What happens in Austin

Be proud to be American… there are plenty of folks who are… like the 200 or so residents who live in and around Austin, Nevada.

After my second year of teaching US History to high school juniors, I decided to ride my Suzuki V-Strom cross country from the San Francisco Bay to Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. I rode US Highway 50 for most of my eastbound transit. My first night on Highway 50 was spent in Austin, Nevada… it was a short but memorable introduction to central Nevada.

I rolled into town on a warm July 1 afternoon. The main drag is about three quarters of a mile long. I noticed a small girl about 4 years old playing on the sidewalk in front of a place named the Owl Club. Another girl, who looked to be about 18 years old, was sitting close by. I figured they were together… they were. With no traffic in sight, I flipped a U-ie and pulled up to the curb. About this time, an older woman emerged from inside the Owl Club. She eyed me a little suspiciously.

I asked where I should stay for the night in Austin. The 18-year-old answered rather quickly… the Cozy Mountain. I thanked them and rode two blocks over to the Cozy Mountain Motel and asked about getting a room for a one night’s stay. The motel is actually a series of 12 or so prefab guest rooms arranged in a U-shape at the western edge of town. The owner, Cindy, was very hospitable and helpful. I checked in… no reservation… no problem. I asked where I could get something to eat, and Cindy said… the Owl Club. This time, I walked over to the Owl Club.

It was early July and the sun was sitting high in the pale sky. I walked in and sat on a stool at the bar. I was the only patron, but it was still early. The Owl Club was originally a movie theater many moons ago. It would have been a small theater, but Austin is a small town.

I ordered an IPA and just started looking around. The older woman that I met earlier when I arrived in town was tending bar. She introduced herself as Mary and said she was the owner of the Owl Cub. I noticed two photos on the large mirror behind her. One photo showed a young man in an Army uniform and the other showed a young woman in uniform. I asked Mary whether the soldiers in the pictures were local kids. She said they were her son and daughter. I told her that I was a retired Navy pilot and tipped my bottle to the young man and young woman in the photos.

That gesture sealed the deal. Mary refused to let me buy another beer. The next round was on the house. It got dark outside and the juke box got louder. A couple of people drifted into the Owl Club. After about eight locals arrived, Mary started pouring shots from a bottle of a chilled German liqueur… Jägermeister. Everyone was either talking or singing with the country tunes playing on the juke box. My shots were on the house, too.

I felt very welcome; Mary’s regulars treated me like a local. Mary was so gracious… everyone loved her. I pulled Mary aside and told her that I could not remember when I had so much fun and that I would definitely stop at the Owl Club on my way back to California. She asked… when and walked over to a calendar hanging on the wall. Mary picked up a pen and looked over her shoulder at me. I looked at the calendar and said, “July 24th.” Mary marked… Ray coming back across the calendar square reserved for Friday, July 24. I returned as promised on the 24th with a fresh bottle of Jägermeister in my starboard saddlebag for Mary’s Owl Club inventory.

Mary and her friends may be partial to German liqueur on most days , but I’m certain they were enjoying hot dogs, potato salad, and everything red, white and blue a few days later on July 4.

Listen to the voice

Listen to the voice

Most everyone likes feel-good stories, but life is not a Disney movie. This is a different type of story, but it makes sense that it follows the story about my student donating a portion of his part-time job savings to help a child he would never meet. The student in that earlier story, “When you’re smiling,’” was Asian, and about half of the students in the class that donated money as a group for a cleft palate operation to benefit a child they would never meet were Asian as well.

When we hear angry voices in public or private that are disagreeable or hateful, we can turn to the voice inside us for guidance. You can’t look away when you’re uncomfortable; you may just have to make someone else uncomfortable when that inner voice speaks to you.

I was visiting a friend who tended bar at a local watering hole and enjoying a freshly drawn IPA. The guy sitting next to me was silently getting pretty drunk. All of a sudden, he lifts his head up and he starts an anti-Asian rant… just vile… expletives and epithets. He wasn’t speaking to me or any particular person… he was just insulting anyone and everyone with Chinese heritage. I looked at my buddy behind the bar. He rolled his eyes then gave me a “what are ya gonna do?” type of look. Then, the guy stopped… for a couple of minutes.

He started up again. This time my buddy walked over toward the end of the bar hoping the guy would stop and things would settle down. Just like the first rant, the guy suddenly stopped. I breathed a sigh of relief. I guess the smart thing to do was simply ignore him and maybe he’ll be quiet.

No such luck… the guy started a third time… same routine but louder. My buddy was in an awkward position. I know for a fact he was terribly offended by the drunk’s language. However, if he intervened, would things escalate? Would the drunk focus his anger on my buddy? Would things turn physical? The drunk was a bully, and something had to be done.

I felt really uncomfortable inside. I thought about the hundreds of Asian students I had taught over the years. They looked up to me as a role model. They looked up to me and I was doing nothing. That was wrong and it made me feel sick.

Something welled up inside me. The voice inside me said… this is not right and you cannot pretend it is not happening. I turned to the other patron and said, in a loud and vigorous manner, “Hey! Who do you think you are? No one wants to hear your racist talk! Have you ever been to China? Well, I have and I can tell you that they are a great people. You’re gonna have to take your speech somewhere else… now!” The words rolled down like water.

I didn’t know what would happen next. He put his head down and said nothing. I thought… great… this guy might walk out to his car and get a shotgun so he could start blasting people away. Instead… after a few minutes, he looked over at me and said… You’re right. He got up and silently left the bar.

A couple of days later, I decided to pay another visit to my buddy. I was intercepted at the door by another employee who appeared to be Asian. He looked at me and said… You’re the guy! “What guy?” I asked. The young man said the bartender told him what had happened between me and the racist earlier in the week. I said in a low voice, “Yeah… that was me.” He smiled and said… Thank you for doing that then he turned to go back to work.

Sometimes, you have to take a stand even when it may make someone else feel uncomfortable, but it will be easier to do if you listen to the voice inside.

When you’re smilin’

When you’re smilin’

You cannot buy happiness, but you can buy smiles.

Two smile stories… When I taught US History years ago, my students were almost exclusively juniors. I liked that age group. They’re a lot more mature than underclassmen but not cocky like a lot of seniors. At the beginning of each year, I introduced the course and gave my students advice on how they could improve their college application resumes. I recommended they put in two solid years volunteering for a single nonprofit organization. Two years will show a sincere commitment instead of hopping each summer from one worthy cause to another. And I encouraged them to keep volunteering in college and beyond.

I shared with them my volunteering experiences as an adult. Things like coaching youth sports teams, peer counseling at church, etc. Then I added that I had an advantage over them. As an adult, I had a checkbook, and I could make donations to service and charitable organizations working to make lives better for those less fortunate.

To illustrate this point, I would show them brochure images from an organization that I support… Operation Smile. It was a steady stream of children horribly disfigured at birth. Those children were born with cleft palates, and in some rural villages overseas, those children were at best teased mercilessly or at worst ostracized by other villagers. The disfigured mouths and noses at times caused life threatening medical conditions. I followed those heartbreaking images with photos of the same children with huge smiles after receiving corrective surgery from the Operation Smile team of volunteer doctors, nurses, and support staff. Cost: $240.

Then I would make my pitch. If every student in each of my classes saved the money they would have spent on a single “foo-foo” drink at their local coffee store just once each month… each class could pay for a cleft palate operation at the end of the first semester. I let that thought sit there momentarily before moving on to my lesson plan.

A year or two after I started pitching my spiel about volunteerism and foreign children who needed smiles, near the end of the second semester, one of my students approached me. He told me that he had obtained a sellers permit so he could purchase items online then resell them for a small profit. It was a good way to make some walking around money. This year, after hearing my pitch about volunteering, he had set aside some money from his online sales. He handed me $240 and said he would like to pay for an operation to give a child a smile.

Wow! I was stunned. Such a giving heart… all I could do is thank him and smile.

The story does not end there…

The next year, just before Christmas, in my smallest class… 10 juniors… a student raised her hand and told me the class had something for me. Now, the families with kids at this school were very generous with teacher gifts especially around the holidays. I expected maybe a nice gift card… probably redeemable at a local coffee store.

Nope. Another one of my kids walked to the front of the classroom and handed me $240 in cash. Double wow! It was humbling to know that I had nudged these students to give a gift that would change a life. I wrote a check for the donation and put “From US History – 2nd Period” in the memo line and snapped a photo of the check before mailing it to Operation Smile. I used my photo of the check that acknowledged my 2nd period students’ selfless gift destined to create a smile where it was needed most as the screensaver on my classroom computer for the rest of the year.