dean p. simmer

Thank You, Furry Goofball

dean — Tue, 29 May 2012 12:24:06 +0000

When my parents got the big, goofy Golden Retriever, it was hard for me to accept him. I was in that transition period where I was in school and only home on occasion, plus he was taking the place of my sweet Golden, Molly who had passed my freshman year of college. But they got him from GRROM, the rescue organization for the breed of dog that stole my heart in 1990.

His personality was extremely endearing. He staked a claim in my heart the first Christmas, when he ate almost all of the Christmas treats my mom had made and lived to tell. Sure, it was awful at the time (I often told him that he "ruined Christmas") but it was also an incredible feat of ridiculousness. Despite, or perhaps because, of his even tempered personality, he was a great balance to a cranky but loving Yorkie, a sweet, timid husky mutt, and our family.

In 2007, less than a year after Giles and I got married, things got extremely bleak. My Mom's health started to fail in significant ways. She was forced to walk with leg braces and was in so much pain that she rarely ventured out of the house. For an active woman in her 40s, Mom was suffering in unbelievable ways. I feared we would lose her (I can only imagine how it hit Dad and my siblings at home). I know I lost a lot of sleep that summer.

What was incredible in that time was the transformative power of Chance. His goofy persona turned into complete loyalty and care for Mom. More than a few pictures exist of his attempts to lay on the couch with Mom to comfort and console her. If she woke in the middle of the night, Chance was right there to comfort her and bring her back to a restful place.

He proved to be the motivator in her rehabilitation. When a doctor asked her what her dream was, what she wanted to do when she got better, she told him simply that she wanted to walk with her dog again. And thanks to determination, her loyal buddy and the right treatment, Mom and Chance were back out there doing what had seemed impossible in the summer of 2007.

When Dad called earlier this year to tell me that Chance had cancer, I figured I wouldn't get the chance to say goodbye to him. My own dog is full of puppy energy and I expected that we would not be able to visit my parents house until after Chance had passed. For some reason, my parents wanted to take the chance and insisted we come up north for Memorial Weekend as we often do, dog and swimsuits in tow.

Chancey had aged considerably but his eyes still held the warmth that they always had. His mobility and vigor were sapped but he still lit up the room. I got to snuggle him and slip him a few treats from the dinner table, like always, probably earning my dad's annoyance, like always.

When Dad told me Monday morning that it was time, it hit me harder than I expected. Mom's buddy, the one who was loyal to her through every battle of the last decade, was ready to stop suffering. He fought through too many days of cancer and was due his own permanent rest.

Thankfully, I got to say goodbye. I didn't think I would have the chance, but thank God I got to give him a kiss and a hug. When my parents returned so we could bury him alongside the other dear departed furry friends, I could only think of one thing to say to dear Chancey.

Thank you, buddy, for saving Mom's life.

There is this old, really-low-quality video interview about my Mom and her recovery. (click here if it doesn't load below)

It costs approximately $630 to rescue a golden retriever. If you want to help out, consider donating a few dollars to GRROM, the Golden Retriever Rescue association of Michigan.

Tutoring: Impact a Life

dean — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:14:07 +0000

Previous Post: A Powerful Trip

Earlier this year WDET, Detroit's public radio station, ran a month-long Call to Action. Designed to recruit Southeast Michigan residents to volunteer, they ended up getting over 6600 volunteer hours pledged in a month-long campaign.

I felt compelled to volunteer as well, and because of my personal affiliation with the Sisters of Mercy, I pledged time to the Mercy Education Project. MEP is actually only a few blocks from my house, yet for some odd reason I had never been to their programs.

It just so happened that MEP had a need for an afternoon tutor and, low and behold, they paired me up with a young woman within a week of my volunteering.

My student is a sophomore at a local high school and is a hard worker. She loves to read. She cares about her future.

And yet, she is being deprived of a quality education. Class sizes and the academic atmosphere at her school often leave her without the academic support she needs. The school is plagued by poor attendance, lack of discipline, and a place on the state's failing schools list year after year.

What inspires me is her desire to achieve, to learn, and to grow as a person. We read a book together (we're reading The Hunger Games right now) and we work on math. It isn't the most difficult hour of my day, yet it is significant.

The biggest lesson I have learned in this process is the importance of time. Our time together is limited to an hour and a half each week so we have to maximize the learning and study. And yet, in that hour and a half, I get to learn about one young woman's hopes and fears, and help her get closer to achieving the future that she desires.

I cannot emphasize enough how important tutoring is in the lives of our youth today. There are many problems that need to be addressed in our city and globally, but many of them can be impacted by getting involved in the life of someone else.

Questions: What organization or program do you tutor with? If you don't currently tutor or volunteer in a mentoring program, why not?

A Powerful Trip

dean — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Previous Post: A Somber Trip

Part of our visit to D.C. this past weekend included stops at the monuments for the various American leaders. This was Giles' idea as she knew how much the experience of visiting the Lincoln Memorial would mean to me. For some unknown reason, I was cool to the idea.

We also visited the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial while we were there. The incredible aspect of this Memorial is the subdued facade. When you enter off of the street, you simply see three rock formations, nothing else. No quotations, no hints of what is on the other side of the formations.

The actual carving of Dr. King is breathtaking. From the details of his eyes to the power of his pose, it literally took the words away. What an incredible monument to peace.

We visited the Lincoln Memorial before the King Memorial in part because of this next picture. On the north wall is inscribed the text of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, an important speech at a dark time in America's history. Lincoln gave the address just weeks before the end of the Civil War and not long before his assassination.

President Lincoln concluded his Inaugural address with the following words:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

To me, this image sums up the lasting legacy of Lincoln's presidency.

A Somber Trip

dean — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:53:53 +0000

Over the weekend Giles and I visited the Washington D.C. area for a family wedding. On Sunday we took the day to worship at a beautiful parish that is going through some difficult times and then ventured onto the National Mall to visit the many monuments and memorials.

I have briefly passed through D.C. before but hadn't taken much time to stop and take in the memorials. I expected to feel a sense of national pride, of honor at the men and women who have sacrificed so much for this country. Instead I was hit with a profound sadness. This was most powerfully felt at the Vietnam Memorial as I saw men and women grieve for the loss of their own loved ones. Even the less personal memorials (especially the Korean War memorial) still felt somber.

Reflecting on a visit to Auschwitz, someone told me that their experience was "casualties are casualties; souls are souls. I hope it makes people sad, not happy."

The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial in front of the United States Capitol Building.

Gutting Detroit Downtown, Last Century Style

dean — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

While working on my 2012 reading list last month I came upon a heavy critique of the dismantling of downtown Detroit. But it isn't the standard "get-rich-and-move-to-the-suburbs" criticism. It identifies the collaboration between one member of the automotive industry and the economic collapse that followed.

It increasingly seemed to many that Ford's social criticism was a form of self-rebuke. His reformer image was wearing thin, as he and his company became implicated in many of the modern vices he condemned. Throughout the 1930s, Ford stepped up his jeremiads against crowded, dirty, crime-ridden cities. Yet even before the ruin of the Great Depression, Ford had contributed to the slow decline of Detroit's downtown by transferring much of his production and administration to Dearborn, paving the way for Chrysler and General Motors to abandon the center of the city.

Ford lobbied for Prohibition, saying that Detroit's distilleries could be converted to make biofuels. Yet the criminalization of alcohol served only to deliver Detroit to gangsterism. Ford railed against finance capitalism even though his company was heavily invested in Detroit's Guardian Group, a banking house that, when it went bankrupt in 1933, helped spark a nationwide bank panic. Ford aggravated the crisis by first offering to bail out Detroit banks and then, perhaps acting on advice from Harry Bennett, withdrawing the offer. The collapse of the Guardian Group led to a wave of foreclosures of businesses and homes that would devastate the Motor City's downtown.

Fordlandia (241-242)

As far as I recall, this is the first time I have seen Prohibition identified as part of the decline of Detroit. Anybody want to engage this?

Image from Wikimedia Commons. This file is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

One Hundred Percent

dean — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:36:52 +0000

"We're starting a new high school in Detroit and I need help setting up a few computers for our staff. Can you help us out?"
Four and a half-years ago that question did not seem life-changing. As a recently-married college graduate, I was just happy to find work in Southeast Michigan.

At the time the school had not yet opened. The start-up staff and volunteers were working out of a single office on the east side as they worked to find a building for the school. And recruit teachers. And business partners. And a freshman class.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of many others, August 2008 saw Detroit Cristo Rey High School open. I'm still not entirely sure how they cleaned and painted the building, set up the classrooms, and opened on time. I remember dozens and dozens of volunteers spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours in the building just to get it ready for the first day.

The first freshman class took a risk, buying into a vision and a dream that had not fully taken shape. One member of that first freshman class was heading out of his house to drop off his application at another school when he happened to see a television news piece about Detroit Cristo Rey opening in the fall. On a whim, he and his mother decided to drop off an application.

For the past four years, our students have worked hard to finish high school. They are in class until 4:00 pm four days each week. Once each week they go to work at a local business or institution, which helps pay most of the cost of a private college-preparatory tuition. Many of them go to work at other jobs after school and on the weekends too, meaning they are working extra-hard to finish their school work each day. Our slogan, "the school that works," applies in many different ways.

Four years later, 100% of our seniors have been accepted into college. 100%. That student who decided to apply after seeing Detroit Cristo Rey on the news? He's going to the University of Michigan in the fall.

The Class of 2012 bought into the vision of what Detroit Cristo Rey High School would become. They took a risk by signing up for a Catholic, college-preparatory high school that had not even opened yet. They put their trust in the faculty and staff of the school. And they worked harder than they had before.

And you know what? It works.

The Other Pauls

dean — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:59:40 +0000

Paul is my dad's name, yes, but I am actually the sixth in a row of Simmers that have the name Paul.*

The first one I know of, Henry Paul Simmer, was born in 1799 in Germany about 60 miles (90 km) north of Frankfurt. We know that he came to Ontario, Canada sometime before 1834 because his children were all born in Ontario after that time. Mr. Simmer actually shows up in the 1851 Ontario census as "Henry Seymor" because, I would imagine, of his accent when pronouncing his name to the census-taker.

Mr. Seymor/Simmer had a son Henry (born around 1844) who moved to Isabella County in Michigan. He too had a son Henry who was born when he was pretty darn old (1891) and by this point, the Simmer family was well-entrenched in Isabella County. My dad was the third generation to be born in Isabella County but by that point his family had been there for some 70 years.

By all accounts these men were all German farmers who moved only when the opportunity to improve their family's lot in life was a possibility. They stuck true to their ethnicity as well, residing in primarily German farming communities in both Ontario and Michigan.

This spring Giles and I are planning a return visit to Ontario to see what we can uncover from the local parishes. Hopefully we'll learn more about the Pauls*. I enjoy the mystery of the unknown and hope to learn more about my heritage from these men soon.

*there is some unverified information about Paul being all of their middle name. We're not entirely sure. Oh well.

A Middle Name

dean — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:43:22 +0000

Some of my students think my middle name is "Panther." This is not true.

The story goes that my paternal grandfather would have been named Henry Paul Simmer, just like the three generations before him, except that somewhere there was a mistake and the name was inverted. My dad was also named after his father but instead of being Henry Paul Simmer V, my dad is Paul Henry Simmer Jr.

My parents chose to deviate from tradition, giving me a first name that comes from my maternal grandfather. But rather than simply honor one side of my heritage, my parents gave me a name that reflects my father and his ancestors.

In some ways my dad is the epitome of fathers everywhere. He has that terrible dad humor that is funny to very few people (himself and my almost-second-little-brother, the neighbor kid). He knows chunks of song lyrics and famous jingles like the Oscar Meyer Bologna song, something about Legs Like Toothpicks, and a strangely-profound Malvina Reynolds/Pete Seeger track that rants against post World War II suburban expansion.

He has always been committed to family and community. He worked hard for the State of Michigan for 30+ years (I don't remember the exact number but I'm sure he has it down to the day). He was around for most of our activities growing up except for spring forest fire season when he was working every day for well over a month straight. A few years he went out West in August when half of the country's forests catch on fire to lend a hand. In 1994 I recall us getting a new dog while he was gone to "cope" with his absence (more like avoid his opposition).

While we're really different in a lot of respects, my dad and I have a strong love of Michigan, the Tigers, and incessantly quoting from television shows and movies. It is easy to see how we're related and I'm so very thankful to be named for him and the others that have come before him. Next time I'll give you a glimpse of the "other Pauls."

A First Name

dean — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:31:09 +0000

Ronny Dean Sprague was born in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan a few months before the attack at Pearl Harbor. His dad was too young to fight in World War I and too old to fight in World War II. His mom was a feisty woman. He didn't have any living siblings (his older sister died of spina bifida before he was born).

From all accounts he was a troublemaker of a child. The story goes that his mother had a bugle that she would sound to get him to come home from dinner. He regularly wandered away into town to follow his dad to work at the road commission.

He married his sweetheart and had two girls, the oldest being my mother.

When it comes to character, he is exactly that. You can count on a joke, a laugh, or a story at any moment. He was a road commission lifer as well as a volunteer fire fighter for over 40 years.

My grandpa is one of the funniest, warmest people I have ever met. He's your biggest ally and will give you the shirt off of his back at a moment's notice.

The more I learn about him, the more I see the traits I have inherited. The love of laughter permeates my entire family. The curly hair he used to have was given to me, although I haven't sported it since late 2007. The loyal protection of family and friends was passed on to me as well. And we're both left-handed.

I'm glad he is alive so that I can continue to learn and share with him. He has pushed on despite the death of his wife this fall and it is inspiring to see how he continues to bring joy and happiness into the lives of so many. He's a Toys for Tots Santa in Mt. Pleasant which, if you have every met him, makes total sense. He laughs all of the time.

It is an honor to have been named after him (thanks Mom and Dad!) and hope that I can live up to his continuing, living legacy today.

What's in a name

dean — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:29:41 +0000

Jay-Z and Beyonce named their kid Blue Ivy. To my knowledge they have not explained the meaning behind the name, although gossip bloggers have presented dozens of stupid interesting humorous guesses. It of course provoked the usual public criticism from traditionalists (as if "Jay-Z" is traditional) and the expected celebration from fans of the Unofficial Celebrity Child-Naming Competition (trademark pending).

Since Giles and I have been working as family genealogists over the past few years we have both taken a greater interest in the story and heritage of names. Last week I chaperoned our sophomore students on a day retreat. The facilitator focused part of her presentation around the theme of personal identity. Using Rob Bell's Name Nooma video as a starting point, she encouraged the students to reflect on their identities in every facet.

At the heart of this content is our own name. Every aspect of who we are (height, personality, culture, faith, etc.) can be communicated in some way by the mention of our name. Have you ever had someone say "is that his name? He looks like a Mike to me." This most likely occurs because they know a Mike that has a similar personality and appearance as the subject.

Names matter.

Over the next few posts I am going to share about my own name and the people and stories that have helped inform my own identity. I hope you are willing to join me and share your own stories too.

dean p. simmer

Thank You, Furry Goofball

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Tutoring: Impact a Life

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A Powerful Trip

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A Somber Trip

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Gutting Detroit Downtown, Last Century Style

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One Hundred Percent

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The Other Pauls

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A Middle Name

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A First Name

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What's in a name

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