Science Says I Might Have Been a Stegosaurus Once

My first solid A in college came from a public speaking course I took fresh out of high school. I was preparing for a full-time LDS mission and had heard that missionaries were often asked to speak in church with little or no notice, so I wanted to be ready. But I quickly discovered that I naturally possessed my family's gift of gab anyway, thanks to a piece of my dad's advice that served me well throughout my school career:

If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with B.S.

Let me share an example:

One speech I gave that semester--a persuasive argument to spend more time in the mountains--required the use of three sensory aids. For reasons I can't recall, I didn't get around to writing the speech until the day I delivered it, and pushed to extremity, I had to select my sensory aids from items in my car.

So I presented my backpack as a useful piece of gear for mountain-going. Then I read from a book of wilderness poetry by Robert Service, which conveniently had a mountain on the cover. Finally, to drive my message home, I opened a new pine air freshener and passed it around the room for everyone to sniff.

The class got reeeally silly after that; to this day I wonder if I accidentally gave them drugs. But I got a good grade!

Image credit: Omaha Business Association

I had a ton of fun in that class, but my crowning achievement came with the final speech of the semester.

Based on other speeches I had heard, I figured I was one of the only students without kids. I was definitely the only one under twenty. So, with the help of my youthful innocence, my speech captured everyone's attention when I opened my PowerPoint file and the title appeared in large letters on the wall behind me:

Where do babies come from?

Writing and speaking are much the same: you've gotta hook your audience. With my title slide, I had them eating out of my hand. 

"I have pictures," I promised, and a few class members shifted uncomfortably in their seats. The tension paid off; when I clicked to the next slide, the whole room erupted in laughter.

"I drew that myself," I said. I was getting applause before I'd even really started.

And now, for your own benefit, dear reader, the basic message of that speech:

The Law of Conservation of Matter dictates that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. You can organize existing materials into a new formation, but you must have something first in order to create anything--even life. 

Take the human infant, for example. The womb is not a vacuum where a child magically appears. It is a construction site that constantly receives its building materials from the outside. And what are those building materials? Nutrients from what the human mother eats.

But food itself is not a factory for nutrients; the food got them from someplace else, too. Pretend the baby's mother eats an apple. Where did the apple come from? An apple tree. And like the human fetus, the young apple received nutrition from its host until it ripened and was picked.

 
But we're not quite there yet, still. The tree can't poof an apple into existence any more than the human mother can poof a baby. And in this case, the parent organism can't just eat an apple for nutrition. That would be cannibalism, which is gross. Instead, the tree sticks out its roots like crazy straws and sucks up everything it needs from underground.

Now we get to talk about rotting corpses. Whenever something dies--it could be anything, from plants to birds to Squidward's hopes and dreams--it usually ends up in the ground in order to contribute its sweet, sweet nutrients to the rest of us.

So let's say someone dies and gets buried underneath an apple tree. We'll call him . . . Dennis. As Dennis' body decays, everything gets broken down into tiny morsels of energy small enough for the tree to eat. Little helpers like worms and bacteria help spread Dennis out a bit so the other trees and plants can get their fair share, but our apple tree is satisfied. Along with water and sunlight, it has everything it needs to grow a juicy apple. And with that apple, the human mother builds a baby.

This is Dennis. Dennis has a terrible casket.

Dennis. Tree. Apple. Baby.

So believe in yourself! You are the recycled remains of someone great.

* * *

Why did you make me read this? you ask. Because my wife and I are celebrating the news that another baby will join our family this fall! And I should probably seek therapy, but I can't help but think just once of this experience from college whenever we're expecting. 

My apologies to you all.

I Acted Out In Class Twelve Years Ago and I Am Really, Really Sorry

Every now and then I take a day off from writing and pick up jobs as a substitute teacher. It gets me out of the house. And--let's be honest--into pants.

Today I subbed for the instrumental music teacher at my own junior high school, and naturally the nostalgia hit me hard.

I wouldn't say junior high was the best three years of my life. It was more like puberty itself: awkward, anxiety-inducing, and smelly. But I do have plenty of good memories from that time, and thankfully, those are what I remember best. Walking the halls today I saw, in my mind's eye, my seventh-grade pals clustered on the cafeteria stage; the ham and cheese and potato chip sandwich that I always ate for lunch; affable Mr. Lyman, the "potions master," storming into class at a meeting of the Harry Potter Club.

It was good to be back.

I could speak at length on how it felt to be the teacher now--how it felt to sit in the high conductor's chair, wave the baton for the band and orchestra, use my teacher voice on students doing the same dumb things I used to do.

But my favorite part of subbing at my old school today was the opportunity to finally apologize to a teacher whose class I had been obnoxious in.

In all my years of school I mostly performed well in academics. But some years, for whatever reason, my behavior didn't match my intellect. Ninth grade was one of those; I earned straight A's, but my teachers probably couldn't wait to kick me out come June.

Ninth grade me. Don't let the polo fool you; behind those buttons beats the heart of a deranged lunatic.

I probably gave no one else a harder time than my science teacher. I can't explain why; she was one of my favorites that year. She used They Might Be Giants songs to help us remember things, and I still know that the sun turns hydrogen into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees. I really had no reason to act out, except that class did happen to be right after lunch.

But lunch is no excuse, and I've felt badly about my behavior ever since. So today I took a chance to make things right: I visited my old science teacher.

"Hi," I said as I approached her desk. Then, in one breath, "I'm-on-my-way-back-to-my-classroom-and-you-probably-don't-remember-me-but-I'm-one-of-your-old-students-and-I-wanted-to-say-hi."

She smiled. "I might remember you. What's your name?"

"Nathan Cunningham?"

She almost stood up as her smile grew. "Nathan!" she said. "You grew up!"

"Finally." I looked around the room. The tables were smaller than I remembered them. "I was pretty obnoxious in your class, so I came to apologize."

"I don't remember that."

I'm pretty sure I was the worst kid in that class.

"You don't?" I reply.

"Do you know what I remember about you?"

"What?"

"You asked really good questions."

Wow! I thought. Of all the things she could remember about me, she remembers something to be proud of!

"Well, that makes me feel better!" I said. "Thank you."

"Thank you. I'm so glad you came to visit me."

I loved being in the music room today, where I really got my start on the violin. I loved leading the band and orchestra and letting the tables completely turn as I got to teach at my old school.

But visiting my science teacher and losing some guilt I'd carried all these years? That was the highlight of my day.

It wasn't until reflecting on the experience this afternoon that a scripture came to my mind: "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more (D&C 58:42)."

So that's what that feels like.

I Went From Selling Lemonade to Running Guns, and Now I'm Here

In The Curse of Monkey Island--arguably one of the best games of the '90s--pirate Guybrush Threepwood encounters ten-year-old entrepreneur Kenny Falmouth at work behind a lemonade stand. "Is the lemonade good?" the pirate asks.

"Oh gosh, yes!" Kenny replies. "It's a dandy tonic for scurvy. It'll cure all your symptoms, including, but not limited to: gradual weakening, aching muscles, sunken eyes, painful gums, ashen skin, loss of teeth, internal bleeding, the reopening of old wounds, diarrhea, kidney failure, fainting, halitosis, and death. ... [And] it has a refreshing citrus flavor with no unpleasant aftertaste."

Image copyright LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC

Not much later Guybrush meets Kenny again, but the boy has made significant changes to his lemonade stand. "I've got a new business now and gosh, is it swell!" he says.

"What is it?" asks Guybrush.

"I'm running guns!"

Image copyright LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC

Well, that happened fast. But it is pirate times; ten-year-olds sold explosive weapons to everyone back then, and without proper background checks, too. It was actually the lemonade that raised eyebrows.

The point is, Kenny's journey is a lot like mine.

Well, just a little like mine.

Vaguely like mine.

Basically, we only have one thing in common: I've jumped from blog to blog almost the way Kenny does from dangerous business venture to dangerous business venture. I've done the author blog, the daddy blog, the Mormon blog, the inspirational blog, the Lego blog, and even the dream journal blog (which was actually going great until I finally kicked the habit of sleeping). All of them started out okay, but they each met the same terrible fate:

Burnout.

My problem was I kept specifying myself into a corner. You'd think it'd be easy for an aspiring novelist to have a lot to say on just one subject, but it gets hard when you're focused only on bite-sized spiritual messages or writing advice and trying not to sound like a pretentious hack.

So, enough with the niche; out with the conventional blogging wisdom! I'm gonna do the whatever blog. If I want to write about writing or church or family, I'll do it. And if I want to write about neckties or Thomas the freaking Tank Engine, you'd better believe nothing's gonna stop me.

Except pizza. I will stop for pizza.

Welcome to my blog. Here's a picture of a lemon holding a shotgun. Because this is the Internet, dang it.

Image source: www.dreamstime.com