching thud of car colliding with animal and the agonizing cries of Fitz telling me exactly where he was.

Though the cretin who hit him had decided to drive off without any care of what he or she had done, there was Fitz, lying in the middle of the road, crying for help.

His back legs didn’t seem to work; his eyes told me he probably wasn’t long for this world.

Though I quickly rushed him to Dr. Buddy Bruce, and though he and his wonderful staff did everything they could, Fitz didn’t make it.

Had he survived, he likely would have been paralyzed - no type of life for a dog who ran like a gazelle and was overly fond of jumping.

I’ll miss my furry friend, the fellow co-habitant of McCollum Cottage.

Though I initially was unsure of whether I’d like the little bugger, now I have trouble imagining life without him. 

Who would have thought that the presence of a simple, little dog would help fill up a home that now feels depressingly empty?

We all have had pets die from time to time; this is an inescapable fact of life.

We take our time, we mourn, we try to move on and then we find another furry little creature to bring into our families.

Fitz taught me I’m capable of being a pet owner, and some day I will be again.

Good boy, Fitz. I’ll miss you.