Mickey Hadick

I have a new Christmas letter up on the web site. If you're into Christmas letters, mine is not as offensive as most, or so I think. What is interesting is that, after twelve years, I can crank one out in a single sitting, whereas I used to struggle with them for days at a stretch, and argue with my wife about the content. Now I need to be reminded of a couple of things that happened during the year, but otherwise I just write it down.

Does that mean I'm good? No, I think it means I'm in a rut. I may try to write this next year's Christmas letter before the end of January. Meanwhile, read it here.

Labels: memoir, story

The Trap is a story about men on a fishing trip to the northern woods, who wind up on a hunting trip instead. This was the first in a short series I wrote based on stories heard from other people. Aspects of this story are true then. It's not like it's a particularly shocking story, and maybe that's its flaw.

This story was written at the end of my golden age of short stories. Shortly after this was completed, I made some life changing decisions, and my writing, reflecting the effects those decisions had on my brain, became different; I am dealing with the other consequences of those decisions in many ways.

My father was one to take an annual fishing trip to a remote location, but I have never done so. This story is the closest I've ever come to such a trip.

Labels: memoir, story

Fall is an iffy season for me. I enjoy the apples, and the smell of leaves, and the skies can be far more beautiful than at any other season. But it means that winter is around the bend, and it's going to get darker, and so there's a chance that days will pass without my seeing daylight. But I think it's important to be explicit about what I enjoy and why, lest it passes me by.

I really enjoy the fall colors, especially on a bright, breezy day. That's a bit much to ask here in Michigan, but I can dream. I especially like the very breezy days when the leaves start to fall. It reminds me of Hemingway's story, "Three Day Blow," which is not a particularly cheery story (it's about the sadness and confusion after a breakup) but I enjoy reading Hemingway, and that story is set in Michigan (well, the U.P.) and so the whole big mess is jumbled up in my head and it's all part of why I enjoy the fall colors.

I enjoy the rituals of football. The high school games on Friday nights, college games on Saturday, and so on. I actually don't watch that much football, but I enjoy it when I do, and I would enjoy it more under the right circumstances. I find it comforting to know it's there and happening.

I also enjoy the smell of leaves. On a dry day, when they're being raked into piles, the smell is concentrated, and it's conjures memories of jumping into leaf piles as a kid, having leaf fights with my brothers, and being ordered by our father to pick up the damn leaves. My father was a task master when it came to fallen leaves, and he instructed us in particular and preferred methods for stuffing the maximum possible leaves into a plastic bag. I have to believe that our city landfill is stuffed to the gills with bags of leaves, now dry and preserved by their plastic wrappings, and waiting to be discovered by scientists in the far future who will wonder with amazement what primitive people spent so much effort shoving leaves into plastic bags and burying them en masse. Well I was one of those primitive people.

My secret pleasure is in burning leaves. It's messy and unnecessary, but I've done it a few times, and I would do it again, at least once, if I thought I could get away with it. I learned the hard way that I wasn't supposed to burn leaves in this town.

The first year we moved here, we had a severe leaf problem. I attached a lawn sweeper to the tractor, and began gathering the leaves together in piles. I thought burning would be a great solution, and a coworker, Doug, joined me for the afternoon. As I carted load after load to the pile, he raked them into the fire, and we had a really smooth operation going. Then the fire department showed up to put out the fire, and explained to me in no uncertain terms that one simply could not burn leaves. Spoil sports.

A final side note is that Doug, who was a very good friend to us, passed away that winter at the untimely age of 48. I do enjoy the pleasures of fall, but it also reminds me that winter is not far away. I don't dread either one because of Doug's passing. If you live long enough, you bury enough friends and family that every season, every month, and every holiday becomes associated with the loss of a loved one. I don't condemn the season with the loss; only the moment. The moment passes by to make room for the next moment.

If your heart is strong enough, there is love and pleasure available to you in those coming moments. You just have to be ready to accept it, and keeping aware of what I love, I hope, makes me ready.

Labels: memoir, story

Soda pop, or just "pop", as we called it in Ohio, was not always like it is today. Drinking a pop was a special occasion, and closely regulated by our parents. The only soft drinks we kept around on a regular basis were ginger ale and tonic water, and those were left over from the rare evening party my parents held for other adults. My mother would often serve us ginger ale when we were nauseated or suffering from influenza. I'm not sure how ginger ale became a tonic, especially when there was tonic water already in the refrigerator, but I think it was a case of a mother feeling the need to do something for her sick child, and ginger ale tasted better than tonic water, so ginger ale it was. She served crackers too, so it was a one-two punch of soda pop and soda crackers.

When my parents hosted a day-time party, it was a cause dé celebration for us kids. This was typically in the summer, and was a thinly veiled excuse to have family members over to eat grilled hamburgers and drink cheap beer. As kids, we didn't care what the reason, and we endured the forced labor of cleaning the garage because the payoff, the reward, was unfettered access to pop during the party.

The pop was bought from a beverage store (at least that's how they were known in our part of Ohio). The store would be stacked and crowded with cases of bottled beer and and soda pop. There was a walk-in cooler in back for beer ready to serve. Placards and banners promoted various brands or specials, but in the era of supermarket coupons, it was cheaper to buy in quantity from these small, dark, family owned beverage stores, so advertising and merchandising was not really the point.

Going to the beverage store was an exciting precursor to the party. If brought along for the ride, we had an opportunity to influence some of the decisions. I was not that enamored of Coke or Pepsi back then, but absolutely loved root beer. My mother had a thing for cream soda, which I thought was weird, and would question the sanity of such a purchase. But the reality was that we were there to save money. A few name brand mixers were bought for drinks (the aforementioned ginger ale and tonic water) but for the kids and really old people, the cheapest soda pop available was selected.

That's where O-So came in. They were packaged in ten ounce bottles, and arranged in wooden boxes, in a mixed array of flavors: purple, red, orange, brown, and white. They were supposed to be grape, cherry, orange, root beer, and cream soda, but they tasted nothing like that, and it was just easier to refer to their colors, orange notwithstanding. Because the case of small bottles was relatively light, I could, as a kid, help load them in the trunk, which I did with great care. Fear of my father's retribution for wasting money and making a mess focused my attention.

The pop was loaded in a steel cooler and packed with ice. We were forbidden from drinking anything before the guests arrived, but there was usually so much barking about sweeping, arranging, and setting chairs that there was little time for worrying about it. Besides, as long as both of my brothers were suffering as equally as I suffered, it was okay to wait.

I believe purple was O-So's flagship flavor, but those went so quickly in the mad grab by kids that it was hardly even a factor in the decision. I remember ending up with "red" a lot. It may have been intended to taste like cherry, but it was always strong and spicy, and was nothing like the cherries from our tree out back. "Red," in fact, became my favorite because I was much more fearful of ending up with O-So's version of cream soda.

The cooler had a bottle opener on the side. That was the other neat thing: we opened the bottles just like the adults opened their beer. If we wandered away from the cooler too quickly after our grab, we might have to venture into the garage where a church key could be found among the tools. For me, as a kid, I was much more into holding onto a long neck bottle of something to drink, even though "red" didn't taste that good. It's kind of like getting married because everyone else is getting married, and then realizing the orange soda may have been more to your liking.

During one of the parties, we had lost a tree some time during the previous year, and so a stump remained. One of my brothers, or cousins, or an uncle, had the idea of pounding the bottle caps into the stump, and so the fun for that day was gathering the bottle caps, either beer or pop, and pounding them into the wood. Considering the amount of sugar we were consuming, we really needed to get busy.

As the party wound down, the bottles had to be returned to the wooden case, beer and pop alike. These were stacked in the garage to be returned the next weekend. In that sense, life itself is like a party: you build up and prepare to have fun; before you realize, the party is over, and you have to start cleaning up the mess. In the end, you're left with dirty dishes, trash, and maybe, just maybe, a few good memories.

Labels: memoir

Another of the short stories I wrote two decades ago, a time I am nostalgically referring to as my golden age of writing (golden because, at the time, I believed I would figure out how to do it), was "The Penny Box". It was inspired by the neighborhood in which I lived at the time, and the older generation I saw around me in those small homes. The house itself was inspirational: it was cute and cozy, but it could also feel dated and cramped; so much depends upon attitude.

Like my other stories, I spent months on this fine tuning the words and rhythm. I fretted over the plot and the situation. I dutifully sent it out to magazines and journals. I then added to my collection of rejection letters.

I have written dozens of stories that I never quite figured out, and which, upon reflection, I simply don't like. This is one of the stories I've always enjoyed. Now I wish I'd written more like this, if only for myself. If you don't like "The Penny Box", I understand completely. It may seem simple and deep, but it may also seem insipid and pointless; so much depends on attitude.

Labels: memoir, story

My first job out of college was interesting, but like so many things in life, there were good things and bad.

I was on a small team colloquially known as "fly and fix". If there was a problem with one of our computer systems that could not be handled by the local technicians and experts, my boss was expected to show up and fix it. I was being trained, along with another young man, to do the same sort of thing. When he flew in, he didn't leave until it as fixed, and worked around the clock to solve the problem. He had a long history with the company's mainframe computers, and was an expert troubleshooter. When I joined him, he was transitioning to being expert in the company's new line of powerful desktop computers.

Because of this odd and demanding constraints, he worked out of his home at a time where that was very rare. His basement was stocked with several of the new computers, every manual created on the system, and every possible peripheral. These computers generated so much heat that he had an air conditioning unit installed just for the basement. So for the first eighteen months of the job, I reported to this guy's house for work, and sat in his basement studying manuals.

I was able to dress casually, kind of rare for the day, and I brought a suit in case we had to visit a client. Three times I had to rush home to pack for a week. So the good part was dressing casually, not being in an office, and the excitement of rushing out to solve a problem. I also enjoyed learning the computer systems. That was the good.

The bad was being in a basement with two geeky men talking computers. Another bad part was traveling at odd times, long car trips, flights to weird places, and eating in lousy fast food restaurants on a daily basis. I would spend 18 to 20 hours with the same guys, talking about very little except the problem at hand. For my boss, this was the pinnacle of his career, and he loved every minute, especially the fast food; not so much for me.

But the absolute worst was the coffee situation. When we were in his basement, the coffee was in the kitchen, courtesy of Mr. Coffee. He had an odd policy about coffee, and would brew only weak coffee. He would then immediately turn off the burner. If you wanted hot coffee before that pot was empty, you had to warm it in the microwave. I hated that coffee.

Eventually, I hated that job. I hated that basement, and I kind of hated those computers. They led me down a technological dead end. All the things I learned from that of value were entirely tangential from the systems.

So what did I learn? That coffee is meant to be fresh. Oxidation begins soon after brewing, and no microwave can reverse that tragedy. For some people, their job is their life, and these people can be difficult coworkers. And that no matter how bad the coffee at a greasy spoon in Jackson, Missouri, reheated coffee, at least for me, will always be worse.

Labels: memoir, story

This past weekend, I spent the better part of Sunday at a soccer field. Not just a soccer field, but a soccer complex with eight large fields. As part of a tournament, my son was sideline judge for six games. I drove him there before eight A.M.; instead of going home to just wait to come and get him again, I decided to stay.

The weather was beautiful. That was one of the attractions. I could either spend an extra hour in the car going back and forth, or sit in the sun and read magazines and books while drinking coffee in a comfortable chair as the cool breeze wafted over me. It had every opportunity to be a wonderful day except for one small thing I overlooked: Soccer Parents.

The tournament was for younger kids. I had forgotten the insanity that takes over the minds of parents as they cheer on their children. Their voices rise and fall with the bounce of the ball. When a goal is scored, half of the parents scream in delirium; the other half groan in agony.

Heaven forbid a boy is not paying attention. The parents exhort and cajole, encourage and chastise. In one game in particular, the parents of the team from Fowlerville were berserk. By my estimation, every single one of them was crazy. They screamed for the coach to bench their own children. They coached from the sidelines, moving players back and forth. They threatened their own children while on the field, during the play of the game, for not paying attention to the game.

I struck up a conversation with another dad who was waiting for the next game. We shared a glance as the shouting became frenzied amongst the parents when a goal was surrendered for no reason other than a child's lack of drive and initiative. He blurted out, "I'm an older Dad, so I cherish all these moments. But I try not to get too wrapped up in it."

I admitted that I had cheered mightily in the past, but I didn't remember ever cheering like this, yelling at the kids for not performing, or berating the referee. In fact, just a couple of days before, I stumbled on a team photo from one of my sons early teams. It was at least eight years old, and I had been the coach. At that time, urging six and seven year olds to play took quite a bit of effort from the parents. I was fairly certain that out of those twelve children on that team, only my son still played the game.

There's nothing wrong with kids trying out various activities until they find something they really, really like. To find passion in life is what gives life meaning. For so many parents, their children, and whatever the child happens to be doing, is the passion for the parents, and it's very easy to lose sight of an appropriate perspective to the situation. The child is competing against other children; if they are better than the others, there's hope that this might be a thing in which the child is gifted. Or the talent pool may be so shallow that, in fact, everybody stinks at it. You don't know that as a parent; you only see your child struggling, and your blood begins to boil.

I played hockey in my youth. I really, really loved it, and even dreamed of playing professionally. I got fairly good at it, but at the age of nineteen I quit and never played again. It has crossed my mind occasionally, and mostly out of curiosity, to play again; but what once seemed like everything in the world to me I lost.

Before that happened, however, my mother sat through numerous games, and I saw a side of her I had never, ever seen before. Hockey brings out the very worst in parents. They scream at the players, they scream at the referees, and they scream at each other. I would not be surprised to hear one day that the fans watching a hockey match became so enraged at each other that a hockey match broke out in the stands. My mother understood little of the game, but she understood that her son loved playing, and that other boys were trying to smash his skull out on the ice. I received stitches to the face (scary) and stitches to my inner thigh (very scary). I had the wind knocked out of me several times, and even had a stick broken over my helmet in anger. It seemed I might be severely hurt at any moment, but the most surprising thing was that my mother survived without having a nervous breakdown.

I'm not happy or proud that I lost hockey. It's a great game, and I would have done well to have made the effort to keep at it. Maybe it's not the game itself, but the exercise and the comradery I miss. I hope that my son, if he takes nothing else away from soccer, takes the feeling of team play with him, and continues that yearning desire throughout his life. We are mostly a social animal, and my life has not been social enough.

Back at the soccer field, the older dad took up a position on the sideline to watch his son play. I was still enjoying the sunshine and the cool breeze. I was also enjoying the sound of children at play, and their parents cheering the game. At one point, the older dad's son misplayed a ball, and the dad did not yell, but he did complain to the person sitting beside him.

The boy misplayed another, and the dad could not contain himself. He shouted to him without anger. A few minutes later, though, the older dad seemed on the verge of losing that control, and he walked away to watch the game from farther away, lying on a grassy hill, away from the chatter of the other parents. His son's team was out matched, and would suffer a 10-1 loss.

I am not holier than thou or thee. When my son was that age, I shouted, cajoled, and cheered. I struggled to contain my anger when his teams played poorly, and was giddy with delight when they won. I offered the older dad a knowing smile in the hopes that he and his son would both find the correct perspective for that game. It was, after all, only a game; and it was a beautiful day, regardless of the score.

Labels: memoir, mistake, personal growth, story

I splurged on myself once, and spent a week in Iowa City at the Iowa Writers Program Summer Workshop. Very different from the famous one, but it was very good, and the class was led by Robley Wilson, then editor of the North American Review.

The workshop was about a dozen people, and it was fairly diverse. Working people, a doctor, therapists, and a guy from Ireland. The common factor was that we all had a screw loose, and were trying to doing something about that with our writing.

One of my co-workshoppers made it kind of big. Abraham Verghese went all in the following year. He didn't just return to the workshop, he got a job nearby and applied for The Writers' Workshop program at the University of Iowa; he was accepted, and, frankly, he's been notably successful ever since. You know that saying: it's not enough to succeed, but your friends must also fail? Well, he should have kept me close, because I'd be making him really happy about now.

The first time I stumbled upon his name while reading The New Yorker, I was like, "Wow, cool; I know him!" The most recent time, when his new novel was briefly noted and mostly raved, I was more like, "Come on already; this sucks being me."

While at the summer workshop, I really liked him. I really liked everything about the workshop, especially the chance to write within a community of like-minded people that cared about literary art forms. That week, I wrote this story. I was never able to do anything with it, but there's a certain something about this story that I love above all the others.

I hope you enjoy The Cardboard Box, which is inspired by aspects of my own childhood.

Labels: memoir, story

I have just added an article that was a speech I delivered for Toastmasters. The speech is called: "The Black Dog Shall Have His Day," and is memoir-ish and the kind of thing I like to blog about. It's about an aspect of my emotional intelligence that was, heretofore, only privy to my classmates from Mrs. Dale's afternoon kindergarten class. That was a long time ago, and maybe I just remember too many things; nevertheless, give it a read.

Labels: memoir, toastmaster

The estate sale started at eight a.m. on a Saturday morning. Things had been pulled out of the house and arranged on tables. People from all over the neighborhood came to see what was there, the things from the house that no one visited. There were other people, too, just for the sale. But those of us that lived near the old couple were curious what might have been inside. I was probably the only child in the neighborhood who had visited their home.

Mrs. V. was confined to a wheelchair. If the adults in the neighborhood knew why, the kids most certainly did not. The most that we knew is that she was sometimes on her porch sitting with her husband, but even that was a mystery because they had an awning, shrubs, and shades arranged to keep the sun off of the porch. At most we would catch a glimpse of them sitting there late in the afternoon, or early in the evening.

The most interaction we had was when Mr. V. had their dog, a chihuahua that barked incessantly at any movement, outside, walking in circles around the yard until he did his business. Occasionally, Mrs. V. would call out a greeting to me as I went past. What I saw of her was an older woman with white hair sitting in a wheelchair. She wore glasses and a dress. She smiled as she waved.

We lived in a suburb of Cleveland. Our neighborhood was older and had been built up shortly after World War II. The homes were small and packed in fairly close. The lawns were neat and tidy. Some yards were strictly off limits because of the angry people that lived there. Mr. V. was not angry, as far as we knew. He and his wife were just old and quiet.

I was invited into their home once, by Mr. V., who told me that Mrs. V. wanted to give me something. She was in her wheelchair in their front room. The room itself was impeccably neat and clean. The furniture was nice. That was a thing in all of those small homes: there was a room full of nice things. Mrs. V. smiled at me, and beckoned me to come closer. Their little dog sat in her lap, and, for the first time, I was able to pet that annoying little dog.

She handed me a small toy. It was a windup seal that clapped it's fins together and made a noise. It was made of metal of some kind, and was painted. The seal sat upon a round platform, like at the circus. It was very nice, but was not my sort of thing to play with in 1972. I thanked her and left. Unfortunately, I lost that toy at some point. It's possible my older brothers messed with it, and it's possible I was a typical stupid kid that couldn't keep track of things; regardless, it was lost, and I wish I had it now.

Mrs. V. died. I don't know when, exactly. I did not understand, at that point, what death was. No family members had ever died during my short life. She was just gone, and no one said hello or waved to us from their porch when we walked past.

For the next year, Mr. V. kept up the yard, and walked the dog around in circles to do his business. Even I recognized it was a quiet existence. One morning, there was an ambulance and a police cruiser in the driveway. The rumor spread through the neighborhood that Mr. V. had shot himself. His dog had died a few weeks earlier, and he couldn't go on alone.

The items in the estate sale were a snapshot of the century up to that point. He had served in World War I, and had a German Wermacht helmet with the spike on top. He had washboards and kitchen implements from the early 1900s. He had signs, posters, and calendars from the 1950s.

What interested me most was the collection of military surplus from World War II. He had diffused grenades, 80 mm shells, and ammo clips for an M-1 rifle. Nothing would still explode, but I thought it was the coolest stuff in the world regardless. He had belts, canteens, ammunition boxes, bayonets, and swords. It was a true warriors collection, but he was old enough to have been in the Great War; was he also in the Second World War?

I begged my father to buy me some of those mementos, which he did. We were outbid on the helmet, but we got several lots of diffused munitions. My mother focused on kitchen utensils, most of which were older but in like-new condition.

Unfortunately, so much of our lives come down to a collection of things. There were things that belonged to Mr. V., and things that belonged to Mrs. V. If you knew all the details surrounding the things, or at least how the person related to them, you might be able to piece together their life story. Lacking that detail, the things almost immediately begin telling their own stories.

The one thing that had an emotional attachment was the mechanical seal Mrs. V. gave me as a gift. I squandered that connection when I lost the toy, and I'm only clinging to the memory. I don't have the thing to cement those feelings. I still have some of the ammo clips in my collection of things from childhood. I played with the cartridges and shells, marveling at them, and wondering about their secrets. How many men had Mr. V. killed in his wars? What was he thinking when at last he was free, and how lonely was he that he had to end his own life?

At some point in the future, perhaps someone will purchase some of my things at an auction. Will they know the history, and how it came to be in my possession, or will they immediately invent their own story, and begin a new history as they add the silly item from the previous century to their own collection?

Labels: memoir

The first short story I ever got all the way through and kind of liked was "When It Rains". I had written a few others before then, and even entered one of them in the Hopwood Awards annual contest at the University of Michigan, but I didn't win. At the time, I was very hopeful: Arthur Miller had won that contest many decades before I tried, and I thought that it would be a great way to break into the business, by bursting onto the scene from the College of Engineering. Now they limit the contestants to those taking a course in writing.

I had to settle for the engineering degree. My final semester at Michigan, I took a course in creative writing at Washtenaw Community College. It was cheaper than taking a similar course at the U of M, and I could not take such a thing as an Engineering student. I was allowed to transfer the credit in, however.

I spent the better part of that summer writing this story, along with the other exercises. It appeared in Passages North, the journal of Washtenaw Community College, but was not officially published. I submitted this story to many other journals, and it was rejected, with prejudice, by all of them. You may now be the judge.

What I got out of that course was a great friendship with Brian, and this story. I still love them both.

Labels: memoir, story

When I was but a boy, the West Side Market in Cleveland was a place of great mystery. My mother spoke of it in hushed awe as if it were sacred, or at least nearly sacred. The vendors there carried the run of the mill produce and meats of any market, but also some of the more exotic combinations that reflected the Eastern European heritage of many of Cleveland's neighborhoods. Kielbasa, Blood Sausage, and Head Cheese, to name a few items, were the things that made my mother's eyes sparkle just a bit.

She did not go to the West Side Market very often when we were young, and so its status grew in my mind as my mother schlepped herself to the A & P, and had to make do with the butcher there. She told stories of how her father, during the Depression, would take the cable car from their neighborhood of Tremont to the the market, and bring home a live chicken. Then her mother would pluck it in their tiny cellar so that she could cook it. There would be feathers, and blood, and filth all over the cellar and the kitchen, and her father would sit proudly in his chair smoking and reading the paper because he had done his part in bringing it home.

I remember going to the West Side Market once and seeing a whole pig in the glass display of the butcher. It looked far bigger than me, and probably was, given that I was only eight or nine. I had never seen such a thing. Eyeballs, snout, ears, and curly tail—it was all there.

The next time I saw such a thing was thirty years later when my neighborhood wanted to have a block party. We wanted to "do a pig roast", and I was naive and foolish enough to retrieve the roaster because my van had a hitch on it. I was immediately promoted to chief cook considering that I lived on the cul-de-sac and we wanted to have the neighborhood party there, as well.

We started the charcoal briquettes at 6:30 in the morning, and the pig arrived at seven. I didn't take time to marvel at the poor beast, but I should have, because I doubt that I'll ever be foolish enough to roast another pig. By 7:10 A.M., the pig was settled in the roaster, and I sat in a chair on the lawn with two of my neighbors and we began to drink beer.

Less than an hour later, disaster came to visit. I had put too much charcoal in the roaster (our crime scene investigation revealed), and the pig caught fire. When a pig catches fire, it's like something out of a movie. Flames fly out of the roaster like napalm, and the heat forces you to cringe and back away. Near panic, we tried to lift the pig out of the roaster, but no one could maintain their grip long enough to carry it to safety. We considered hosing the damn thing down, but instead one neighbor pulled the charcoal tray out of the back. We snapped the lid down, and hoped the flame would extinguish itself.

It turned out to be only a minor blemish. Part of the flank was charred. There was worry that more of the pig may, in fact, be ruined, but not having a lot of options, we decided to tone down the heat and see what happens.

Eight hours later, the pig was fully roasted. Having been snacking and drinking all day, I was fully toasted. I don't think I even tried the pork. I wasn't hungry.

Labels: memoir, story

I have never had good luck playing practical jokes. They generally backfire, and I feel awful. I feel awful right now.

When I was four years old, my mother took me along shopping. I thought it was great sport to hide from her while she shopped. I would duck in and out of the clothes racks, crawling along as she moved through the ladies department. One day, I stayed out of contact too long, and I frightened myself. I burst out from under a rack and directly into the path of a middle-aged woman. She tripped and fell on me, and we both were banged up a little.

This particular day, my paternal grandmother was along. She was quite a feisty woman, in her mid-fifties, and she gave that poor woman a great deal of grief for having tripped over me. I felt quite bad, though, because it was totally my fault. I didn't tell that to grandma, but let her tear into this innocent woman instead.

Not long after that incident, I decided to hide from my mother. This was before I had started school, and so she was a stay-at-home-mom at that point. I hid in the living room underneath one of the end tables next to the sofa. I thought it was rather obvious, and that I'd be discovered shortly. I also thought it was funny that she enlisted my brothers and the ten or so other boys in the neighborhood to find me.

I had no idea how frightened she was for my sake, and that somehow she imagined me drowning in the creek that flowed through the park behind our house. When the search party didn't find me, she started to cry. I became scared. Now I was worried that she'd be mad at me for causing such a stir, and now I didn't want to reveal myself.

However, when my mother phoned the police, I could no longer contain my emotions, and I began to cry. I still did not crawl out from where I was, but instead sobbed and cried out for help like the pathetic, naughty boy that I was.

When I was twenty-five, I went to a restaurant with my father and mother. We had to wait for a table. While we waited, I noticed that someone got into a car exactly like my father's. It was parked just three spots from his car—same make, same model, same year, same color. I thought this was funny, but what I said to my father was: "Hey look, someone is stealing your car."

My father, being a former jet pilot, feared little. Even at the age of fifty, he was going to stop this crime. It took all my strength to restrain him, and I had to shout to get past his rage and make him understand that it was just a joke. He never laughed at that one.

Today I noticed that my next door neighbor had a new television in the back of his pickup truck. He had pulled up close to his house, but had not unloaded. I went in for a closer look and saw that he also had a new sound system to accompany the nice, fancy television. The door of his truck was open, so I knew he had just stepped inside before unloading. I thought it would be funny to hide the box with the sound system.

I placed the box on the side of his garage out of sight. I then sneaked back to my house and waited near the door for him to discover that it was missing, planning on sharing in a great laugh. However, my daughter needed me at that precise moment, and called me away. I then forgot about my little joke.

Poor Tom, unfortunately, thought that somehow the expensive component had bounced out of the truck, and raced off. I am lucky that his wife discovered the missing box a few moments later, and luckier still that Tom did not get hurt during that wild goose chase.

I should really just get myself a very comfortable chair, sit the hell down, and never get up.

Labels: memoir, mistake, story

The house where I grew up was small, but we were happy. Relatively happy, I should say, because we didn't know any better, and pretty much everybody we knew lived in the same size house. There was, however, a problem that was difficult to ignore: one bathroom for five people. Looking back, I now believe that one drawback to indoor plumbing is that the things you do in a bathroom have to be done in the house.

The real question, though, is how did my mother survive all of those years amongst four men? The house was built in the late 1940s, and was of a simple design. A square foundation, 30 feet on a side, for a 900 square foot home. The main floor was divided into four rooms: kitchen, living room, master bedroom, and an "other" bedroom. Part of the space that would have made the "other" bedroom decent sized was devoted to the bathroom.

It was difficult for that many adults to live in that amount of space in the 1960s. If we were Mexicans then, yeah, sure, no problem, or if we were Eastern European immigrants in the 1900s—but we were neither of those things, so my father converted the attic into a bedroom for his three sons. We each had our own bed and a dresser for clothing. With the problem of sleeping space corrected, that other bedroom was converted to "TV Room". In it we could fit a sofa, an end table with a lamp, and a television—and that was all that we could fit.

We would pile into that room as a family: some sitting on the sofa, the rest recumbent in front of the television. It seemed comfortable and serene. We were warm, and cozy, and together. But there was a problem.

The problem with togetherness is that we all emit odors. Teenage boys especially. We also expel gas. It can be a very serious problem. Oddly enough, amongst family, you achieve a certain familiarity with these various bodily functions that does not cause embarrassment (although perhaps it still should). At times the stench would be so great that we would tell each other, "Hey, go to the bathroom, because I think you just shit your pants."

The bathroom, however, was no escape. The shared wall would not mask the various noises one makes on a toilet. Because of its age, that bathroom also had no vent the way modern homes do, so the air could only circulate back into the house. (There was a window, but, during most of the year, it could not be opened.) That bathroom and our TV room shared a heating vent, in fact, so if the furnace was not blowing hot air, then smells were wafting forth and back between the rooms.

And yet we recall those days fondly. We do not linger on the unhappy moments, unlike the smells that lingered in the air during Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart. We didn't know it at the time but we had invented Smellivision and, unfortunately, it was tuned to a station featuring a forever-length movie about Uranus.

Labels: memoir

I caught the ending of "Big" the other day as I was flipping through channels. To quote a wiser man than myself, "Big" is one of those movies that, if you happen to stumble upon it as you are getting dressed, even if you are just-out-of-the-shower-bare-ass naked, you will sit on the edge of the bed and watch whatever remains of that movie.

In the final fifteen minutes, as Tom Hanks's character (Josh) finally confronts his dilemma, I noticed some subtle things I don't remember. He's making the presentation for his interactive comic book, and is describing how the child playing with the comic book will run out of options and finally discover what he has to do to win the game. That's when the light goes on for him, and he makes his final choice.

Maybe everybody in the world noticed that, and keeps it fresh in their memory, but I had not, so I was struck by the elegance in the story telling. Perhaps it was a bit heavy-handed to unplug Zoltan the Fortune Teller before making his wish, but embedding the solution to his problem within the context of his work is pretty clever.

They attempted the same thing in "The Wizard of Oz", but I always found it dissatisfying that the ruby slippers had the power all that time while Dorothy absolutely, positively, wanted to get home. In today's parlance, Dorothy had every right to say, "Are you f***ing kidding me?" She embarked on the journey for the sole purpose of getting home, whereas Josh resists going home; in fact, once he became intimate with Susan, Josh seriously considers staying. All of Dorothy's trials during her journey were contrived to delay her; Josh's adventure made plain to him what he needed to do.

Both movies suffer from Ex Deus Machina in that Glinda and Zoltan hold magical powers that start and stop the action. Well I can forgive that. But if forced to choose, I'd watch "Big". I might, however, flip over to "The Wizard of Oz" to catch that scene when the hair stylists in the Emerald City are giving the Cowardly Lion the old once-over—those babes were put together.

Labels: memoir

This is the recipe for my grandmother's (Gizella's) torte cake, scaled down for eight inch pans...

Top and Bottom Layers

8 egg yolks
8 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
8 egg whites
4 Tbsp flour

Preheat oven to 375. Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla for 12 minutes (and we mean BEAT).

Fold the flour into the beaten egg yolks (slowly).

Beat the egg whites until fluffy. Fold the egg whites into the above mixture. When combined, pour evenly into two greased, eight inch pans. Bake for 25 minutes at 375.

Middle Layer

4 egg yolks
4 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 egg whites
1 Tbsp cocoa
4 Tbsp ground walnuts
2 Tbsp bread crumbs

Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla for 25 minutes. Fold in the cocoa.

Beat the egg whites and fold into above mixture. Add the walnuts and bread crumbs. Bake for 25 minutes at 375 in an eight inch, greased pan.

Filling

1/2 lb. sweet butter
2 cups ground walnuts
1/2 cup milk (scalded)
6 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 Tbsp bread crumbs

Beat the butter and sugar and vanilla. Pour the scalded milk over the walnuts and combine. Add sugar and bread crumbs.

Use the above mixture between the layers of the cake. Then frost with chocolate frosting.

This cake is very dense, and can be savored in small portions.

My grandmother, and then my mother, made this for family celebrations. It has been made with as many as 42 eggs, and can be used to feed an army. In fact, if Kaiser Wilhelm had enlisted the Imperial Chef of the Hapsburgs, and served Viennese Torte cakes to the Wermacht, they would have marched through Moscow before winter set in, and the world would be a very different place. Instead of Little Debbie Devil's Food Cakes, we'd all snack on "Kaiser Willie Tortes". But what do I know? It's not like I'm happy or anything.

One additional note is that I have no idea how they made this before the age of electric appliances. The above can take three hours, and tears apart the kitchen. How Gizella did it with just a wooden spoon is beyond me.

Labels: memoir, mistake

In light of the recent "Beer Summit" I told a story from my past that resulted in a similar settling of differences over beer. This one is posted to my articles section, and is itself called "Beer Heals All Wounds." It's about me, the cherry tree I climbed as a child, and a dispute with a stranger that resulted in a fist fight.

Many years ago, men frequently settled disputes with fisticuffs. That doesn't happen nearly as often. I'm not saying we should have a Fight Club or anything, but maybe we should have a "Raise Your Voice and Bare Your Teeth" club; we are primates, after all.

Labels: memoir, story, toastmaster

Thursday evenings are trash night for me, meaning that I have to gather up trash from around the house and put the trash dumpster out on the curb. Trash is picked up on Friday mornings, and they claim the right to pickup starting at seven a.m., and you don't want to miss it.

In the past, these evenings--"trash night" as I call it--has been a moment of contemplative solitude for me. I am alone and performing an ordinary, rudimentary task, allowing my mind to wander a bit. It is not a form of meditation, but it is calming for me, marking the end of a week. I handle our trash with my hands, and I have a sense of the proportion of our activity. If we have had a party or friends staying for the weekend, there will be more trash than usual. If I have been in the mood to dispose of things (and there is much need for that mood) there will be large bags stuffed with now useless toys or household goods. It helps record in my mind what things have been like for me during the week.

On occasion, I've realized that there was not much in the dumpster, and so I've questioned myself what has happened that the amount of trash is down. I worry that I left the laundry room trash can unchecked, or that maybe there are things lingering in the corner of the garage that perhaps could be discarded.

The most interesting dumpster story happened many years ago, back when my Poobrador, Blue, was still alive (a Poobrador is a Poodle-Labrador mix--my own invented name). I was taking him for a walk late one trash night. I carried two bags of kitchen trash out to the dumpster and then continued on into the night with Blue on a leash.

When we returned, Blue began barking at the dumpster. He would not quiet down, and would not relent. He focused on the dumpster as if he were a drug-sniffing canine, and Scarface himself was in the dumpster.

I began to suspect there might be a rat inside. It was garbage, after all, and rats have to eat something and somewhere. I gathered my courage and flipped open the lid of the dumpster. A raccoon was inside the dumpster, and raised his head and stared at us. Sometime during our walk, he must have gotten inside, drawn by one of the bags. Blue, of course, went berserk.

This week, early in the evening of Trash Night, I noticed that one of our trash bags had been left out next to the garage, and the bag was shredded and our kitchen refuse, egg shells, wrappers, and spoiled food, was now scattered across our lawn. Whoever the culprit, they must have taken the bag with the intention of dropping it in the dumpster, but failed to complete the final three feet of the journey.

I did not rush to clean the mess; instead, I treated it as a crime scene.

My wife had no memory of carrying out a trash bag and leaving it short of its destination. But neither could she account for her whereabouts on Sunday evening which, by my examination of the refuse is when that bag made its way outside (there was a blueberry yogurt container amongst the mess, and I recalled eating blueberry yogurt Sunday morning). The easiest thing would have been for her to blame our son, but she didn't recall asking him to take out the trash.

I next interrogated my son. He claimed to have not taken any trash outside at all in several weeks. I believed him. For him to do anything resembling work, it requires an amount of nagging that makes it impossible to forget, and it is extremely unlikely that he would remove the trash from the kitchen and take it outside without being asked to do so.

Our daughter does not even know where the dumpster sits, such is her lot in life that she does not deal with garbage.

I was suspicious once again of my wife. Is it possible that she took the trash out with good intention, but was distracted in her task and left it in harm's way? I brought her to the scene of the crime, and pointed out in particular the yogurt container that suggested to me that this was trash brought out no earlier than Sunday, and likely no later than Monday (we generate about one bag each day). There was a wrapper from a Nestle Crunch bar, an empty cream cheese container, coffee grounds, apple cores, banana peels, school papers, plastic ware, and scraps of food, all of which scattered in the section of yard next to our garage. Our dogs had had a field day with this, I assumed, but there was the possibility of a raccoon making the mess during the night.

My wife clung to her story of not remembering having taken out the trash and leaving it in the yard. I was forced to let her go. As often happens on Law and Order, I did not have sufficient evidence to press charges. I put on work gloves and picked up the trash, bagging it in a new, fresh pull string bag.

There is, of course, the slim possibility that I left it there, but it is my habit to take trash directly to the dumpster, and not linger or explore. I hate to think I could do such a thing to myself, creating, indirectly a mess that I would have to clean. Truth be told, however, I couldn't account for my whereabouts on Sunday evening either.

Labels: memoir, story

I once went fishing with my father. He wanted to put in at the Portage river, which is west of Sandusky, and try for walleye. It was to be a special day in that he was taking a day off of work, and pulling me out of high school, for the day. It was a bright, warm, spring day.

He was up before dawn to load the boat. I was being lazy, but no more lazy than usual, and didn't do much to help him. But, then, what was I going to do but stand around. He knew where he kept everything, and he knew where he wanted everything, and he only trusted himself to stow items properly in an open boat to be dragged along the highway behind his van.

He was a little upset with himself because we got a late start, but it was before six A.M. so I thought it was fine; he, however, was concerned with the feeding cycles of walleye, and the time it would take to get to the river (90 minutes?) and the extra time required to get to where he wanted to fish.

We drove west, and so dawn broke behind us. I don't remember much of that part of the drive. Being men, we wouldn't have chatted just for the sake of chatting, and my father was stoic with us anyway, and so we were both left to our own fantasies.

If I remember anything of how my thoughts ran at that time, I would have vacillated between doing something heroic to impress the girls I knew (this thought would have been truly sophomoric, but bordering on infantile, like a bad guy comes and threatens one of the girls upon whom I had a crush, and I thwart the bad guy, and then the girl and I reveal our mutual lust for each other) and doing something blatantly lustful, bypassing the need to impress the girl, and going straight for the fun part simply for the sake of fun. Yes, I am pretty sure I had nothing interesting to tell my father at that time.

He could have been worried about several things at that time. My oldest brother was in college. There would have been worries about his success there, the cost of college, and his choice of major. My other brother would soon go to college, and he didn't communicate very well with my father then, so that must have been on his mind at least a little. My father also was very dedicated to his job, and probably was thinking of about one of the many projects he had going. I'm not exactly sure what my father thought about my mother and their marriage; they were probably typical of the era, but they didn't do very many things together like play tennis or go for long, romantic walks; so maybe that worried him, but maybe it didn't.

My father probably didn't know at all what to make of me. I got good grades, but I wasn't as athletic as he probably hoped I'd be; and I was the baby, and treated like a baby, in the family, and was too quick to cry as a child, so maybe he was worried about what sort of man I'd turn out to be.

Maybe he was just worried about the fishing, and the bait, and the lures. At that time, walleye were active in Lake Erie near the Davis Besse nuclear power plant. They would move in and out of the Portage river, and would also feed in the warm waters that discharged from the cooling tower into the lake. Walleye, I've been told, like to feed where they can see, so they prefer gravel bottom waters unsullied by weed and silt and muck; there were geological features in that part of Erie that attracted them.

We passed Sandusky without incident, and crossed the Thomas Edison bridge which spans the Sandusky Bay where it joins Lake Erie. Now we were on the small peninsula that is home to Marblehead and Port Clinton. Just north of us, out on the lake, are Kelly's Island, and the Bass Islands, home of Put-In-Bay. Just west of Port Clinton is the Portage river. (You can see it all here.)

I believe his thoughts probably turned to the specifics of lures and bait. The rage then was to use a variation of the silver spinner called the "Erie Dearie". It came in a variety of colors and sizes. My father's trusted technique was to put a night crawler on the treble hook, but minnows were also a consideration. His long time, personal obsession, however was with Rapala, and he had a large collection. (Rapala are lures shaped like small Norther Pikes, and have hooks along their abdomen.) They were out of fashion here, though, in this part of Lake Erie, and any fisherman worth his two-cycle oil would tell you the same.

My father suddenly let loose an agonized groan. "Did you put the fishing rods in the boat?" he asked. I hadn't. I hadn't done a damn thing. He let loose a series of expletives, certain that he had forgotten. We exited the highway, and pulled into a parking lot in Port Clinton, and he ran to the boat, and confirmed what he knew in his heart to be true: he had forgotten the fishing rods.

The sun had arisen already, and some of the best time had already been squandered. Driving home for the equipment would take far too long. The only hope was that my uncles, his two brothers-in-law, had cottages on the Sandusky Bay just a few minutes from here, and maybe they had equipment, and maybe he could get into those cottages. It was something to try.

He walked around the cottages, probing for an entry point, but they were all locked up. He couldn't even be certain what equipment was there, if any, and what quality it might be, and, more important than anything, what sort of tackle would be available. So he ruled out breaking a window because the payoff was unknown.

Stores would not open for over an hour. Once they did, he would be faced with the dilemma of purchasing equipment he already had, and so he'd want only the cheapest items available, and would be second-guessing himself the entire time as to the quality of the equipment. He was completely crippled by this. We sat in the car and waited.

We waited until the stores opened, and then he did go shopping. This was before the era of WalMart, but there was a small department store there, near the highway entrance. He said that if there was a good sale on decent equipment, we'd buy it and still go fishing. Alas, there was no such sale.

There were sandwiches and drinks in the cooler, and I remember eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the drive home, and washing it down with a Coke.

It was a nice day, and the van got warm on the drive home. It would have been a hot day on the water. If we found fish, my father would have been delighted, and it could have been a great day. It's been said that a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work; but you have to actually fish to feel that way. It was not a good day for my father.

Labels: memoir, mistake

In all those early years of boating with my father, we never had fun with the boats, other than fishing. Fishing is fun for some, but it's boring and smelly and boring for others. Ultimately it's disappointing, too, because you rarely get all the fish you wanted to catch. The boats were a vehicle to transport us to fishing spots.

My father did, however, have a brief flirtation with boats that was strictly for pleasure. Shortly after he bought the cottage on the shores of Sandusky Bay, near Port Clinton, Ohio, he bought a Snark--pardon me, a Sea Snark--which is a small sail boat made out of the same polystyrene used to make coolers. It weighed 30 lbs., offered 45 sq. ft. of sail, and seated one uncomfortably (total capacity of 315 lbs.). It was 11 feet long, and had a 12 inch depth at center, and a 38 inch beam. It cost $299, on sale. I know the details because the Sears catalog entry for it is taped to the desk that my father used at the time he bought it, and I now use that desk.

It was actually a fun little boat. It was propelled by just the slightest whisper of a breeze, which, in fact, was the ideal condition. Being so light, it always seemed on the verge of capsizing, so we preferred quiet, calm times on the bay. The catalog picture shows a grown man sitting upright under full sail, but we could never achieve the dexterity for sitting; instead, we lay back flat and propped our heads with an orange life preserver in order to see.

This was just an appetizer for my father. After his retirement, he and my mother wintered in Tarpon Springs, Florida at a campground with access to a lake (Lake Tarpon?). There was a sailing club there and, sure as shit, Alfred bought a small sailboat. He dragged it to the lake nearly every day for a while, and gained a modicum of mastery over the techniques required. There were weekly races at the lake, and he entered once, failing to win, but satisfied that he completed the course.

Naturally, he was smitten by the idea of sailing. He owned a cottage on a bay and he was retired--it seemed to be a great idea. So he bought a second sail boat and towed it north with him in the spring. (He thought that would be simpler than dragging one boat back and forth across America.) But things did not go as he hoped.

There were a few minor mechanical problems with that boat--that was why he got it so cheaply. However, fixing those problems became just another item on his to-do list, and the to-do list grew long quickly. He had his main residence to care for, the cottage, his big fishing boat that needed attention, and the collection of smaller boats and outboard motors. The cottage was (and still is) susceptible to flooding, so periodically he spent the better part of a Saturday mopping and disinfecting.

That small sailboat has never gotten wet north of the Mason-Dixon line. It sits, to this day, in the garage, piled with the flotsam and jetsam from other projects.

My brothers and I bring up the question of what to do with the sailboat periodically. I like the idea of using it, as those brief moments on the Snark were peaceful and enjoyable. I am tempted by the allure of being out on a body of water, feeling like I am a part of nature. To sit out on open water, comfortably, confident of your ability to return to dry land, offers a form of solitude that is only equaled (I'm guessing) by ballooning or soaring. I think even boating with companions you get a shared sense of solitude (don't laugh, it's real) for all those on board.

Alas, the small sailboat still sits. We have inherited from our father a particularly pragmatic outlook on life that, I am coming to understand, inhibits certain forms of joy. We rarely did things just for the sake of having fun. The sports we played were turned into exercises to improve ourselves. The camping and fishing trips had their moments, but there was a discipline imposed to ensure duties and chores were performed. I don't think I ever really learned how to have fun, and now I'm afraid to allow myself to have fun like that. It seems foreign to me.

All of that is frustrated by the responsibilities of life. Debts pile up, careers seem questionable, and so it becomes more difficult to allow oneself to just have fun. I stare at the catalog picture of the healthy man sitting in the Snark on a pleasant body of water, seemingly enjoying himself, and wonder, "How did he learn to do that?"

I think I'd be a good candidate for having fun. I should put on my to-do list, "Learn to Have Fun"; I should put it right after "Stop Living Vicariously."

Maybe I'll drop that sailboat in the water this summer and see what happens. Maybe, if I don't drown, I'll learn something and have fun while I do it.

Labels: memoir, mistake

Or better still, what's behind a name? I have had a nickname that has been with me for quite a while. It's not a bad one, but lingers as an acronym of the original, so when an old friend mentions it in front of a new friend, it has to be explained. It's difficult to impart the full emotions that made the nickname attractive when given, and often the use of the nickname picks up additional meanings that have nothing to do with its origin; it takes on a life of its own.

Nickname The First
My first nickname, bestowed by my brother's friend, was "Cork". It was because, from behind, my husky build made we seem wide. This was not a nickname of grace or admiration. I assume it referred to an upside down cork, wider at the bottom. That name lasted through junior high.

Worse Than The First
In ninth grade, I made the junior varsity baseball team. I was not a great player, but I wasn't bad. I was proud to be on the team. One weekend, we had a tournament on Saturday after a Friday afternoon game. My mother worked late on Fridays, so I washed my uniform myself. I made the mistake of washing it with a pair of red shorts, and my white uniform turned pink.

I washed that uniform four more times that night, but I could not remove the pink. The next day, I was called "Pinkie". What could I say to deny that?

The One That Stuck
That same baseball season, we were playing at Cuyahoga Heights. They were something of an arch rival, and it was a game we all wanted to win. The field itself was memorable because it was in a stand of trees and had a very remote feel to it. No roads or building could be seen from the field, but an active train track ran along one side—it was possible to hit a foul ball on a passing train and never, ever see that baseball again.

I was not having a great day at the plate. I hit the ball in each of five at bats, but I hit four ground balls to the short stop, reaching first only once on what was ruled (unfairly) an error. On my fifth at bat ( a lot of at bats, by the way, for a seven inning game) I drilled a beautiful line drive into right field. The right fielder caught it on the first hop, and threw me out at first base. I had just barely left the batter's box when the umpire raised his fist.

Our lone fan, Larry Lowther, had a great chuckle at this. Larry, father of our shortstop Marc, was at all of our games, and was a well-liked man. So when he took a break from his laughter to shout, "Hey, Mick the Quick!" it was heard by all and with regard. Henceforth, I was known as Mick the Quick.

It was a far better name than "Pinkie", so, in a sense I am grateful. It is worth noting that the player who called me Pinkie that Saturday morning was none other than Larry's son Marc. A couple of funny guys if ever there were.

Labels: memoir

My efforts with Total Immersion swimming are slowly paying off. The number of strokes it takes to go 50 yards is down by half, and I can actually feel the thrust, with little effort, when I get the mechanics correctly. People are still a little curious why I'm doing this now, at my age, and how it is I never learned to swim properly before if I had the interest. So a little background.

The Jungle That Is Our Youth

There were a few boys my age that were physical specimens starting in sixth grade. Their testosterone came early, or there was something in the water on their street, that gave them manly features while I still sported a pudgy belly and a double-chin. I ate a lot, and a lot of ice cream to boot, so I understood why I was the way I was. But two boys in particular, Terry B. and Danny V., had muscle definition and a chiseled physique. They were ripped. And it wasn't just being skinny, but there was muscle development.

One day in sixth grade, there was rain and so our recess was held downstairs, in the basement, and it was a crowded, raucous affair. At some point, Terry B. got a hold of an empty masking tape roll (i.e., just the cardboard ring) and slid that up his arm until it was snug on his bicep. He then flexed his muscle until that cardboard ring tore open. I was astounded. To this day I'm astounded.

Swimming with Sharks

The city pool was in the park directly behind our house, less than two hundred paces from our fence. We heard the shouts and screams of kids splashing in the water every day in summer. My mother was nervous about us venturing there, but we did go, and without ever taking a lesson, I could navigate the water fairly well. I stayed in the shallow end, but I could swim underwater, and was very comfortable, and splashed and played with the roughest of them.

There was a boy a year older than me, Jeff W., who had the same chiseled physique as the two my own age. He was something of a prick, and had a reputation for being tough, and so I generally avoided him. I was there, in the shallow end, with him one day in summer.

I was swimming under water, and apparently kicked him as I passed. When I came up for air, he jammed my head back under, and I took in a great gulp of water into my lungs. I still recall the feeling of panic vividly, and how I gripped at the edge desperately as I coughed it out.

I coughed and coughed until I spit blood. He was a little concerned, but mostly about what might happen to him. The life guard had him sit out of the pool until after the next Adult Swim. I made my way back home, shaken and unnerved.

The Best Revenge is Living Well

I did not return to that pool for five years, until I had learned to swim with my head above water. I don't like any kind of horseplay in the water, and I panic quickly as I lose air, or if water goes up my nose or in my mouth. I'm kind of a wreck.

But I am now, finally, gaining a bit more ease in the water. Breathing is my biggest problem.

You'd think I could have overcome all of this earlier, and without so much internal drama, but that is a kind of metaphor for my entire life. I'm trying to be a late bloomer, before it's all too late.

Oh, and that Jeff W. guy? Well, if he tries to befriend me on Facebook, I'm going to ignore it. So there.

Labels: memoir, personal growth, story

I never got around to telling this story about the cabbage rolls and my father's intestines. As I've said earlier, for family events, my mother would prepare cabbage rolls by the dozen. It was usually a major production for her, but she never asked for help. She prepared it all herself, creating dozens of them at a time.

Great big bowls of ground meat were mixed with rice and paprika. A large pot boiled heads of cabbage to loosen the leaves. And an over-sized roaster sat waiting to accept the cabbage rolls. She usually do all of this in our basement, where we had a second kitchen. She'd descend for an afternoon or evening, and not surface again until it was complete.

I don't recall the specific occasion, but my father felt ill late at night, after the event. The next day he checked himself into a hospital. Back in those days, if you got into the hospital, they kept you a while to run tests. Now you spend far more time waiting in the Emergency Room lobby than you do in a hospital bed (if you're lucky), but back then, they admitted you to run tests, and strictly enforced the visiting room hours.

He was in there a couple of days, having complained about chest pains. He was in his late forties, so the assumption was a heart attack, and that's what the tests were trying to determine. But test after test came back negative, and so they reviewed other factors. The truth finally came out that he had consumed an inordinate amount of cabbage rolls; the doctor immediately went with a diagnosis of indigestion. He probably prescribed an enema, but I don't know if it was ever administered.

I never really worked with my mother on those cabbage rolls, and I don't know if I have the recipe, so I'll be trying various combinations until I hit on something pleasing to my taste buds and my memory. I just hope I don't kill myself trying.

Labels: memoir, story

I am staging my return to blogging with a presentation of old Xmas letters. Back in 1996, we sent these short missives out with the Christmas cards, and I tried to be funny. Now, re-reading them, they are painfully moronic. My sign off messages are particularly sad. I think the author was an idiot.

Still, they were very popular with friends and family, and so I was encouraged to continue. I still write them, and will post them all for posterity sake. Perhaps some young family will read them some day and decide not to write any such Xmas letter of their own.

My style has changed over the years, and, once I have them all online, a careful reader may detect a particularly bad year. It was something of a bellwether for the writing.

Xmas Letters Part 1: The Idiot Years.

Labels: memoir, mistake

I had a nostalgic moment. I seem to have a lot of those, but this one was classic, or, rather, in the classical sense of nostalgia.

I play the accordion. I'm not very good at it, have only been playing for a little more than three years, and there's a lot to learn. I stopped taking lessons this year because it was just too traumatic to get to the lessons on time with the other demands on my time. I really thought I'd be better at studying on my own, and I have, but now I miss learning new things, other than the songs. So I began searching for books on how to play the accordion.

I've already bought most of the books on the subject, and there's quite a few at the beginner's end of the scale, a couple at the very highest end, but next to nothing in between. There are intermediate song books, but no explanation on how to play those songs.

I kept searching. Depending on the phrasing used, I'd get most of the same old stuff, or some links to what seemed to be very expensive DVD-based lessons of various styles. Today I stumbled on the right combination of search terms, and discovered a review of "Fingering the Accordion" by Robert L. Smith. I immediately ordered it.

Here's the interesting part: it seems to be self-published, and the only contact information was a name and address posted on the reviewer's web page. I did specific searches of the title and the author, thinking I could order it on Amazon.com, or eBay, or Half.com, or alibris.com, but there were no other traces of the book on the internet. Spooky, right?

I doubted the veracity only for an instant. I wrote out the check. addressed the envelope, and wrote a note by hand to explain my interest in the book. That was the cool part for me, writing a note and ordering something with a letter.

In fifth grade, our teacher (Mrs. Perkins) put us through some exercises in Social Studies wherein we would write letters to our Congressman, Senator, and the President to see what we would get back. It was a lot of fun, and, sure as hell, we got neatly typed letters in return on some serious weight stock.

I also was a big proponent of ordering dumb-ass things out of the back of comic books, or from cereal boxes. My greatest acquisition was probably a Quisp ray gun that actually shot a cloud of talcum powder, but looked really cool, or the Cap'n Crunch milkshake set, or maybe the Willie Wonka chocolate factory kit. Each of those involved the envelope, a small amount of money, and writing a letter to explain things, as my teacher taught me, to ensure it'd arrive safely, rather than relying on those tiny little order forms.

I got a real kick out of writing a letter, explaining what I wanted, and stuffing that into an envelope. In three days, the letter will arrive in California, and Mr. Smith will rip it open, see my check, and begin his order fulfillment process. Perhaps in ten days, I will have his book on accordion fingering techniques in my hands.

Because Mr. Smith does not have a web presence, it seemes doubtful that he is egomaniacal enough to constantly google himself. If he did, he might see this blog entry before my letter arrives, and so he might have my order prepared and just waiting for the check to arrive.

Labels: memoir

In many ways, our kids have it easier than we did, but that also complicates other aspects of their lives. It's easier because we live in a house with two and a half bathrooms, so the fighting is over which hair appliance is plugged in, and who left the cap off of the teeth-whitening toothpaste. They are stressed out in the morning because they can't decide what to wear, and that's because they have so many choices. I had five shirts for school, and two pair of pants, and so it was very straightforward. My mother probably had one dress and one skirt and two shirts.

For breakfast, they might debate whether to have a bagel with cream cheese or sweetened cereal. They definitely fight over who gets to control the digital video recorder remote control.

All of the luxuries come with a price. We all get too little sleep, so the kids are up late, distracted during the evening by television, internet games, and cell-phone shenanigans. The cartoons they do watch are mind-abusing, heavy on ironic social commentary and adult-themed humor (why cartoons ever left the tried, true, and trusted format of physical violence is a mystery to me).

They also must remember to plug in their cell phone.

A very real problem they have to deal with is over-loaded backpacks. Every teacher demands that they have a binder for them, and so they must fit ten pounds of school stuff into a five pound backpack. All the binders can't fit in their locker, either, so there's a constant struggle to tote and find the right material.

The one bright spot is that the backpacks are so full, there's no room for alcohol, tobacco, or firearms. It's an insidiously brilliant approach to keeping the kids on the straight and narrow.

There has been some saber-rattling lately about the end of affluence, as future generations will not enjoy the same standard of living as we did. I believe the lifestyles will become increasingly casual regardless of the income available. It's not like people will revert to toting water from the village well to bathe themselves twice a year (whether they need it or not). Future generations may not be able to afford digital cable, broadband internet, and new car payments, so I think people will drive used cars, and leach off of their neighbors for wireless internet to find pirated television shows.

I'm not saying that it will be a better life. They may be doomed to struggle hopelessly to recreate this golden age of wastefulness in which we are living, and it may be impossible to achieve the level of unbalanced affluence that Americans now enjoy. But it won't be third-worldish, either. They will find love and ways to be happy. They may even take advantage of the nascent health movement, and actually lead simpler, healthier lives than we do today.

Think of it: in a world with less pressure to acquire useless goods, we might sit at home in the evening with our spouse and talk and laugh over a quiet meal of healthy food. We might turn in early, every day, to make love in a warm bed. And when we have children, we might raise them with a villager's attitude of providing for their needs, watching them grow, and imparting to them the values of love, cooperation, and respect.

In the morning, we would all awaken with the sun, rested and impatient for the new day to begin.

Labels: memoir

When I was a kid, we had a fairly rigid morning routine. The house was small, and my brothers and I slept in the (finished) attic. There was only a single bathroom, but in later years my father built a shower in the basement near the drain, but we were a bath-at-night family during the early years. In the morning we would dress, wait our turn at the toilet, and eat a bowl of cereal.

My mother would have been awake for at least on hour before we were up. A banker, she would dress nicely for work. She was usually not ready, though, when we got up. She would be part of the way there, but usually was wearing a house coat (a fancy robe) and had curlers in her hair.

Mom would put the cereal on the kitchen table and make us lunch. For cereal, we usually had a choice of Rice Krispies or Cheerios. Occasionally we were spoiled with Captain Crunch, Lucky Charms, Fruit Loops, or Coco Puffs. (During the Quake and Quisp years, we were a Quake house.) Come to think of it, we usually had Cap'n Crunch, and only were without sweetened cereals when my father went on a health rampage, declaring the extra sugar evil.

Mom made balogna sandwiches for lunch. Two slices of Wonder Bread, two slices of bologna, and two swipes of mustard. Occasionaly we were treated with some potato chips, but usually not. We got a quarter for milk, which could buy a few milks and some pretzel rods. I splurged for chocolate milks, feeling the extra penny was worth it.

We had about a half-mile walk to the elementary school, so we were out the door by 7:30 am. I know we watched cartoons in the morning, so we were probably up by 6:30 am most days, to give us that extra time to watch TV.

This brief remembrance may make it sound quiet and lovely, but I know it was tense and stressful most days. We lived in a small house, so there was very little room for book bags, musical instruments, and projects. Things were left on the stairs to our room, but things were also misplaced, covered up, and lost. There was yelling to keep us moving, and fighting over which lousy TV show to watch.

I was prone to anxiety attacks, and freaked out about little things, and sometimes my mother would drive me just to get me to shut up about being late.

Still, one memory sticks out. It was winter, and the furnace was slow to warm the house. So my mother had the gas stove going full blast, and left the door open to warm the kitchen. It was, to her, the equivalent of her own childhood, during the depression, during which they would not burn coal in the furnace because they couldn't afford it. She would get up in the mornings, sometimes with frost in her room, kept warm by the shared heat of her sisters, with whom she slept.

They would dress in the freezing cold, and then run to the kitchen to find the heat. Once there, her father would toast bread in the oven. Thus they would start their day.

In part two, I'll describe our current equivalents, and explain how this generation so is much weaker than mine, and how my generation was weaker than my parents'.

Labels: memoir

Shortly before leaving for college, I went to a party at my friend's house. It was an odd time because many of us were about to leave town and start new lives. There was an anxious energy about, at least for me there was.

The party was much like the others we'd had that summer, involving a few drinks, maybe watching television, and talking about girls. It went until quite late at night, and Eddie got very antsy and wanted to go for a walk. This was three in the morning. I went with him.

It was a calm night, and warmer than normal. We walked through residential streets and across our city park and past the municipal building where the police station was. We were probably the most dangerous things on the street, so there were no worries about that. We talked mostly about the girls we knew and liked (and which I was too shy to approach) and what college might offer us. I was very hopeful that the fresh beginning would bring me an interesting social life.

Eddie was prematurely nostalgic for the world he was about to leave. So much so that he wanted a souvenir from our home town. At around three-thirty in the morning, he decided that he really wanted a road sign to hang in his dormitory. We made our way back to the party, but with a renewed interest in the signs along the way. Eddie was basically shopping.

Back at the party, we announced our grand design to those still awake, borrowed some tools, and returned to the streets.

A street sign was the first choice, but it was mounted too high to reach. Nearby was a Stop sign; we could reach the nuts and bolts holding it in place, and realized that it was really a much better choice than the street sign.

The nuts proved very stubborn. In fact, we couldn't budge them one single bit. Perhaps it was the fact that it was past our bed time, or that we were somewhat inebriated, but struggle though we might, the sign was not coming free from its mounting.

Eddie was frustrated. He really liked the idea of the souvenir, and refused to surrender it. He thought perhaps we could pull the post from the ground, and we tried that, nearly soiling our pants with exertion.

Near desperation, Eddie began to rock the sign back and forth, hoping to loosen it where it was planted. He leaned against it, then pulled, back and forth, over and over again. Once more we tried to lift it from the ground, but the earth would not release its grip on it.

Eddie tried once again pushing and pulling. He was voicing his frustration at this point, and about to surrender, pulled back on the sign so that he was almost flat on the ground. He released his grip and the sign snapped forward like the lever of a catapult. Eddie also sprung up, so as not to fall backwards, and took a step forward.

The sign's forward movement was halted by the same forces that had frustrated us so many times already, and pushed it back with nearly the same energy it had on its flight forward. This time its movement was halted when the sign smashed into Eddie's face. Mind you, this all happened in less than a second, the pull, release, snap backward into Eddie's step forward, and then bang, smack in the forehead like something out of a Three Stooges movie.

Eddie was knocked flat to the ground into the street. Luckily, his skull had not been broken by either the sign or the pavement. He did, however, have the distinct imprint of a hex nut in his forehead, just above his nose.

Dazed, we returned to the party. We had failed on our quest, but learned a valuable lesson.

Labels: memoir

My son is not big on projects. It is not the way he learns, and he hates the idea of them. For the most part I agree with him, but it's something that has to get done.

My son is big on talking, watching television, and arguing. He especially likes arguing about what's on television, especially when he can use the DVR to prove a point through the miracle of pause and slow-motion. These things don't help get a project done.

Labels: memoir, story

My father bought one brand new vehicle during my childhood. It was a 1976 Ford Econoline van burnt orange, and void of any accessories or options. It was bare metal inside, and came with the absolute minimum of two seats. His dream was to customize that van for a trip we took as a family to Yellowstone National Park. This was the age of customized vans. He was not attempting to put wall to wall shag carpeting and a water bed in the back so that he could score some serious tail (as far as I know); he was trying to make more of a recreational vehicle that would sleep a family of five.

My father was an engineer, designed things, and took the van customization very seriously. He spent weeks sketching out his ideas, to scale, on graph paper. His optimal design called for a bed across the back that could be expanded, two captians chairs in front, and a bench along one side that would convert to a mini-kitchen. There were storage cubbies everywhere. He also planned to install an AM/FM stereo with eight track tape deck and six speakers and a citizen's band radio.

Dad was also a bit paranoid--perhaps rightfully so given his upbringing--so the very first thing he installed was a kill switch disguised as a headphone jack. I suppose there were people that would steal an unfinished, oddly colored van. The next thing he did was have Sears install an after market cruise control. The switch was attached to the turn signal, as they are today, but this one stuck out like a sore thumb, and had wires hanging from it. It was novel and cool to me, though.

The deadline for the trip approached far too quickly, and the only customizations my father accomplished was the wooden frame for the bed, the captains chairs up front, and the new stereo. I think that is how much of life goes, with grand plans going wildly astray, and coming up short. But we took the trip, and rode in that van.

Mom and Dad sat up front, and my brothers and I either shared the bed in back, or sat on a lawn chair resting in the middle. I don't believe there was anything like a seat belt in that van. It was bare metal, unfinished lumber, and us. If there had been an accident, my brothers and I would have been thrown forward in free fall, waving our arms as we screamed in terror before splattering our brains on the dashboard. Those were the good old days for travel on our nation's highways.

During that first trip, we broke down in Omaha, Nebraska, and the transmission had to be repaired, and we all learned to hate Omaha. Our intention was to sleep in a tent in Yellowstone, but often, because of bear warnings, we had to pile into the van, and there we shivered in cold, uncomfortable, cramped quarters.

All of this is leading up to my very worst memory of that van. A few years later, I was riding with him in the van on a hot summer day. I was sixteen or seventeen at the time, and, for whatever reason, I didn't really want to be there with him, in that van, doing whatever we were doing. I was sitting on the cooler in back (we came to keep a Coleman cooler in the van for extra seating) when the van overheated and my Dad pulled it over.

He popped the hood and steam was escaping from the radiator cap. He decided to allow that pressure to escape, and he loosened the cap. It exploded in a burst of steam, scalding his face, eyes, hands, and arms. He backed away in pain, groaning and waving about anxiously.

I was bored by the whole episode, and I had already planted my ass in the lawn chair in the shade nearby to watch the proceedings. I could see he was in pain, but being a selfish, stupid teenager, I did nothing and hardly cared. Dad stood for a confused moment, not sure what he should do to help himself, and looked at me.

I said, "There's some ice in the cooler if you want it." But I didn't get up to help him, or ask about his injuries, or much of anything. As I said, I was a stupid, selfish teenager.

My son is fourteen now. I think I'm due to get a taste of my own medicine.

Labels: memoir, mistake, story

I have never been a big fan of shaving, but I do like the feeling of smooth skin that results from it, so I take care to do it properly. But the act of shaving also exposes some of my fits and follies, and a secret affectation.

My mother told stories of how her father shaved, which was with a straight razor he sharpened with a strop. The shaving stories were always an off-shoot of a discipline story, in that he used the strop to beat the children when they were naughty. A strop, if you don't know it, is a huge leather belt used to sharpen a straight razor by repeatedly stroking it with the razor. It's also useful for beating the hell out of someone naughty, or so I'm told. I had this image of a cranky Eastern European guy, in his tank-top T-shirt, working that razor with his face lathered up. From early on, I fantasized about shaving that way.

I am something of a romantic about literary things, and, like so many people, I really fell in love with The Catcher in the Rye when I read it back in high school. That Salinger guy is a heckuva a writer. I mean I read quite a bit, and that guy is really goddam great writer. He knocked my socks off, if you know what I mean. He talks a little bit about shaving in that, but mostly it lead me to read Franny and Zooey, also by Salinger. In that book, there is a lengthy scene about shaving that I fell in love with. Lane spends, like, a lifetime in his bathroom, taking a bath, reading a letter, and shaving. He shaves three times, I swear to God he does, but it was how he shaved that killed me. He squeezed shaving cream out of a tube onto a brush, and then applied it to his face. That killed me. I swear to God, if you ever read about someone shaving with a tube, a brush, and an injection razor system, it'll goddam near kill you.

So I bought myself a shaving brush the first chance I got. I even bought a travel version so I could take it with me. For whatever reason, call it lack of faith or even plain old stupidity, I stopped using it. Biggest mistake of my life (well, one of the biggest). For the twenty years since, I have been thrashing about trying to find the combination of shaving cream and razor that gives me what I want. I was unhappy for a very long time, but now, I believe I'm happy at last.

My father used electric razors. I have tried those a few times, but never liked how it felt afterwards. There is a downy softness to my skin, and that never excited me. Applying lotion afterwards helped a little. Still, it wasn't right for me.

I whored around a bit with cheap Bic disposables. They were effective, but I cared so little for them that I stopped caring about the quality of the shave. It began to eat away at my soul.

When the Gillette Mach 2 razor came out, I was skeptical. I sneered at those who would spend more than a quarter on a razor. I used mine for upwards of two weeks, spending about nine dollars per year on razors, and two cans of Colgate cream. How big of an idiot was I to spend a grand total of $12 a year on my face?

The sneaky bastards sent me a complimentary Mach 2 razor in the mail. I tried it and loved it. It was like discovering the funniest TV show ever, but in syndication, which means you get to watch it everyday, over and over again.

I have upgraded the razors as they have introduced new models, and each time I have been amazed by how it really does feel better. After ten years, how can this love of mine keep surprising me? I don't know, but it makes me love it that much more.

The one problem is that the tightly set razors often get clocked with the whiskers and shaving cream. Not only does it look messy, but it degrades the shave. So I spend a lot of time rinsing. It annoys me, but, like loving a great woman, you have to take the bad with the good. I have tried many different creams. Noxema is the worst: it seems to bind like super-glue between the blades. Gillette is a little better, but builds up and won't rinse off. Colgate, the cheapest stuff on the shelf, is probably the best for not sticking to the razor, but I don't like the feel of it.

On a nostalgic whim, I bought a soap cake and brush kit. I immediately loved the result. It was fun as hell applying the shaving cream with the brush, and I can control the density of the foam by adjusting the water I use. It rinses clean from the razor, and I get the satisfaction of recapturing a small part of americana every morning. My smooth cheeks remind me of it in the morning, and in the evening I begin to look forward to my next shave when my stubble starts to come in.

Labels: memoir, mistake, personal growth