Rattlesnake Rodeo

Yesterday, our last full day here in Oklahoma, we went to the town of Apache to be guests at the opening day of the annual Rattlesnake Rodeo--a carnival with rides and junk food like any other carnival, but the central attraction is the rattlesnakes.

First we go into a building with a ten by twenty foot by four foot high wooden enclosure. Inside the enclosure are two retired men in boots and coveralls carrying hooks. Also in the enclosure are 50 or so rattlesnakes piled and slithering against the walls and occasionally striking at the men when poked. The more talkative of the men tells us about the snakes, their venom, their rattles with a show-and-tell format that involves holding the angry animals behind their heads and showing them around to the spectators.

At the end of the presentation, the silent handler puts a half-dozen snakes in a box and sends them to the building next door--the snake butcher shop. So we all troop next door and watch as the handlers at that show select a snake, show its markings, then cut off its head with an ax.

The guy with the microphone headset then shows us how the head keeps biting while a woman in an apron hangs the rest of the snake above a sink. While he explains she guts and skins the snake and gets the $15 per pound meat ready to sell.

If I can hook up to one of the cameras in a few days, and if we get internet access, I'll try to post some pictures. In the meantime, you can watch a video on the blog site of one of the other soldiers in my unit.

Army Easter Bunny

Last month we got cases of Pop Tarts from somewhere. I heard it was test marketing. So last Monday, I could send my wife home with Triple Chocolate Pop Tarts and MREs left over from field training for Nigel. He was very happy with his high-calorie pile of treasures.

Saying Goodbye to Other Units

On Good Friday we were released to go on our four-day pass at 1400 hours. The other five companies that make up our battalion slept late in anticipation of a long day of travel.

Echo company was up and out in front of the barracks at 0520. During the 10 weeks we were training for deployment Echo did more soldier-skills training than any other company in the battalion. This is partly because we are the company most likely to do security and go outside the wire on the ground and partly because our commander wants us all to be up to Army standards on physical training and soldier skills.

We were the only company that got up before 5am for PT three days each week and the only one that had remedial PT three more days each week. We were the only company on the rappel tower, the confidence course and some of the other training I have written about over the last five weeks. In fact, complaints from the other companies led to us holding formation for morning PT 1000 feet behind the building instead of out front. They were complaining about the noise we made as a exercised.

But on Good Friday we formed up out front and yelled "Echo" at the top of our 100 voices as we formed up. The leader for the warmup calisthenics is a former singer in a Metal band. He growled out the cadence as we stretched and exercise.

Usually we run out toward the ranges. On this morning we ran behind the barracks, looped around the motor pool then ended with a complete half-mile circle around the barracks area. We sang cadence the entire time we were near the barracks.

Because of us, no one had to miss breakfast.

Then and Now: Barracks Rats

BARRACKS RATS IN NATIVE ENVIRONMENT


I am going to miss Fort Sill, Oklahoma. For those who are thinking, "You lived there 2-1/2 months, of course. . ." you should know that I am quite alone in my affection for our current duty station. In fact, at a meeting last night, several soldiers were delighted to hear about the kinds of video entertainment that is free at our next duty station. But eventually, they won't like the next duty station or the one after that.

They are barracks rats, a special sort of rodent who sits in his or her room and complains about Fort Wherever mostly because thy don't leave the room. I know I am a special case because I brought and borrowed bikes and rode almost 1,300 miles since our arrival. But other soldiers have walked, taken buses and seen many sights and enjoyed the mostly warm (and windy) weather since we arrived.

I am not sure, but the barracks rats may be worse now than before. In the 70s, there was only dayroom television and radios for entertainment, plus the completely outmoded books and conversation. With video games and personal computers, there are many more options for the sedentary soldier.

Post-Pass Blues

The barracks are as morose now as they were giddy on Friday. Last Friday everyone was getting ready to go home, have some of home come here, or at the very least, spend four days in quiet. Now we are cleaning, packing, and starting arguments over small things. We will be gone soon and home is very far away and everyone is acting like it.

I Watched a Zombie Movie--You Can Too

Some of you know my wife, Annalisa Crannell, is a professor at Franklin & Marshall College and the Don (Faculty Advisor) of Bonchek residential house. As part of her duties of bringing academic life into the residential halls, she hosts math and art seminars, the Evolution Table, and helps to organize the annual Humans Versus Zombies event at F&M each year. Humans vs. Zombies is a tag game on a grand scale in which Human players try to avoid being tagged by Zombies and becoming the living dead themselves. My wife is one of the profs who is actually in the game and could become a Zombie because many of the students who start as Humans will want to tag their House Don when they become Zombies. Here is a video by some of Annalisa's students on how NOT to become a Zombie.
It's almost 4 minutes long. I watched the whole thing!

Mrs. Hollywood in the Sunday News

Annalisa was the subject of an article in the Sunday News on Easter about a Sunday School class she will be teaching next Sunday through May 31. The Sunday News links expire quickly, so here's the text:


It all adds up to the 'God of Mathematics'
First female adult Sunday school teacher at Wheatland Presbyterian explores infinity ... and beyond


By Helen Colwell Adams, Staff Writer
How is Christian faith like mathematics?

The possibilities, as Dr. Annalisa Crannell sketches them, are nearly infinite.

Infinity itself, for instance.

"Mathematicians and Christians look at very similar kinds of things," Crannell, a professor of mathematics at Franklin & Marshall College, said. "We ask very similar kinds of questions. What does infinity mean? How do you resolve a paradox — how can God be three in one?"

Crannell will be opening that world of possibilities for an innovative Sunday school series at her church, Wheatland Presbyterian, April 19 through May 31. The series, "The God of Mathematics," is innovative for another reason.

Crannell will be the first woman to teach an adult Sunday school class at the Lancaster Township church, part of the conservative Presbyterian Church in America denomination.

"Having Annalisa and her husband, Neil Gussman … and their family here at Wheatland is a great blessing to us, and we are excited that she can use her considerable gifts in this way," Wheatland's pastor, Bruce Mawhinney, said. "She is an amazing believer and follower of Jesus Christ who not only talks the talk but walks the walk."

"I have a lot of support," Crannell said. "I have the feeling there are a lot of people who were trying to figure out how to make this happen and still be true to their values."
The logic of faith
Part of Crannell's understanding of God comes from metaphors of mathematics. John 1:1, for instance, says, "In the beginning was the Word."

"For math, everything flows logically from axioms," Crannell explained. Logic comes from the Greek logos, the "Word" of John 1:1.

"Because I know math and because I like axioms, I have a good picture in my head of how God can speak the world into existence."

Mathematicians believe in the extranatural, as Christians do.

"I believe in 2. There is no 2 in the world," Crannell said. Numbers aren't tangible or material; they are concepts.

"... In that way, math is not of this world. It helps me to understand something that's bigger than a material universe."

But when mathematicians change the axioms, "you change the universe," she explained. "… You change the kinds of things that happen in the world.

"When God spoke the universe into being, the way he spoke it formed us."

She'll be unfolding those ideas in the Sunday school series, which is open to the public. Topics include "Math and Metaphor," "Sizes of infinity," "Mobius strips and the Triune God" and "Symmetry, pattern and repetition."

Too much information? Crannell doesn't think so. "I'm used to dialogue with people who are math-averse," she said. "… How much math do you need to know? If you like puzzles, if you like doing things like Sudoku, then that's enough math."
The logic of submitting
It might seem counterintuitive for a respected female academic to belong to a church that holds, among other doctrines, that only men may serve as teaching and ruling elders or deacons.

For Crannell, it's a matter of biblical mutual submission.

"There are ways in which it's very countercultural to be a Christian at all," she said. "It's a faith that does ask you to submit … to something bigger than yourself all the time."

At Wheatland, an eclectic congregation "that really loves Christ," she said, "we're all submitting ourselves in various ways."

Plus, Crannell noted, "The church is the most segregated institution in the United States. One of the obligations we have as Christians is to try to fight that by placing ourselves with people" who think differently.

"It is very hard to do it. We need to look at people who have differences of opinion not as enemies we should shun but as people we should engage."

Crannell said the church has been enthusiastic about her series, planned after the governing Session voted to allow women to lead adult classes that do not involve teaching the Bible.

"Ordinarily our adult classes are taught by an ordained officer of the church — pastor, elders and deacons — but having a member like Annalisa teach this class is not really a new step for us at Wheatland," Mawhinney said.

"We have been planning on her doing this and trying to find a good place in our schedule for some time now. We try to use our members in areas of their expertise in our Sunday school ministry."

Crannell's membership at Wheatland is part of her faith journey.

"I came to faith very late in life, nine years ago," she said. She began attending church with Gussman, a convert to Christianity, to understand him better and found herself drawn to faith partly by math connections.

"Even atheists will talk of mathematics as something beautiful," she said. "It's something pure and holy."

For her, it's another way Christian faith is like mathematics.

"The God of Mathematics" will be offered at Wheatland, 1125 Columbia Ave., from 9:30-10:30 a.m. April 19 through May 31. For information, phone the church, 392-5909, or e-mail info@wheatlandpca.org.