Debbie Duncan

(October 9, 2001)

One night soon after my kids went back to school, I peeked into the darkened room of my high school freshman. It was 10:30 p.m. “I can’t go to sleep, Mom,” she said from her bed. “It’s too early.” Her older sister, a junior, was in the kitchen studying for a math test. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep before 11.

My daughters don’t function on Hawaiian Standard Time in order to be obstinate: research shows that the sleep hormone, melatonin, doesn’t kick in in teenagers’ brains until at least 11 p.m., and won’t shut off till 8 a.m., when their bodies have supposedly had enough rest. By 8:00 in the morning my daughters have been up for an hour and a half, my 16-year-old having driven them both to school for a 7:55 start time. They’re lucky if they get seven hours of sleep, not the nine they need, and sometimes struggle to stay awake in school.

It’s enough to make this Bay Area family want to move to Minneapolis. Yes, Minneapolis, where high schools have been starting at the more reasonable hour of 8:40 for the last four years, resulting in significant improvements in mood and attendance, and a slight upswing in grades. Students get about five more hours of sleep during the week than they used to, and are happier and healthier because of it. Teenagers like it, parents like it, teachers like it.

But the school superintendent in my district told me last year he wouldn’t consider a later start time. Why? Because of athletics. “Some students already have to miss afternoon classes on game days,” he said. But what’s more important, I ask now that the data is in, extra-curricular sports programs, or education? Even coaches in Minneapolis decided that the benefits of well-rested athletes outweighed any scheduling drawbacks.

South Bay congresswoman Zoe Lofgren agrees that teenagers need more sleep for optimum learning. She’s introduced a bill that would make it easier for high schools to start after 9 a.m. – 9 a.m.! – by providing federal grants to cover the costs of changing the hours. Wake up, Bay Area educators: it’s time for teens to sleep.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(December 14, 2000)

At an art-supply store sale one recent morning, a woman called out, “Hi, Debbie.” I looked at her, smiled, and thought, I know you, but I have absolutely no idea who you are.

“Hello,” I replied.

“How are the girls?” she went on. Uh-oh. She not only knows my name, she knows I have daughters. Is she a mom from one of their schools? I had an image of her at a play-doh table.

“Fine, thanks,” I replied. “Isn’t this a great sale?”

What was I saying? Why didn’t I just ask for her name and how we knew each other? Of course it’s what I should have done right away. But I didn’t, and the more she talked (“I hear your husband is retiring!”), the more embarrassing it became for me to admit I’d forgotten who she was. I moved on to the calligraphy aisle.

I stared at pens and racked my brain: Who is she??? I’ve always been proud of my memory. My high school friends are amazed when I recall their birthdays. But after living in the same town for 26 years and knowing people from work, school, soccer, theater, volunteering, what-have-you, I sometimes feel as if the file folder in my brain for Bay Area names and faces is crammed full and jumbled up. I only make matters worse by adding new people all the time — and by getting older.

We met again in picture frames. “Are you still writing?” she said.

“Oh, yes.” Looking for clues I asked, “And how about your work?”

“Now that Nathaniel is in eighth grade, I have more time for my art.”

Eureka! Well, I didn’t have her name yet, but if she has an eighth grader and I have an eighth grader, then I bet her son and my daughter were in school together. The file folder in my brain may be a mess, but I’ve kept rosters and directories from all my kids’ classes and schools.

When I got home I checked in my file cabinet, and sure enough there she was: Nathaniel and Allison were in a toddler class together in 1989.

Those awkward 15 minutes convinced me always to ask if I don’t remember someone’s name — and to keep saving those rosters. And when I see her at the sale next year I’ll remember to say, “Hi, Karen.”

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(September 8, 2000)

Back in the summer of ’62, the Giants and Dodgers were battling for first place in the National League. I was a nine-year-old (ahem) Dodger fan visiting my grandparents the weekend of a critical three-game series between the two rivals. “Can I bring my transistor radio to dinner?” I asked on Friday night.

Grandma looked up from a bubbling pan of chicken and dumplings. “Yes, I suppose so.”

An hour later I was licking gravy off my fork and listening to Vin Scully describe the mud between first and second base at Candlestick. “Why would Maury Wills want to steal second?” Grandma asked. “Isn’t that illegal?”

I laughed. “No, but the Giants are trying to make it hard for him to break the stolen base record. That’s why they’ve watered down the field.”

After dinner I answered more of her questions while we watched the game on TV. Grandma was a quick study, and a converted fan by Sunday afternoon. Unlike my mother, who was too busy raising my three brothers and me to follow baseball, Grandma had time, and patience. Baseball gave her something to look forward to each day. She’d also experienced many disappointments in her 66 years, which is why she was the first to console me after the Dodgers lost to the Giants in a tie-breaking playoff series. “Wait till next year, Debbie.” She knew there would be a next year. I wasn’t so sure.

Grandma lived to enjoy 33 more seasons of baseball, and, like me, switched her loyalties to the Giants when we moved to the Bay Area. She was the one to carry a transistor radio with her on summer days.

I have three daughters, but only my youngest likes baseball. I managed to get two tickets to a game at Pac Bell Park for Molly’s tenth birthday in June. She got to run the bases. A few weeks later the phone rang after one of the Giants’ comeback victories. It was my mother. “Did you see J. T. Snow’s home run?” she said. “He’s my favorite player, you know.”

So it seems another generation of females in my family has been pulled in by premium players and pennant possibilities. And Mom didn’t even have to start out by liking the Dodgers.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

Note: I wrote this in August while crossing my fingers that the Giants would still be in the pennant race (they were about three games out of first). The day this Perspective was first broadcast, the team was coasting after a nine-game winning streak and sitting 8 1/2 games on top of the National League West. And on the day of the Sunday rebroadcast, my friend Rick gave me his tickets so my dad and I could enjoy a perfect afternoon of Giants baseball in the Arcade (right field) of Pacific Bell Park. I also saw them win Game 1 of the playoffs, but oh, that was all there was to be, as the Mets won the next three games. As Grandma said, “Wait till next year.” Since then I saw Barry Bonds break the single-season home run record (numbers 71 and 72, September 28, 2001) and hit quite a few other homers, including 660, which tied his godfather, Willie Mays. I’ve also been able to entice Giants right-fielders Reggie Sanders and Jose Cruz J. to throw warm-up balls up to me in the Arcade. And Molly is about as big a fan as I am!

(June 21, 2000)

One Sunday morning in May my husband read an item out loud from the newspaper. “A Palo Alto music teacher was murdered in her home.”

“Who?” I asked. Our nine-year-old looked up from her toast.”Kristine Fitzhugh.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Molly cried. “That’s my music teacher!”

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” I said, holding a sobbing Molly in my arms. Only two days earlier Molly had told us her favorite music teacher had chosen her as one of the soloists for the spring concert. Molly and I recalled meeting Mrs. Fitzhugh at Kinko’s one day last fall, where she and I talked about our children and how important music is in our lives.

And now her life was gone. It’s amazing, but she was the first person in Molly’s tiny universe to die. I shall never forget my first encounter with death. A sixth-grader was run over by the bus in front of our school one Friday morning. I saw the pool of blood. And I didn’t sleep at all that night. But on Monday none of the teachers even talked about Leslie Duff. I couldn’t stop thinking about her and I never got over her death.

I didn’t want Molly to be that traumatized, so I called the school psychologist. She invited me to come to school on Monday. While it was a long and tear-filled day, it was a day that was done right. Molly’s teacher explained to the children what we knew about Mrs. Fitzhugh’s death. She and the psychologist and the principal listened to the students’ questions and concerns. STAR testing was cancelled for the day so the children could write lovely remembrances. Their substitute music teacher led a recorder rehearsal. I read a book aloud to the class. And by the end of the day there was a letter ready to go home explaining the tragedy and how parents could help their children.

Molly and her classmates will never forget their music teacher. Yet I also believe they will remember the adults at their school who cared enough about their emotional well-being to get them through those difficult days after her death. And for that I will always be grateful to the staff at Nixon Elementary School and the Palo Alto Unified School District.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(May 22, 2000)

Several Sunday nights ago my husband, Bill, developed some worrisome symptoms. I took him to see our doctor at 8:30 Monday morning, and by 2 he was in the hospital, on IV’s and preparing for the first of two blood transfusions. On Tuesday a gastroenterologist told me Bill had a bleeding ulcer — or stomach cancer. The odds were 50/50. Bill came home on Wednesday, and on Thursday afternoon we saw our family doctor. “We don’t know yet if it’s cancer,” he told us. “We may have to wait another week.”

A week??? I couldn’t believe it. Here we are at the beginning of the 21st century. I can send e-mail to the other side of the country and hear back in ten minutes. One-hour photos have been standard for years. So why does it take up to nine days for a pathology report? Nine days that seem like ninety because they are spent in limbo? “It’s a process with results that require careful interpretation,” the doctor explained.

Bill and I tried not to alarm our three children about his health. It was late at night when he was awake figuring out if there would be enough money for me and the girls if he died. So many of their friends’ parents are divorced, and we’ve always assured them Bill and I would never split up. We have control over that. But suddenly I couldn’t be certain I wouldn’t be a single parent after all. I felt like crying every hour at the thought of my daughters becoming young women without their father’s gentle, yet strong male influence. I knew I’d be devastated without him. My daily walks with our dog, instead of being a time of inspiration and rejuvenation, were when I imagined the worst.

And if Bill did have cancer, I wanted to know so we could schedule surgery and any other possible life-saving treatments. But we had to wait. And wait.

The GI doctor called one week after the biopsy. “It’s not cancer,” he said. I cried then, too — tears of joy.

I’ll be listening to NPR even more closely for news that faster tests for cancer have been developed. I just know it can be done. Dante may have described limbo as the place between heaven and hell, but I spent seven days in limbo: It’s hell.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(February 10, 2000)

A few months ago my high school freshman and I went shopping for shoes for the Homecoming dance. “These would be perfect, Mom,” Jennifer gushed, picking up a pair of strappy silver sandals perched atop three-inch platforms.

“You’re crazy,” I said. “They’ll kill your feet, and you’ll be lucky not to fall off and break your ankle.” I knew this, of course, because twenty years ago I suffered through my cousin’s wedding wearing an almost identical pair of platforms. Why in the world were they back in style again? Would anyone who wore them once ever purchase another pair?

Well, the answer to that last question is yes, if it’s for her daughter’s first formal. I gave in. I’m pleased to report that Jennifer did not break any bones, but her feet started to hurt in the school parking lot. Memo to self: save those shoes as a warning for the next generation.

My three daughters are coming of age at the beginning of the twenty-first century — not yet the world portrayed in the Jetsons cartoons, but one that is more high-tech every year. Still, fashions will continue to be recycled in this third millennium, and teenagers will find new ways to make their parents shake their heads and say, “I can’t believe you’re wearing that.” I froze my knees and thighs below my mini-skirts as I walked to my Connecticut high school. This winter Jennifer and her 12-year-old sister, Allison, go off to school in midriff-baring tank tops. (When did bra straps become a fashion statement?) Their 9-year-old sister, Molly, wears bell-bottomed jeans with flowered embroidery. I had a pair of those, too — in high school. “What clothes will our kids be wearing?” wondered Allison out loud the other evening.

I smiled, imagining a day when rap and hip-hop are played on the World Wide Web oldies station and my children’s children sit in front of computer screens wearing virtual tank tops and mini-skirts. In that scene, platform shoes are definitely not in the picture.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(November 1, 1999)

Five years ago, my husband came home with a . . . Suburban. Yes, one of those mega-ton vehicles that occupies more than half a neighborhood street. I’ll never forget the first time I saw it in our driveway (it takes up more than half of that, too). “Oh, my gosh, it’s a, a, (looking at the writing on the back) a TRUCK! What in the world do you need a truck for?”

“So we won’t have to take two cars when we drive to Tahoe,” he explained.

“But sweetie, we could rent a big car once a year.”

Bill’s was only the third Suburban in our part of town, but soon there were more. Many more. As I witnessed the SUV explosion in the Bay Area I concluded that they are, in a phrase, socially irresponsible vehicles (call ’em SIV’s). They gobble gas. They pollute. And when the articles began to appear about the dangers they pose to cars in collisions, I exploded, too: “That doesn’t even count the number of times they cause wrecks because they always seem to be next to you when you want to change lanes or in the parking lot when you pull out, and their tall, tinted windows make it impossible to see around them.”

“So how do you really feel?” Bill asked.

I drove the monster for two days recently while my car was in for service. How embarrassing! I kept running over curbs and wasting time looking for places to park. Heaven forbid I park next to a car. It’s bad enough to share a driveway with a Suburban. I found it nearly impossible to drive one safely and responsibly.

I had hopes that the popularity of the new Volkswagen Beetle would signal a sea change in car size preference. No such luck. I shudder when I contemplate the fall debut of Ford’s Excursion, which the Sierra Club calls the “Ford Valdez.”

What can those of us who drive at ground level do to stop this insanity? I suggest guilt. A campaign with the slogan “Friends don’t let friends buy tanks.” Spouses, too, need to do their part. I may tease Bill about the vehicle he still adores, but he knows I’m serious as well. This will be the last SUV to call our house home, because seriously, SUV’s are a 90’s excess that should come to a screeching halt in the two-thousands.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(June 2, 1999)

Attention, parents of teenagers: I want you to read aloud to your child this summer. That’s right, read to your 14, 16, or even 18-year-old. Today’s teens were born before “twenty minutes a day” of reading became a mantra for parents of young children. Neurological research tells us that babies’ brains develop better when little ones are read to. Teenagers’ brains are also developing; exposure to rich language and intriguing stories helps them mentally and spiritually.

Everyone enjoys hearing a good story. But what to read? Anything. Pick out a book you liked as a teenager. Ask a librarian or bookstore staffer for a recommendation. Read a best seller. Read poetry. Read a play. When Robert Pinsky was named Poet laureate, he confessed that he still read aloud to his adult daughters. Begin tonight. Don’t ask questions. Just read.

Children are robbed of the joy of reading when they are only reading books for school — for homework, to meet a requirement, to please someone else. Even children who already read for fun deserve to be read to. It’s a wonderful way for teens and parents to connect. No one can stay mad for long when they’re enjoying a book together. If it’s an especially entertaining story, teenagers will often grab the book to finish on their own. That happened in my household the last two summers when I read Philip Pullman’s fantasy/science fiction thrillers, “The Golden Compass” and “The Subtle Knife,” with my older daughters. At the end of this school year I read J.K. Rowling’s best-selling Harry Potter books aloud to my nine-year-old, and on many nights her 14-year-old sister migrated from the homework table to the edge of the couch. “Don’t stop reading NOW!” they cried at the end of an exciting chapter.

“But you have to get up early tomorrow for school,” I replied. Well, now that it’s summer we’ll have the luxury of reading “just one more chapter” many times over. Reading aloud is indeed a luxury, and also a simple, inexpensive gift every parent should bestow upon a child — and teenager.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(March 19, 1999)

I cringe every time I hear news stories about “the homeless,” and not just because I wish I could wave the magic wand that would provide a warm and comfortable home for every person who wants one. No, what I’m talking about is the expression “the homeless.” Also “the poor” or “the needy.” In my mind I always complete these incomplete phrases with the word “people,” because it’s homeless people we’re talking about, not homeless dogs or rats or canaries. They are men, women and children. Families. They have faces and names, probably living relatives, most likely dreams and goals — even if it’s only for a warm bed and a good meal. “Homeless” or “poor” or “hungry” describes their situation in life, it’s not who they are.

I can’t help thinking that when we leave off the word “people” when referring to persons who don’t have a home, we are allowing ourselves to ignore — at least partially-the problems these people face every day, of finding shelter or food or help for their physical or mental well-being. Make them nameless and they won’t be as much of a burden. Maybe someone or something else — “the government,” “the church,” “the rich” — will help “the poor” until they don’t need any more help.

But of course that won’t happen. Each of us as individuals must do our part to help in whatever way we can and feel is appropriate, whether it be donating time, money, or “things” that are of more use to others than they are to us. As parents we need to teach our children not to ignore poverty, but to work to eliminate helplessness and despair.

Words are important — and powerful tools. Adding the word “people” when we talk about persons who are homeless or poor or hungry is a simple, subtle change to our way of speaking. Yet it also might lead to a more humane way of thinking about homelessness and poverty as we move into the twenty-first century.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

(January 14, 1999)

The afternoon Governor Davis gave his inaugural address challenging California students “to raise their sights and lift their performance,” I was in the homework trenches with my three California students — third grade, sixth grade, eighth grade. And it wasn’t a happy scene.

I am a product of California public schools during the so-called Golden era of the 1960’s. Yet when I was in junior high, I had time to read novels, listen to the radio, talk on the phone, even watch TV, as well as complete my homework on my way to college at Stanford. My daughters have no such free time. The handbook from their middle school states that the average time spent each day on homework in seventh and eighth grade should be one to two hours — total. But since my eldest began seventh grade, she can count on a minimum of an hour of math plus an hour of Spanish homework every day. Those two hours, as well as the daily work required for English, science, and social studies do not add up to only one to two hours of homework, no matter what kind of math you use. I hear it gets worse in high school.

Even more alarming is how much these students are expected to learn on their own. My husband and I spend hours each evening tutoring our daughters. My friends do the same. Yet what about the students whose parents or guardians aren’t able or willing to help them? I worry about the education they are missing out on.

Governor Davis, if you and the state legislature are serious about restoring California’s schools to greatness, you should lengthen the school day and add a few weeks to the school year. Kids need more time to learn in school so that their outside time can be freer — for sports, theater, music, being a kid. Maybe even reflecting on what they learned that day. And while I know there would be objections to this idea from state teachers unions, I beg of individual teachers to consider the alternative, of having their students sink further behind the rest of the country.

I cheered when I heard about the governor’s intention to weed out bad teachers. It is long overdue. Inferior teachers should not be allowed to continue in the classroom and expect parents to do the teaching for them.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.