*This story was originally posted on Jan 21, 2021

The 2020-2021 school year has been...challenging...for parents, teachers, and students. In our district, the kids were supposed to start the year in person. Then...they didn’t. 

So we unexpectedly had virtual school for a few months, and then they actually went back in-person (with a sort-of hybrid thing where for some reason they were home on Wednesdays) for a few weeks, and then the number of COVID-19 cases in the county got too high, so they went back to virtual schooling.

And then the holidays came and went. At the start of the new semester, school has been virtual for a couple of weeks, but now we’re going back to in-person school. Sort of. Again, it’s the weird Wednesday hybrid thing.

As anyone connected to schools in any way knows, this is incredibly disruptive to families, to learning, etc. I can’t imagine how difficult this has been for teachers who have to keep reinventing the wheel on the fly. (This year, alllll teachers get Teacher of the Year, amiright?)
But what’s especially odd about the kids going back--again!--to in-person school is that the number of COVID-19 cases in the county is higher now than it was when they reverted back to virtual school in the first place. Which doesn’t seem particularly safe?

The kids are dying to get back to school and see their teachers and friends, and we parents really want them out of the house. But...COVID-19, you know?

​So...people are having many conflicted Thoughts and Feelings around all of this. To get more perspective, we talked to our kids about how they’re feeling and what they’re thinking about before they go back to school...in person...again.

Note: Essie created all of the music in that podcast episode. Seriously! Here she is concocting her creations.

“Killing Machine” is one of those songs that I finished writing many years ago but just never got around to recording. Now that I finally have, the result is a weird sonic gumbo, at least to me, which matches the odd nature of the lyrics. 

When I first wrote it, back in late high school I think, I was fully immersed in learning to play jazz guitar. I wasn’t half bad at comping chords and improvising solos, especially for a kid. But I also never stopped writing songs, so my rock and folk songwriting sensibilities merged with my flowering love of jazz. 

Around that time, I felt like I had become a good guitar player. Like, objectively good. Not exactly pro-level, but better than most of the adults I knew, and definitely skilled enough to stand out among my peers and get invited (by a friend’s dad, so a little nepotistic) to sit in with a college jazz band during rehearsals. 

I didn’t feel good about much back then. I hated school, I’d been depressed for years, and I’d long been having friend troubles that…hurt. I’d been lonely and frustrated a lot. And of course there’s all that general adolescent insecurity that piles on top of sensitive kids who are already struggling with mental health and emotional issues. 

​And so, knowing—or at least feeling—that me & my guitar were unimpeachably good, and I felt good when I was playing and writing, was life-giving. That’s what inspired me to write the song, I think. I’ve always loved the metaphor of a guitar as a weapon—a notion I first encountered via that iconic image of Woody Guthrie’s guitar. His flat top acoustic was covered in the words: “This machine kills fascists.”

​My family spent six weeks in Italy. Glorious! Also difficult at times! While my wife Colleen was off teaching for a few days, I took myself, our two kids, my parents, and our nephew on a side trip adventure to Naples (Napoli). This is the true story (no, seriously, 100% true) of one very, very, very long day of misadventures.

​Really, it all started back when my parents were getting themselves out to Italy to meet us, and in the chaotic parts of all that, we neglected to schedule and book our side trip to Naples, Pompeii, and Campobasso. So there I was, the day I was supposed to take the kids by myself to meet the parents and my nephew in Rome, frantically booking rooms and rental cars and bus tickets.

​Those of you who are experienced travelers are screaming at your screen, “You fool! Never plan an ad hoc trip, are you mad?!”, to which I reply, also screaming, “I KNOW THAT *NOW*, PAIN IS HOW YOU LEARN THINGS.”

So I book all the things, Colleen prints the bus tickets for me, and we get the kids and me packed and out the door and onto the bus from Siena to Rome. I relax, a little. We did it.
Fast forward to the following evening. The parents, the nephew, the kids, and I have done a day in Naples. Naples is like Rome if Rome had a debilitating drug habit and chose to constantly defecate on itself and had no laws governing the roads. But we got around, despite a decent amount of stress on my part as I dragged the crew hither and yon, plotting a course to the various things and trying to keep tired kids happy.

Now the kids are in bed, and we are packed and ready for the next day. I set my alarm so I have time to get up, walk to the rental car place, drive the car back to our flat, throw the bags in it for our jaunt to Vesuvio then Pompeii then Campobasso, and clear out of the flat by 11am.

I have...a feeling. You know what I mean. But I’ve booked everything already, so I’m good y’know? I mean, right?

Adventure Hat is a lot of things. Mainly, it’s an ethos: Just as art is anything in a frame, an adventure is any experience in a frame.

It’s a state of mind. Are you looking for adventure? Did you...bring appropriate head gear? (If the head gear is not especially functional, is it at least gloriously fun? Like this college girl I saw one time in an airport who was clearly on the way to spring break? And was sporting the biggest floppy hat I’ve ever seen, and we all respected her commitment to wearing and/or transporting this giant hat across two flights?)

Practically speaking, Adventure Hat is a multimedia storytelling, information, and entertainment outlet—writings, music, photos, videos, podcasts, interviews, drawings, anything. It’s an excuse for me (Seth) to combine alllll the creative content I make into one Thing. What you’ll consume on Adventure Hat is mainly my stuff, but children and/or friends may participate as well.

Think of it like a loot crate of media and topics and content. You never really know what you might get when you open a given newsletter email. (Do subscribe, if you would.) But hopefully it will make you happier or more informed or more adventurous than you were before you consumed it. 

You’ll just have to stay open-minded and curious, ready for anything. And that is what we mean by Adventure Hat. And why it’s important to always wear one.

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