I've started reading books again, which is a good thing

For many years I described myself as a reader. Which was fine if you ignore the fact I wasn't doing much actual reading.

I was more of an "intended reader." I wanted to read books, but I never made much time for it.

All of that has changed over the last 12 months. It started last fall with me (finally) establishing and maintaining a morning Bible reading routine and has expanded to include the array of non-fiction books I keep in my home office.

More specifically, non-fiction history books. And even more specifically, books about World War I and historically related subjects.

I don't solely read WW1 books, of course – I'm currently working through a biography of Calvin Coolidge – but I do read a lot of them.

My Great War library expanded exponentially when my friend Bill Ross started giving me boxes of books. He knows where my historical interests lay, and he has generously given of his own extensive library to bolster mine.

The problem is, it's going to take years and years to read all of the books he has sent my way. Then again, there is no deadline for getting through them short of my own demise, which I presume to be many years down the line.

So, one at a time, I'm happily reading my way through the list.

If you're a reader or wanna-be reader, I recommend the Goodreads app. It allows you to post the books you're reading, the ones you want to read, and reviews of the ones you've finished. More interestingly, it also connects you with friends, family and other like-minded readers to see what's on their bedside tables at any given time.

Reading is inherently a solitary pursuit, but I think it's more enjoyable when you introduce a social aspect to it.

Unfortunately, I've found exactly one person who wants to start a World War I book club.

And that person is me.

I'll keep searching.

And reading.

Say the things you mean to say, do the things you mean to do

Today's post was supposed to have been of the type that normally appears in this space: Silly, maybe slightly funny, but ultimately inconsequential. That is, after all, what we do here three days a week.

But then I realized it felt inappropriate to post anything that wasn't somewhat serious and heartfelt less than 24 hours after Terry and I lost the last of our parents.

My father-in-law Tom passed away yesterday quite unexpectedly. He certainly wasn't in the best of health in recent years, but to the end he was stubborn enough and certainly robust enough to be driving himself around and doing the things he wanted to do, if maybe a bit slower than he used to.

How he died doesn't really matter, though suffice it to say his heart (which was always three sizes bigger than anyone else's) finally gave out.

My own heart aches for my wife and her siblings, and for my kids. Even if they and their grandfather didn't always see eye to eye on everything – really, what combination of humans ever do? – they knew he loved them. They knew he was goofy Grandpa Ross, always ready with a laugh, a corny joke and a loving greeting.

The only point to make today is one you already know, but one that often escapes our notice until a loved one is suddenly gone.

It is this: Do not hesitate to tell the people you care about that you care about them. Do not delay doing the things with them you mean to do. Do not let them leave this life with any doubt that they had a wonderfully positive effect on you.

You don't need me to tell you this, but I tell you anyway because I need to hear it more than anyone else. Once someone is gone, they're gone. The only chance you have is right now. In this life, tomorrow is never, ever guaranteed.

That's all. It's not new, it's not groundbreaking, but it's true.

I promise I'll try my best not to forget it. I hope you will, too.

(For what it's worth, I appreciate you coming here and reading these posts. Just in case I forgot to tell you before.)

Years later, I still find myself doing The Baby Bounce

A couple of months ago we attended one of several graduation parties on our summer calendar. After polishing off the obligatory plate of grad party chicken and potato salad, I offered to hold a young mother's baby so she could sit down and eat in peace.

I have been on both sides of this equation. There was a time when our greatest desire was for someone at a family get-together to walk up and offer to hold whichever small/infant child we had at the time.

Having two hands available for eating is a treat only parents of young ones can truly appreciate.

I walked around the party chatting up various guests while holding the baby, who was getting tired and was thus a little fussy. Immediately, without even thinking about it, I went into Bounce Mode.

Moms and dads know what I'm talking about. You start bouncing up and down lightly on your toes in an attempt to lull the little one to sleep.

I had probably been bouncing for 5 or 10 minutes before I even realized I was doing it.

I'm not sure I did it well (he never did go to sleep while I was holding him), but I can tell you there was a time when I was a master of the Bounce. Back when Terry was having biennial babies, I could be counted on to put them to sleep almost every time no matter how unhappy they were.

I always said it was because I was so boring they just couldn't keep their eyes open. But I think it had something to do with the consistent rhythm of my bouncing. I just had the knack for it.

Nowadays I'm out of practice, naturally, but it was good to see that vestige of early fatherhood rising subconsciously to the surface.

It will come in handy when we have grandchildren.

Or maybe my retirement gig will be hiring myself out to frazzled young parents to have a moment to themselves while I gently bounce their babies to Dreamland.

I could make a fortune.

Do you have a hard time remembering how old you are?

I ask because I don't. I never have to stop and think, "Wait, am I 52? 53? 54?"

I just know I'm 53.

I notice a lot of people have to give it real thought when asked their age. It may take them a good 5-10 seconds before they can confidently offer an answer.

In their defense, if you're in the "lower-middle" and "upper-middle" parts of a particular decade, those years and birthdays do tend to run together. By that I mean, for example, when you're in the 52-54 or 56-58 age ranges.

Those particular years are, for practical purposes, all essentially the same.

But you know right away when you're a "milestone" age like 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. And you can usually remember if you've turned the "1" number (21, 31, 41, 51, etc.) in the last 12 months OR if you're in the final year before a milestone (19, 29, 39, 49, etc.)

But those other ages? Yeah, they go by so quickly they can be difficult to keep track of.

As I said, though, this is never a problem for me. I can rattle off my current age at a moment's notice even despite my wife's attempts to throw me off.

Terry is about 7 1/2 months older than me. We were born the same year, she in March and me in November. It is her policy, when she turns a certain age, that I am immediately that same age. In her mind, there is no time lag between us.

So for instance, if the calendar suggests that on March 18th (her birthday) she turns 40 years old and I remain 39, Terry sees things differently. To her, we are both instantly 40, birth certificates be damned.

I am so used to hearing this from her that I will admit an occasional fraction-of-a-second hesitation in declaring my age to anyone who asks. But it's so slight you wouldn't notice, and thus I claim no real trouble in remembering how old I am.

For now, that is. Try me again in 30 or 40 years. By that time, it will be sufficient if I know my first name and can come within a decade, plus or minus, of my age.

There comes a time in life when it's all about the little victories.

I know nothing of 90s pop culture because it was a blur of a decade for me

This picture was actually taken in September 2000 when Melanie was born. She turns 23 tomorrow. Happy early birthday, Mel!

Lately I've been seeing a lot of my younger friends writing nostalgically about the 1990s, and I laugh for two reasons:

(1) I remember 10-15 years ago posting fondly about my memories of the 80s and having people who graduated in the 60s and 70s chuckle because to them I was just a young'un and the 80s weren't that long ago. These 90s kids are pretty much right on schedule with their walks down Memory Lane.

(2) I retain very little of the period from, say, 1994 to 2000 because Terry and I spent those years having babies.

Well, to be accurate, Terry was the one having the babies. I was largely the one paying for them and spending my evenings and weekends changing diapers, setting up and taking down playpens, trying to get various infants to sleep, etc.

There's so much about the 90s that is simply a faint memory, and in many cases not even that.

For me, it was the decade when I got married, bought a house and started cranking out offspring.

For many others my age and somewhat younger, it was a decade of clubbing, ripped jeans and music I either don't remember or never liked in the first place.

Our experiences were, to put it mildly, a little different.

Now we're to the point that the 90s are three decades in the past and the subject of trivia questions I can't necessarily answer. I remember trying to pay attention to current events and popular culture of the time, but the only things that stick with me are the music of Raffi, the smell of baby spit-up, and Terry's frequent visits to the OB-GYN.

For a guy who graduated in 1988, I feel about 100 years old.

How to buy "5 Kids, 1 Wife" the paperback, the eBook, and the audiobook

If you are interested in obtaining a copy (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) of my book – which like this blog is titled "5 Kids, 1 Wife" – you have some options:

AMAZON: If you were to ask, I would say this is my preferred way for you to buy the book, as I can track sales and associated royalties most easily through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing platform. This is the book's Amazon page, which contains links to buy it in paperback, Kindle/eBook, and audiobook formats.

BARNES & NOBLE: On the other hand, I am certainly not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. If you want to get your copy from B&N, by all means, have at it. You can do that here (they offer just the paperback edition and not the Kindle version, as you might imagine).

CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY: I was pleased to see my friends at the Wickliffe Public Library have five copies of the book in their collection. The call number is 248 TEN. If you are in the Northeast Ohio area and want to have the book delivered to your local CPL branch for borrowing, here's the online catalog link where you can do that.

CUYAHOGA COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY: Only one copy in circulation here, but it's usually available. Here's the catalog link.

OTHER WAYS TO GET THE AUDIOBOOK:

• Audible
• Apple Books (or use the Books app on your iPhone)

As always, thank you for reading/listening, and thank you for considering a book purchase to support this labor of love I call my blog.

Scott

I didn't think I was addicted to coffee until I realized I was addicted to coffee

I may be taking the word "addiction" too lightly here, in which case I apologize to those suffering or recovering from addictions to truly harmful substances.

It's just that I've only recently come to recognize how much I rely on my morning cup of coffee (not to mention my mid-morning, late-morning and early-afternoon cups of coffee...and sometimes, when it's that kind of day, my mid-afternoon cup of coffee).

If "addiction" isn't the right word, I would say "dependence" is.

When I walk into the office each day, the first thing I do is ensure that my early-arriving co-worker Dave has made a pot of coffee. If he hasn't, I drop everything and get the coffee maker going.

When we go on vacation, the detail in which I take keenest interest is how – and how often – we can get coffee.

My last few jobs, while I didn't ask about it during the interview process, I was always quick to check with a new co-worker on the office coffee situation.

I can get through a day without coffee, but it's not very fun. All day there's a gnawing craving for just one cup of the sweet brown bean liquid. Just one.

I wonder whether it's the coffee I crave or the caffeine that powers it. On days I don't meet my normal coffee quota, I don't feel especially tired. I just get antsy, to the point that I wonder whether caffeine is more of a relaxant for me than a stimulant.

In any event, I don't like being this reliant on any substance. Until I turned 40 years old, I could take or leave coffee. After that point, it was like a switch flipped and it became an indispensable part of my daily diet.

This all worries me so much you won't be surprised to hear I'm headed to the kitchen for a cup of joe. You know, just to calm myself down.

Watching heart surgery? Piece of cake. I saw my wife give birth five times.

My first corporate communications job was at the Cleveland Clinic, one of the world's foremost academical medical centers. It was a great experience for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that I got to watch so many different surgical procedures.

When it comes to witnessing a surgery – actually standing two feet from the table as a real human being is cut open – there are only two kinds of people: You're either OK with it or you're not, and there's simply no in between.

I was always very OK with it. In fact, I loved watching surgeries and would jump at the chance to don a set of scrubs and step into the O.R. whenever the opportunity presented itself.

As a hospital media relations representative, I had many occasions to enter the surgical suites as an escort for print and broadcast journalists. Sometimes they were there filming documentaries, other times it was for a newspaper or magazine feature about a particular health condition.

The first surgery I got to watch happened when I was managing editor of Urology Times magazine. We traveled to the University of Iowa to meet with our chief medical advisor, the friendly Dr. Richard Williams, and stood tableside as Dr. Williams performed a bladder augmentation (a procedure in which a piece of intestine is grafted onto your bladder to increase its capacity).

At one point, as Dr. Williams was resecting the section of intestine he intended to use, he pulled something green and parsley-looking from inside the patient. As he held his forceps up to the light and examined the glob of whatever it was, he off-handedly said, "I thought I told her not to eat anything before surgery." And he flicked the offending vegetable matter over his shoulder and continued with the procedure.

Dr. Williams also had a box of penis-shaped pasta in his office. He was a fun guy.

One of the reasons I could stomach watching surgeons at work up close and personal was because, by the time I started working at the Clinic in 1999, I had already seen Terry birth three kids.

With only a few exceptions, the surgeries I saw were pretty clean and orderly affairs when compared with human birth. The incision had already been made before I arrived on the scene, and the surgical area was neatly surrounded by blue towels. Most of the time you couldn't even see the patient's face, which somehow made the whole thing less real.

But with babies? Well, there's nothing especially "clean" and "orderly" about it. There are immense amounts of goo, liquid and general bodily substances flying everywhere.

Or at least that's how it always seemed to me, and I wasn't even the one giving birth. I was the one sneaking peeks every once in a while to see how the baby's exit from the womb was coming.

Usually what I saw made me realize the perfect little illustrations of the birthing process they show you in parenting books have little to do with reality.

So honestly, when I started at the Cleveland Clinic and got to see so many world-class surgeons at work, it was the medical equivalent of watching an accountant do her job. Nothing I encountered rivaled what I had seen in the battlefield-like conditions of the delivery room.

All of which makes me glad I wasn't the one biologically assigned to get pregnant and give birth.

Also, as the man in our relationship, I just want to state for the record that I think penis-shaped pasta is hilarious.

I wonder if this guitar could be my fountain of youth

One problem with being someone who thrives on habit and routine (like me) is that your brain goes largely unused.

When you do the same things in roughly the same order most days, you unwittingly fall into a kind of mental autopilot. All of the books about aging say you need to engage your mind as you get older, whether that means doing puzzles, playing word games, learning a new language or taking up an instrument.

I'm not a puzzle guy, and I can take or leave word games. But the language and instrument options are intriguing.

I once started teaching myself Latin by reading "Latin for Dummies." Maybe I should try that again.

I'm also interested in learning to play something besides the saxophone. I love the sax and have been playing on and off for nearly 44 years (amazingly), but I've often thought about branching out musically.

More than once I've considered the bassoon, which is a beautiful instrument but also a costly one. It's also a double reed instrument, and I'm not sure how well I would adapt to that after decades as a single-reed player.

Plus, I think bassoon music is in bass clef. I choose to believe bass clef isn't real, so that won't work.

One possibility is the guitar pictured above. It's one of four Daisy Rock guitars I won on The Price Is Right, though we won't get into the game show thing yet again.

We sold three of those four guitars on eBay, keeping only this six-string model. I have it here in my home office and will often pick it up and noodle around with it when I'm bored.

"Noodling around" is somewhat limited for me, though, because I only know how to play two chords and can pick out maybe three other tunes. One of those tunes is a piece I wrote many years ago about a toad sitting in the middle of the road. That's a true story.

The problem for me when it comes to the guitar, you see, is that I have small hands. Fortunately, Daisy Rock guitars are somewhat smaller than normal guitars, having been designed largely for young girls.

So while I still don't know what I'm doing, I can at least be confident that when I pick up this particular guitar, it will fit my teenaged girl-sized hands and fingers nicely.

I take this to be a sign that the guitar should be my instrument of choice as I transition into Old Guydom. Playing chords on a stringed instrument feels devilishly difficult to me, but working on it will no doubt keep my brain more engaged than it would otherwise be.

Once I figure out four chords, that's when I will proudly and officially join the ranks of the white-haired guitar geezers.

I'm warning you now in case you come to the blog one day and wonder why I've posted yet another video of me playing Smoke on the Water.

One time I almost got lost forever inside a BJ's Wholesale Club

Remember when I told you people really only want to read about me being an idiot? There is no better example of this than what happened four years ago tomorrow.

It was September 12, 2019, when I took what could only be termed an ill-fated trip to BJ's Wholesale Club in Willoughby, Ohio. I had never been to the store by myself, as Terry owned our family membership and was always the one to shop there.

That is, until she got sick and sent me. I chronicled my experience through a Facebook post and a series of associated comments, and it remains one of the most heavily engaged FB items I've ever written. People couldn't get enough of me bumbling through the store trying desperately to find the items on Terry's list.

It was recently pointed out by longtime readers Pam Andrykovitch and Maria Telisman that the BJs misadventure really should have been included in my book. The only reason it wasn't was because I had never actually talked about it here in the blog, so it never came up for consideration when I was selecting posts for the book.

Clearly, though, it's a story that should be recorded for posterity in blog format. What follows is an account of that memorable trip as told through a series of Facebook screen shots. I hope the text is legible and that you will still hold me in somewhat high regard after reading it.

My wife says I'm the assistant mayor of our street

When I was growing up, the joke in our house was that my dad – who would have turned 94 years old this week, by the way – was mayor of Harding Drive.

This unofficial-yet-very-real job, which he embraced, obligated him to head outside whenever anything new, different or just plain suspicious was happening on our street.

Was someone getting a tree cut down? Dad was there talking with the crew (and probably offering advice on how to get the job done).

Was there an ambulance in front of someone's house? Dad was on the scene, often acting as a sort of spokesperson to anyone who stopped by to ask what was going on. That is, once he had grilled the paramedics or others willing to brief him on the situation.

Even if it was just a strange car parked in front of our house, he was on the case. You never can be too careful.

I always laughed at this until I became a street mayor myself.

Actually, it's more accurate to say I'm vice mayor. My next-door neighbor Joe has a longer tenure on Miller Avenue and is probably the only person who knows all five families living in the small Wickliffe portion of our street. He is the real Mayor of Miller and deserves the top job.

Still, I take my duties as his assistant seriously. Whenever there's any sort of disturbance outside, Terry knows I will be at the front window assessing the situation within seconds.

What happened? Is there any need to call the police? Should I go out there to offer assistance? It's my duty as vice mayor to check out anything at all out of the ordinary.

Interestingly, I've found this "mayor of the street" phenomenon to be very much a male thing, mostly limited to guys my age and older.

I don't have a solid explanation for this, though I do have two theories:

(1) Our kids are older and mostly (if not fully) out of the house. We need an outlet for the irrepressible urge to protect others and give wholly unsolicited advice.

(2) We are old and nosy and simply cannot be expected to mind our own business.

I have a sneaking suspicion both are true.

I have published a book and would appreciate if you would consider ordering a copy

For years I thought about writing a book, but I figured I didn't have the time, didn't know how, wasn't sure what I would write about, etc. There was always a good reason not to do it.

Then I figured out two things:

(1) I had been blogging for nearly 12 years and probably had some quality material ready to go.

(2) While there's undoubtedly time and effort involved, the people at Amazon (and more accurately Kindle Direct Publishing) have made the whole thing a lot easier than it used to be.

I chose 51 of my favorite blog posts, found a way to organize them into four sections, consulted with the wonderful Brian Sooy on how one goes about self-publishing, and voila (French for "I don't know how well this turned out, but here it is.")

This is a link to the Amazon page where you can purchase a copy of the book, which I have uncreatively titled "5 Kids, 1 Wife." You can also just go to Amazon and search for "5 Kids, 1 Wife." Searching for "Scott Tennant" is another possibility, though I should mention you're more likely to come across a series of classical guitar instruction books by a very talented musician with whom I share a name than you are to find my book.

However you get there, I appreciate your consideration.

The book costs $16. My original goal was a price of $10, but I opted for Amazon's Expanded Distribution program, which makes your book available to booksellers and libraries so they might purchase copies.

As a first-time author, I have no idea whether this program will be helpful for me. But then I remember something my son Jack recently said, which was, "Did you ever think you would write a book that someone could check out of a library?"

No, no, I didn't, but it sounds awfully cool.

Opting for Expanded Distribution raised the book's minimum price to $15.50. I rounded up to an even $16 and called it a day. The Kindle edition, should you be interested, is $8.

I make $3.42 on every paperback sold, so I am clearly not in this for the money. Heck, at the outset, I was trying to find a way to publish and distribute it for free to a select group of family and friends. Now I figure it won't hurt if I recoup at least some of the cash I sank into this project.

There is a detailed Acknowledgments page in the book, and I want to mention a few of those individuals here. In addition to thanking Terry, the kids, my extended family and the aforementioned Mr. Sooy, I also acknowledge:

• Callie Bumba, who was marvelous in designing the book's front and back covers
• Catherine Williams, a UK-based professional who expertly designed the book's interior
• Ron Kotar, a talented photographer who gave me permission to use a photo he took of Jack in the epilogue
• Everyone who has read this blog over the years and stuck with me through multiple stops and starts

If you decide to part with 16 bucks (or 8 bucks for the Kindle format) and purchase a copy for yourself, I thank you, too. Truly, thank you. You didn't have to do that, and my gratitude is immense.

I had no idea how great a short work commute would be

Until the outbreak of COVID in March 2020, I maintained a daily schedule much like that of millions of other Americans. Five mornings a week, I would get in the car and drive to my workplace. For a full decade of my professional life, that drive was a considerable one – at least by Northeast Ohio standards – of 30+ miles each way.

For more than a year, I drove a few days a week down to Akron, a distance of more than 40 miles.

There are some advantages to a longer commute, as I enumerated in a blog post  in 2015, but for the most part, it was a big hassle. It gets tedious, you're constantly having to fill your car with gas, oil changes become more frequent, there's always construction, accidents and other traffic snarls, and on and on.

Then, in June 2022, I accepted an offer to join Materion Corporation, a global company based in the nearby city of Mayfield Heights. Let's set aside the fact that, professionally speaking, it couldn't have worked out better. I love the team members with whom I get to collaborate, and the work itself is interesting and challenging.

From a purely logistical point of view, this change has been a godsend. My commute to work, which I make three days a week, is rarely longer than about 15 minutes and involves no highway driving at all. On light traffic days when the stoplights cooperate, I can get there in 13 minutes.

The days I broke 45 minutes to Akron always felt like a win. And 40 minutes was pretty much the norm for the 1,000 or so times I drove to the Vitamix corporate headquarters on Cleveland's southwest side over my eight-year tenure there.

Being so close to home makes it much, much easier for me to get to my various sports PA announcing engagements. It means far fewer times when I need to bring a change of clothes to work and run out of the office at 5:30 to drive straight to a field or gym.

On the other end of the day, not having to leave the house until 7:30am is...well, I know it's an overused word, but I can confidently say it's amazing. Life-changing, even.

An extra half-hour may not sound like much, but it allows me to do everything I've wanted to do in the mornings for many years but couldn't squeeze in without having to wake up every day at 4:30am.

Again, I'm not saying long commutes are all bad. I don't get to listen to the same number of podcasts that I used to, and it's harder for me to feed my classical music habit unless I'm very deliberate about carving out dedicated time for it.

But on balance, for me, short commutes win hands down. I had no clue what I was missing.

I am terrible at fantasy sports, and now I can share that ineptitude with my son

The official logo of the longstanding Beer Hockey League

My fantasy sports resume is, if not distinguished, at least fairly long.

I participated in fantasy baseball as far back as the 1980s. In the 90s I did a mail-in fantasy basketball league, dabbled in fantasy football, and enjoyed my first stint as a fantasy hockey owner in the Beer Hockey League (aka, the BHL, more about which in a moment).

If you're not familiar with the concept of fantasy sports, it's fairly simple: People serve as "owners" of virtual teams consisting of real-life players they have chosen or "drafted." They compete against other owners in a league format, with the goal of building the most statistically accomplished team over the course of a season in order to win bragging rights and/or some sort of cash prize.

I have enjoyed what can at best be termed "modest" success in fantasy sports through the years. I've always had a good time, though, which makes the whole endeavor worthwhile whether or not my teams do well.

About a decade ago, my life got sufficiently busy that I stepped away from all fantasy sports. Not really missing it once I was out, I figured I would never participate in a fantasy league again.

But then, a few months ago, an opportunity to rejoin the BHL came along. My son Jared and I were offered the chance to take back a fantasy hockey team we had actually co-owned in the BHL some years earlier. I initially declined, but when Jared decided to jump back in, I figured I might as well do it, too.

So now, once again, Jared and I are general managers of the Sapporo Wheat Kings, the fantasy team I founded more than 25 years ago that has changed owners (and names) a few times before coming back around to us.

Sapporo is a Japanese beer. All teams in the league have to be named after a beer. The "Wheat Kings" part is taken from the Brandon (Manitoba) Wheat Kings, one of my favorite real-life junior hockey teams.

Hockey is pretty far down the list in terms of the most popular fantasy sports, trailing not only NFL football, Major League Baseball and NBA basketball in terms of overall participation, but also NASCAR and even the Canadian Football League, for crying out loud.

The important thing is, it's something Jared and I can do together, even if he lives 1,000 miles away in Florida. We will consult via text on important team decisions like who to put in our "starting lineup" each week and which players we might want to pick up, drop or trade away. It's a nice way to stay connected even as he plies his career several states away as a baseball communications staffer with the MLB Tampa Bay Rays.

Given my fantasy sports track record, however, the experience is also likely to mimic our shared fandom of real-life Cleveland sports teams.

That is, it will be painful.

But at least it will be fun.