My morning P.E. run at school is always revealing. Sometimes for better - sometimes for worse.  I ask my 10-year-old fifth graders to do two laps, roughly a ½ mile. I do one – I’m fifty-one years older than them. My goal is to do finish two laps (like I used to) within three months. An addiction to dark chocolate doesn’t help.

   Some kids shoot ahead. Some lag behind. Some linger and resist. I have to raise my voice at them. Some walk it which is okay with me as long as they do it.

     Deal is that if they have a personal issue – they tell me and we jog together. So I’ll ask, “You want this private?”

     If they reply, “Yes.” Then it’s just the two of us. The mob with me dissipates, a few zoom ahead. The rest pull back out of listening range.

   But often we don’t get too far as the high school kids are waiting for their bus on the other side of the fence. And many of them are my former students. They want recognition. Some stick their hands through the fence wiggling them, wanting me to wiggle my finger on theirs – warm personal contact. I love these kids. Two of my former favorites, now sophomores beam radiant smiles.

    “We’re sorry we didn’t come by the first week of school. We couldn’t.” Last year these two showed up with dark chocolate-chip cookies.

    “We didn’t forget it was your birthday. Just couldn’t make it over.”

    “No problem,” I reply.

     My fifth-graders are pooling around me, gawking at the big kids on the other side of the fence. They know each other at least by sight. Many are related.

     “Guys. Get going I tell them. I get to talk with the biiiig kids. You have to do laps still.”

    “How many?” one fifth-grader’s attempt at weaseling.

     I give him the hairy-eyeball. “You want three laps? Scram.”

    My fifth-graders evaporate and my former students laugh.

    “Always trying to get out of stuff.” Says one.

   “Just like you used to. So what’s the story? You getting good grades? Going to school all the time? Keeping away from the boys?”

    A small group of high schoolers has coalesced. I recognize most.

   “Yeah, we’re being good. Studying. Math is a pain. No boyfriend.”

   “Good. Boys at your age are poison.”

    Some of my former boys groan.

    “But she,” they point to a third girl right behind them. I recognize her but can’t recall her name. “She likes boys a lot.”  They laugh uproariously. I don’t get the inside joke.

    The girl smiles and pushes in between them. The two part like Moses with the sea. Her belly is huge. “I’m having a baby.”

    I think Okaaay…positive. Be positive. “Um… what grade are you in now?”

   She replies, “Senior. I’m eighteen.”

   You’re gonna’ finish school right? You know you have to for your baby and you.”

   “Yup, I know.”

   “Is the dad working?”

   My two other girls put their hands to their lips and chuckle. “What?” I ask.

   At the same time they point at her, “She’s a cougar.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s sixteen.”

   I see some of my kids coming around the corner on the start of lap two. I think it’s as good a way as any to extract myself.

    “Good luck.”

    I wait for my runners then jog with them.

 

   But the day is not done with me. One of my girls catches up with me. “Can we do a lone walk?”

   “Sure.”

   Julissa is a sweetie-pie.  Tall, quiet, does her homework, raises her hand. Super polite, smart, dark-skinned with really noticeable red cheeks.  She’s been sullen and absent. She tears up. “It’s my little brother. That’s why I was out on Friday. We had to go to the hospital for him. He has holes in his heart. He’s so little.”

    She stops running, breaks down, and puts both her hands on her face. I stop running too and put my arm around her shoulder. Some kids catch up. I encourage them to keep on running with a movement of my hand and a stern gaze. They run past.

    “So how is he?” I’m afraid of her answer.

   “He’s okay. He had surgery.  He’s still there. We have to see.”

   She removes her hands from her face, tears glisten.

   “Julissa, let’s walk.”

   We walk. Kids pass us. Julissa shifts gears. She tries to pull out of her grief. She pulls a baseball from inside her jacket then a hat. The hat is a Giant’s hat. “Look who signed them, “Pablo Sandoval. He’s number 48. He was at the hospital.”

    “Wow! That’s fantastic. Want to share with the kids later?”

    “Sure.”

    And of course she does.

    It’s tough on many kids on the other side of The Lettuce Curtain. (The Green Agricultural Wall as some call it.) That area of reality separated from the local areas of prosperity.  

    And to San Francisco Giants - Pablo Sandoval…many, many thanks.. You sir, are the best!