Mickey Hadick

David and the Squirrel is a short-short story. I plan on writing more of the same during the summer. This is thanks to the suggestion of a friend, who directed me to the NPR contest. If you don't like it, go ahead and let me know; I'm aware of its flaws. After all, I'm trying to learn from my own mistakes.

Labels: story, threeminutefiction

We had failed to purchase bait in our gathering of supplies. Considering that we had purchased the three Bs: Beer, Bread, and Baloney, we probably should have been reminded to get a fourth, but whatever. There was a Styrofoam tub of worms in the fridge.

We took up positions around the lake, attached hooks, bobbers, and bait; we cast out our lines. I could now see that the lake was surrounded by thick woods on all other sides, and that the shore near the house was groomed and carefully sloped. The driveway to the house extended as a gravel path along the lake and on into the woods beyond. A chilly fog sat upon the water. Dark mountain peaks ringed the area, and it was quiet. I could hear Mr. J. clearing his throat and settling himself, and Freddie casting out. So nice was this man-made, private haven that there were benches along the shore. I lay on one and promptly fell asleep.

Freddie woke me up a couple of hours later. We were going into town. "What about the lines?" I asked. "Don't worry about them."

We went first to check on the hunting cabin that actually belonged to Mr. J. A few miles from this nice, comfortable cabin, we drove through a gap in the woods along a two track, back along the dirt trail to a clearing. Built into the side of the hill was a sad and lonely building, really no more than a shed, its side worn, weathered and faded. The roof was of black shingles that were coated with green moss.

Inside there was a single light bulb suspended from the ceiling, and a wood burning stove. At one end was a table, and at the other were two sets of bunk beds. On a low table between the bunk beds was a considerable stack of girlie magazines, worn and weathered like the shed itself.

Mr. J. had merely wanted to check that the cabin was still standing, and that no critters had taken up residence, and so, as abruptly as we arrived, we departed once again.

Driving along these western Pennsylvania mountains, I didn't have the feeling of majesty or grandeur one might normally associate with mountains. I saw wooded hills along winding roads, and decrepit trailers in seldom home sites. At the juncture of two roads was a tavern called the Dew Drop Inn. This was "town".

It was, perhaps, eleven o'clock in the morning. Mr. J. settled himself at the bar, and Freddie and I played table-top shuffle board. Mr. J. was talking with the bartender, a woman who appeared to be older than him. Freddie suddenly had a brainstorm: he wanted to do shots. We sidled up to the bar next to Freddie's father, and Freddie asked. It turned out that Mr. J. didn't care. Somehow, that didn't surprise me.

Freddie wanted to do shots of Jack Daniels. I had never done such a thing (though I would soon enough do worse) so that sounded fine to me. The rest became a blur. I know we continued our ongoing, inane conversation of talking about how much beer we had consumed. (I must admit, I was surprised we had stayed up all night drinking beer.) But all that was now punctuated by the smack of an empty shot glass on the bar top, a blow delivered to free us from the shackles of adolescence. We delivered that blow repeatedly, each time thinking we were smarter, tougher, and more masculine than just a minute before.

At some point, Freddie realized he needed to go to the bathroom, but he fell off of the bar stool before he could gain his footing. It became surreal to me, talking with my friend one moment, and laughing at him on the floor the next. However, the look of desperation in his eyes got through to me, and I helped him into the bathroom.

He was sick. Not as sick as senior prom, but sick nonetheless. This displeased Mr. J. mightily, and I was instructed to get the son of a bitch into the car. Freddie was instructed to not vomit in the car, or he'd be walking back to Ohio. I believed him, and I also believe he'd have been walking back to Ohio with his father's shoe up his ass.

The drive back to the cottage was my time to listen to Mr. J. complain about what idiots we were for drinking that much. It was a life lesson of sorts, but, unfortunately, his son, passed out on the floor of the back seat, received no benefit.

At one point, we drove past a field of corn, and Mr. J. stopped the car. "Go get us some corn," he ordered, and out the door I went. This was a new experience for me, trespassing on a farmer's field to steal food. In my state, I didn't care much, and gathered an armload which I deposited on the floor of the car.

This domestic act, stealing food, seemed to mollify Mr. J. and we drove the remaining few miles to the cabin in silence. Once there, we drove past the cabin to the lake, and Mr. J. reclined his seat and went quickly to sleep. I was near comatose myself, but dragged myself back to the bench along the lake. It did not occur to me to check my line for a fish. Instead, I slept.

* NEXT UP: Part IV -- The Reckoning.

Labels: memoir, story

The Ohio Turnpike is a major thoroughfare, but at one A.M. on a Friday, there's not a lot traffic. There are stretches of highway that are illuminated, but for the most part its a dark tunnel with your headlights and the stars to guide you. Once I-80 separates from the Turnpike, there are no more street lamps, and not a lot of civilization. We had been drinking quite a lot, and I needed to pee.

Mr. J. pulled over, and I marveled at the stars overhead while I urinated. Was I some kind of a rube that this was amazing and shocking to me? We had camped on numerous family vacations, and did I just not look up to pay attention? I think it was, perhaps, the thrill of being on a weird fishing trip and peeing on the side of the road at two in the morning. But those stars, the milky way methinks, were amazing.

Having peed once, I could not suppress the urge, and now every beer I drank was another stop to make. Mr. J. was annoyed, and he stopped drinking in protest. It was for the best, as we were soon in the foothills of Pennsylvania and, having left the expressway, the roads grew narrow and twisted against the landscape.

I had a general sense we were going East, but I had no clue whether we were closer to Erie or Pittsburgh. We kept climbing and twisting, and, looking back, I believe Mr. J. navigated with some innate sense, like salmon swimming upstream. Drunk salmon.

At four in the morning, we pulled off the road and drove along a two-track through the woods. We emerged from the cover into the yard of a two-story home surrounded by trees. I was under distress because we hadn't stopped to pee in quite a while, and once again I had a breathtaking view of the stars while I relieved myself.

We carried the beer inside, where we found a stylish home with all modern conveniences. I had been expecting a crude, bare cabin in the woods. The only thing missing was cable TV. At this hour, in this location, there was no broadcast programming. So we decided to play bumper pool.

I had only played bumper pool once before, and that was in the local Kmart when they made the mistake of putting a table out with sticks and balls while my brothers and I were in the store. It's really not fun, and I think bumper pool only persists because of a mistaken belief perpetuated by advertising funded by special interest groups, like other mistaken beliefs, such as: capitalism is democracy, any sex is good sex, and that Twinkies are food.

At dawn we decided to go fishing. What I couldn't see in the dark was that there was a small lake behind the house, and apparently the lake was stocked with fish. Because we had only unpacked the alcohol, we decided to drive the three hundred feet to the lake.

* NEXT UP: Part III -- We Actually Fish, But Not Really.

Labels: memoir, story

The summer after I graduated from high school, I spent most of my evenings watching softball games at the city park. Unlike a lot of young people hanging out, I was actually watching the softball. I guess I was quiet. And shy. I didn't aggressively seek out adventure. Maybe I should have, but one night, the adventure sought me, instead.

One of my friends, I'll call him Freddie, found me at the softball fields and invited me to go fishing with him. I was probably his second or third choice (Marc would have had a date, and Charles would have been golfing early the next morning) but it fit my schedule just fine.

The plan was to drive during the night to a cottage on a lake in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and be ready to fish that lake early in the morning. It was seven-thirty when I heard all this, so we had a few hours to pack, gather supplies, and pick up his father for the trip. Freddie's father was on the local police force, and his shift ended at midnight. We'd be at the cottage by three A.M.

Freddie picked me up at about nine o'clock, and we first had to track down Melanie V., who had the most reliable fake I.D.. We went to a convenience store (so called convenience because they conveniently didn't wonder why our white friend's Driver's License said she was 34 and black) and bought a case and a half of beer, a pound of baloney, and a loaf of white bread. Oh, and some ice for the beer.

We drove around town to kill time, and picked up Freddie's father (I'll call him Mr. J.) from the police station at midnight. He drove. Our first stop was at the local tavern where Mr. J went in the back door and emerged with what turned out to be a brown paper bag with a fifth of gin, some plastic cups, and a bottle of tonic water.

I was in the back seat with the cooler and the gin. The first order of business was to fix a drink for Mr. J, who was driving, and couldn't be distracted by pouring gin into a cup (safety first!). I immediately revealed my ignorance for pouring too weak of a drink, and for not having purchased lime.

Freddie and I drank Stroh's. I don't remember what we talked about. It was one of the first times I had been around Mr. J, and I really didn't know him as anything other than the three hundred pound cop who happened to be my friend's father. I have to believe we talked about drinking beer. We were seventeen and had a limited view of the world, so talking about drinking beer while drinking beer is par for the course. Besides, I was kept pretty busy refilling Mr. J's cup.

* NEXT UP: Part II -- another of my flaws is revealed.

Labels: memoir, story

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

The theory of circadian rhythms is that we have an observable pattern of behaviors we experience each day, the two most obvious of which are being awake and being asleep; being sleepy during your wakefulness is part of that, but not as obvious. There are also rhythms to our sleep: we go through, or attempt to go through, multiple three-hours cycles of dozing, light sleep, deeper sleep, R.E.M. sleep, and then back to light sleep. If you wake up in the middle of the night, you probably just came out of one of the cycles, and you'll repeat it if you allow yourself to fall back asleep.

I have recently been getting by with six hours, or less, of sleep. It's been going on for a while, and I'm not particularly sleepy during the day, so I believe it's enough for me. I've been able to put this to a more controlled test because I am traveling and sleeping in a comfortable bed without distractions, and I have consistently woken up before my alarm in under six hours and feeling awake and refreshed. I am also not waking up in the middle of the night.

But what if some internal alarm is awaking me, and I'm not consciously acknowledging it? What if I simply have to pee, and although I don't wake with a strong urge in place, my bladder is quietly signaling my brain that this is going to have to happen soon, and you may as well stop sleeping now, rather than go for a third cycle?

I'm in a hotel room. I have exact control of the room temperature, and it is comfortable--exactly the way I want it. I have a large, comfortable bed, and a pillow I would fight to keep. The room is dark (although I do leave the bathroom light on, and the door closed, so there is a small amount of light at the crack of the door along the floor; it's basically a night-light--I don't want to get scared). I requested an interior room away from street noise, and there are no obnoxious, drunk salesmen on the floor with prostitutes throwing parties (or if there are, I wasn't invited and they are quiet about it).

At home my sleep is assaulted by the following: my spouse using her laptop, her discomfort with the covers/pillow/temperature, the dogs moving about, the cat climbing on top of me, the dogs barking because a car drove past, the temperature out of whack because the kids adjusted the thermostat, or the kids themselves dealing with bad dreams by waking me up. For now, all of that is eliminated.

What's left is the reality that a few minutes after I wake up, I need to pee.

Well what of it? The only way I can imagine removing this from the list of possible interruptions is to insert a catheter and a drain bag. Those items can't be terribly expensive, but inserting the tube might be a trick (note to self: check YouTube for video on inserting catheter).

Even if I could eliminate the bladder issue, there are other, natural biological needs that might also signal the brain to wake me up because the inevitable is going to happen; as far as I know, there is no equivalent catheter for that. (Note to self: do not, I repeat, do NOT check YouTube for a video on that subject, because I'm sure it's there!)

I think I'm okay with six hours of sleep. I don't think I'm risking heart disease, and I'm not staggering into traffic, and my cognitive performance seems fine (but, then, how can I trust myself to judge that if my thinking is clouded?). My only dilemma now is sneaking the pillow out of this hotel.

Labels: personal growth, story

Longtime readers know that I've been teaching myself to swim. This continues, and is improving. I almost feel like I can swim, now. But that's only part of the reason to go to the pool.

There was a life saving class underway this past weekend while I swam. Twenty teenagers were there for the lesson, and went through various exercises rescuing their instructor.

I happened to finish my training around the time that they finished. I went directly to the showers, while some of the young ladies in the class gathered in the hot tub.

Like so many gymnasiums and YMCAs, this facility has a gang shower that one must pass through in order to gain access to the pool. The idea is to encourage bathers to shower. (Is that ironic? No! Well, maybe.) Guys are coming and going all the time, some stay to shower, some keep moving. Some come naked, others undress while they soap up. Some guys bend over and irrigate their behinds like they are panning for gold. I thought I'd seen it all (a recurring theme) and then, this weekend, there was something new.

I was alone in the shower. While I shampooed my hair, one of the young ladies walked into the shower, mistaking the men's for the women's locker room. The poor girl, probably aged 15, covered her face, screamed "Oh my God!" and left the way she came.

The only other thing I can think of about the incident is that the poor thing would probably blog about it very, very different than the way I have.

Labels: story

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 thought I'd seen everything in the shower at the YMCA. In fact, I thought I could handle most anything in a gang shower because I've seen the HBO prison series "Oz", and, more importantly, I survived the hazings in the gang shower on the hockey team when I made varsity as a freshman.

You see all manner of body types in the shower at the local YMCA. It is strange what time does to the human body, and stranger still how some older men believe alternately sitting in the sauna and then showering is a form of a workout. They parade back and forth in complete nudity, apparently having made peace with their body.

I believe I've mentioned in the past that some men like to blow their nose in the shower. That really grosses me out. I saw a man without a single hair follicle anywhere on his body (but he was incredibly fit). I've seen a few things that are inappropriate even for this blog. I thought I had seen it all.

Yesterday, a gentleman walked into the shower after a basketball game fully clothed. He was barefoot, but had all of his clothes on--sweatshirt, t-shirt, sweat pants, shorts over the sweat pants, jock strap, and a do-rag. He stood under the water for several minutes getting soaked to the skin, and then, finally, disrobed. I'm not sure how he managed his wet laundry, as I decided to leave.

Labels: story

The Polish of this world have made Galumpky almost synonymous with Cabbage Rolls, but I knew them as Kapusta, which is the Slovak word for the same thing. Of course the recipes might vary wildly. In my mother's Slovak World Congress cookbook, there were no less than six different recipes for cabbage rolls. The point is that wrapping meat in a sturdy, boiled leaf has broad appeal, and should not be claimed by any one ethnicity. No matter who made the cabbage roll, the gas you pass later on will smell just as bad as that produced by someone else's cabbage roll.

Possibly the greatest contribution ever made to the popularity of cabbage rolls was made by the Schmenge Brothers, the famous Leutonian Polka Band on SCTV. Stan and Yosh were both tireless and selfless in their gratitude for the cabbage rolls made by one of their loyal fans, and mentioned it in every episode. And the coffee.

On the other hand, cabbage rolls have never gone mainstream; if they had, you'd be able to get them at the county fair—deep fried and served on a stick—but cabbage rolls nevertheless.

Labels: story

I am in the process of learning to swim. I taught myself to swim when I was 14, and did a very poor job of it. In fact, because of an incident at the city pool, I have a very strong aversion to getting my face in the water, and that has hampered me forever.

I swim by keeping my head above water, like a dog or a horse. So it exhausts me to swim, and I don't do it very often. I heard about this new technique for learning (well, not brand new, but new to me) from Tim Ferriss. So A week ago I began.

I first read the book. But not one of those nice, new ones from their store, but an old copy from the library. It's well written, but I couldn't quite figure it out. I then bought one of the DVDs, and that is definitely the way to go. The DVD breaks it down even more simply, and I am able to mimic their behaviors.

I have one thing to add to the great canon of learning about Total Immersion swimming. I followed Tim's advice to buy serious goggles and trunks. I bought the knee length Speedos, and love the feel of them in the water. Much better than baggy trunks. The goggles kept fogging up until today, when I remembered a trick I used in my youth. I spit in the goggles and rubbed that into the inside lens. For whatever reason, it prevents the fog.

Labels: 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

While driving to work the other morning, a car raced past me and tried to merge into my lane in front of me. The driver, a woman, made the mistake of signaling before merging, as if asking my permission. I said no, and would not slow down to invite her in.

There was no room for her to merge. There was just barely a car length space between my car and the car in front of me. Here is the weird part: if she had just done it, merged dangerously in front of me without signaling, without there being enough room, and without even giving me a thank-you wave, I would have been fine; I would not have ever mentioned it again, because people do dumb things in their cars and I watch out and drive accordingly.

But to ask to be allowed to do something stupid is unforgivable. I simply won't allow it. So I did not back off at all, and the driver declined to merge. She did, however, speed up and tried to merge three cars ahead; however, there was even less space there, and so, with here blinker still blinking, she braked and tried to merge again in front of me.

This time she started to merge, but I closed the gap and braced for a collision. She blinked, and veered back into her lane. She waited a few seconds, and merged behind me. It turns out she wanted to get on the other side of me altogether, and was able to do this. Once there, she accelerated hard to race past me on the other side and blew her horn at me as she did.

Well the same to you, lady.

Labels: story

I spent this past weekend with a head cold, stuffed up sinuses, and sniffling and sneezing. What bothers me most about being sick is the lack of energy, and feeling tired, but not being able to sleep, but not being able to try because sometimes (most of the time) life goes on. I was at soccer games and music recitals, drove the kids to other appointments, and went visiting.

The "went visiting" part is probably the dumbest, because I've shared my germs with the world when, in that moment, I didn't need to do so.

The best part was the legitimate excuse to drink Dimetap elixr. It's the purple drink for children that is both anti-hystamine and decongestant. It works wonders for me, but makes me a little on the drowsy side. I love the taste. To me it's grape Kool Aid, and I believe it would be the perfect basis of a mixed drink, like the Flaming Moe.

However, I get very strange dreams when on it. I can't describe them, but suffice to say that I was overwhelmed with a creepy dread. It's funny that I'm surprised that pouring chemicals into my body might have an effect on my mind.

Labels: story

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

This afternoon, a clock I've had for twenty years fell off the wall and broke. Shattered glass was all over the carpet, and the wooden body of the clock snapped in half. There was no good reason for it to fall when it did. The hook and nail were still in the wall. It had somehow been bounced off, but there was no particular bump when it happened. I would have blamed the cat, who has leaped at the pendulum before, but the cat wasn't home at the moment (out visiting friends).

I guess I don't mind if the house is haunted and the ghost is going to play pranks to mess with me. What I worry about is that the ghost may be watching me when I do very private things in the bathroom that I'd rather not have any one see. What if it's the ghost of my grandmother? I really, really don't want her seeing what I do in the bathroom.

Of course, grandma was never a jokester, so the ghost is probably not her. My father wouldn't do that either; he'd get right in my face and tell me how I was screwing up.

What I regret about the clock is not seeing it fall. It's a smallish clock and the pendulum is non-functional (i.e., it just swung back and forth but didn't regulate any gear movements). It hit the curio cabinet below it and then fell face forward to the floor. Shattered glass was sent into a three-foot kill zone and the pendulum remained on top of the curio cabinet. It wasn't bad to clean up—I put the larger chunks in a cardboard box and then vacuumed. It gives me the opportunity to install our cuckoo clock where the old one used to hang. If the ghost also knocks down the cuckoo clock, the joke will be on them because it's already broken. Maybe looking at the broken clock (which is correct twice a day) will motivate me to fix it.

What I know for sure about this ghost is that the jokester owes me a new clock. But if they simply don't tell everyone what I do in the bathroom, then we'll call it even.

Labels: story

I went to a Scotch tasting event in Ann Arbor yesterday. My friend is a connoisseur of wine and Scotch, and I was excited by his invitation. There is a world of flavors that I know nothing about, and I thought this would begin my journey.

My first lesson is that Scotch Whisky does not have an "e". Everything else, like Jack Daniels, is Whiskey.

Vendors set up tables along the walls and displayed various bottles. For our admission, we were given a sack full of twenty polished stones, and we profferred one polished stone for a taste. Some of the vendors were more generous than others, but whatever they gave was plenty—I could not drink all of my polished stones anyway.

The names of the various Scotch Whiskys were unpronounceable. My friend is a scotsman, and he rattled them off like a native. I tried to match his brogue at first, but gave up quickly. I would just point to the bottle hold out my glass, and offer a stone.

I have tried Scotch in the past, and didn't like it. This event did not change that, but I did appreciate many of them. I could almost imagine enjoying them. However, I probably won't.

The highlight of the evening was a toss-up between the two "Jack Daniels" girls and the handsome woman serving absinthe.

The Jack Daniels girls were young ladies in very high heels, very short skirts, and tight T-shirts emblazoned with the Jack label. They stood talking to each other the entire evening near the Jack Daniels vendor, and occasionally got themselves some food from the buffet. The event was dominated by men, and I'm sure these two were the highlight for many others. It was almost cruel, in fact, because the men there were mostly nerdy, clumsy looking middle-aged guys (like myself) that were more interested in getting their money's worth out of the booze and the buffet than making time with the young ladies. I think they could have been there naked and had no more, and no less, effect on the men. I may suggest that for next year.

Absinthe is a foul drink, notorious for destroying the liver and driving people insane. So I had some. If it was good enough for Hemingway, then it's good enough for me. It was incredibly like black licorice, and had no kick to it at all, until this morning. I woke up with a headache, but wasn't otherwise bothered with a hangover. I got up and moved around a bit, and realized I had to vomit. What came up was a green glob of bile that I can only think was that absinthe sitting in my stomach all night, waiting to annoy me.

Labels: story

There were two spit takes in my life in the past week that are worth relating as they reminded me of what I consider to be one of the better spit-take stories ever.

The first one happened in my cubicle. Someone stopped by to chat, and they happened to be eating something at the time. I was seated in my chair, and they stood over me telling a story while they chewed on some trail mix. While pronouncing a "t" sound (titillating would be nice, but, alas, it wasn't that word) a small crumb of chewed food was expelled from their mouth, and landed smack dab in the middle of my left eye glass lens. I was startled, but didn't draw attention to it lest I embarrass my visitor. I took the glasses off and rubbed my eyes; once they left me (the now forgotten story over) I cleaned my glasses.

The second was in a meeting and the person across from me was speaking. The late afternoon sun streamed in from the window behind their head, and I was able to see their spit expelled during the oratory. One droplet, reflecting the light, fell in a long arc from their lip to the middle of the conference table like a meteor streaking across the night sky. The unhygienic aspects of the spectacle aside, the sparkling droplet of spit was quite pretty. It made me smile.

The best spit-take story I heard happened in a training classroom for a computer system. One of the students, an older gentleman, called to the instructor and complained about the quality of the monitor. There were sparkles all across the cathode ray tube (CRT) that were bothering his ability to see the computer images. The instructor had never seen such a thing, and none of the other monitors exhibited such a bizarre effect.

As she struggled to diagnose the problem, the student sneezed. He failed to cover his mouth, and sneezed straight ahead, spitting all over his computer monitor. The screen lit up with dozens more sparkles, as the spit caught the light.

Labels: story

I tore into a brand new box of Lucky Charms and ate them out of the box. I'm not going to apologize for this behavior, but neither am I proud of it. Those charms are not just lucky, but they are also magical. I think they could be called "Magical Charms." I'd still buy them, but instead of a leprechaun as the mascot and spokesman, you'd have to have a midget-wizard, or maybe an elf.

I find them magical because of the aftertaste that lingers on my tongue and in my throat. I enjoy the aftertaste more so than the actual taste. There is something about the chemicals they use to create the marshmallows that coats my throat, and prolongs the flavor and the release of sugar. I find it intoxicating and delightful.

They coat the cereal things with some bland frosting, but I don't even notice those. They are just in the way, but I wouldn't want to eat just a box of marshmallows—that wouldn't be right. In truth, there is a fine interplay between the two ingredients, cereal and chemically-created marshmallow, that makes it work. I wouldn't change a thing. I don't even mind that they keep creating new shapes to include, but at some point in the future they are going to run out of cute things and someone in their design department, feeling desperate and having a very bad day, will suggest that they make a poop-shaped charm. I believe that that idea should be rejected. I don't think Lucky the Leprechaun can add "brown dookie" to his brag list of charms inside the box and sell cereal.

When I was but a mere child, I was careful to separate the marshmallows in my bowl of Lucky Charms, and save them for last. They would begin to melt in the milk, and a sugary scum formed across the top, but oh how proud I was of myself to have upwards of two dozen marshmallow charms remaining in my bowl, clinging to each other because of what I would later learn was surface tension in the milk. I thought they were friends, having fun in a white, sweet pool, or survivors of a boating accident, desperate to live, thinking they've been rescued by the great big spoon from the sky, only to realize they were being devoured by their God.

Now I just eat them out of the box.

Labels: standup, story

Yesterday, while working in the yard, I had an incident that demonstrates my own fault and folly with immaturity, and my relationship with my wife. She had done some pruning in one of her gardens, and loaded the refuse into a laundry basket. The laundry basket, overflowing with dead vegetation, was left at the side of the garage, presumably for someone other than herself to take it to our mulch pile in the backyard.

I could have been the person to do that, for I walked past that laundry basket everyday for a month making the exact route prescribed, from the garage to the backyard. It would have only taken a moment of thought to complete the transaction. But I have a fault in that I don't like cleaning up messes created by someone else. It's childish, I realize, but it's no sillier than other childish belief systems, such as the Unitarianism, Dewey Decimal, or Social Security.

I finally broke down yesterday and decided to take the laundry basket to the mulch pile. Of course, the laundry basket is a story in itself because it had fallen into disuse, I threw it away, and my wife retrieved it out of the trash. So I had plenty of resentment against this laundry basket before we even started.

On one of my many trips around the house while raking leaves, I bent over and grabbed the laundry basket. I noticed a foul, fetid odor. It reminded me of the mice nests whose stench I often find in our shed, so I held the basket away from me with some trepidation that a mouse (EEK!) might still be nested within. I felt something wet on my pants leg, and heard water pouring. At least I thought it was water, and in my mind imagined that basket sitting through rain storms and water gathering in the bottom. All that changed in an instant.

The foul, fetid stench gained strength. I looked at the water spilling from the basket in my hands, and noticed it was not clear like rain water, but tinged with yellow. The dogs had been urinating on the basket for weeks, and their pungent pee had been gathered there, and was now soaked into my pants and shoes.

When my anger subsided and the chore was done, I went inside the house. My daughter reeled at the smell. It turns out that massive amounts of dog urine is an effective family repellent.

Labels: mistake, standup, 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 went shopping the other night at Kroger's. Ostensibly, it was just for a few things: Bananas, Bagels, and Milk. The banana display stand was almost empty. Just a few scattered bunches, many spotted brown, and with three or four bananas in each bunch. They were picked over.

I once was at a training class (for OnBase, the document management solution, of all things) and sat next to a guy from Costa Rica who worked for Chiqita in Cincinnati, Ohio. He explained that Americans prefer buying nearly green bananas, and only like to eat them when they are a golden-yellow color, and unblemished to boot. We are picky and lousy customers. Europeans, being smarter(?) know that the brown spotted bananas are ripe and flavorful.

I happen to like the brown ones, a lot, but the rest of the family likes them ala American, golden-yellow. To serve them when they are that color, you pretty much have to buy them green yellow, and hope for the best.

An interesting thing happened, though, at that banana display. There was one other woman looking over the meager selection, and we began to compete for the bananas. She took a bunch with three green and one yellow, so I grabbed a bunch. She took another, so I did too. There were only a few bunches remaining—brown spotted, the way I like them—and she dared to take one of those. So I took two bunches of brown spotted. These bananas, by the way, were huge, like they were straight out of a South East Asian porno movie. Eventually she backed down, and left the display, but we had nearly picked it clean.

I think I broke my own record for most bananas, and I've been eating four huge ones a day ever since. If it's possible to overdose on banana-supplied potassium, I'm on my way.

Labels: mistake, story

I have placed a few of my movies on this site, under the stories section. This was done specifically for Dennis's benefit, but others may get a laugh.

Labels: administrative, story

Back once again is the short film I created two years ago with friends about a failed internet millionaire who is hoping to regain his glory, but his family and his housekeeper are not helping.

It's here on this site, under the stories menu. Soon, I hope to have all of my stories there, at which time I'll rearrange that part of the site.

All Others Pay Cash - Episode #1: Death By Chocolate

Labels: story

In Cleveland there are two main highways that lead into the city, and both of them stay high above the Cuyahoga River. That area, the Cuyahoga Valley just south of downtown, is an industrial wasteland where steel mills and chemical plants operate — not like they used to, of course, but they belch smoke into the sky, and burn off noxious fumes from their chimney stacks sending red, orange, and blue flames into the night. Riding on those highways, Interstates 71 and 77, is the closest thing Cleveland has to offer that compares to the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney World. In the span of five miles, you see the tops of buildings that once were the pinnacle of American industrial society, creating wealth for a few lucky ones, providing jobs for tens of thousands, and creating deadly pollution that damn near killed the entire region. Both my maternal and paternal grandfathers found work in those industrial mills, started families that thrived in Cleveland, and ultimately created me and my brothers.

I lived with my brother for eighteen months while I was going to graduate school at Cleveland State. He had a house in Parma, and I commuted from there to CSU, which was downtown. I took I-77 and never grew tired of the surreal view of the vestiges of Cleveland's glory. Being a city college, CSU only offered evening classes for graduate courses, and so I also had the advantage of commuting into town when most drivers were fighting to escape. My brother was also getting his law degree at CSU's Marshall College of Law, so he was there most evenings as well.

One day, my brother and I had reason to commute downtown together late in the afternoon. It was between four and five P.M., and traffic was heavy but not thick. We found ourselves pinned in behind a truck pulling a flatbed trailer, and on the trailer was a large industrial machine we couldn't quite identify. We were behind it for a couple of miles on I-77. Because traffic was slow, we had quite a few minutes to wonder what that machine might possibly be.

The machine was made mostly of stainless steel and absolutely filled the flatbed behind the truck. It had a large arm that hung over a massive round body. It was oddly familiar, but neither of us could quite place it.

That particular stretch of highway is rough and abused. The speed limits are not really necessary because the potholes and half-assed repairs keep only the most insane from going over 50. As we approached downtown, we noticed that the shaking from the bad road had caused the massive round body on the strange machine being transported ahead of us to spin on its axis.

As the Terminal Tower and BP Oil building came into view, we recognized what was before us: an industrial sized mixer, and the massive round body was its enormous mixing bowl. The spinning gave it away. Here was a machine capable of making enough dough to bake a loaf of bread the size of a Buick. Of course such things had to exist, for how else did ten thousand loaves of Wonder Bread appear on the shelves of A & P and Krogers each morning if some huge machine did not spit out ten thousand balls of dough? If you saw a leprechaun or a unicorn in the morning mist, you would believe; so it is with industrial sized mixers being dragged above the smelly wasteland of Cleveland: once you see it, you believe.

As we neared our exit, East 9th Street, the mixing bowl spun faster. It warbled and rocked, and before our disbelieving eyes, that mixing bowl spun off of its trailer just one hundred feet in front of our car. It bounced a good six feet off of the pavement, and bounced again still spinning.

My brother eased off of the accelerator, but because of the traffic we didn't dare slam on the brakes. For a brief moment I know we both thought that the stupid giant mixing bowl was going to bounce onto our car and crush us. It was a funny feeling that did not induce fear. We were going to die, but in such a bizarre way that it wouldn't seem like dying, but merely suffering the ultimate prank — the bucket propped on the door, filled with paint, but that also chops off your head, or the electric buzzer in your palm intended to shock you but which instead stops your heart — and so the story explaining what happened would obscure the fact that you were dead and never coming back to this world.

When it hit the pavement the second time, now less than fifty feet before our car, the spin of the bowl took it out of our lane. My brother hit the gas and we surged forward. The bowl bounced again in the next lane, and then slammed off of the cement barrier dividing the highway. We tore ahead and took the exit.

I did turn back and saw the huge mixing bowl bounce back across the highway, and somehow, as if guided by the practical joking hand of God, it missed all the other cars as well. We spun down the ramp, down to the level of the city, and began making our way past the abandoned storefronts, the condemned apartment buildings, and the empty warehouses, and we said a quiet prayer of thanksgiving. Then we began to laugh.

Labels: story

I spent the better part of a long weekend cleaning my basement last month. There were boxes stacked on top of boxes, partially spilled boxes on top of the spillage from other boxes, and the debris left over from some fun game my son played with his friends. That is just the beginning of the mess.

We have a specially constructed set of shelves for the boxes that hold the Christmas decorations, and those shelves were bare but surrounded by the partially packed boxes waiting to be stored on those shelves. We also have the rejected and forgotten furniture from the early part of our marriage shoved along the walls. Sofas, chairs, and dressers, once useful and necessary in our life, now waiting for some second chance that will never, ever come. As they wait, the cats have used them to sharpen claws, and to deposit the occasional hair ball. Coated with shed hair, they reek of mildew and bile.

Beneath the stairs, there is an impossibly packed collection of old toys, Easter decorations, craft supplies, Halloween decorations, more toys, and dress-up clothes. In the event of a tornado, that space will be the safest place in the house, and perhaps our only chance for survival, but there is no way in hell we'll be able to make room for all of us. Even if we could unpack it, there is no place to put those things, and we'd be forced to carry them back upstairs, back into the path of danger. We are doomed if a tornado strikes.

A basement is like a reflection of the dark recesses of your soul. In our case, it reveals our profound laziness, and how we lack the fortitude to dispose of the things in our life we no longer need. Rather than offer these things, many of them serviceable, to the poor or needy, we pack them away for some undefined future need. I suppose children's play clothes may come back in style, but no one who lives here will be able to fit into them.

If Oscar Wilde's "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" were made into a movie these days, it would be Dorian's basement in suburban America that revealed his flaws of character and sinful misgivings. Instead of the deep wrinkles, sunken eyes, and hateful expression on a portrait, it would be the cluttered, smelly, and filthy basement that Dorian would hide from public view.

My wife is horrified to know that I allowed our friends into our basement during its worst state of being. I was not deluded into thinking it was no big deal; I am a man, and sometimes clutter and filth mean little to a man, especially when it is shown to another man. Nevertheless, I was not impervious to the shame.

At its nadir, we had four cats and two dogs. The cats' litter box was in the basement, and the dogs, perhaps drawn by the various smells, were wont to sneak downstairs to relieve themselves. Two of the cats became intolerant of the others, backed themselves into a cluttered corner, and turned several of our boxes into litter trays. I became afraid that cholera or typhus might be lurking amongst the feces or urine that was starting to accumulate.

Over the span of three days, I spent over twenty hours cleaning the mess. Each day I worked myself into a sweat, and reached a point of despair not quite knowing what to do with certain things. I filled numerous trash bags, and rearranged vast swaths of basement territory.

The operation itself was not unlike solving a Chinese puzzle. I needed to clear a certain area in order to use it for swap space when, later on, I'd clear another. What made it possible, ultimately, was my wife's absence. She was gone for the long weekend visiting a sick friend, and I was able to spend long stretches below ground level, tearing through the vestiges of our former, happy life. Old pictures, old books, old magazines; what, exactly, possessed us to save so very much garbage?

When I was finished, there was still a great deal of unneeded things in the basement, but I had arranged them to create space and the illusion that we knew what we were doing. While I was working, I had secretly thought that I might stumble upon something — a toy, a hat, an old album — that would cheer me up and make me believe it was all worth the effort. I found no such thing.

I did discover that tidying up my life gives me a warmth and happiness inside, like I might just know what I'm doing with my future after all, if only I can clean up my past.

Labels: story

I started listening to National Public Radio when I was at the University in Ann Arbor, and I got a job in Detroit forcing a 40 mile commute, each way, everyday. I feasted on the substantial content to keep my mind occupied, and I appreciated the thoughtful turn of phrase offered. They seemed to care about their subjects, and committed a decent amount of time to stories.

The habit of listening to NPR has continued for more than twenty years. I've learned the cadence and humor of all the newscasters, and grown fond of all of them. It's just a bit like sitting in a room with people I like, so comfortable am I with the sound of their voices.

In the year 2000, they played a story in honor of the 60th anniversary of Bugs Bunny. I was tickled because, being a child at heart, I love Bugs Bunny cartoons (well, to be exact, I love those created by Robert McKimson during the 1950s). There was something I didn't quite like about their filmography of Bugs. And for the first time in my life, I was moved to take action.

If you have two minutes to spare, and a Real Media player installed, you can listen to the filmography here.

Then, if you have three more minutes, you can listen to my response to their story.

And that, ladies and gentleman, may be the closest I ever get to fame and fortune.

Labels: memoir, story

I'm usually a very upbeat person, but coming home was tough today. I had to clear a clogged drain--that was my mission for the evening. I came home to find the mailbox knocked from the post out on the curb. So in the freezing rain, I repaired that. No need to rush inside,

Once I did go inside, I discovered my son sick with a cold (nothing serious) but he is not a good patient. He suffers greatly any illness. He complained about feeling sick, having a sore throat, and that he needed a better pillow.

I scrounged for my dinner, finding scraps on the table and in the fridge. I believe it's good training for if, and when, I'm homeless. Our house is a little bit cluttered at the moment, so it also feels like I'm making my way through back alleys just to get through the kitchen.

The drain was nasty. It is my bathroom sink, and the normal plumber-in-a-bottle did nothing. I removed the J-trap but it was clean. I then pulled apart the drain pipe leading into the wall, and found the blockage. It was like Dom Deloise's artery, about 95% blocked. I believe it was shaving cream scum that had built up on the walls, and then took on a life of its own.

I then had to pick up my daughter from a lesson, and when she got home she became tearful over a slight that had happened to her during the day.

Now my son has thrown himself over our bed, and I'll probably sleep on a sofa to avoid the cold germs. It seems a bit uncaring on my part, but I don't really care if it is uncaring. Just one of those nights.

Labels: story

My family threw a party the day I graduated from high school. It's was just an open house. Our extended family was there, but what I really hoped for was to have a bunch of my friends from high school there. Not a lot of them showed up.

The trick is that there were probably fifteen other parties, and so everybody is going from place to place, and that was that.

We had a keg (this was back when you could get your friends drunk at these parties--now you can't) but no one to drink it. My extended family was more into booze than draft beer. So as the evening wound down and still no crowd, one of my older brothers suggested that we, the two of us, try to drain that keg before morning.

Our house was small, but behind the detached garage there was an enclosed patio. In summer we would sleep there often, and this was where the keg was placed. So we sat on either side of the keg and stared at the trees and shrubs out back as we drank.

In the middle of the night, my father came out to check on us. He pulled up a chair and joined us.

My father flew F-86 jets for the Air Force in the 1950s. So he had quite a few stories, and he told a couple of doozies that night. He was stationed in Europe, and was the wingman for a larger-than-life character that led him on great adventures in France and West Germany. (Those stories will have to wait for their own blog entry.) As the stories wound down, he got a bit reflective and philosophical, and gave us the following advice.

You'll probably get married someday, and when you do, you'll be faced with morale choices. You'll have to decide for yourself about staying faithful to your wife, and how you raise your family.

We didn't say anything after that. It was dark, almost pitch black, and we were still drinking and probably half-drunk. I thought there was maybe something else he wanted to say, but I didn't know how to probe that subject, or how to ask an appropriate follow-up question. So it just stayed exactly how it was: an enigmatic riddle with no answer. He said, "Good night boys," and then left us in the dark.

I was the youngest, and I had just graduated. In my egocentricity, I had thought that the day was all about me. But it dawns on me now, right this moment as I type, that perhaps he was reflecting on his own life, rather than helping us shape what we might become.

He had gotten his youngest son to manhood and, strictly speaking, he was no longer obligated to do a damn thing for us. That former jet pilot was beholden to no one at that moment. He had done what nature intended: he procreated three boys, got them to adulthood, and his part in the circle of life was over.

I don't know if he was elated and relieved, or full of dread and regret. I don't know if he wished he had done things differently. I don't know if he wanted to chuck it all and start a new life, or if this was everything he ever hoped for in life. I just don't know.

My brother and I kept drinking until dawn. We didn't talk about what Dad said. In fact, I don't remember anything we talked about that night except what Dad said. If my brother reminds me of something else, I'll add it here, but I just remember the dark, and the stupidity of drinking cold beer on a cold summer night just for the sake of drinking it. I assume we had some music playing (there was an eight-track tape player in the patio) but maybe not.

We faced west, and so the trees began to show light at the top as dawn crested behind us. We did not finish the keg, but we put a world of hurt on it. We left the patio, peed one last time on the shrubs, and made our way to the house.

And thus my adult life began.

Labels: memoir, story

We have a cat and two dogs. The cat is new, and was brought into the house as a kitten, and now it thinks it is a dog. At least, it hangs around with the dogs and is not bothered by their dog-ness. The cat still uses the litter box, so that's cool.

The dogs are trying to hump the cat lately. We think the cat has just matured enough to enter its first estrus cycle. What am I doing with an un-spayed cat, you ask? I ask that myself, as we paid $250 for the procedure to have the cat fixed.

Why did you spend $250 on a procedure that should cost, at most, $80? I asked my wife the same question. She couldn't answer, but here is her version of the events:

We paid $50 as a deposit on the cat's spaying. We were given a coupon for the service to be done at the Riverside Cat Hospital. My wife took the cat there expecting to pay no more than an additional $50 beyond the deposit. However, after the procedure, she was presented a bill for $289. They also requested we bring the cat back for follow-up procedures.

Why would your cat still have an estrus cycle after a costly procedure like that? I can only assume those dumb-ass veterinarians tied the cat's tubes, rather than remove the ovaries. Can you not just imagine the joy the vets feel, preserving the cat's hormonal balance while still preventing over-population. For a service like that, of course you charge far more than one would charge for a simple spaying.

What makes this so deliciously painful is that it's not even the first time something like this has happened to us in regards to cats. But that will have to wait for another blog post.

Labels: mistake, story

My wife and I went out to dinner on a Saturday night. It was back in November, but we had an unusually cold November this year. We were downtown, which has more of a nightlife these days. After dinner, we walked down the block to a nightclub for a drink.

As we neared the nightclub, a man yelled "Sandusky". I heard him distinctly, but I didn't think he was talking to us, but the word hit me because I spend a bit of time in or near Sandusky, Ohio. I assumed he was talking on a cell phone.

He yelled "Sandusky" again. He was just a few feet away, now.

"Are you talking to me?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "Do you know where Sandusky is?"

I pointed South. "That a-way."

"Have you ever been to Cedar Point? Do you know the artists there? I'll draw your picture, just like they do."

This stopped us momentarily, and he flapped paper in our face and showed us a pen. "I'll draw your picture, and then you can pay me whatever you think is fair."

I muttered something in my confusion, so he kept talking:

"I just got out of jail, and I don't have a place to stay, and I don't have any money. I need $24.50 to stay at the hotel by the highway, so I'm trying to draw pictures to raise cash. I don't have any family nearby that I can call."

My wife was all too eager to be drawn into this conversation. "Did you try the city mission?" she asked. "It's just down the road."

"They're full. They aren't taking any more tonight."

"So where are you going to stay?" she asked.

"I don't know," the guy said. "I'm going to keep moving. Everything will be closing soon, so I won't be able to get warm."

He was drawing us as he spoke. He had a blue, ballpoint pen, and some scrap paper. He made a rough, outline sketch of us. It was not masterful by any means, but it reminded me of us.

"So if you'd give me $20, I'd really appreciate it," he said. I took out my wallet. "$10 would be cool, too," he added. He was cold and shivering. While he drew the picture, his hand shook, and now his teeth chattered a bit as he spoke.

I offered him three dollars. He took it, but was visibly disappointed. He left quietly, without thanking us, but I don't blame him. I was disappointed too. I should have given more. It was not a great picture, but it was a reasonable likeness.

Labels: story

The problem with hookers is that they don't always look like hookers. They don't always dress like the over-the-top hussies you see on old episodes of Starsky and Hutch or Beretta. Unfortunately for me, television is the extent of my training about dealing with hookers. There really needs to be a life manual for these sorts of things.

The other day I had just parked my car on the street downtown when a woman approached me asking for help. She was older (fifty?), petite, and thin. She had blonde hair, big glasses, and was wearing a lavender jogging suit. She said her car had broken down about a mile away, and needed a ride. She didn't have any money so she couldn't take a cab.

She spoke with a near-spastic intensity that reminded me of one of my aunts, so I decided to help.

During the ride, she elaborated on her story. Her daughter had a problem at college, and she had driven there and given her daughter all of her money, and then broken down on the way home. She still had an hour of driving to complete, and had no friends in this city, but some friends from home had wired her money so that she could get her car fixed.

When we got to where she had said the car was broken down, she asked me to take her a little farther, into one of the neighborhoods near the highway, to a party store where she was expecting the money. I became suspicious: the car was not where she had said it would be.

She asked if she could have a couple of bucks, because she had driven that whole way from the college without money, and was thirsty, and really needed a coke. Just a couple of bucks was all she needed. She'd be really thankful, and she knew I was already doing plenty, and I didn't have to give her anything, but she really wanted a coke if I could spare a couple of bucks.

As we pulled into the party store parking lot, she looked at a man leaving the parking lot in a pickup truck, and he waved at her. She waved back. I saw recognition in the man's face. Not joy; just recognition.

Nothing of her story was playing out. The car wasn't where she said it was; she needed a ride to somewhere else, she knew someone in town, and if she was being wired money, why did she need two bucks from me?

I thought she's either the neighborhood whacko, a crack head, or a hooker. Somehow, hooker seemed right. It's one of those instinctual things.

I gave her the two bucks and bid her adieu.

Labels: story