So, I Was Supposed To Describe Home At Twelve (project eleven)

So, I Was Supposed To Describe Home At Twelve  (project eleven)

Hmm, describe "home at twelve," eh?  Just to make it interesting, let's assume the question was to describe "home at twelve" on Saturday night.  These days, I'm always.  When I was twenty-two, the night was just beginning--we'd arrived at Chicago's Near North Side and spent an hour in the bar we'd agreed on as start.  Home at twelve meant we really didn't go out, one or all of us had to work the next day.  At twenty-two, there were nights we went to more bars than I remember.  I know, I know.  We marvel at the fact that we survived the ride home.

At thirty-two, home at twelve (on a weekend) meant we had hosted the evening's card game, half-listening for
fussing from our babies, asleep in the next room.  Often a playpen was acting as a portable bed for a child brought along to the game.  Too young to leave with a babysitter, or perhaps one's sitter had started having a life and was busy that night.  Mostly, no sitter meant too long between paydays to add that expense to gas, card game stakes, BYOB's et al.

At forty-two, home at twelve meant the evening in, or perhaps dinner, then dessert at home.  We had friends, mostly related to kids' teams.  Both were young teenagers, and we kept them occupied with soccer teams, and sometimes just stayed home watching over them.  They were a couple of years away from the nights they waited until we were asleep at twelve to push the car out of the driveway, and pop the clutch when they were far enough away that the noise would not wake us up.

So, on to twelve at home at age fifty-two.  By then, with both kids away at college or finished, we were no longer keeping any late night vigils to determine when or if they were coming home.  Granted, these days there is a new sort of teenage period that consumes the twenties, emergent adulthood.  Psychologist Jeffrey Arnett, who coined the term, says the profile of the “emergent adult” includes “identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between and a sense of possibilities.”

But the difference is that in their twenties, these are young adults in every way, except they have not found their ultimate career, marriage partner, had children, purchased a home, etc.  These are the markers of true adulthood, and most of my generation had covered all of them by their 27th birthday, but that was then.....  As young adults they must be "allowed to take care of themselves."  And this was just a long way of answering the question.  "Home at twelve" by the time I was fifty-two, I was sound asleep.

Finally, to round out the picture with the most recent, "home at twelve" at age sixty-two, I was most likely wide awake, struggling with insomnia.

Happy One Day in Three (Project 10)

Happy One Day in Three (Project 10)

One of the anomalies of growing up as a child of a fireman was that every third day, Pop was not home for dinner.  You see, as a fireman, he was on 24, then off 48 hours.  This could mean that we actually had hamburgers for dinner.  My father didn't like hamburgers, so when he was at home, Mom would never make hamburgers.  She still had to serve ground beef, so it was either spaghetti with meat sauce, or meatballs with kidney beans.

Whenever she served meatballs, we could pretend the meatballs were hamburgers.  This usually meant we put a couple of meatballs between two slices of bread and added whatever condiments you enjoyed on a hamburger.  In those years, I only liked mustard on my burgers, so that's what I'd have.  But this little compromise was less than satisfying on two fronts.  A meatball was baked (after being browned?), I think, in any case they were dry, dry, dry.  That's just not the same as a greasy burger, accompanied by potatoes that were not baked or mashed (more on this later).  Further, since Mom prepared the meatballs with kidney beans, you were expected to eat some of them, a disagreeable requirement indeed.

I formed the habit of making ground beef into sandwiches so firmly, that I later began eating spaghetti sandwiches.  Yes, I'd put a mound of spaghetti and meat sauce between two slices of bread and eat it.  This might explain why, when I discovered the Atkins Diet (no carbs, just protein), it performed so well for me.  Once I got off the bread, pasta and sugar, the pounds just melted away.  I remember losing twenty-five pounds the first time I went on Atkins.  I eventually had to quit that diet because I would have no energy at all when I had been deprived of sugar and carbs for more than four weeks.    

But back to those happy nights when Pop was not home for dinner.  We could have hamburgers made with Worcestershire sauce added to keep them moist, and--best of all--they were fried in a pan.  This all took place before there was even a McDonald's in our town.  As I recall it, that McDonald's opened the summer between my 7th and 8th grease years.  So our only chance for hamburgers was when Pop's work day fell on something other than Friday, because Friday had to be meatless for all us Catholics in those years.

I'm sure it was nice for Mom, even when it fell on Friday.  She was known to just make us scrambled eggs for supper on some Fridays.  Had to be an easy meal for her to make, since all suppers with Pop had to include potatoes (baked or mashed) and one of a very short list of vegetables--the aforementioned kidney beans, lima beans, peas and green beans.  Pop did not like broccoli, cauliflower, squash, including zucchini, and others that had never even occurred to us in those days as well, I'm sure.  So we got broccoli and cauliflower at times with our burgers.

Ah, but there was a down side to all this.  Mom loved liver and onions, and Pop didn't.  Consequently, there were a number of those suppers without Pop where Mom got to serve her favorite dish--no matter what the kids thought of liver--she loved it.  

I almost saved this one for another time, but the fireman's schedule produced another classic expression that survived even beyond his retirement after thirty years in the Chicago Fire Department--that was "Pop had a fire last night."  This was offered as an explanation for the occasional times my father had a short fuse.  If it was on the day after his working day in the rotation, he might or might not have slept, depending on whether or not there were a lot of calls.  "Pop had a fire last night" covered any time you got a serious bawling out over a minor offense of some kind.

Another useful expression took on greater meaning for us.  "Wait 'til your Father gets home" could be a long, seemingly interminable wait for your punishment for some offense or other--meaning part of the pain was the extended wait until your punishment actually took place.  I shudder just thinking about it.

Ah well, most of the time, being extra happy one day in three was a darn good thing.  Beats some weeks I can remember after I had grown up.

I Was Watching (Project Nine)

I Was Watching (Project Nine)

Each step brought us closer, just under two feet closer, to be accurate.  He was headed for the pool, hurrying to join the rest already there.  They were sitting in the shade, thank God.  He dropped his keys, the book and towel, and looked at the group.  I could see that some had no plans to move, leaning back, yakking, looking comfortable already.  The two grands were in the water, talking to (or over) each other as they bobbed on the top.  As he kicked off his sandals, I breathed a silent prayer of thanks.

He headed for the water, stepping down, holding the rail tentatively.  He's not as confident about steps  these days, it's just a given.  But quickly into the cool of the pool he plunged.  We all needed it as much as he did, I didn't need to take a poll.  The grands turned and grinned, paddling to keep their heads atop the water, with middling success.

I couldn't tell how well they were doing, since he was standing in the pool, sagging to get his shoulders into the water's cooling influence.  But he was happy, that I knew at once (and so was I).  He turned to see those sitting in the shade, teasing them about staying out and keeping dry.  They ignored him, so he stopped and eased back into the cooling water.  He didn't need them to know what he enjoyed.  But like most things these days, he found it pleased him only for a minute or two.

Soon, he had decided to step up and out, letting the water run off his chest and stomach, and down his calves, dripping from his trunks as well.   A shout made him turn, too quickly; scraping his toe, nearly tripping, too.  The youngest grand had swallowed when he should have breathed and was panicked.  He half-jumped, and didn't land, dipping below the water's surface for a moment.  He kept moving in their direction, his own panic starting up as well.  He grabbed, caught an arm and pulled, stomping his foot hard, banging the front knuckle, scraping the top as well....  Soon, neither were panicked, one was choking; soon both did.  One with some kind of physical relief--breathing air, the other relieved in his head, but just as surely feeling the relief.  All except for me, the toe, bleeding now, scraped, stubbed, and throbbing.  

The Practice Range (day 8 project)

He slung the bag over his shoulder and trudged

up the walk made of crushed white pebbles and stones.

The bag wasn't comfortable, he shook it--it didn't budge,

the clubs clacked along with each step, like clattering bones.

Over the rise, a line of stands rested atop green grass

soon to be scraped away, with each swing that passed.

He listened to the murmur of voices subdued, delayed

and overwhelmed by the thwack each solid contact made.

His friend had bright red hair, tucked for now

under a baseball cap, just above a scowl.

He took a swing and showed a satisfied smile

as the white ball traveled a country mile..

"Hi Bob," he said as he set the bag down, "what's new?"

Bob looked up, beaming, "I got new clubs, what about you?"

"Really? New clubs?" he asked.  "Oh, me, nothin' that exciting.

"Looking for a better stroke, hopin' the 'no-see-ums' aren't biting."

"Way too, windy for 'no-see-ums' today my friend,

we can hang in here until the bitter end."

And so we did, I found my better stroke, if only for a minute or two,

and Bob enjoyed swinging his clubs while they were still brand new.

Scrambled, Poached or Fried?

They only had time for a brief chat.  They met almost accidentally, but knew at once they would connect if they looked at each other.  He spoke first.  Shaking his feathers as he bent to snatch a piece of grass where it sprouted.  “I got here first,“ he said. 

“What?  Oh, you mean the food,” she said.  “Thanks, but I have all I need sealed up inside for the time being.  But you are wrong.” 

“About what?” he squawked, flapping his useless wings as he moved quickly, pinching another morsel off the ground.  “Free-range, indeed!” He grumbled, “This is work.”  Back in the conversation, he repeated, “What was I wrong about?”

“About being here first, you dumb cluck,” she replied.  “You can have all the grass and seeds and other stuff you want.  Like I said, I don’t need anything just now, ‘cause I’m self-contained.  But I was here first, and you can’t change that.” 

“You don’t look so tough,” he said.  “One little poke from my beak, and you’re cracked wide open,” he muttered.

“Just like the animal you are,” she retorted.  “When you have no argument, you resort to threats.  You see there is still an argument in favor of selective de-beaking.  Get away from me.”

“You!  You’re not even an animal,” he replied. “You can’t even move around on your own.  You just lay there.  No way you could be here first.”

“Don’t forget,” she said to him, “every one of your kind was once just like me.”  She went on, “before you were you, you were one of me.”

“And where did you come from?” he asked, squinting up into the early morning sun.  There wouldn’t be any of you without a hen (and a rooster like me he thought but decided not to add). 

"Do you think it was just magic that you showed up?  Some day, when you grow up, your mother will tell you about the birds and the bees.”  (Some things an egg is not ready to understand, he thought.  Better ‘the birds and the bees’ than the hens and the cocks, eh?).

The egg replied, “What makes you think I don’t know about the hens and the cocks?  We’re born knowing that, it’s called instinct.”   The egg went on, probably a bit too far, saying “It’s like knowing you need to eat grass along with those awful bugs you eat, you foolish old rooster; it’s knowing you need what only the sun was meant to give, too.” 

“Little egg,” cried the rooster, “Do you know what it means when people call us ‘omnivores?’  We’ll eat anything—I might just be ready to try my first egg for breakfast!” 

A True Character

Durk and I attended the ssme grammar school and high school--yes, they did still call idt "grammar School" and we were taught grammar.   Our shared history included having older brothers in the same year of school (five years ahead of us).  This meant we both inherited nicknames, prefaced with the word "Little."  "Little Durk" became "Durk," and, no, I'm not telling you mine.  We went to separate colleges, many miles away from home, and so, saw a good deal less of each other after turning eighteen.  After college, I wound up home and looking for a job at about the same time Durk was.  He was taller than me, by an inch or so, and had put on a few pounds in college, just as I did.  When we made contact again, and started hanging around with the same old gang (not in the gangsta sense, mind you), Durk resumed a habit he had begun in our late high school and early college years.  Durk was a talented mimic, and could reproduce the tone, pace and content of Chicago's favorite horse racing announcer, Phil Georgeff.  Durk, when allowed a sufficient supply of beer, would always offer a racing call some time during any gathering of more than four of us.  He would give us each a horse, and using a made up nickname, would say, "Make the jockey _______.  Each of his friends was given a mount, and the race was on.  As any trained professional would, Durk would state each horse's name and position off the lead at the various poles in the race, then call the top five or so down the stretch.  We were never certain how he decided who would be the winner in his mind's eye, but it was always a great privilege to be named the winner, with significant returns for bets made to win, place and show.  

As the years passed, we landed career jobs.  Some married, and some moved away.  I married, and wound up in St. Louis for a time, and Durk began selling custom-made golf clubs for his uncle.  He never managed to gain any traction in that field, the big names took over and small custom made brands were soon a thing of the past.  Durk decided to follow his dream and enter the horse racing world, getting his start tracking statistics on each race for The Racing Form, at a couple of smallish tracks near St. Louis, Fairmont and Cahokia Downs.  Guys like Durk worked at each track in the country, dutifully noting the every horse's position from post to post, and giving the winner's time.  This became the data on which the knowledgeable bettor based his wagers at each day's races.  Lesser bettors relied on "tip sheets" which offered up recommended bets and long shots, based on an "insider's" knowledge of the horses, jockeys, trainers and owners.  I think working for The Racing Form was pretty much a minimum wage job, but it gained Durk access to the inner workings of the horse racing world and you could tell he was enjoying himself.  Anyway, Durk quickly mastered the data recording and began using a cassette player to record his "call" of each race as a sort of audition tape he could send off to prospective employers in need of a track announcer. 

I think his first gigs were at state and county fairs across the Midwest, but the first "real" track announcer's job involved returning to those St. Louis tracks.  Thus, it became a habit for Durk to come to our house on his Sundays off, and spend the day with us.  We tried our hand at tennis, and did what friends do, we hung out.  On days after Durk had placed a winning bet, he would arrive with a new racket and tennis shorts and shirt.  Win or lose, he also brought along a bottle of bourbon, his favorite drink.  While we helped him drink it, My wife and I had to work the next day, and probably dodn't do our share.  Durk would tell us track stories, and we would go to the track when time allowed and Durk would invite us to watch the race from the announcer's booth (when he was working for The Form, it was the roof outside the announcer's booth).  Pretty quickly Durk learned that neither bourbon nor betting were good for his track voice, so he gave them up. 
 

We had a family, and our trips back to Chicago became less frequent, and usually fully occupied by visiting with family.  In any event, we lost touch.  Durk's career skyrocketed, almost in storybook fashion, after twenty years or so, working at larger and more prestigious tracks across the country, Durk became the voice of the Breeder's Cup races, covered heavily in the news and on television.  The pinnacle was the time (nearly a decade) during which he had a TV contract to call each of the Triple Crown races for TV viewers.  Each time the Triple Crown rolled around, we would proudly remember him as my childhood friend and our frequent guest in that first year or two of struggling to get his start.
  

Last year (or was it two years ago?)) he ended his contract with the TV network, and limited his race calling to the New York Horse Racing Association, which races at two tracks in New York, Belmont and Saratoga Springs.  On the day of the Belmont Stakes, Durk announced he would be retiring at the end of this season in August after forty-some years in the business.  I have sent Tom a note, asking if we might join him for a day's racing in his final season as we did in his very first.  I am waiting for his reply.

Rebound (A story in 100 words, exactly)

Why did I pick it up?

Its flap was torn, the message stuffed back in.

I didn't know the addressee, until now.

It says he doesn't believe or even care.

How did getting this reply feel?

I could find her and learn nothing, or

more than I want to.

The letter's two years old.

Did a child arrive, or did this 

letter prevent a life somehow?

I could look and see.

Does she notice the letter's missing?

It tells me the sender never became a father, really.

Still, I hope the child arrived.

I sent it back to her. Rebound.

The Miracles Keep On Coming

The Miracles Keep On Coming

Regard all that you see as a miracle and you won't be far wrong.  I take everything for granted some days, but now and then a moment like this arrives and I'm charmed into seeing things afresh.  I look out my window, a thousand miles from where I was born and wonder at it all.  I spent the first half of this day helping our daughter, whose only failing seems to be being unable to be in two places at once.  On those rare occasions we back her up.  I look at what she does and wonder how she grew up from the tiny girl we met thirty-some years ago (another miracle we took for granted just a little when she came along).

I spoke to my son after texting him a series of messages about a transaction he sought my advice on while he is trying to do it for the first time.  Unbelievably, he is taking my advice.  An exchange like the one we have had in the past fourteen hours would have taken weeks when I was born.  Today, we did it in mere hours, and we both slept eight of those.

He works aboard ships that carry thousands of "containers" packed with goods from around the world.  When I was in high school, container shipping had not yet been conceived and begun.  Now, he and his co-workers routinely move hundreds of containers on and off ships from all over the world, in a port that once welcomed ships loaded with rocks and loaded them with bales of cotton, in quantities that his crews handle in a week.  How did he come to be here?

I sit at a desk and write my thoughts on a small machine that will shortly allow my words to reach around the world in a minute or so.  Yes, the statistics portion of this little blog tells me that people in Australia, Europe, Russia, Asia and South America have from time to time visited  these pages.  Heaven only knows why....

In an hour or two, we will sit down to eat fish caught in Alaska and shipped to us here, less than five days out of their habitat (if you believe the accounts of sellers of said fish).  More likely our wild caught Alaskan salmon will have been frozen at sea, sometimes within minutes of being caught, and kept so until it was thawed for sale as "fresh" here a few thousand miles away.  Regardless, this frozen-at-sea fish is as good as if not better than the actual fresh that arrives thawed, but five days out of the sea.  Now, in my lifetime, this salmon is available for us to enjoy year-round.  All there was when I was a kid was canned salmon, which was nothing short of awful.   I don't want to sound like a spokesperson for the food industry, but what we will have for dinner tonight is a marvel.

I realize I have chosen the miracles I describe here in a most haphazard way, but here are the ones that got me thinking on this subject when I sat down to write.

When I trudge up the stairs tonight, I'll pour out the four different meds I take each night to make my life better through the miracle of sleep.  With my medical condition, I would have little or no sleep at night and the three meds I take each morning when I roll out of bed would not prevent me from having a miserable day, if for no other reason than that sleepless night.  Yet, these medicines, which neither cure nor slow the growth of the condition that challenges my nervous system, allow me to take Yoga on Monday, Pilates on Wednesday, Tai Chi on Friday, play golf on one of the days in between and walk the beach or ride my bicycle on most days.  That's a miracle, a boat load of miracles.  On days like today, I remember to be grateful, a totally inadequate gesture in the face of all these miracles.

What Are the Three Most Important Songs In My Life?

What Are the Three Most Important Songs In My Life?

Today's prompt is to name the three most important songs in my life.  There must be a Beatles song in there somewhere and a Harry Chapin, then it's a free for all.  The Beatles made a ton of songs, some will say Sgt. Pepper was their best; others, The White Album.  My favorite is Rubber Soul.  But it's all about the sound, not the lyrics.  So how can it be one of the most important songs in my life?  I think I made a wrong turn somewhere, this challenge begins to feel a bit more daunting.  

Harry Chapin, with his storytelling style makes it a bit easier.  Although there are many great stories among his albums, I'll stick with "Taxi," a story about being true to what you wish for and not so true.  Harry, speaking in the first person, remarks that he and the old girlfriend he encounters while driving his taxi late one night have something in common.  In some ways, neither has achieved the dreams they had that caused them to drift apart.  He's a taxi driver, drifting through life, and she's a wealthy wife of some older man, seeming not to be very happy in her life.  But in a way, they'd both gotten what they asked for.  "She was gonna be an actress and I was gonna learn to fly."  Here she's acting happy, behind her lonesome walls, and Harry, he's flying in his taxi, taking tips and getting stoned.  I have always  loved the song and the lesson it offers about what dreams can become if you lose track.  Sticking to making your dreams a reality is the right path.  

Next up for me is Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On."  In a capsule, paraphrasing--Mothers there are far too many of you crying.  Brothers, there are far too many of you dying.  War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate.  We've got to find a way to bring some love and understanding here today.  Picket signs on picket lines are punished with brutality, what's goin' on?  Who are you to judge me just because my hair's too long.  Yes, only love can conquer hate, ask Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.  Ask Mahatma Ghandi.  All of these made an impact by answering hate with love and understanding.  Hard to argue that or to hear the message given more soulfully and delightfully than the way old Marvin did.

The third song will have to wait.  I'm done here for now. 

That Old Place

That Old Place

As I look back, I did a lot with That Old Place.  It remains the oldest house we ever lived in (circa 1930 I believe).  It was a solid brick building with a rectangular dormer in front.  It had two concrete steps and a small cement porch that was only halfway covered by the second story.  Inside, the walls were made of real masonry stuck, painted a sort of creme color, with most of the woodwork painted in white enamel.  The ceilings were also stucco between exposed timbers spaced evenly across the length of each room.  The single exception on the first floor was the small kitchen, which was adjoined by a booth-like eating table.  It had a full dining room and a screen porch as well, so this odd kitchen seating arrangement didn't matter much.  My mother loved the place because of the dining room, my wife claimed that was because she was dying to get rid of the old dining room furniture she had as a hand-me-down in her own townhouse.  

We later discovered the previous owners had removed a half bath and installed the booth in its place.  Having one two children under the age of four, we quickly reconverted it to that needed half bath.  The full bath at the top of the stairs was tiled in its entirety, walls, ceiling, tub enclosure--all of it--in pink ceramic tile.  We never had the courage to tackle changing it.  

I learned the craft of wallpapering there.  I wallpapered all three bedrooms (one of them twice).  I really only learned the most important part of wallpapering--choose only vertical patterns or you'll never finish.  But I digress, the stories of my remodeling adventures, which haunt me still, are for another day.  This is just a description of the house.  The roof was newly replaced, and the exterior, made of old-timey red--almost porous--brick, had been tuck pointed with a dark gray mortar leaving no indentations between the bricks.  i'll mention only two more things that will fill you with foreboding about my tales of do-it-yourselfing.  The yard had no fence and the basement was unfinished.  It had a ribbon driveway--two separate eighteen-inch wide strip of cement, separated by two feet or so of grass (or mud, depending upon the time of year.  We moved in during the snowiest winter in a half-century, so it was March before we learned our driveway was not cement all the way across.  It was buried in ice and snow a foot thick for the first three months we lived there.  

A second discovery made later that Spring was that the house was nearly encircled by aa half dozen varieties of perennial chrysanthemums.  That more than made up for the driveway issue.  We loved that place and the people we met there more than any other in our lives thus far.