The Escape

Pin It It was last weekend.

I was getting ready for Christmas in September when I found the two balloons I’d purchased for my sister’s birthday still hovering about the house. It amazed me, it was nearly two weeks after I’d purchased them; they both had life in them…life enough to still be airborne.


Well, knowing that birthday balloons were not really the style for the event we had coming up, I decided to pop them. The brightly-colored one was the first to go—after all, it was still in the kitchen and tethered to a gift bag; however, before I could get to the second balloon—the green star—my sister arrived and the balloon, somehow having gotten close to the door, made a lunge for freedom.

Needless to say, it had plenty of strength to make a quick getaway, and before I knew it, it had soared up into the heavens and soon disappeared from sight.

As I stood on the ground below, watching this balloon slowly rise higher and higher, I thought how this balloon was like—and unlike—me. I thought of those things each day I encounter which are bent on destroying my spirit.

When I say ‘spirit’ I am talking about either a destruction of self-esteem, or even an eternal soul.

The ways this destruction can come about are vast and unnumbered, and there have been many times when I find myself deflated and punctured—lying in a crumbled heap upon the floor—like balloon number one. These are usually from the times when I am clinging to people, places, or things which are unhealthy. Those things which are bent on deflating, tethering, and keeping me on the ground.

But as I watched this balloon I thought of how, if I’m really trying, I can ‘escape’ all of these things and rise above them—to a safe place where they cannot harm.

However, I have to be ready to leave them behind and rise above when the door is opened and the opportunity presents itself.

From there, I’ll let the winds carry me.

Making mistakes

Pin It I had a student in my class a few years ago…I’ll choose to call him, “Joey.”

Joey had a hard time for several years. He was the type of kid who was really smart, but lazy, and didn’t ever want to do anything. He wanted to get away with whatever he could, and would often use the right words with people to get his way.

He was really good at this.

I had this boy in my class, and from day one I tried to work with him. Did I do so every single day? No. Let’s be honest…there were a few days where it was more about survival, and just making it to the end of the day was the goal. However, did I work with him on a regular basis?

Yes. I did.

When he left my classroom I heard of problems he was still having, and things which weren’t so good in his life. You see, he was making a lot of poor decisions which, in turn, led to bigger and worse things in his life. It probably started off with lying and being dishonest with others, and this evolved into things I’ll not mention.

I got a call from a friend of mine who wanted to know if I’d seen Joey lately. I admitted that I hadn’t seen him for a few years, and had lost track of him. I came to find out that he’d made even more poor choices in his life, which have since led to him losing a lot of the freedoms which we take for granted.

In essence, his life is over.

I once heard the following quote, “Always Remember, no matter how bad you are, you are not totally useless. You can always be used as a bad example.”

I hope that my other students can learn from his mistakes…

I am a sixth grader...

Pin It Did you ever have one of those times when you felt really stupid?

I went up to Sundance to meet with Suzanne, the woman who does purchasing for the store up there, with some of my photography. However, I didn’t have the slightest clue what I needed in order to do this. So, stupid me went up with one—yes one—framed photo and a whole lot of nothing else.

Well, as I stood in Suzanne’s small office and she began to talk, I was suddenly thinking about my sixth grade Math class. More specifically, I was thinking about those students who sit there with these blank looks on their faces which tell me that they have absolutely no idea what it is I am talking about.

This was me. I had no clue what this woman meant as she went on about wholesale vs. retail and a bunch of Greek about consignment and going rate. She then went on to talk about portfolios and artist stories…In a word, I was completely lost. It probably hadn’t helped matters that I had a screaming migraine which was threatening to blow my head apart right on the spot.

As Suzanne took some of her time to explain what I should have had ready for our appointment, I suddenly found myself on ‘overload’ and my brain cells were starting to shut down. She was speaking this foreign language and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. At one point, I glanced at a chart on the wall behind her, and Suzanne, the office, and the reason I was there just drifted away. Her mouth was still moving…there was even sound. However, this sound was a million miles away as I remembered my poster for my Young Men’s awards which hung on my bedroom wall in Summit Valley. Wow, I hadn’t thought about that chart in years…I wondered just where it was now. Had I packed it away someplace? Those button-like stickers were so cool…

“Whoa there Zimmerman!” a voice seemed to chime in my head. “Why aren’t you paying attention to what this woman is telling you?”

I drug myself back to the present and listened as she went on and finally had to concede: “Look, Suzanne…I’m stupid, I have no idea about anything you just said.” I then went on to admit that I had a headache and she had said a lot of things I didn’t understand right off.

She blew out a breath and said, “Jason, you’re starting to give your headache to me.” She then gave me a homework assignment…to go and check out what other photographers had done, get pricings, and come back when I was good and ready…ready to commit to the world of business.

I just looked at her and said, “Are you even interested in the photography I have?” I asked.

Suzanne just looked at me and gave the fleeting hint of a smile. “I’m still talking to you, aren’t I?”

I left the office a bit dejected and REALLY confused. Well, luckily I had taken my sister, Shawna, up with me. As we left the office she began to explain to me what Suzanne had said, we then looked at an example up at the art gallery behind the store of an “author story and bio.” Well, it started to make a whole lot of sense and I realized that I had gone up completely unprepared, expecting Suzanne to do most of the legwork and not me.

So, what did I learn from this? Well, it is to do my “homework” beforehand and have things prepared out in advance. It is true that there is never a second chance at making a good first impression, however, we can be grateful for second chances and for those who make us do it right…sometimes by giving us a little helpful advice and then letting us do it on our own.

Well, I’ve still got homework…

Summit Memoir 3 - Vitamins do NOT make you stronger

Pin It It was like a miracle had occurred in our house. The beating incident stopped Doug’s bullying and bragging, in fact, he started to avoid me altogether. He was probably afraid that I’d tell dad about something he’d done and get him into trouble. I did have fun playing it up for the next two days though. I would walk slowly whenever I was around him, and sit down very carefully. It also helped if I sucked in my breath, utter a sound like, wuuuuuuuhhh, and clinch my eyelids shut, like it really hurt.

I had the hardest time trying to keep myself from laughing.

Even though Doug had stopped picking on me, we didn’t become friends that summer. I was grateful, at Mom’s insistence, that it was time for Doug and Tracy to go back home. I can’t describe the feeling of peace I felt watching Aunt Joan drive away with Doug and Tracy. It had been a long, hard month having them stay with us, and I was grateful for my life to return to normal.

Not long after my cousins had left my mom had told us something that I’ll never forget…she told us that vitamins made you strong and therefore, you should take them every day. I did a little figuring with my 7 year-old brain and came to the conclusion that if one vitamin a day would make you strong, then a whole handful of vitamins would make you even stronger!

My sister and I snuck into the kitchen when Mom was reading a book in the living room. We carefully opened the cupboard and took out the Multivitamin and Vitamin C tablets. My sister ate a few of the Vitamin Cs, but didn’t want any of the others. My siblings and I called them “horse pills.” This was mostly because they were huge tablets that could have choked a horse and they tasted terrible! I spread about a dozen tablets over the counter and got a glass of water from the sink. I popped the first multivitamin into my mouth and instantly was greeted with a bitter taste that made me wince. I grabbed the glass of water and forced it down.

Shawna looked at my face and shook her head. “The Vitamin C tastes better.”

I looked at her; did she think I was stupid? Of course I knew that the Vitamin C tasted better…they almost tasted like candy, but the Multivitamins tasted more like the grain we fed to our goats.

“I know that,” I said. “But these are better for you; they’ll make you stronger faster.”

She shook her head and watched wide-eyed as I downed another nine or ten tablets. I was starting to feel a little sick, but I realized that I needed to eat even more of those tablets if I wanted to be really strong. I took another four or five tablets, thinking that I’d probably had enough to make me as strong as I’d like to be. In fact, I felt stronger already! It was like my muscles were growing larger as I stood there. I flexed a bicep and grinned, surely it was bigger now than it had been only a minute ago.

I grinned at my sister and strode from the kitchen into the living room. Mom was still reading her book. I cleared my throat. “Mom,” I said as I flexed my muscles. “Do I look strong?” I was a little worried that when I flexed I would rip out of my shirt, but luckily I didn’t.

Mom glanced up from her book, and looked at me with a confused expression. “No, why?”

I was shocked. Maybe she hadn’t been paying close enough attention. I leaned forward and flexed again, like the guys on the covers of muscle magazines. Surely she would be able to see it now. “Don’t I look strong, Mom?”

She put her book down and shook her head. “No. Why would you look stronger?”

I stopped flexing and looked at my biceps, actually, they didn’t look any bigger than they had been a few minutes before. “Well, you said if we took our vitamins they would make us strong.”

Mom nodded. “Yes.”

My shoulders drooped, “Well, I just took a whole bunch of them, and I don’t feel any stronger.”

Mom’s eyebrows shot up like window blinds. “You did what!” she yelled, leaping out of the chair.

“I ate a bunch of vitamins.”

Mom bounded across the room like one of those lions that attacks their prey in the nature specials. She scared me as she grabbed my shoulders. “How many did you eat?”

“I don’t know...twelve?”

Mom looked like she was ready to faint. “Twelve vitamins?”

“Well,” I admitted, “Maybe twenty?”

“Twenty!” Mom was near hysterics. She ushered me to the bathroom and made me stand over the toilet. “Throw them up right now!”

I looked at the toilet and wondered just how I was supposed to throw them up. After all, you don’t just think to yourself, “I feel like throwing up” and do it. I stood there stupidly, not knowing what to do. Mom tried several things to get me to throw up, but none of them worked.

We had a neighbor during this time, Larry. He’s been my dad’s best friend ever since middle school, and he was currently staying in a little travel-trailer parked by our weeping willow tree. Mom ran out and asked him to give us a ride to the hospital in Chewelah, and in a matter of minutes we were flying down the road in Larry’s Honda, the countryside flashing past the windows more quickly then I’d ever seen it go before. Even though the ride to Chewelah should have taken us nearly half an hour, we made it in only fifteen or twenty minutes.

Mom left Shawna and Larry in the car and bustled me to the emergency room. A nurse listened to my mom, who was near hysterics, telling her that I’d swallowed half a bottle of vitamins. The nurse led us to a room where I was told so sit quietly on the examination table, while another nurse started asking questions. How long ago had I taken the vitamins? Did my mom bring the bottle with her? How many vitamins had I actually swallowed? The questions went on, and my head started spinning. I started to feel confused. The nurse started taking over my head to Mom.

As they talked, I looked around the room at all the strange instruments. I wondered what they were for, and who had been in this room before me. Had that person come in this room because they had swallowed too many vitamins as well? I wondered if the hospital had a special room for every kind of sickness, and when you came in you were automatically taken to that room.

I was studying the packages of gauze and bandages by the sink when I heard the nurse say something about pumping my stomach. I listened as she told my mom that a tube would be forced down my throat—one attached to a vacuum cleaner that would suck all the stuff out of my stomach. I started to cry and grabbed my mom; they were going to stick a vacuum cleaner down my throat!

I was near hysterics when the nurse suggested that we just might try something else. “If we try this and it doesn’t work, we’ll have to pump your stomach.” The nurse said seriously. “Hopefully, this will help induce vomiting.”

I nodded vigorously and wiped the tears from my eyes; if something could save me from getting my insides sucked out, I was willing to try it.

The nurse got a tray with several paper cups and a pitcher of water. She poured me a glass of water and told me to drink it. I was eager to do everything she said so they wouldn’t do anything else to me. I drank the water, even though it was warm. When I finished the cup she handed me another glass, and instructed me to drink it as well. I did. Boy, this was easy, just drink water? How easy could this get?

After my fifth glass I decided that I didn’t want anymore water. My eyes were floating in their sockets, and my stomach was starting to get full. The nurse handed me another cup and told me to drink it too. I tried, but I just couldn’t. I was so full I felt like I was going to explode. I started to cry, “I can’t drink any more!” I wailed.

“Well, then we’re going to have to pump your stomach.” The nurse said. I started to hate this woman, her job was to make people better, not torture them!

She forced another cup into my hands, “Drink it!” She ordered. I raised the cup to my lips, and as the water started to go down, the other water I already drank began to come up. I dropped the cup and began to throw up. The nurse must have known that this was going to happen because she was ready with a pink plastic bowl which she shoved in my face. I threw up for a few seconds, and I felt instantly worse. I started to cry harder and the nurse handed me another glass of warm water.

“Drink it.” She instructed.

I shook my head. “I don’t want to!”

I looked to Mom for help, but she shook her head. “Drink it, Jason.”

I couldn’t believe this, they were in this together! They both wanted to torture me. I shook my head again. “I can’t.”

“Then we’re going to put the pipe down your throat and suck it all out.” The nurse warned.

I knew I sure didn’t want that pipe down my throat. I closed my eyes and forced myself to down another three full glasses of water. I started to throw up again. I was crying pretty hard by now, and this became our established pattern. I would cry, the nurse would threaten, I would drink, throw up, and then we would do it all over again.

After what seemed like eternity, and it felt like my stomach had turned itself inside out, the nurse announced that I had gotten everything out of my stomach and would be all right. I wiped my face with a towel, and felt sicker than ever. How could this have happened? I felt awful! I just wanted to take a nap, I was so tired…but I didn’t want to take one here, I wanted to get out of here as quickly as I could.

While Mom filled out some papers, the nurse helped to clean me up. When she was done she handed me a sucker. I’m sure this was a bribe so that I wouldn’t tell anyone how mean she’d been—after all, what sort of adult gets their kicks seeing a little boy throw up until she nearly kills him? She then asked if I had any brothers or sisters. I told her I had a sister out in the car—I was hoping that maybe she wanted to torture Shawna too, but she didn’t seem to want to, instead she handed me another sucker. What luck! I got two suckers from her! I staggered dizzily out of the room with my mom, when we got outside to the car I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had gotten two suckers!

“Where did you get those?” Shawna asked, eyeing the suckers in my hand.

“From the nurse.” I said. “All I had to do was throw up a million times.”

As the car pulled away from the hospital parking lot, Shawna looked on enviously. I waved the other sucker in front of her face. I had two suckers and she didn’t have any…I, at least, was going to enjoy this!

“Jason, give Shawna one of the suckers.” Mom instructed from the front seat

What? Give one to Shawna? Why would I do that? She hadn’t done anything…I was the one who had his stomach turned inside out. Mom took one of my suckers and handed it to my sister, who greedily began to eat it. I folded my arms and sat back on the seat. It just wasn’t fair! I thought, I go through the torture and Shawna gets rewarded for it?

I sulked all the way home, and felt a general anger directed toward everyone in the world at this point. However, I did learn several important lessons that day: First of all, don’t believe your mom when she tells you that vitamins make you strong. Second, nurses always lie. And third, if you ever have to go to the hospital and you get two suckers, hide them both so you don’t have to share.