You know when it hit me? When sports announcers started describing athletes who were my age as "old men" or "crusty veterans."
That's when I realized I wasn't 25 years old anymore and never would be again.
When you're growing up, most of the people you meet are older than you. That's all you know, and therefore it becomes your default world view: "I'm a young person."
There is no definite, defined time when you cross over from "young" to "middle aged" (or, in my kids' view, just plain "old"). You can't definitely say it happens at your 30th birthday or your 35th or your 50th or whatever. It just happens gradually and at different rates for everyone.
But at some point, you inevitably become not-so-young-anymore. And that's when you start to realize that many of the people in positions of authority seem to be 12 years old. Like policemen, for example. There apparently was a worldwide effort to install adolescents as police officers and no one bothered to tell me about it.
I look at the cops driving around my city and I want to say, "That's awfully nice they let you take the big police car out, Johnny, but you better get back and do your homework."
Same thing with doctors. I was under the impression that it took a certain minimum number of years of training to become a physician. Then I underwent a very male-oriented birth control procedure and my urologist looked like he was in grade school. Seriously, I couldn't figure out why they had assigned a sixth-grade intern to perform what I considered to be a very delicate procedure.
(For the record, Dr. Schneider was very good at his job. But that doesn't change the fact that once he finished with me, he probably went home to watch reruns of the "Power Rangers.")
It's the athlete thing that really blew me away, though. I've been a sports fan my entire life, and when I was a kid, professional athletes seemed impossibly old and mature. Then I turned 18 and noticed that most of them weren't much older than me. Then I turned 30 and realized that, if I had had the talent to become, say, a professional baseball player, reporters would probably be describing me as "on the downside" of my career.
Then I hit 40 and couldn't help but observe that there aren't a lot of 40-year-old professional athletes. And the ones who are still around are able to maintain their jobs mostly thanks to very favorable genes that make them appear to be 25.
Now many of the coaches are younger than I am. My last refuge is that the owners and front-office people are generally my age or older, so I at least have those guys to make fun of and call old fogeys.
Of course, athletes work on a very compressed timeline in which today's 24-year-old phenom is tomorrow's 31-year-old veteran journeyman. The life cycle of an athlete is relatively short, and I suppose the goal is to make as much money as you can by the time you're 35 so you can figure out what to do with the next 50-plus years of your life.
Another interesting thing I've noticed is that certain ages no longer seem old to me. When I was 12, if you would have told me that a 60-year-old had just died, I would have thought, "Well, YEAH, of course he did. He was 60, for crying out loud!" Now I hear about 60-year-olds passing away and I think, "That's terrible! He was so young."
I've not quite reached the point where I regularly read the obituaries (the "Irish sports page," as I've heard them called), but I admit that I will sneak a glance now and then. Usually it's just to see if I recognize someone's parents or grandparents. It won't be too many decades before I'll be adding "classmates" and "contemporaries" to my search list.
Having a daughter going to college and a niece giving birth in the same year doesn't help, nor does the white hair that rings my head (though my standards have shifted such that just keeping my hair, whatever color it wants to be, is the main goal).
The funny thing is, 10 years from now I'll be saying how great it would be to be 42 again. After a certain point, unless you're unusually well adjusted, you're never quite satisfied with your current age. So you complain. It's what we do, especially in this youth-crazed society.
Seriously, though, a urologist shouldn't look like he just came back from a school field trip. I'm just saying.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Family Movie Night: Popcorn and trauma
Once every month or two, we try to have a Family Movie Night. Years ago when the kids were younger, this was a relatively easy thing to pull off. Now? Not so much.
You would think that getting the family together to watch a movie would be a relatively easy process. And it should be. But there are two main obstacles to making it happen:
(1) SCHEDULES: Living in our house are seven people ranging in age from 6 to 43, each of whom needs a social secretary. I cannot begin to keep track of the kids and where they are at any given time, nor can Terry, which is scary. If she gets confused by it, there's no hope for me. I'll come home from work on a Friday evening and will ask, for example, where Chloe is. And it's not uncommon for my wife to respond with something like this: "I don't know. She's either at Miranda's, at Rachel's, at Chris Dorazio's, at track practice, at soccer practice, at play practice, at the movies, at the mall, at her piano lesson, at the zoo, at the park, or in Venezuela." All of these things are equally probable, and I'm sure that Chloe told Terry where she was going before she left the house, but poor Terry can only retain so much information. Sometimes the whereabouts of her 15-year-old daughter get pushed out of her brain.
(2) MOVIE SELECTION: Even if we manage to corral everyone into our living room for a two-hour block of time, we're still faced with the dilemma of finding a movie that will appeal to kids ages 6, 11, 13, 15, and 18, as well as their 40-something parents and whatever combination of boyfriends and/or schoolmates happen to be visiting at the time. Inevitably, a few of us end up compromising our individual tastes for the good of the group. But only after 45 minutes of intense negotiation rivaled solely by Middle East peace talks for passionate opinion and violent argument.
Eventually we settle on something, pop it into the Blu-Ray player and sit down for an enjoyable night together.
HAHAHAHAHA! You know I'm kidding. This never actually happens, or at least it doesn't happen quite that easily. Once we get everyone into the house and the movie selected, there's still the process of preparing refreshments. Forty-seven bags of microwave popcorn must be popped. Drinks must be poured into cups with lids so that they won't spill onto our sectional couch (the one nice thing we own) or onto the floor, which would actually be OK because they would blend in well with the Kool-Aid stains that have been there since a Family Movie Night from 2004.
Even more troublesome is that while the food and drink are being prepared, some of the denizens of the house take this as a sign that it's OK to start wandering away and/or engaging in various other activities. When we all finally take our places and prepare to press "play" on the remote, we do a quick count and realize that someone isn't there. Annoyed, everyone starts screaming for that person to GET IN HERE NOW, rather than actually getting up and finding them. When the person does return to the living room, they are met with icy stares. I'm telling you, this is a tough group.
And speaking of people taking their places, this is another crucial element of the Family Movie Night experience. The sectional couch is big, but it's not going to hold everyone if we have visitors. Someone is going to have to sit on the floor, and no one really wants to. So the arguments begin over who's going to sit where, and why he keeps hogging the blanket, and how come she always gets the part of the couch that reclines, and I finally lose it and tell everyone to just SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!! SIT DOWN AND WATCH THE MOVIE! QUIT YOUR ARGUING! WE'RE HERE TO HAVE A FUN MOVIE NIGHT AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO HAVE FUN OR I SWEAR I WILL BREAK YOUR NECKS! SO SHUT UP!
Capital letters don't do justice to my fury at these moments. Daddy doesn't lose it very often, but when he does, an uneasy peace will usually settle over the room. Those left without spots on the couch resign themselves to two hours on the floor. The others munch their popcorn silently. The movie begins. And 10 minutes later, we forget there was ever any yelling and screaming, because we're all finally having fun as intended.
Except for when someone talks during the movie and the others respond with a forceful "SHHHHHH!" Those moments can be a little awkward. But again, hurt feelings heal within minutes and then we're back to enjoying ourselves.
Or at least I am. That's because I'm smart enough to stake an early claim to the nice reclining chair. No way I'm sitting for two hours on that floor.
You would think that getting the family together to watch a movie would be a relatively easy process. And it should be. But there are two main obstacles to making it happen:
(1) SCHEDULES: Living in our house are seven people ranging in age from 6 to 43, each of whom needs a social secretary. I cannot begin to keep track of the kids and where they are at any given time, nor can Terry, which is scary. If she gets confused by it, there's no hope for me. I'll come home from work on a Friday evening and will ask, for example, where Chloe is. And it's not uncommon for my wife to respond with something like this: "I don't know. She's either at Miranda's, at Rachel's, at Chris Dorazio's, at track practice, at soccer practice, at play practice, at the movies, at the mall, at her piano lesson, at the zoo, at the park, or in Venezuela." All of these things are equally probable, and I'm sure that Chloe told Terry where she was going before she left the house, but poor Terry can only retain so much information. Sometimes the whereabouts of her 15-year-old daughter get pushed out of her brain.
(2) MOVIE SELECTION: Even if we manage to corral everyone into our living room for a two-hour block of time, we're still faced with the dilemma of finding a movie that will appeal to kids ages 6, 11, 13, 15, and 18, as well as their 40-something parents and whatever combination of boyfriends and/or schoolmates happen to be visiting at the time. Inevitably, a few of us end up compromising our individual tastes for the good of the group. But only after 45 minutes of intense negotiation rivaled solely by Middle East peace talks for passionate opinion and violent argument.
Eventually we settle on something, pop it into the Blu-Ray player and sit down for an enjoyable night together.
HAHAHAHAHA! You know I'm kidding. This never actually happens, or at least it doesn't happen quite that easily. Once we get everyone into the house and the movie selected, there's still the process of preparing refreshments. Forty-seven bags of microwave popcorn must be popped. Drinks must be poured into cups with lids so that they won't spill onto our sectional couch (the one nice thing we own) or onto the floor, which would actually be OK because they would blend in well with the Kool-Aid stains that have been there since a Family Movie Night from 2004.
Even more troublesome is that while the food and drink are being prepared, some of the denizens of the house take this as a sign that it's OK to start wandering away and/or engaging in various other activities. When we all finally take our places and prepare to press "play" on the remote, we do a quick count and realize that someone isn't there. Annoyed, everyone starts screaming for that person to GET IN HERE NOW, rather than actually getting up and finding them. When the person does return to the living room, they are met with icy stares. I'm telling you, this is a tough group.
And speaking of people taking their places, this is another crucial element of the Family Movie Night experience. The sectional couch is big, but it's not going to hold everyone if we have visitors. Someone is going to have to sit on the floor, and no one really wants to. So the arguments begin over who's going to sit where, and why he keeps hogging the blanket, and how come she always gets the part of the couch that reclines, and I finally lose it and tell everyone to just SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!! SIT DOWN AND WATCH THE MOVIE! QUIT YOUR ARGUING! WE'RE HERE TO HAVE A FUN MOVIE NIGHT AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO HAVE FUN OR I SWEAR I WILL BREAK YOUR NECKS! SO SHUT UP!
Capital letters don't do justice to my fury at these moments. Daddy doesn't lose it very often, but when he does, an uneasy peace will usually settle over the room. Those left without spots on the couch resign themselves to two hours on the floor. The others munch their popcorn silently. The movie begins. And 10 minutes later, we forget there was ever any yelling and screaming, because we're all finally having fun as intended.
Except for when someone talks during the movie and the others respond with a forceful "SHHHHHH!" Those moments can be a little awkward. But again, hurt feelings heal within minutes and then we're back to enjoying ourselves.
Or at least I am. That's because I'm smart enough to stake an early claim to the nice reclining chair. No way I'm sitting for two hours on that floor.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Introducing Mom and Dad: Family CEOs
Whenever my wife and I go out to dinner (approximately once every 17 years), we do that thing parents often do where we wolf down our food and are finished with our meals in well under a half hour.
We do this, of course, because we are conditioned to do it. When you have kids, particularly little ones, eating is a process of sneaking bites of food in between tending to the needs of your offspring. At any given moment, you're likely to be cutting up someone's chicken, sopping up spilled milk from the table, or carefully removing the fork your two-year-old has cheerfully plunged into your neck.
So you quickly get into the habit of speed eating. There's no real enjoyment in it, just a race against the clock to stuff nutrients down your gullet before the next kid-related crisis pops up. And then suddenly the two of you are alone and you realize you're doing it even then. You laugh and remind each other that you should slow down and enjoy the experience, which you do for about 45 seconds before forgetting yourself and resuming the process of rapidly stuffing your face.
The same is true of our conversations. We occasionally go out to Starbucks to grab some coffee and just sit and talk, and it's always a lot of fun. It also always ends up centering on the kids. No matter what we do, no matter what stimulating topic we may start out on, the little tax deductions are eventually the subject at hand.
This is because you, as a parent, are essentially the CEO of a small company. You have been charged with overseeing an organization whose sole task is to produce independent, self-sustaining, functional human beings with the potential and even desire to contribute meaningfully to society. This is your mission and vision. It is your primary role in life and it can be difficult to push it to the back of your mind for even a few minutes.
So no matter what, when you and your co-executive get together, there is always some piece of company strategy or bit of operational concern that bears discussion. And that's what you inevitably focus on because it's your job.
If I were addressing the shareholders of Tennant Enterprises in a "state of the company" speech, I think I would tell them something like this:
"Welcome to all of you! Your investment in our little firm is greatly appreciated, and today I want to update you on our progress.
"As you know, Tennant Enterprises, run by myself and my co-CEO and Chief of Domestic Operations, Terry, continues to be organized into five operational arms. Each of these corporate divisions is thriving, I am happy to report, but not without some bumps along the way.
"Our most well-established division, Elissa, turned 18 years old over the weekend, a cause for great celebration. She has enjoyed a long run of high productivity and has returned generous dividends to each of you, our stockholders. But as you know, she is just months away from entering College Mode, a notorious profit-sucker. Be prepared for a long period of depressing balance sheets and negative growth, at the end of which we anticipate that this division will be ready to be spun off on its own.
"The Chloe Department continues to be one of the most intriguing concerns in the corporate world. Volatile and often unpredictable, it can be difficult to manage effectively. But in the end, it always returns value. Our investment here has paid off handsomely and the years ahead are bright. This division has entered into a pseudo-merger with Dorazio Corp., an Asian athletic equipment manufacturer.
"Humming along quietly in the background is our Jared affiliate. Huge growth here and quite unexpected in that no other arm of the company has quite the length and breadth of this division. We're not sure where this comes from, though we have repeatedly asked the Chief of Domestic Operations to conduct a sort of corporate DNA test, which she refuses to do. We're getting very suspicious. In any case, the outlook is bright, assuming this division eventually emerges from its 13-year-old boy fog of confusion.
"The Melanie Sector is in many ways still searching for its identity, but it excels in virtually every industry in which it dabbles. It can be easy to get lost in the confusion when you're the fourth of five divisions in a large corporation, but this area does a nice job of staking its own claims. We would be quite pleased if the employees would remember to turn out the lights in their room every once in awhile, but all in all, top marks.
"And finally we have our Jack detachment. Incredible return on investment here so far in terms of development and knowledge acquisition, to the point that we are concerned as to whether this division's potential can be channeled for good rather than for a hostile takeover of the world. For now, there is little chance for real harm while the employees are engaged in obtaining kindergarten core competencies, but we would suggest watching this one closely in the years to come.
"So again, we say thank you for the faith and trust you have placed in our company. The ultimate goal is for these five subdivisions to eventually become freestanding corporations, at which point we can all cash out and move to Florida. But something tells us we have a long way to go before that happens. Good luck and good night."
We do this, of course, because we are conditioned to do it. When you have kids, particularly little ones, eating is a process of sneaking bites of food in between tending to the needs of your offspring. At any given moment, you're likely to be cutting up someone's chicken, sopping up spilled milk from the table, or carefully removing the fork your two-year-old has cheerfully plunged into your neck.
So you quickly get into the habit of speed eating. There's no real enjoyment in it, just a race against the clock to stuff nutrients down your gullet before the next kid-related crisis pops up. And then suddenly the two of you are alone and you realize you're doing it even then. You laugh and remind each other that you should slow down and enjoy the experience, which you do for about 45 seconds before forgetting yourself and resuming the process of rapidly stuffing your face.
The same is true of our conversations. We occasionally go out to Starbucks to grab some coffee and just sit and talk, and it's always a lot of fun. It also always ends up centering on the kids. No matter what we do, no matter what stimulating topic we may start out on, the little tax deductions are eventually the subject at hand.
This is because you, as a parent, are essentially the CEO of a small company. You have been charged with overseeing an organization whose sole task is to produce independent, self-sustaining, functional human beings with the potential and even desire to contribute meaningfully to society. This is your mission and vision. It is your primary role in life and it can be difficult to push it to the back of your mind for even a few minutes.
So no matter what, when you and your co-executive get together, there is always some piece of company strategy or bit of operational concern that bears discussion. And that's what you inevitably focus on because it's your job.
If I were addressing the shareholders of Tennant Enterprises in a "state of the company" speech, I think I would tell them something like this:
"Welcome to all of you! Your investment in our little firm is greatly appreciated, and today I want to update you on our progress.
"As you know, Tennant Enterprises, run by myself and my co-CEO and Chief of Domestic Operations, Terry, continues to be organized into five operational arms. Each of these corporate divisions is thriving, I am happy to report, but not without some bumps along the way.
"Our most well-established division, Elissa, turned 18 years old over the weekend, a cause for great celebration. She has enjoyed a long run of high productivity and has returned generous dividends to each of you, our stockholders. But as you know, she is just months away from entering College Mode, a notorious profit-sucker. Be prepared for a long period of depressing balance sheets and negative growth, at the end of which we anticipate that this division will be ready to be spun off on its own.
"The Chloe Department continues to be one of the most intriguing concerns in the corporate world. Volatile and often unpredictable, it can be difficult to manage effectively. But in the end, it always returns value. Our investment here has paid off handsomely and the years ahead are bright. This division has entered into a pseudo-merger with Dorazio Corp., an Asian athletic equipment manufacturer.
"Humming along quietly in the background is our Jared affiliate. Huge growth here and quite unexpected in that no other arm of the company has quite the length and breadth of this division. We're not sure where this comes from, though we have repeatedly asked the Chief of Domestic Operations to conduct a sort of corporate DNA test, which she refuses to do. We're getting very suspicious. In any case, the outlook is bright, assuming this division eventually emerges from its 13-year-old boy fog of confusion.
"The Melanie Sector is in many ways still searching for its identity, but it excels in virtually every industry in which it dabbles. It can be easy to get lost in the confusion when you're the fourth of five divisions in a large corporation, but this area does a nice job of staking its own claims. We would be quite pleased if the employees would remember to turn out the lights in their room every once in awhile, but all in all, top marks.
"And finally we have our Jack detachment. Incredible return on investment here so far in terms of development and knowledge acquisition, to the point that we are concerned as to whether this division's potential can be channeled for good rather than for a hostile takeover of the world. For now, there is little chance for real harm while the employees are engaged in obtaining kindergarten core competencies, but we would suggest watching this one closely in the years to come.
"So again, we say thank you for the faith and trust you have placed in our company. The ultimate goal is for these five subdivisions to eventually become freestanding corporations, at which point we can all cash out and move to Florida. But something tells us we have a long way to go before that happens. Good luck and good night."
Monday, March 26, 2012
The art of dadness
It's tricky being a father in the 21st century.
Guys in my generation are influenced by two very different styles of parenting: On one hand, most of us had fathers who were of the old school. They were generally good dads, but they left the majority of parenting duties to their wives. Their involvement in the child-rearing process was fairly limited to serving as procreators, disciplinarians and financial backers. And in some cases, not much else.
On the other hand, we ourselves are raising kids at a time when fathers are (happily) expected to be far more hands-on. Unlike many of our dads, we were right there to witness the birth of our children, which as Sting once very aptly said makes the whole thing "much more bloody and profound." In that alone we are sometimes more closely connected to our kids from the very start than our fathers might have been.
We are also rightly expected to take part in all day-to-day aspects of parenting. This is eminently fair but also sometimes a little challenging. The only role models we had for this growing up were our moms, since our dads were so often out working or doing other manly, dad-like things and were therefore absent from the minutiae of having kids. Consequently, a lot of us are simply carbon copies of our mothers when it comes to parenting style.
Women, for the most part, are pretty understanding of this ongoing conflict in our lives and as a gender have been remarkably tolerant of our fatherly shortcomings. One side effect of this is that the bar is set fairly low for modern dads, and anything we do right is met with cheers and applause.
Seriously, it's not that difficult to be considered a good dad nowadays. You show up to little league games, change a few diapers, stay home and watch the kids when your wife goes out and, presto, you're suddenly a candidate for Father of the Year. I've always thought the standards should be a lot higher than that. If we're going to be what we're supposed to be as dads, I think someone needs to push us a little harder.
And speaking of watching the kids, you know what has always bothered me? When someone sees me alone with my children and asks whether I'm "babysitting" them. As if they don't actually belong to me and I'm just pretending to be a parent for a bit while my wife is out shopping. The two irksome implications of that question are:
(1) The responsibility for watching the kids really falls on my wife and I'm graciously offering to do her job for her, and
(2) I'm incompetent and can't be trusted to do this for too long.
In all fairness, I don't think people who ask whether I'm "babysitting" my kids mean anything negative by it, and usually they're of an older generation that simply had a different approach to parenting. But it still bothers me.
I am of the opinion that fathers are invaluable. That's not at all to say that single mothers can't raise quality kids. They do it all the time, and they amaze me. (I know some great single fathers, too.) I'm just saying that a dad brings something to the equation that's hard for a parent of the other gender to match, just as a father on his own by definition can't give his kids everything a mother can.
I am very blessed to serve on the board of directors of The City Mission, an incredible organization in Cleveland that helps people whose lives are in crisis. Next month, the Mission will conduct a day-long event called "Where's Papa? A Symposium on Father Absence." The speaker, Dr. David Stoop, has written more than 20 books that deal with parenting, and specifically with the role of fathers in raising children.
I presume that Dr. Stoop is going to point to the dozens of studies showing the negative social, developmental and financial impact of absent fathers on our society. But beyond that, I just hope that in some small way the event lends credence to the idea that dads are worth something. Popular culture has done a lot to denigrate the role of fathers, and we're often viewed as optional accessories. As I said, this in no way detracts from the efforts of single parents, but I like to think that what we do as fathers is vastly important, and always will be.
I had a great dad. He was goofy, and he had his quirks and faults, but not for a second – not for a single second – did I ever doubt that he loved me and cared for my well-being. The effect of that simple fact on my life has been immeasurably positive, and I want my kids to enjoy the same thing.
Because let's face it: We can't rely on moms to tell stupid jokes, make bad puns, wear hideously mismatched outfits in public, and fall asleep on the couch with their hands in their pants. These are time-honored dad traditions, and by God, I will do everything in my power to uphold them.
Guys in my generation are influenced by two very different styles of parenting: On one hand, most of us had fathers who were of the old school. They were generally good dads, but they left the majority of parenting duties to their wives. Their involvement in the child-rearing process was fairly limited to serving as procreators, disciplinarians and financial backers. And in some cases, not much else.
On the other hand, we ourselves are raising kids at a time when fathers are (happily) expected to be far more hands-on. Unlike many of our dads, we were right there to witness the birth of our children, which as Sting once very aptly said makes the whole thing "much more bloody and profound." In that alone we are sometimes more closely connected to our kids from the very start than our fathers might have been.
We are also rightly expected to take part in all day-to-day aspects of parenting. This is eminently fair but also sometimes a little challenging. The only role models we had for this growing up were our moms, since our dads were so often out working or doing other manly, dad-like things and were therefore absent from the minutiae of having kids. Consequently, a lot of us are simply carbon copies of our mothers when it comes to parenting style.
Women, for the most part, are pretty understanding of this ongoing conflict in our lives and as a gender have been remarkably tolerant of our fatherly shortcomings. One side effect of this is that the bar is set fairly low for modern dads, and anything we do right is met with cheers and applause.
Seriously, it's not that difficult to be considered a good dad nowadays. You show up to little league games, change a few diapers, stay home and watch the kids when your wife goes out and, presto, you're suddenly a candidate for Father of the Year. I've always thought the standards should be a lot higher than that. If we're going to be what we're supposed to be as dads, I think someone needs to push us a little harder.
And speaking of watching the kids, you know what has always bothered me? When someone sees me alone with my children and asks whether I'm "babysitting" them. As if they don't actually belong to me and I'm just pretending to be a parent for a bit while my wife is out shopping. The two irksome implications of that question are:
(1) The responsibility for watching the kids really falls on my wife and I'm graciously offering to do her job for her, and
(2) I'm incompetent and can't be trusted to do this for too long.
In all fairness, I don't think people who ask whether I'm "babysitting" my kids mean anything negative by it, and usually they're of an older generation that simply had a different approach to parenting. But it still bothers me.
I am of the opinion that fathers are invaluable. That's not at all to say that single mothers can't raise quality kids. They do it all the time, and they amaze me. (I know some great single fathers, too.) I'm just saying that a dad brings something to the equation that's hard for a parent of the other gender to match, just as a father on his own by definition can't give his kids everything a mother can.
I am very blessed to serve on the board of directors of The City Mission, an incredible organization in Cleveland that helps people whose lives are in crisis. Next month, the Mission will conduct a day-long event called "Where's Papa? A Symposium on Father Absence." The speaker, Dr. David Stoop, has written more than 20 books that deal with parenting, and specifically with the role of fathers in raising children.
I presume that Dr. Stoop is going to point to the dozens of studies showing the negative social, developmental and financial impact of absent fathers on our society. But beyond that, I just hope that in some small way the event lends credence to the idea that dads are worth something. Popular culture has done a lot to denigrate the role of fathers, and we're often viewed as optional accessories. As I said, this in no way detracts from the efforts of single parents, but I like to think that what we do as fathers is vastly important, and always will be.
I had a great dad. He was goofy, and he had his quirks and faults, but not for a second – not for a single second – did I ever doubt that he loved me and cared for my well-being. The effect of that simple fact on my life has been immeasurably positive, and I want my kids to enjoy the same thing.
Because let's face it: We can't rely on moms to tell stupid jokes, make bad puns, wear hideously mismatched outfits in public, and fall asleep on the couch with their hands in their pants. These are time-honored dad traditions, and by God, I will do everything in my power to uphold them.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Wemberly Worried, and other stories from the realm of memories
Standing in our upstairs hallway is a 6-foot bookshelf filled from top to bottom with children's books. Most of the time I don't pay it much attention, because most of the time I don't read children's books.
Which is kind of sad. There was a time when I read to at least one of the kids virtually every night, but now there's not much need. Even the youngest one, six-year-old Jack, has pretty much been reading to himself since he was four, though he and I will still occasionally snuggle in bed and plow through a few books together.
I just went upstairs and took a long look at that bookshelf. I stood there for a good 10 minutes going through the book titles, so many of which are tied to certain memories or to certain times of our life as a family.
There were the Magic Castle Reader books, including my favorite, "A Dragon In A Wagon (A Book About Ways to Travel)." All of the Magic Castle Reader books have that subtitle: "A Book About ______." I used to read "A Dragon In a Wagon" to Elissa, back in the days when I would also put her to bed by making an "Elissa Sundae." This was an elaborate process in which she would lay down and I would cover her with various imaginary ice cream toppings, then finish it off by burying my face in her belly and giving her a first-class zerbert while pretending to eat the sundae. And she would laugh and laugh. I was pretty funny back then.
My other favorite Magic Castle Reader book was "How Many Ways Can You Cut a Pie? (A Book About Math)," in which Squirrel promises to give her friends a portion of the acorn pie she is making if she wins the local pie contest. The idea was to teach fractions, of course. I'm not sure any of the kids or I learned much about fractions, to be honest, but the book always managed to make me hungry for pecan pie.
I also saw "Wemberly Worried" on that bookshelf. You may be familiar with "Wemberly Worried." It's a story about a mouse named Wemberly who worries about everything, including her impending first day of nursery school. We have a couple of worriers in our brood, so any book that gets across the message "it's never as bad as you think it's going to be" is welcome. I remember reading that one to Melanie a few times.
You know what else was there? "Sammy the Seal." I don't know that I ever read "Sammy the Seal" to my kids, but I distinctly remember my mom reading it to me. That was when I was probably 4 or 5. By the time I was in first grade, we had a ritual every night where she would tuck me into bed and I would tell her which book I wanted to read before turning off my light for the night.
She would find the book on my bookshelf, give it to me, remind me to go to bed right after I finished reading it, and leave the room. I would then read the book she gave me, plus another one, and another one, and sometimes one more. And then I would turn out the light and go to sleep. I thought I was pulling one over on her, but now that I look back on it, I'm guessing she had a pretty good idea of what I was doing.
On the bottom shelf I found "The Monster at the End of This Book," a classic Sesame Street story in which Grover spends the whole time pleading with you not to turn the pages because there's a monster at the end of the book. Which of course made the kids want to turn the pages even more. Grover tries gluing down the pages and everything else he can think of to keep you from getting to the end of the book. And when you do get there, the monster turns out to be Grover himself. I think we read that one approximately 57 million times.
I could go on and on. All of us parents can do that when we sift through old books and toys, I'm sure. Like I've said before, I have no real desire to go back to the past, but if anyone is interested in having me read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" to them, you're welcome to come over any night.
Which is kind of sad. There was a time when I read to at least one of the kids virtually every night, but now there's not much need. Even the youngest one, six-year-old Jack, has pretty much been reading to himself since he was four, though he and I will still occasionally snuggle in bed and plow through a few books together.
I just went upstairs and took a long look at that bookshelf. I stood there for a good 10 minutes going through the book titles, so many of which are tied to certain memories or to certain times of our life as a family.
There were the Magic Castle Reader books, including my favorite, "A Dragon In A Wagon (A Book About Ways to Travel)." All of the Magic Castle Reader books have that subtitle: "A Book About ______." I used to read "A Dragon In a Wagon" to Elissa, back in the days when I would also put her to bed by making an "Elissa Sundae." This was an elaborate process in which she would lay down and I would cover her with various imaginary ice cream toppings, then finish it off by burying my face in her belly and giving her a first-class zerbert while pretending to eat the sundae. And she would laugh and laugh. I was pretty funny back then.
My other favorite Magic Castle Reader book was "How Many Ways Can You Cut a Pie? (A Book About Math)," in which Squirrel promises to give her friends a portion of the acorn pie she is making if she wins the local pie contest. The idea was to teach fractions, of course. I'm not sure any of the kids or I learned much about fractions, to be honest, but the book always managed to make me hungry for pecan pie.
I also saw "Wemberly Worried" on that bookshelf. You may be familiar with "Wemberly Worried." It's a story about a mouse named Wemberly who worries about everything, including her impending first day of nursery school. We have a couple of worriers in our brood, so any book that gets across the message "it's never as bad as you think it's going to be" is welcome. I remember reading that one to Melanie a few times.
You know what else was there? "Sammy the Seal." I don't know that I ever read "Sammy the Seal" to my kids, but I distinctly remember my mom reading it to me. That was when I was probably 4 or 5. By the time I was in first grade, we had a ritual every night where she would tuck me into bed and I would tell her which book I wanted to read before turning off my light for the night.
She would find the book on my bookshelf, give it to me, remind me to go to bed right after I finished reading it, and leave the room. I would then read the book she gave me, plus another one, and another one, and sometimes one more. And then I would turn out the light and go to sleep. I thought I was pulling one over on her, but now that I look back on it, I'm guessing she had a pretty good idea of what I was doing.
On the bottom shelf I found "The Monster at the End of This Book," a classic Sesame Street story in which Grover spends the whole time pleading with you not to turn the pages because there's a monster at the end of the book. Which of course made the kids want to turn the pages even more. Grover tries gluing down the pages and everything else he can think of to keep you from getting to the end of the book. And when you do get there, the monster turns out to be Grover himself. I think we read that one approximately 57 million times.
I could go on and on. All of us parents can do that when we sift through old books and toys, I'm sure. Like I've said before, I have no real desire to go back to the past, but if anyone is interested in having me read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" to them, you're welcome to come over any night.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Ten random thoughts on a Wednesday
(1) A while back, I made mention of my fascination with the Duggar family of "19 Kids and Counting" fame. Or is it 20? I don't know. Anyway, the point is, there's a new kid on the huge family TV block: The Bates. Their show, which is on TLC just like the Duggars, is called "The Bates Family: Baby Makes 19." I caught part of an episode recently and actually liked it (and them). But do they meet the basic criteria for reality TV families with lots of kids? Well, let's see: Are they white? Check. Do they live in the South? Check. Are they very religious? Check. Do they give their kids names that all begin with the same letter? BUZZ! Ohhhhh no, I'm sorry. Your family is very Duggar-like, but Jim Bob and Michelle still reign over this particular corner of the TV universe.
(2) On the subject of lunch meat: Am I the only person in the universe who likes Dutch loaf? It seems like I am. And if I am, why do they still make it? I appreciate the effort, but we hardly ever buy it, so really fellas, maybe you should concentrate on some other processed, food-like item. I'm not worth the effort.
(3) I would give almost anything right now to see an episode of the old "Hollywood Squares." I'm talking 70s-era "Hollywood Squares" hosted by Peter Marshall with Paul Lynde in the center square. That was good TV.
(4) I can't believe our telephones used to have cords. Remember that? You would answer the phone in the kitchen and you actually had to carry on your conversation in the kitchen because the cord would only go so far. If you had one of those fancy extended cords, you might be able to make it into the living room, but that was about it. Cordless phones are one of the most underrated inventions of the last half century.
(5) This is true: When I was little – like 5 or 6 years old – I learned all of the U.S. presidents in order. We had the 1964 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia, and I read the article on "Presidents" so many times that the pages eventually became ripped and dog-eared. My dad thought this was hilarious and would have me recite the presidents to anyone who cared to listen. What a freak I was. Anyway, I must have displayed this talent in school at some point, because one time Mrs. Potts put up a timeline of presidents on her classroom wall, and she invited me to come in and look at it. She wasn't even my teacher. I had no idea what my reaction was supposed to be. So I stared at it for awhile, said something to the effect that I liked it, then returned to my own 2nd-grade class. What exactly were they expecting from me? This is still baffling.
(6) I've been going around telling people that my 13-year-old son Jared is 6 feet tall. It turns out I'm a liar. Jared recently contracted strep throat and had to see the doctor, and they officially measured him at 5 feet, 11 3/4 inches. This makes me feel infinitely better about my 5-foot, 9 3/4-inch self.
(7) Speaking of my strange body, I know I've whined to you before about my freakishly small hands, but now it's getting out of control. My 11-year-old daughter Melanie's fingers are longer than mine. I'm a 42-year-old man, for Pete's sake. What is wrong with me?
(8) Rush is one of those bands I'm supposed to like, as a rock/pop music fan, but I just don't. I feel bad about this, but there's nothing I can do about it.
(9) About a month ago, I came out of my office and was walking to my car when I was approached by a young man in a wheelchair. He asked me for some spare change. I told him I didn't have any, which was 100% true. I usually don't carry cash (though I should). He said that's OK and shook my hand. But instead of releasing my hand, he then put it up to his lips and kissed it. Really. I'm generally not a germaphobe, but believe me when I tell you that I advanced directly to the nearest bottle of Purell with all due haste.
(10) I have never – really, never – met a girl named Vicky whom I didn't like. Same thing with guys named Dave.
(2) On the subject of lunch meat: Am I the only person in the universe who likes Dutch loaf? It seems like I am. And if I am, why do they still make it? I appreciate the effort, but we hardly ever buy it, so really fellas, maybe you should concentrate on some other processed, food-like item. I'm not worth the effort.
(3) I would give almost anything right now to see an episode of the old "Hollywood Squares." I'm talking 70s-era "Hollywood Squares" hosted by Peter Marshall with Paul Lynde in the center square. That was good TV.
(4) I can't believe our telephones used to have cords. Remember that? You would answer the phone in the kitchen and you actually had to carry on your conversation in the kitchen because the cord would only go so far. If you had one of those fancy extended cords, you might be able to make it into the living room, but that was about it. Cordless phones are one of the most underrated inventions of the last half century.
(5) This is true: When I was little – like 5 or 6 years old – I learned all of the U.S. presidents in order. We had the 1964 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia, and I read the article on "Presidents" so many times that the pages eventually became ripped and dog-eared. My dad thought this was hilarious and would have me recite the presidents to anyone who cared to listen. What a freak I was. Anyway, I must have displayed this talent in school at some point, because one time Mrs. Potts put up a timeline of presidents on her classroom wall, and she invited me to come in and look at it. She wasn't even my teacher. I had no idea what my reaction was supposed to be. So I stared at it for awhile, said something to the effect that I liked it, then returned to my own 2nd-grade class. What exactly were they expecting from me? This is still baffling.
(6) I've been going around telling people that my 13-year-old son Jared is 6 feet tall. It turns out I'm a liar. Jared recently contracted strep throat and had to see the doctor, and they officially measured him at 5 feet, 11 3/4 inches. This makes me feel infinitely better about my 5-foot, 9 3/4-inch self.
(7) Speaking of my strange body, I know I've whined to you before about my freakishly small hands, but now it's getting out of control. My 11-year-old daughter Melanie's fingers are longer than mine. I'm a 42-year-old man, for Pete's sake. What is wrong with me?
(8) Rush is one of those bands I'm supposed to like, as a rock/pop music fan, but I just don't. I feel bad about this, but there's nothing I can do about it.
(9) About a month ago, I came out of my office and was walking to my car when I was approached by a young man in a wheelchair. He asked me for some spare change. I told him I didn't have any, which was 100% true. I usually don't carry cash (though I should). He said that's OK and shook my hand. But instead of releasing my hand, he then put it up to his lips and kissed it. Really. I'm generally not a germaphobe, but believe me when I tell you that I advanced directly to the nearest bottle of Purell with all due haste.
(10) I have never – really, never – met a girl named Vicky whom I didn't like. Same thing with guys named Dave.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Put me in, coach (or at least give me a brownie)
For more than a decade now, I have been a volunteer youth sports coach. This is an important position in which parents and kids alike rely on you to teach valuable qualities such as teamwork, discipline, and sportsmanship.
I'm kidding, of course. Not about being a youth sports coach, but about what parents and young athletes care most about. What they care about can be summarized as follows:
PARENTS: Winning, their child's playing time, and the soaring cost of youth sports participation
KIDS: Snack
I can understand the parents' priorities, because in addition to being a coach, I'm also the parent of young athletes. But I've never been able to explain the kids' fascination with their postgame or post-practice snack.
This is especially true with my U8 soccer team. These are kids in kindergarten, first and second grades. My halftime instructional/pep talks usually go something like this:
ME: "OK, guys, gather around me! Good job in the first half! We did a lot of good things and I really like how you guys hustled out there. Just a couple of problems, though. Let's watch our passing, and let's make sure we keep good spacing between us and our teammates, OK? Any questions? Yes, Johnny?"
JOHNNY: "Who brought snack?"
ME (taken aback even though I've been asked this question 8 bajillion times during my coaching career): "Snack? Um, I don't know. I'll have to check the list."
At this point, one of the other kids raises his/her hand and volunteers that his/her mom is, in fact, the one who brought snack today. This is followed by a barrage of excited questions from the other kids: What did your mom bring? Is there enough for us to have seconds? Did she bring those little packets of Oreos, too? And on and on and on...I quickly move to restore order:
ME: "Hey, hey, hey! Guys! Pay attention! Listen, we'll all get snack after the game is over. But right now we have another half of soccer to play and we need to work on our defense." (Johnny raises his hand again. I eye him warily before acknowledging his presence.) "Uh, yeah? Johnny?"
JOHNNY: "How come Mackenzie's mom forgot to bring snack last week? I was really sad that I didn't get any snack."
MACKENZIE (clearly offended by this attack on her mother): "She just forgot, OK? Don't YOU ever forget anything? You're not so perfect! She felt really bad that she forgot to bring snack. She said something about having all these darned kids and not being able to remember which one is supposed to be where at what time, and that my stupid soccer coach keeps signing her up for snack when she has no time to go out and buy anything because she's a single mom and works three jobs. And then she cried. She does that a lot. Anyway, I'm telling her you said that!"
ME (again attempting to restore order): "GUYS! GUYS! GUYS! Can we not talk about snack now? Anyone who mentions snack again before the end of the game won't get any snack at all, do you hear me? Now let's get back out onto the field and have some fun!"
JOHNNY (more to himself than anyone else): "I just really wanted snack, is all."
What I've learned over the years is that when kids show up for, say, a soccer practice or game, the last thing they actually want to do that day is play soccer. They would rather play on the playground. Or try another sport. Or look at dandelions. Or stand on their head. Or anything else except play soccer.
So therefore you have to keep things moving and interesting. Instead of boring drills, we engage in a variety of games and activities that are tangentially related to the sport of soccer but surreptitiously teach them the necessary foot skills. We move from one to another in rapid-fire fashion, because no matter how well-behaved the kids generally are (and they really are good kids, almost every one of them), the minute they put those shin guards on, they all suddenly have the attention span of Corky from "Life Goes On."
The parents are actually good people, too. Understandably, they are concerned that their child derives the highest possible benefit from their soccer or baseball experience, and they can be touchy if they perceive the slightest injustice in the amount of playing time allotted to the little tike. Many of them firmly believe their 7-year-old has the talent to earn a Division I college athletic scholarship, and that you as the volunteer coach are the only thing standing in the way.
But parents really are integral to the world of youth sports, fulfilling a variety of useful functions.
The most important of which, of course, is bringing snack.
I'm kidding, of course. Not about being a youth sports coach, but about what parents and young athletes care most about. What they care about can be summarized as follows:
PARENTS: Winning, their child's playing time, and the soaring cost of youth sports participation
KIDS: Snack
I can understand the parents' priorities, because in addition to being a coach, I'm also the parent of young athletes. But I've never been able to explain the kids' fascination with their postgame or post-practice snack.
This is especially true with my U8 soccer team. These are kids in kindergarten, first and second grades. My halftime instructional/pep talks usually go something like this:
ME: "OK, guys, gather around me! Good job in the first half! We did a lot of good things and I really like how you guys hustled out there. Just a couple of problems, though. Let's watch our passing, and let's make sure we keep good spacing between us and our teammates, OK? Any questions? Yes, Johnny?"
JOHNNY: "Who brought snack?"
ME (taken aback even though I've been asked this question 8 bajillion times during my coaching career): "Snack? Um, I don't know. I'll have to check the list."
At this point, one of the other kids raises his/her hand and volunteers that his/her mom is, in fact, the one who brought snack today. This is followed by a barrage of excited questions from the other kids: What did your mom bring? Is there enough for us to have seconds? Did she bring those little packets of Oreos, too? And on and on and on...I quickly move to restore order:
ME: "Hey, hey, hey! Guys! Pay attention! Listen, we'll all get snack after the game is over. But right now we have another half of soccer to play and we need to work on our defense." (Johnny raises his hand again. I eye him warily before acknowledging his presence.) "Uh, yeah? Johnny?"
JOHNNY: "How come Mackenzie's mom forgot to bring snack last week? I was really sad that I didn't get any snack."
MACKENZIE (clearly offended by this attack on her mother): "She just forgot, OK? Don't YOU ever forget anything? You're not so perfect! She felt really bad that she forgot to bring snack. She said something about having all these darned kids and not being able to remember which one is supposed to be where at what time, and that my stupid soccer coach keeps signing her up for snack when she has no time to go out and buy anything because she's a single mom and works three jobs. And then she cried. She does that a lot. Anyway, I'm telling her you said that!"
ME (again attempting to restore order): "GUYS! GUYS! GUYS! Can we not talk about snack now? Anyone who mentions snack again before the end of the game won't get any snack at all, do you hear me? Now let's get back out onto the field and have some fun!"
JOHNNY (more to himself than anyone else): "I just really wanted snack, is all."
What I've learned over the years is that when kids show up for, say, a soccer practice or game, the last thing they actually want to do that day is play soccer. They would rather play on the playground. Or try another sport. Or look at dandelions. Or stand on their head. Or anything else except play soccer.
So therefore you have to keep things moving and interesting. Instead of boring drills, we engage in a variety of games and activities that are tangentially related to the sport of soccer but surreptitiously teach them the necessary foot skills. We move from one to another in rapid-fire fashion, because no matter how well-behaved the kids generally are (and they really are good kids, almost every one of them), the minute they put those shin guards on, they all suddenly have the attention span of Corky from "Life Goes On."
The parents are actually good people, too. Understandably, they are concerned that their child derives the highest possible benefit from their soccer or baseball experience, and they can be touchy if they perceive the slightest injustice in the amount of playing time allotted to the little tike. Many of them firmly believe their 7-year-old has the talent to earn a Division I college athletic scholarship, and that you as the volunteer coach are the only thing standing in the way.
But parents really are integral to the world of youth sports, fulfilling a variety of useful functions.
The most important of which, of course, is bringing snack.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Street walking
Because I'm stupidly competitive, I walked nearly 17 miles to work the other day.
If you think that sentence is absurd, you're right. So is getting up at 4:50 a.m. for an almost-four-hour walk to work. I don't necessarily recommend it.
Here's the deal: We're having this wellness initiative at work. There's a contest in which employees get a certain number of points each time they exercise, lose weight, etc. For no good reason at all, I decided I was going to do something really big that no one else would match.
Are there cash prizes for the winners of this competition? Not that I'm aware of. Any rewards at all? I don't think so. My only interest in winning is so that I can win. Does that make sense? No, it doesn't, but it's the way I'm wired.
I did the walk-to-work thing once before, back in 2008. It's actually sort of fun for me, if you set aside the fact that I stepped in a puddle three miles into the walk and covered the last 14 miles with soaking-wet feet. And the inevitable post-walk pain in my feet and ankles. And the chafing in those areas I didn't grease up with runner's lube. And the not-so-pleasant feeling of spending the rest of the day in work clothes worn over a body from which I could only minimally clean off the dirt, sweat and grime in the men's room at our office.
But other than that, it was great!
You have a lot of time to think on a 3-hour-and-45-minute walk. And to listen to your iPod. I went through a whole Seinfeld comedy album and a good chunk of the Dave Matthews catalog. But the thinking part was fun, too.
My church buddy Sarah Lansing suggested I recount some of the random thoughts I had during the walk. I'm not sure they're in the least bit entertaining, but here's what I remember:
(1) I AM A HOPELESS SUBURBANITE...AND SO ARE MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY: The route I took wound through the cities of Wickliffe, Willoughby Hills, Richmond Heights, South Euclid and Cleveland Heights before leading into the City of Cleveland proper. People who live in my suburb are generally scared to death of Cleveland. As far as most of them are concerned, it's filled with murderers and drug dealers. And certain sections are, I guess. Just not the ones I walked through. And yet I still kept my head on a swivel at all times, as if the Clevelanders waiting at the bus stops at 6:30 in the morning were going to attack me. I will never lose this fear of All Things Citified no matter how many years I work downtown or how many times I take this walk. This just strengthens my hold on the title of World's Biggest Suburban Dork.
(2) IT'S EASY TO PEE ANYWHERE WHEN YOU'RE A GUY: I took water and juice with me and drank it all. Some of it I sweat out. Some of it I didn't. The stuff I didn't sweat out had to go somewhere. I think you're getting my drift here. I took four bathroom breaks along the walk, and it wasn't difficult to find places to answer nature's call. Why? Because I'm a guy. Guys will pee anywhere. All I had to do was find a patch of woods -- stunningly easy to do in Richmond Heights and Cleveland Heights -- and voila, I had my own natural Port-a-Potty. At one point I wondered what I would have done if I was a woman. Probably suffer in silence the entire walk...or at least until I came across a McDonald's or a gas station or something.
(3) YOU KNOW WHO I LIKE? TOM HANKS: I spent five minutes thinking about Tom Hanks and what a nice guy he is. That's it, just a few intertwined thoughts on Tom and his nice-guyness. I told you, 3 hours and 45 minutes is a LONG time.
(4) THE LUBE THING I MENTIONED ABOVE? IT'S REAL: I have a tube of this stuff called Body Glide. You runners know all about Body Glide. It looks like a stick of deodorant, but the idea is to rub it on areas of your body before you go on a long run or walk to decrease friction and chafing. I did just that before I went out the door. I rubbed it all over my feet because I was afraid of blisters. My feet were fine. As it turns out, I should have done my thighs, too. Big mistake. I've been paying for it since then.
(5) I MISS BALONEY SANDWICHES: When I was little, my mom used to make me these generic baloney sandwiches on white bread. Nothing special, nothing fancy, sometimes with no condiments at all - just baloney (NOTE: As my buddy Wendy Skoch Hart so kindly pointed out when I was too lazy to look it up, the correct spelling of the lunch meat in question is "bologna." But I'm sticking with "baloney" because I'm sure that's how I would have spelled it circa 1978.) At one point in the middle of the walk, I had a powerful craving for one of those 70s-era baloney sandwiches from my mom. All I had were granola bars. Not the same thing.
And that is honestly about all I can remember. For the most part, when I wasn't checking Facebook or text messages on my phone, I was zoning out. I don't have the mental capacity or patience to maintain any sort of concentration or productive thought for every step of a 17-mile walk. So usually I would just fall into a state of half-consciousness as I walked.
Man, I really miss those baloney sandwiches.
If you think that sentence is absurd, you're right. So is getting up at 4:50 a.m. for an almost-four-hour walk to work. I don't necessarily recommend it.
Here's the deal: We're having this wellness initiative at work. There's a contest in which employees get a certain number of points each time they exercise, lose weight, etc. For no good reason at all, I decided I was going to do something really big that no one else would match.
Are there cash prizes for the winners of this competition? Not that I'm aware of. Any rewards at all? I don't think so. My only interest in winning is so that I can win. Does that make sense? No, it doesn't, but it's the way I'm wired.
I did the walk-to-work thing once before, back in 2008. It's actually sort of fun for me, if you set aside the fact that I stepped in a puddle three miles into the walk and covered the last 14 miles with soaking-wet feet. And the inevitable post-walk pain in my feet and ankles. And the chafing in those areas I didn't grease up with runner's lube. And the not-so-pleasant feeling of spending the rest of the day in work clothes worn over a body from which I could only minimally clean off the dirt, sweat and grime in the men's room at our office.
But other than that, it was great!
You have a lot of time to think on a 3-hour-and-45-minute walk. And to listen to your iPod. I went through a whole Seinfeld comedy album and a good chunk of the Dave Matthews catalog. But the thinking part was fun, too.
My church buddy Sarah Lansing suggested I recount some of the random thoughts I had during the walk. I'm not sure they're in the least bit entertaining, but here's what I remember:
(1) I AM A HOPELESS SUBURBANITE...AND SO ARE MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY: The route I took wound through the cities of Wickliffe, Willoughby Hills, Richmond Heights, South Euclid and Cleveland Heights before leading into the City of Cleveland proper. People who live in my suburb are generally scared to death of Cleveland. As far as most of them are concerned, it's filled with murderers and drug dealers. And certain sections are, I guess. Just not the ones I walked through. And yet I still kept my head on a swivel at all times, as if the Clevelanders waiting at the bus stops at 6:30 in the morning were going to attack me. I will never lose this fear of All Things Citified no matter how many years I work downtown or how many times I take this walk. This just strengthens my hold on the title of World's Biggest Suburban Dork.
(2) IT'S EASY TO PEE ANYWHERE WHEN YOU'RE A GUY: I took water and juice with me and drank it all. Some of it I sweat out. Some of it I didn't. The stuff I didn't sweat out had to go somewhere. I think you're getting my drift here. I took four bathroom breaks along the walk, and it wasn't difficult to find places to answer nature's call. Why? Because I'm a guy. Guys will pee anywhere. All I had to do was find a patch of woods -- stunningly easy to do in Richmond Heights and Cleveland Heights -- and voila, I had my own natural Port-a-Potty. At one point I wondered what I would have done if I was a woman. Probably suffer in silence the entire walk...or at least until I came across a McDonald's or a gas station or something.
(3) YOU KNOW WHO I LIKE? TOM HANKS: I spent five minutes thinking about Tom Hanks and what a nice guy he is. That's it, just a few intertwined thoughts on Tom and his nice-guyness. I told you, 3 hours and 45 minutes is a LONG time.
(4) THE LUBE THING I MENTIONED ABOVE? IT'S REAL: I have a tube of this stuff called Body Glide. You runners know all about Body Glide. It looks like a stick of deodorant, but the idea is to rub it on areas of your body before you go on a long run or walk to decrease friction and chafing. I did just that before I went out the door. I rubbed it all over my feet because I was afraid of blisters. My feet were fine. As it turns out, I should have done my thighs, too. Big mistake. I've been paying for it since then.
(5) I MISS BALONEY SANDWICHES: When I was little, my mom used to make me these generic baloney sandwiches on white bread. Nothing special, nothing fancy, sometimes with no condiments at all - just baloney (NOTE: As my buddy Wendy Skoch Hart so kindly pointed out when I was too lazy to look it up, the correct spelling of the lunch meat in question is "bologna." But I'm sticking with "baloney" because I'm sure that's how I would have spelled it circa 1978.) At one point in the middle of the walk, I had a powerful craving for one of those 70s-era baloney sandwiches from my mom. All I had were granola bars. Not the same thing.
And that is honestly about all I can remember. For the most part, when I wasn't checking Facebook or text messages on my phone, I was zoning out. I don't have the mental capacity or patience to maintain any sort of concentration or productive thought for every step of a 17-mile walk. So usually I would just fall into a state of half-consciousness as I walked.
Man, I really miss those baloney sandwiches.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
My 15 minutes (maybe 20) of TV fame were up long ago
Everyone has something interesting or strange they've done in their life. And I do mean everyone. I've never met a person yet who, if you talk to them long enough, won't surprise you with some quirky hobby, experience or brush with fame they've had.
Mine, as my wife will readily tell you, is that I've appeared as a contestant on two game shows: "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" and "The Price Is Right." I say that my wife will tell you because she claims I'm so impressed by this fact about myself that I make a point of bringing it up with any new person I meet.
This isn't true, of course. This blog has been humming along for, what, three months? And I don't remember mentioning it once.
Because I readily acknowledge two facts about my game show experience:
(1) The whole thing was a lot of dumb luck on my part, and
(2) The only person who's truly impressed is me. I know this.
Game shows went out of style long ago. When I was growing up, you could turn on the TV almost any time between the hours of, say, 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and find a game show on somewhere. And that was when we only had four channels! And our TVs weighed 500 pounds and were operated by little handcranks. And we had to ride our horse and buggy into town if we wanted to watch one of those newfangled "cable" TV shows.
Anyway, yes, I realize that game shows are more mocked than respected these days. This process started 20 years ago and reached its nadir with the retirement of Bob Barker. Bob was the last link to the good old days of game shows, and when he left "The Price Is Right," a piece of the past went out with him.
I actually got to meet Bob when I was on "Price." (That's what we veterans call it: "Price." Well, OK, I'm probably the only who calls it that. Just go with it.) I made the decision to fly out to Los Angeles and attempt to get on the show in 2006, soon after Bob announced that that season would be his last. No offense to Drew Carey, but if I was ever going to become a contestant, it had to be with Bob.
I also really liked Meredith Vieira, the host of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire." I was a contestant there during the first season of the syndicated show, which began in 2002 after ABC had managed to air the original so many times that Americans got sick of Regis Philbin.
Meredith was very touchy feely. She was always reaching over and patting my shoulder or touching my arm. After the show aired, people told me she was flirting with me. I told them to watch other episodes. Meredith flirts with EVERYBODY. Man or woman, doesn't matter to Meredith. Her way of making you feel comfortable in the Hot Seat is to hit on you. I guess it works.
Bob was also very smooth. And tan. Like scary tanned. He was bronzed from head to toe, and given that he lives in Southern California, it was hard to tell how much of it was real and how much was spray-on.
It didn't matter, though, because this was BOB. Right in front of me was Bob Barker. In the flesh. This was the guy I had watched countless times while laying on the couch when I was sick and stayed home from school. The guy who carried that long microphone around and wooed the ladies without even trying. BOB BARKER.
He did have pretty significant crows feet, of course, but give the guy a break. He was 83 years old at the time! And it was clear that, if he had wanted, he could still break me in half. Yet he looked you right in the eye when he spoke and treated you like you were the most important contestant in the history of the show. That's something he learned over 35 years of hosting TPIR, I'm sure, but it's also largely an innate talent.
During the commercial breaks, Bob would take questions from the audience, and he was hilarious. These were probably all questions he had been asked a million times before and his answers were likely rehearsed, but it didn't matter. People howled with laughter. Bob was in control of that studio from the moment he walked in.
Anyway, to answer the questions that 95% of people ask (and that I would certainly ask) when they find out about me and the game show thing:
(1) How did I get on? Like I said, dumb luck. The Millionaire people held tryouts in Cleveland and I think I just happened to fit their "Goofy White Guy" profile quota for the day. And for Price, my pre-show interview happened to be with a producer with whom I could really relate. He and I clicked. If it had been someone else, I doubt I would have been chosen to "come on down."
(2) How did I do? I won $32,000 on Millionaire and $2,500 and four electric guitars on Price. One guy in my Millionaire group of contestants won $250,000. It made my $32K look kind of piddly. On Price, I made it all the way to the Showcase Showdown at the end of the show before losing.
(3) What question did I miss on Millionaire? It was about Mary Cassatt and the kinds of portraits she painted. How come no one ever cares about the 10 questions I got right?
(4) Was the big wheel on "Price Is Right" heavy? Yeah, sort of. But if you're a guy up there spinning it, the last thing you want is to give it a wimpy spin and get booed off the stage, so you try your best to wing it around several times in manly fashion.
(5) Did they take taxes out of your earnings? The Millionaire people did not, while the Price people took California taxes but not federal taxes. The taxes actually weren't that bad, surprisingly.
(6) What did you do with the money? Kept my family alive with a roof over their heads. And I think I bought a hockey jersey, too. I'm quite the big spender.
I'm sometimes asked what my next game show will be, and the answer is "none of the above." I think my short-lived TV career is pretty well over. It's nearly impossible to get onto "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune." And I have no desire to do something like "Survivor" or "Fear Factor." So I'll just keep the DVD recordings of my appearances along with my memories and leave it at that.
And I'll keep my hockey jersey, too. It really is cool.
Mine, as my wife will readily tell you, is that I've appeared as a contestant on two game shows: "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" and "The Price Is Right." I say that my wife will tell you because she claims I'm so impressed by this fact about myself that I make a point of bringing it up with any new person I meet.
This isn't true, of course. This blog has been humming along for, what, three months? And I don't remember mentioning it once.
Because I readily acknowledge two facts about my game show experience:
(1) The whole thing was a lot of dumb luck on my part, and
(2) The only person who's truly impressed is me. I know this.
Game shows went out of style long ago. When I was growing up, you could turn on the TV almost any time between the hours of, say, 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and find a game show on somewhere. And that was when we only had four channels! And our TVs weighed 500 pounds and were operated by little handcranks. And we had to ride our horse and buggy into town if we wanted to watch one of those newfangled "cable" TV shows.
Anyway, yes, I realize that game shows are more mocked than respected these days. This process started 20 years ago and reached its nadir with the retirement of Bob Barker. Bob was the last link to the good old days of game shows, and when he left "The Price Is Right," a piece of the past went out with him.
I actually got to meet Bob when I was on "Price." (That's what we veterans call it: "Price." Well, OK, I'm probably the only who calls it that. Just go with it.) I made the decision to fly out to Los Angeles and attempt to get on the show in 2006, soon after Bob announced that that season would be his last. No offense to Drew Carey, but if I was ever going to become a contestant, it had to be with Bob.
I also really liked Meredith Vieira, the host of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire." I was a contestant there during the first season of the syndicated show, which began in 2002 after ABC had managed to air the original so many times that Americans got sick of Regis Philbin.
Meredith was very touchy feely. She was always reaching over and patting my shoulder or touching my arm. After the show aired, people told me she was flirting with me. I told them to watch other episodes. Meredith flirts with EVERYBODY. Man or woman, doesn't matter to Meredith. Her way of making you feel comfortable in the Hot Seat is to hit on you. I guess it works.
Bob was also very smooth. And tan. Like scary tanned. He was bronzed from head to toe, and given that he lives in Southern California, it was hard to tell how much of it was real and how much was spray-on.
It didn't matter, though, because this was BOB. Right in front of me was Bob Barker. In the flesh. This was the guy I had watched countless times while laying on the couch when I was sick and stayed home from school. The guy who carried that long microphone around and wooed the ladies without even trying. BOB BARKER.
He did have pretty significant crows feet, of course, but give the guy a break. He was 83 years old at the time! And it was clear that, if he had wanted, he could still break me in half. Yet he looked you right in the eye when he spoke and treated you like you were the most important contestant in the history of the show. That's something he learned over 35 years of hosting TPIR, I'm sure, but it's also largely an innate talent.
During the commercial breaks, Bob would take questions from the audience, and he was hilarious. These were probably all questions he had been asked a million times before and his answers were likely rehearsed, but it didn't matter. People howled with laughter. Bob was in control of that studio from the moment he walked in.
Anyway, to answer the questions that 95% of people ask (and that I would certainly ask) when they find out about me and the game show thing:
(1) How did I get on? Like I said, dumb luck. The Millionaire people held tryouts in Cleveland and I think I just happened to fit their "Goofy White Guy" profile quota for the day. And for Price, my pre-show interview happened to be with a producer with whom I could really relate. He and I clicked. If it had been someone else, I doubt I would have been chosen to "come on down."
(2) How did I do? I won $32,000 on Millionaire and $2,500 and four electric guitars on Price. One guy in my Millionaire group of contestants won $250,000. It made my $32K look kind of piddly. On Price, I made it all the way to the Showcase Showdown at the end of the show before losing.
(3) What question did I miss on Millionaire? It was about Mary Cassatt and the kinds of portraits she painted. How come no one ever cares about the 10 questions I got right?
(4) Was the big wheel on "Price Is Right" heavy? Yeah, sort of. But if you're a guy up there spinning it, the last thing you want is to give it a wimpy spin and get booed off the stage, so you try your best to wing it around several times in manly fashion.
(5) Did they take taxes out of your earnings? The Millionaire people did not, while the Price people took California taxes but not federal taxes. The taxes actually weren't that bad, surprisingly.
(6) What did you do with the money? Kept my family alive with a roof over their heads. And I think I bought a hockey jersey, too. I'm quite the big spender.
I'm sometimes asked what my next game show will be, and the answer is "none of the above." I think my short-lived TV career is pretty well over. It's nearly impossible to get onto "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune." And I have no desire to do something like "Survivor" or "Fear Factor." So I'll just keep the DVD recordings of my appearances along with my memories and leave it at that.
And I'll keep my hockey jersey, too. It really is cool.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Suddenly we're all doctors
So Melanie came downstairs on Saturday morning and complained she had itchy skin bumps on her legs and arms that had kept her from sleeping well. This wasn't good for two reasons:
(1) You never want your child to experience something like that, and
(2) It brought about the seldom-seen-yet-no-less-annoying phenomenon I call "Scott Tennant, M.D."
I never attended medical school, nor do I have any sort of formal medical training. Yet I consider myself perfectly qualified to diagnose and treat a variety of ailments for the same reason millions of other Americans do: We have Internet access.
I imagine doctors must hate the Internet. With the advent of WebMD and other health-oriented sites, the average Joe and Josephine suddenly fancy themselves to be medical professionals, capable of pinpointing every disease and prescribing self-treatment. This allows us to bypass the unnecessarily expensive and time-consuming process known as American health care.
What these sites actually do, of course, is empower each of us to turn medical molehills into mountains. You get the sniffles and find yourself perusing a list of symptoms online, and you quickly become convinced that what you have is not a cold, but rather some exotic sub-Saharan form of rickets or beriberi.
This is made worse in my case by the fact that two of the jobs I've held have been in the medical field. One was as a public relations man for the world-famous Cleveland Clinic, where I got to see more than my share of surgeries up close and personal (and of course now feel I could easily conduct an organ transplant on my kitchen table if given access to the proper tools...and to a patient, of course).
I also spent two years as managing editor of Urology Times magazine. This is true. One of my most tired jokes is when I describe that job as "yellow journalism" (Get it? "Yellow" journalism? It's funny because pee is yellow and...OK, forget it).
But yes, for two years I covered the exciting, fast-faced world of professional urology. Well, I suppose the word "professional" is superfluous. I mean, it's not like there are amateur urologists out there trying to remove people's kidney stones in their garage for 10 bucks a pop. And if there are, I don't want to know anything about it.
One of the byproducts of that job was that I learned an awful lot about urology and urological conditions. More than any non-urologist should know, really. The other byproduct was that I'm now a lot more likely to misdiagnose one of my family members with a life-threatening urological disease based on some benign symptom or other. More than once, I've been fairly convinced my wife had prostate cancer.
Anyway, Melanie came to me with these itchy skin bumps, so I immediately got out the "Illustrated Family Health Guide" from Giant Eagle and fired up my web browser. After seven minutes of exhaustive research, I concluded that Melanie was experiencing some form of hives, possibly as a result of an allergic reaction to the antibiotic she had been taking for strep throat.
And do you know what the worst part was? I was right! Seriously, I nailed it. I took her to the pediatrician, who confirmed my crack diagnosis. She put Melanie on a different antibiotic and gave us some sample packets of Zyrtec to help treat the rash.
Now, of course, I've concluded that I'm smarter (and less expensive) than every doctor out there. I'll be insufferable every time one of the kids gets sick ("Don't worry, Terry, I've got this. What Jared has there is clearly a case of candidiasis, what you non-medical types know as a 'yeast infection.' I recommend a topical vaginal ointment.")
The good thing is, I won't charge Terry NEARLY as much as our pediatrician does to see the kids.
(1) You never want your child to experience something like that, and
(2) It brought about the seldom-seen-yet-no-less-annoying phenomenon I call "Scott Tennant, M.D."
I never attended medical school, nor do I have any sort of formal medical training. Yet I consider myself perfectly qualified to diagnose and treat a variety of ailments for the same reason millions of other Americans do: We have Internet access.
I imagine doctors must hate the Internet. With the advent of WebMD and other health-oriented sites, the average Joe and Josephine suddenly fancy themselves to be medical professionals, capable of pinpointing every disease and prescribing self-treatment. This allows us to bypass the unnecessarily expensive and time-consuming process known as American health care.
What these sites actually do, of course, is empower each of us to turn medical molehills into mountains. You get the sniffles and find yourself perusing a list of symptoms online, and you quickly become convinced that what you have is not a cold, but rather some exotic sub-Saharan form of rickets or beriberi.
This is made worse in my case by the fact that two of the jobs I've held have been in the medical field. One was as a public relations man for the world-famous Cleveland Clinic, where I got to see more than my share of surgeries up close and personal (and of course now feel I could easily conduct an organ transplant on my kitchen table if given access to the proper tools...and to a patient, of course).
I also spent two years as managing editor of Urology Times magazine. This is true. One of my most tired jokes is when I describe that job as "yellow journalism" (Get it? "Yellow" journalism? It's funny because pee is yellow and...OK, forget it).
But yes, for two years I covered the exciting, fast-faced world of professional urology. Well, I suppose the word "professional" is superfluous. I mean, it's not like there are amateur urologists out there trying to remove people's kidney stones in their garage for 10 bucks a pop. And if there are, I don't want to know anything about it.
One of the byproducts of that job was that I learned an awful lot about urology and urological conditions. More than any non-urologist should know, really. The other byproduct was that I'm now a lot more likely to misdiagnose one of my family members with a life-threatening urological disease based on some benign symptom or other. More than once, I've been fairly convinced my wife had prostate cancer.
Anyway, Melanie came to me with these itchy skin bumps, so I immediately got out the "Illustrated Family Health Guide" from Giant Eagle and fired up my web browser. After seven minutes of exhaustive research, I concluded that Melanie was experiencing some form of hives, possibly as a result of an allergic reaction to the antibiotic she had been taking for strep throat.
And do you know what the worst part was? I was right! Seriously, I nailed it. I took her to the pediatrician, who confirmed my crack diagnosis. She put Melanie on a different antibiotic and gave us some sample packets of Zyrtec to help treat the rash.
Now, of course, I've concluded that I'm smarter (and less expensive) than every doctor out there. I'll be insufferable every time one of the kids gets sick ("Don't worry, Terry, I've got this. What Jared has there is clearly a case of candidiasis, what you non-medical types know as a 'yeast infection.' I recommend a topical vaginal ointment.")
The good thing is, I won't charge Terry NEARLY as much as our pediatrician does to see the kids.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Playing favorites with your kids (or, preferably, not)
Chloe was talking about this blog the other day and asked, "Why is it that you post something really nice about Elissa, but the only thing people who read the blog will think about me is that I'm crazy and loud?"
My first thought was, "You ARE crazy and loud." Which is in no way a bad thing. "Crazy" and "loud" are two of her greatest strengths. They're the main reasons why she will one day rule the world. I'm not kidding. Chloe is an absolutely remarkable person who, if we know what's good for us, we will place into a position of global leadership soon after she graduates from college.
But her question raised the larger issue of how we as parents try to treat our kids absolutely equally from the moment they're born. The last thing you want is for them to grow up and for one to say to another, "Mom always liked you best."
At the same time, any honest parent will tell you there are days when you simply like one of your kids more or less than the other(s). If a child is cranky and just plain getting on your nerves, it's perfectly natural that you would want to throw that child from the top of a large building. Don't feel bad about it (but you also don't want to actually follow through on this desire...the namby-pamby liberals have apparently made this ILLEGAL somewhere along the way).
Over the long term, though, most parents are looking to be as fair and equitable as possible in the way they deal with their offspring. This starts from a very early age. Say you have a couple of toddlers/preschoolers sitting around the lunch table. Their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches must be exactly the same size. If a child thinks their sibling's sandwich is even the smallest bit larger than theirs, they suddenly become tiny civil engineers with an innate ability to eyeball size differentials down to the 32nd of an inch.
And Christmas presents? Oy. Every December, as Terry heroically works her way through the process of buying gifts for five children, she will invariably say to me (at least 10 times), "I'm really worried about <INSERT CHILD'S NAME>. I don't feel like I bought <HIM/HER> enough." This genuinely eats at her. Then Christmas morning comes and you realize that each of your children has opened the retail equivalent of a small county's gross domestic product, and everything is good.
As hard as we try to be fair in our approach to parenting, there's no denying that firstborn kids are inevitably treated differently from the baby of the family. Especially if you have, say, three or more children. With the first one, you do everything the baby books say, you photograph everything they do, and you put every piece of parenting advice you've ever received into practice.
But the last one? I always say Jack is essentially raising himself. Not that we ignore him. Not at all. It's just that I think we're probably a little more lax with #5 than we were with #1, and we realize we could have been that way all along and everything would have been fine.
With the first one, you're just learning to be a parent. I tell Elissa she's the guinea pig for all things new. Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's bad. I have to believe she has turned out pretty well.
The kids always probe and prod to figure out which of them are our "favorites." And when we tell them we don't have favorites, they refuse to believe us. Mostly, I suspect, because they've never been parents themselves. They don't yet understand how your love will multiply with every child, and that each of them holds an impossibly large and permanent place in your heart.
Not that I don't consider throwing them off a building from time to time, mind you. But in the end, I still love 'em all the same.
9H43B3SNMX99
My first thought was, "You ARE crazy and loud." Which is in no way a bad thing. "Crazy" and "loud" are two of her greatest strengths. They're the main reasons why she will one day rule the world. I'm not kidding. Chloe is an absolutely remarkable person who, if we know what's good for us, we will place into a position of global leadership soon after she graduates from college.
But her question raised the larger issue of how we as parents try to treat our kids absolutely equally from the moment they're born. The last thing you want is for them to grow up and for one to say to another, "Mom always liked you best."
At the same time, any honest parent will tell you there are days when you simply like one of your kids more or less than the other(s). If a child is cranky and just plain getting on your nerves, it's perfectly natural that you would want to throw that child from the top of a large building. Don't feel bad about it (but you also don't want to actually follow through on this desire...the namby-pamby liberals have apparently made this ILLEGAL somewhere along the way).
Over the long term, though, most parents are looking to be as fair and equitable as possible in the way they deal with their offspring. This starts from a very early age. Say you have a couple of toddlers/preschoolers sitting around the lunch table. Their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches must be exactly the same size. If a child thinks their sibling's sandwich is even the smallest bit larger than theirs, they suddenly become tiny civil engineers with an innate ability to eyeball size differentials down to the 32nd of an inch.
And Christmas presents? Oy. Every December, as Terry heroically works her way through the process of buying gifts for five children, she will invariably say to me (at least 10 times), "I'm really worried about <INSERT CHILD'S NAME>. I don't feel like I bought <HIM/HER> enough." This genuinely eats at her. Then Christmas morning comes and you realize that each of your children has opened the retail equivalent of a small county's gross domestic product, and everything is good.
As hard as we try to be fair in our approach to parenting, there's no denying that firstborn kids are inevitably treated differently from the baby of the family. Especially if you have, say, three or more children. With the first one, you do everything the baby books say, you photograph everything they do, and you put every piece of parenting advice you've ever received into practice.
But the last one? I always say Jack is essentially raising himself. Not that we ignore him. Not at all. It's just that I think we're probably a little more lax with #5 than we were with #1, and we realize we could have been that way all along and everything would have been fine.
With the first one, you're just learning to be a parent. I tell Elissa she's the guinea pig for all things new. Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's bad. I have to believe she has turned out pretty well.
The kids always probe and prod to figure out which of them are our "favorites." And when we tell them we don't have favorites, they refuse to believe us. Mostly, I suspect, because they've never been parents themselves. They don't yet understand how your love will multiply with every child, and that each of them holds an impossibly large and permanent place in your heart.
Not that I don't consider throwing them off a building from time to time, mind you. But in the end, I still love 'em all the same.
9H43B3SNMX99
Thursday, March 8, 2012
I apparently lack the ability to speak English
I've always thought of myself as somewhat articulate. I can form a complete sentence and write a coherent paragraph.
But over the past year, it has been brought to my attention that there are at least two English words I have been pronouncing incorrectly my entire life. I was stunned to learn this.
The first is "warriors." Say that word to yourself: "warriors." How do you pronounce it? Probably correctly: "WAR-ee-ers." Not me. I've always said "WER-ee-ers." Not only did I have no idea I said it this way, I didn't even realize it was wrong.
My wife was the one who pointed it out. I don't remember why the word came up in conversation, but she looked at me funny and said, "Worriers? Did you just say 'worriers?'"
"No, of course not," I replied. "I said 'warriors.'" (only I pronounced it "worriers")
"Exactly! You said 'worriers.' It's 'WAR-riors.'"
And then I said the word to myself several times over. I quickly realized I had been mangling it for years. Then I tried to say it aloud. Only I couldn't. Seriously, I couldn't. It took several tries and a concerted effort before I could say it right: WAR-riors.
This happened about a year ago. And to this day I'm still self-conscious when I say that word. I have to say it slowly: WAR-ee-ers. Not that it's a word I use often, but when it comes up, I'm stumped.
The other word I've been mispronouncing, apparently, is "crayons." How do you say it? I've always said, "CRAY-ons." Just like it's spelled. But my wife and son informed me the other night that most Americans say it differently. I don't really know how to render it phonetically for you, but apparently the common pronounciation is "CRAY-ens," with the "ens" part said very subtly and almost softly.
I guess you're not supposed to say it like it's spelled. The word ends in "ons," so I say "CRAY-ons," with a distinct short "o" sound on the last syllable. Terry tells me I've been saying it wrong for years but she just has never called me on it.
Again, this is stunning to me. I'm a father of five kids, so believe me, crayons have been an almost daily part of our family lexicon for years. And I've been saying the word wrong.
It makes me wonder what ELSE I've been pronouncing incorrectly. Do I not speak true American English? Where did I pick up this speech impediment?
The whole thing is very disconcerting (dis-con-SERT-ing...I think), to say the least.
But over the past year, it has been brought to my attention that there are at least two English words I have been pronouncing incorrectly my entire life. I was stunned to learn this.
The first is "warriors." Say that word to yourself: "warriors." How do you pronounce it? Probably correctly: "WAR-ee-ers." Not me. I've always said "WER-ee-ers." Not only did I have no idea I said it this way, I didn't even realize it was wrong.
My wife was the one who pointed it out. I don't remember why the word came up in conversation, but she looked at me funny and said, "Worriers? Did you just say 'worriers?'"
"No, of course not," I replied. "I said 'warriors.'" (only I pronounced it "worriers")
"Exactly! You said 'worriers.' It's 'WAR-riors.'"
And then I said the word to myself several times over. I quickly realized I had been mangling it for years. Then I tried to say it aloud. Only I couldn't. Seriously, I couldn't. It took several tries and a concerted effort before I could say it right: WAR-riors.
This happened about a year ago. And to this day I'm still self-conscious when I say that word. I have to say it slowly: WAR-ee-ers. Not that it's a word I use often, but when it comes up, I'm stumped.
The other word I've been mispronouncing, apparently, is "crayons." How do you say it? I've always said, "CRAY-ons." Just like it's spelled. But my wife and son informed me the other night that most Americans say it differently. I don't really know how to render it phonetically for you, but apparently the common pronounciation is "CRAY-ens," with the "ens" part said very subtly and almost softly.
I guess you're not supposed to say it like it's spelled. The word ends in "ons," so I say "CRAY-ons," with a distinct short "o" sound on the last syllable. Terry tells me I've been saying it wrong for years but she just has never called me on it.
Again, this is stunning to me. I'm a father of five kids, so believe me, crayons have been an almost daily part of our family lexicon for years. And I've been saying the word wrong.
It makes me wonder what ELSE I've been pronouncing incorrectly. Do I not speak true American English? Where did I pick up this speech impediment?
The whole thing is very disconcerting (dis-con-SERT-ing...I think), to say the least.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Don't give the controller to Daddy!
There was a time when I was pretty good at video games. This was approximately 1982 to 1984. Then I started a long, slow decline that continues to this day.
The result is that my kids make fun of my gaming skills, or lack thereof. This actually happened: Jack was playing "Super Mario Bros." on the Wii the other day, and when I asked if I could join him, he hesitated for a second and then said, "OK, but don't be sad when your guy dies."
Slightly offended, I asked what he meant. And he said, "Well, it's just that you're not very good."
Please note that I had never actually played Super Mario Bros. on the Wii before. Jack was just assuming my incompetence.
It turned out he was right, of course. Back in The Day (I find myself increasingly referring to The Day in conversation), I was pretty good at Super Mario Bros. on the old Nintendo NES system. But this new version of Super Mario Bros. is much more complex. Whenever I play, my character must look out of the screen, see that it's me controlling him, and decide it would be just as easy to commit some form of electronic suicide.
Now if we were playing the old Atari 2600, it would be a different story. I could play me some Atari 2600. Didn't matter what the game, I was probably pretty good at it. Combat? Pac-Man? Air-Sea Battle? Basketball? I was The Man at virtually every Atari cartridge.
The main reason for this was that I actually had time to play and practice. You can get good at just about anything if you have time to work at it. When I was 12 years old, I had time for everything. Teachers hadn't yet started doing that thing where they give two hours of homework to elementary school children every night, so time is the one thing we had in abundance (of course, my generation is also functionally retarded when compared with a lot of kids today, so maybe that homework thing would have been a good idea).
Do you remember that scene in the movie "Groundhog Hog" where Bill Murray is teaching Andie MacDowell to flip playing cards into a hat? He tells her, "Six months, four to five hours a day, and you'd be an expert." That's how it was with my friends and I when it came to video games.
It helped that my dad was a Gadget Guy. And by that I mean we had most of the cool new electronic gadgets of the 70s and 80s before anyone else had them. I was playing pong on my TV in 1977, thanks to the Radio Shack console Dad brought home one night. We also had the Atari 2600 long before most of the families in my neighborhood. So I was able to get pretty good at almost everything.
Then came the arcade craze. I spent a lot of paper route money pumping tokens into everything from Space Invaders and Centipede to Donkey Kong and Galaga. My friend Mel and I would ride our motocross bikes up to the game room and blow $3 to $5 (that's usually as much money as either of us had at any given time) in an hour or two. We would be wearing our 80s-style painters caps decked out with metal pins of our favorite New Wave bands like Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls. We thought we looked cool. In reality, we must have looked like The Incredible Dork Twins.
My favorite game was one called Track & Field. You would participate in a variety of track events by repeatedly mashing a pair of buttons in rapid fashion to make your onscreen athlete run faster or jump farther. I was good at this game. Good to the point that I once played a game of Track & Field for a full hour on a single quarter.
Once I started high school in the fall of 1984, the time I had available for gaming dropped dramatically. There were sports practices, extracurriculars, actual homework assignments, etc. And the video game world quickly passed me by. I lost track of what was new and hot, and sadly the arcades started going out of business. By the mid-90s, video games cost upwards of a dollar to play and could only be found in the lobbies of movie theaters.
Now I'm reduced to the role of Inept Daddy. We'll be playing Super Mario Bros., and when I inevitably fall off a ledge or run into something I thought was friendly and die, one of the kids will give me the ultimate insult: a condescending head shake, a small laugh, and the words "Oh, Daddy." The message being: "We only let you play so we can laugh at you. You're more entertaining than the game itself."
Whatever, you little brats. Once they invent time travel and we go back to the 80s, I'm dragging all five of them to the arcade and I will school them. And I'll make them wear painters caps, too. Then my revenge will be complete.
The result is that my kids make fun of my gaming skills, or lack thereof. This actually happened: Jack was playing "Super Mario Bros." on the Wii the other day, and when I asked if I could join him, he hesitated for a second and then said, "OK, but don't be sad when your guy dies."
Slightly offended, I asked what he meant. And he said, "Well, it's just that you're not very good."
Please note that I had never actually played Super Mario Bros. on the Wii before. Jack was just assuming my incompetence.
It turned out he was right, of course. Back in The Day (I find myself increasingly referring to The Day in conversation), I was pretty good at Super Mario Bros. on the old Nintendo NES system. But this new version of Super Mario Bros. is much more complex. Whenever I play, my character must look out of the screen, see that it's me controlling him, and decide it would be just as easy to commit some form of electronic suicide.
Now if we were playing the old Atari 2600, it would be a different story. I could play me some Atari 2600. Didn't matter what the game, I was probably pretty good at it. Combat? Pac-Man? Air-Sea Battle? Basketball? I was The Man at virtually every Atari cartridge.
The main reason for this was that I actually had time to play and practice. You can get good at just about anything if you have time to work at it. When I was 12 years old, I had time for everything. Teachers hadn't yet started doing that thing where they give two hours of homework to elementary school children every night, so time is the one thing we had in abundance (of course, my generation is also functionally retarded when compared with a lot of kids today, so maybe that homework thing would have been a good idea).
Do you remember that scene in the movie "Groundhog Hog" where Bill Murray is teaching Andie MacDowell to flip playing cards into a hat? He tells her, "Six months, four to five hours a day, and you'd be an expert." That's how it was with my friends and I when it came to video games.
It helped that my dad was a Gadget Guy. And by that I mean we had most of the cool new electronic gadgets of the 70s and 80s before anyone else had them. I was playing pong on my TV in 1977, thanks to the Radio Shack console Dad brought home one night. We also had the Atari 2600 long before most of the families in my neighborhood. So I was able to get pretty good at almost everything.
Then came the arcade craze. I spent a lot of paper route money pumping tokens into everything from Space Invaders and Centipede to Donkey Kong and Galaga. My friend Mel and I would ride our motocross bikes up to the game room and blow $3 to $5 (that's usually as much money as either of us had at any given time) in an hour or two. We would be wearing our 80s-style painters caps decked out with metal pins of our favorite New Wave bands like Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls. We thought we looked cool. In reality, we must have looked like The Incredible Dork Twins.
My favorite game was one called Track & Field. You would participate in a variety of track events by repeatedly mashing a pair of buttons in rapid fashion to make your onscreen athlete run faster or jump farther. I was good at this game. Good to the point that I once played a game of Track & Field for a full hour on a single quarter.
Once I started high school in the fall of 1984, the time I had available for gaming dropped dramatically. There were sports practices, extracurriculars, actual homework assignments, etc. And the video game world quickly passed me by. I lost track of what was new and hot, and sadly the arcades started going out of business. By the mid-90s, video games cost upwards of a dollar to play and could only be found in the lobbies of movie theaters.
Now I'm reduced to the role of Inept Daddy. We'll be playing Super Mario Bros., and when I inevitably fall off a ledge or run into something I thought was friendly and die, one of the kids will give me the ultimate insult: a condescending head shake, a small laugh, and the words "Oh, Daddy." The message being: "We only let you play so we can laugh at you. You're more entertaining than the game itself."
Whatever, you little brats. Once they invent time travel and we go back to the 80s, I'm dragging all five of them to the arcade and I will school them. And I'll make them wear painters caps, too. Then my revenge will be complete.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
When I Was the One
As a follow-up to Monday's post about kids growing up and the sentimentality of it all (along with the great comments here and on Facebook), I thought you might like to take a listen to a song by John Soeder, a longtime Cleveland-area music writer/critic who, it turns out, is also a pretty good musician in his own right.
The song is called "When I Was the One," and it dovetails nicely with the thoughts I expressed about Elissa. You can listen to it and read the lyrics here. Enjoy.
The song is called "When I Was the One," and it dovetails nicely with the thoughts I expressed about Elissa. You can listen to it and read the lyrics here. Enjoy.
Monday, March 5, 2012
My daughter is HOW old again?
I suppose this is only going to get worse as time goes on, but these days I think a lot about when my kids (the older four, anyway) were little.
Not that I really want to return to that time, to be honest. Been there, done that. It was fun and now we're into another phase of life that I really enjoy. But parents always look at their kids and remember what used to be.
I do it a lot with Elissa, my high school senior who will turn 18 later this month. I realize billions of parents throughout history have gone through this before – watching your child become a legal adult – but it's my first time and it's a little bittersweet.
On one hand, I'm amazed when I look at this young woman in front of me. Because that's clearly what she is now: a young woman. Definitely not a child, and seemingly not even a teenager anymore in some ways. She's smart, she's caring, she's accomplished, and she's just so with it and organized. Sure, she still needs us for a lot of things, but that list gets progressively shorter all the time.
This weekend she'll be driving herself down to the University of Dayton to stay a couple of days and decide if that's where she wants to spend four of years of her life earning an undergraduate degree. Not long ago, the thought of her driving anywhere outside of an empty parking lot scared me to death. Now she's going to drive 400 miles round trip by herself, and I know she'll be fine.
We no longer have to manage her calendar, and it takes a concerted effort for us just to keep up with everything on her plate. There was a time when I got her dressed and gave her breakfast and lunch almost every day. She would be outside playing and would fall down and come to me crying. And that time is gone now, which is fine. It's the natural way of things and I'm glad.
But still...
I catch myself staring at her sometimes, which if she noticed would totally seem creepy (sorry in advance, 'Lis!) In some ways it definitely seems like 18 years have passed, and in other ways it's impossible even half that much time could have flown by. Does it get easier when they turn 20? 25? 30? I don't know. I don't want to know, actually. I have quite enough to deal with in the here and now, thank you very much.
This has been our first experience with senior year of high school. I've enjoyed it and look forward to the last few months. The only drawback is that everything is a "last": last football game, last homecoming dance, last school play, last concert, etc. Which, if you're already feeling a little melancholy about the whole thing, makes the emotional roller coaster that much more bumpy.
I'm becoming a sentimental old man in my early 40s, which I find pretty funny. And it's not like there's only sadness in play here. More than anything, this is an exciting time for Elissa and for us. Lots of new beginnings and new opportunities. Plenty of new ground for us all to cover.
It's just that, you know, 18! I remember being 18 pretty clearly. I think it was last week. Maybe last month. Definitely no farther back than last year. And suddenly my daughter is that age. Oh boy...
This is one of those posts that have no real point and that I'm using as a way to just vent, I guess. Well, not "vent." "Vent" implies anger or frustration. And I feel neither of those things. It's whatever the equivalent of "vent" is when you're feeling happy, sad, excited, afraid and borderline confused all at the same time.
It's a good thing Elissa has it all together, because her father certainly doesn't. Happy birthday in advance to my little(?) girl.
Not that I really want to return to that time, to be honest. Been there, done that. It was fun and now we're into another phase of life that I really enjoy. But parents always look at their kids and remember what used to be.
I do it a lot with Elissa, my high school senior who will turn 18 later this month. I realize billions of parents throughout history have gone through this before – watching your child become a legal adult – but it's my first time and it's a little bittersweet.
On one hand, I'm amazed when I look at this young woman in front of me. Because that's clearly what she is now: a young woman. Definitely not a child, and seemingly not even a teenager anymore in some ways. She's smart, she's caring, she's accomplished, and she's just so with it and organized. Sure, she still needs us for a lot of things, but that list gets progressively shorter all the time.
This weekend she'll be driving herself down to the University of Dayton to stay a couple of days and decide if that's where she wants to spend four of years of her life earning an undergraduate degree. Not long ago, the thought of her driving anywhere outside of an empty parking lot scared me to death. Now she's going to drive 400 miles round trip by herself, and I know she'll be fine.
We no longer have to manage her calendar, and it takes a concerted effort for us just to keep up with everything on her plate. There was a time when I got her dressed and gave her breakfast and lunch almost every day. She would be outside playing and would fall down and come to me crying. And that time is gone now, which is fine. It's the natural way of things and I'm glad.
But still...
I catch myself staring at her sometimes, which if she noticed would totally seem creepy (sorry in advance, 'Lis!) In some ways it definitely seems like 18 years have passed, and in other ways it's impossible even half that much time could have flown by. Does it get easier when they turn 20? 25? 30? I don't know. I don't want to know, actually. I have quite enough to deal with in the here and now, thank you very much.
This has been our first experience with senior year of high school. I've enjoyed it and look forward to the last few months. The only drawback is that everything is a "last": last football game, last homecoming dance, last school play, last concert, etc. Which, if you're already feeling a little melancholy about the whole thing, makes the emotional roller coaster that much more bumpy.
I'm becoming a sentimental old man in my early 40s, which I find pretty funny. And it's not like there's only sadness in play here. More than anything, this is an exciting time for Elissa and for us. Lots of new beginnings and new opportunities. Plenty of new ground for us all to cover.
It's just that, you know, 18! I remember being 18 pretty clearly. I think it was last week. Maybe last month. Definitely no farther back than last year. And suddenly my daughter is that age. Oh boy...
This is one of those posts that have no real point and that I'm using as a way to just vent, I guess. Well, not "vent." "Vent" implies anger or frustration. And I feel neither of those things. It's whatever the equivalent of "vent" is when you're feeling happy, sad, excited, afraid and borderline confused all at the same time.
It's a good thing Elissa has it all together, because her father certainly doesn't. Happy birthday in advance to my little(?) girl.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
When a child chunders
I applaud all of you single parents. I don't begin to understand how you do what you do, but you do it, and for that you deserve all the credit in the world.
There are certain parenting situations that, to my mind, require two people to handle. And here I'm thinking specifically of those inevitable times when a child throws up in the middle of the night.
All of the kids' rooms are upstairs in our house, while the master bedroom is on the ground floor. Therefore, Terry and I never actually hear it when someone blows chunks in their bed. Instead, we are jolted awake when they come into our room and say those terrible, terrible words: "Mommy? Daddy? I threw up."
Whenever this happens, I try to lay perfectly still for at least five seconds. My dearest hope in the world is that it's all just a dream and I can fall back asleep peacefully. But it never, ever happens that way. It's always real, and Terry and I throw off the soft, warm covers to head upstairs and survey the damage.
This is when we fall into our assigned roles. As I've mentioned on Facebook before, we are a top-notch Puke Response Team. Neither of us has to say anything like, "OK, you do this and I'll do that." We just know.
Terry's job is to attend to the Vomiting Victim. Are they OK? Do they feel like they're going to throw up again? What is the condition of their pajamas? Do they need to change? Did any of it splatter into their hair? Do they need comforting? Terry runs through this mental checklist in about two seconds. It's beautiful to watch.
I, meanwhile, am in charge of crime scene clean-up. This generally involves three things:
(1) Cleaning as much of the excess vomit -- solid and liquid -- off all surfaces with which it has come into contact, usually the bed or the floor.
(2) Taking soiled sheets and clothes (which Terry will have quickly removed from the child and passed on to me) downstairs to the laundry room so I can throw them into the washer.
(3) Dealing with any vomit stains on the carpet. On my way back up from the laundry room, I'll grab a bottle of spray cleaner from underneath the kitchen sink and apply it to all areas of the carpet that have been violated by barf. As I'm waiting for the cleaner to soak in and do its job, I will sometimes fall asleep as I stand there in the child's room. This has happened several times.
Having taken care of the immediate needs of the little horker, Terry must now make the decision as to where the child will spend the rest of the night. If they seem to feel OK, and her motherly intuition tells her it's safe, she will throw a comforter over the now-stripped mattress and let the kid sleep in their own bed. If there seems to be more imminent danger of pukage, she will put the comforter on the living room floor next to the couch and have the child sleep there. In either case, a bucket is kept close by the would-be upchucker in case of a repeat incident.
By this time I usually have sponged up any floor stains and returned the cleaning materials to their proper place. We meet back at the bed and discuss vomit-related strategy for the rest of the night. Then we put our heads down and are both asleep in seconds.
All of this happens quickly, but it's exhausting. It interrupts the whole sleep-cycle thing and takes away several precious minutes of shuteye. And that's with two of us on the case. I can't imagine doing this myself over and over again, yet you single parents do just that. You all deserve a medal.
And a clean set of child-sized bed sheets, too.
There are certain parenting situations that, to my mind, require two people to handle. And here I'm thinking specifically of those inevitable times when a child throws up in the middle of the night.
All of the kids' rooms are upstairs in our house, while the master bedroom is on the ground floor. Therefore, Terry and I never actually hear it when someone blows chunks in their bed. Instead, we are jolted awake when they come into our room and say those terrible, terrible words: "Mommy? Daddy? I threw up."
Whenever this happens, I try to lay perfectly still for at least five seconds. My dearest hope in the world is that it's all just a dream and I can fall back asleep peacefully. But it never, ever happens that way. It's always real, and Terry and I throw off the soft, warm covers to head upstairs and survey the damage.
This is when we fall into our assigned roles. As I've mentioned on Facebook before, we are a top-notch Puke Response Team. Neither of us has to say anything like, "OK, you do this and I'll do that." We just know.
Terry's job is to attend to the Vomiting Victim. Are they OK? Do they feel like they're going to throw up again? What is the condition of their pajamas? Do they need to change? Did any of it splatter into their hair? Do they need comforting? Terry runs through this mental checklist in about two seconds. It's beautiful to watch.
I, meanwhile, am in charge of crime scene clean-up. This generally involves three things:
(1) Cleaning as much of the excess vomit -- solid and liquid -- off all surfaces with which it has come into contact, usually the bed or the floor.
(2) Taking soiled sheets and clothes (which Terry will have quickly removed from the child and passed on to me) downstairs to the laundry room so I can throw them into the washer.
(3) Dealing with any vomit stains on the carpet. On my way back up from the laundry room, I'll grab a bottle of spray cleaner from underneath the kitchen sink and apply it to all areas of the carpet that have been violated by barf. As I'm waiting for the cleaner to soak in and do its job, I will sometimes fall asleep as I stand there in the child's room. This has happened several times.
Having taken care of the immediate needs of the little horker, Terry must now make the decision as to where the child will spend the rest of the night. If they seem to feel OK, and her motherly intuition tells her it's safe, she will throw a comforter over the now-stripped mattress and let the kid sleep in their own bed. If there seems to be more imminent danger of pukage, she will put the comforter on the living room floor next to the couch and have the child sleep there. In either case, a bucket is kept close by the would-be upchucker in case of a repeat incident.
By this time I usually have sponged up any floor stains and returned the cleaning materials to their proper place. We meet back at the bed and discuss vomit-related strategy for the rest of the night. Then we put our heads down and are both asleep in seconds.
All of this happens quickly, but it's exhausting. It interrupts the whole sleep-cycle thing and takes away several precious minutes of shuteye. And that's with two of us on the case. I can't imagine doing this myself over and over again, yet you single parents do just that. You all deserve a medal.
And a clean set of child-sized bed sheets, too.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
1986: Mr. Cool takes his girl out on the town
Twenty-six years ago tonight, my wife and I went on our first date.
I know this because I am the designated person in our relationship whose job it is to remember dates, anniversaries and the like. My short-term memory is slipping year by year, but March 1st, 1986, will be forever seared into my brain.
For a long time, I thought Feb. 27th was our dating "anniversary." But then a couple of years ago I looked at a calendar from 1986 and was surprised to see that the 27th was actually a Thursday...which made sense when I thought about it. I asked Terry out on a Thursday afternoon, and it was on Saturday that we actually had the date.
The "ask" was the hardest part of the whole thing. Terry was a junior, while I was but a lowly sophomore. She was -- and forever will be -- eight months older than me, but we were both in band, which for whatever reason is a place where age differences tend to matter less than they do elsewhere in the high school ethos.
Being a football player, I was only in concert and jazz bands, not marching band, where a lot of band relationships were born. But as fate would have it, Terry and I both spent our second-period study hall that year hanging out in the band room. And somehow (who knows how these things work?) we started noticing each other.
We talked a lot during those study halls, and she seemed to laugh at my jokes (she doesn't really bother doing that anymore...we both know the only one who thinks I'm the least bit funny is me, so why pretend?) Any idiot watching from the sidelines could see we were rapidly falling in "like."
But I wasn't just any idiot. I was an idiot actually involved in this thing, and I was scared to death to ask her out. Oh my goodness, she was so pretty. I mean like make-my-heart-race-and-my-stomach-flip-flop pretty. She still is. That's one of the reasons I love coming home so much.
It took a wise and mature 18-year-old senior, Connie Meier, to play matchmaker for us. I think Connie got tired of us skirting the issue and just decided enough was enough and that SOMEONE had to prod this moron into asking Terry out. So when I asked Connie if I had a shot, she said something to the effect of, "Uh, yeah, dude. Don't be so dense. Ask her."
That was about as much encouragement as I was going to get, so the only thing to do was to pop the question. Now if you've ever been in high school and have gone through this, you know you don't just ask someone to go out. You have to set it up. You have to figure out all the angles. You have to determine the right time and place. And most of all, you have to be Mr. Cool.
In retrospect, I find all of this hilarious. I already had it on pretty good authority that Terry was with the program here. No fancy prep necessary, really. But as per usual for me, I was far, far too stupid to see this. So I took a couple more days to figure out how and when I should execute my plan.
It helped that our lockers were right near each other. It was the last period of the day on Thursday. I was in Mr. Robertson's history class (poor Mr. Robertson...such a nice man and a great teacher. He would pass away the following year from, I believe, cancer). I knew I would see Terry when I went back to my locker, so I decided this would be it. This was where I would make my stand, for good or bad.
As I walked back to my locker after the final bell rang, I had that dry throat, sweaty palms thing going. Why was I nervous? Connie told me this would work. What I jerk I am, I thought. This can't be that hard.
I get to my locker. Terry is standing at hers. Oh my gosh, she's so pretty. No way I can do this right now. Seriously, no way. But oh man, she's just beautiful. Look at her! And she's not dating anyone! And she likes you, you big dummy! Just do it! JUST DO IT!
ME: "Hey, Ter." (This is what I've called her for the last quarter of a century: "Ter," rhymes with "air." I'm pretty sure that's what I called her at that moment. At least that's how I remember it. I'll have to ask her if she remembers it the same. In any case, I tried to do it in my casual Mr. Cool voice, though I'm sure I was squeaking like the frightened 16-year-old I was.)
HER: "Yeah?"
ME: "You wanna go out tomorrow night?"
HER: "Oh! Uh, no, I can't."
OH NO OH NO OH NO OH NO!! SHE'S GOING TO SAY NO! FULL EMBARRASSED PANIC MODE! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!
HER AGAIN (quickly, probably seeing my look of alarm): "Only because I have a youth group meeting at church! I can do it Saturday night!"
ME (intense relief, trying without success to slip back into Mr. Cool mode): "Oh! OK, cool. We can see a movie or something."
HER: "OK, we can do that."
And then I don't remember a thing for two days. I remember being on Cloud Nine. I remember being happy, relieved, and nervous for the actual date. But the details of the next two days are forever lost. On Saturday, I picked her up in my styling yellow 1979 Chevrolet Chevette. Nothing, I mean nothing, says "Chick Magnet" like a yellow 'Vette!
It was a snowy might. I took her out to the Mentor Mall, where we saw "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" with Nick Nolte and Bette Midler. Then we drove to Willoughby and I treated her to a gourmet dinner at the only place the wages I earned working at Wendy's could afford: McDonald's (I do see the irony there.) Then I took her home.
As I drove down her street, I couldn't remember which house was hers. They were all made of brick, and at the time they all looked alike to me. I was cruising along at full speed when she suddenly said, "Stop, that's my house!"
So I hit the brake and immediately began skidding across the snow-covered pavement. The car turned 90 degrees to the right and came to a stop right in front of her house -- actually facing her house, as it turned out.
Terry's house had a good-sized front window. And standing there as my car swerved crazily and ended up facing the house, as God is my witness, was Terry's father. I could have died.
I sheepishly backed up and pulled into her driveway. I walked her to the side door. I told her I had a good time. She said the same. Mr. Cool leaned in for a goodnight kiss. And I kid you not, just as our lips were about to meet, I burped. I NEVER burp. Seriously, I'm almost incapable of doing it. I burp maybe 5 or 10 times a year. And the God of the universe, who has never lacked a sense of humor, found that exact moment to be the time when I should take a step toward meeting my sparse Annual Burp Quota.
I was mortified, of course. I think we both laughed. But then we kissed anyway. And it was wonderful. I'm telling you, it was something. I will never forget it. I wish I could tell you at that moment I was thinking, "OK, this is the person I'm going to marry," but I don't think I was nearly sharp enough to know that. I just knew that this beautiful girl had just gone out with me. Had had a good time with me. And had kissed me. Whatever is 50 feet higher than Cloud Nine was where I spent the rest of the night. I went home a happy man in the yellow Chevette.
As it turned out, we would be engaged less than three years after that and married in a little more than six years. Kids would come one after the other for a 12-year period starting in the mid-90s. And it has all been amazing. Seriously, I can't imagine I would ever change a thing.
Except the burping part. If I could go back, I would do everything humanly possible to hold in that burp. But other than that? Paradise.
I know this because I am the designated person in our relationship whose job it is to remember dates, anniversaries and the like. My short-term memory is slipping year by year, but March 1st, 1986, will be forever seared into my brain.
For a long time, I thought Feb. 27th was our dating "anniversary." But then a couple of years ago I looked at a calendar from 1986 and was surprised to see that the 27th was actually a Thursday...which made sense when I thought about it. I asked Terry out on a Thursday afternoon, and it was on Saturday that we actually had the date.
The "ask" was the hardest part of the whole thing. Terry was a junior, while I was but a lowly sophomore. She was -- and forever will be -- eight months older than me, but we were both in band, which for whatever reason is a place where age differences tend to matter less than they do elsewhere in the high school ethos.
Being a football player, I was only in concert and jazz bands, not marching band, where a lot of band relationships were born. But as fate would have it, Terry and I both spent our second-period study hall that year hanging out in the band room. And somehow (who knows how these things work?) we started noticing each other.
We talked a lot during those study halls, and she seemed to laugh at my jokes (she doesn't really bother doing that anymore...we both know the only one who thinks I'm the least bit funny is me, so why pretend?) Any idiot watching from the sidelines could see we were rapidly falling in "like."
But I wasn't just any idiot. I was an idiot actually involved in this thing, and I was scared to death to ask her out. Oh my goodness, she was so pretty. I mean like make-my-heart-race-and-my-stomach-flip-flop pretty. She still is. That's one of the reasons I love coming home so much.
It took a wise and mature 18-year-old senior, Connie Meier, to play matchmaker for us. I think Connie got tired of us skirting the issue and just decided enough was enough and that SOMEONE had to prod this moron into asking Terry out. So when I asked Connie if I had a shot, she said something to the effect of, "Uh, yeah, dude. Don't be so dense. Ask her."
That was about as much encouragement as I was going to get, so the only thing to do was to pop the question. Now if you've ever been in high school and have gone through this, you know you don't just ask someone to go out. You have to set it up. You have to figure out all the angles. You have to determine the right time and place. And most of all, you have to be Mr. Cool.
In retrospect, I find all of this hilarious. I already had it on pretty good authority that Terry was with the program here. No fancy prep necessary, really. But as per usual for me, I was far, far too stupid to see this. So I took a couple more days to figure out how and when I should execute my plan.
It helped that our lockers were right near each other. It was the last period of the day on Thursday. I was in Mr. Robertson's history class (poor Mr. Robertson...such a nice man and a great teacher. He would pass away the following year from, I believe, cancer). I knew I would see Terry when I went back to my locker, so I decided this would be it. This was where I would make my stand, for good or bad.
As I walked back to my locker after the final bell rang, I had that dry throat, sweaty palms thing going. Why was I nervous? Connie told me this would work. What I jerk I am, I thought. This can't be that hard.
I get to my locker. Terry is standing at hers. Oh my gosh, she's so pretty. No way I can do this right now. Seriously, no way. But oh man, she's just beautiful. Look at her! And she's not dating anyone! And she likes you, you big dummy! Just do it! JUST DO IT!
ME: "Hey, Ter." (This is what I've called her for the last quarter of a century: "Ter," rhymes with "air." I'm pretty sure that's what I called her at that moment. At least that's how I remember it. I'll have to ask her if she remembers it the same. In any case, I tried to do it in my casual Mr. Cool voice, though I'm sure I was squeaking like the frightened 16-year-old I was.)
HER: "Yeah?"
ME: "You wanna go out tomorrow night?"
HER: "Oh! Uh, no, I can't."
OH NO OH NO OH NO OH NO!! SHE'S GOING TO SAY NO! FULL EMBARRASSED PANIC MODE! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!
HER AGAIN (quickly, probably seeing my look of alarm): "Only because I have a youth group meeting at church! I can do it Saturday night!"
ME (intense relief, trying without success to slip back into Mr. Cool mode): "Oh! OK, cool. We can see a movie or something."
HER: "OK, we can do that."
And then I don't remember a thing for two days. I remember being on Cloud Nine. I remember being happy, relieved, and nervous for the actual date. But the details of the next two days are forever lost. On Saturday, I picked her up in my styling yellow 1979 Chevrolet Chevette. Nothing, I mean nothing, says "Chick Magnet" like a yellow 'Vette!
It was a snowy might. I took her out to the Mentor Mall, where we saw "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" with Nick Nolte and Bette Midler. Then we drove to Willoughby and I treated her to a gourmet dinner at the only place the wages I earned working at Wendy's could afford: McDonald's (I do see the irony there.) Then I took her home.
As I drove down her street, I couldn't remember which house was hers. They were all made of brick, and at the time they all looked alike to me. I was cruising along at full speed when she suddenly said, "Stop, that's my house!"
So I hit the brake and immediately began skidding across the snow-covered pavement. The car turned 90 degrees to the right and came to a stop right in front of her house -- actually facing her house, as it turned out.
Terry's house had a good-sized front window. And standing there as my car swerved crazily and ended up facing the house, as God is my witness, was Terry's father. I could have died.
I sheepishly backed up and pulled into her driveway. I walked her to the side door. I told her I had a good time. She said the same. Mr. Cool leaned in for a goodnight kiss. And I kid you not, just as our lips were about to meet, I burped. I NEVER burp. Seriously, I'm almost incapable of doing it. I burp maybe 5 or 10 times a year. And the God of the universe, who has never lacked a sense of humor, found that exact moment to be the time when I should take a step toward meeting my sparse Annual Burp Quota.
I was mortified, of course. I think we both laughed. But then we kissed anyway. And it was wonderful. I'm telling you, it was something. I will never forget it. I wish I could tell you at that moment I was thinking, "OK, this is the person I'm going to marry," but I don't think I was nearly sharp enough to know that. I just knew that this beautiful girl had just gone out with me. Had had a good time with me. And had kissed me. Whatever is 50 feet higher than Cloud Nine was where I spent the rest of the night. I went home a happy man in the yellow Chevette.
As it turned out, we would be engaged less than three years after that and married in a little more than six years. Kids would come one after the other for a 12-year period starting in the mid-90s. And it has all been amazing. Seriously, I can't imagine I would ever change a thing.
Except the burping part. If I could go back, I would do everything humanly possible to hold in that burp. But other than that? Paradise.
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