In the mood for some joyous chaos? Try a Brazilian soccer match

My daughter Elissa, my wife Terry, and me before the match enjoying some Brahma Chopp beers, which I would describe as Brazilian Bud Lite.

Last month, four of us (my wife, our kids Elissa and Jack, and me) took a one-week vacation to Rio de Janiero, Brazil. It was the first time any of us had been to South America, and the trip lived up to our every expectation.

Rio is a wonderful place with a rhythm and vibe all its own. I highly recommend it to anyone anxious to experience Brazilian culture and the friendly Brazilian people, though it does present some minor obstacles for the American traveler.

For one thing, while there are English words on signs all over the city, relatively few people there speak our language well. I wouldn't expect them to (it's THEIR country, after all), but we tend to get spoiled traveling to many popular destinations in Europe and Asia where you can find English speakers on almost every corner.

We learned the words you need to be polite in Brazilian Portuguese, including "hello," "goodbye," "please," "thank you," and "I request that you not steal my iPhone." Beyond that, we relied on hand gestures and the godsend of an app known as Google Translate.

Fluminense supporters waving flags
and screaming at the top of their lungs.

There's also quite a bit of traffic in Rio, so don't expect to get anywhere quickly. The locals accept this as a fact of life and make up for it by driving like suicidal maniacs.

That's an exaggeration, of course, but not by much. We got around via Uber, and we found the Uber drivers to be somewhat aggressive in their driving. By "somewhat aggressive" I mean changing lanes on a whim without really looking, not bothering to even tap the brakes at stop signs, and seemingly targeting pedestrians for no other reason than the sheer sport of it.

While the Uber rides provided enough thrills to last us a long while, so did my favorite part of the trip, which was the chance to attend a soccer match between Rio-based teams Fluminense and Vasco de Gama.

We did this through a tour company that specializes in bringing foreigners to Brazilian soccer games. Buying tickets directly as a non-Brazilian is a difficult experience – perhaps intentionally so – so you have to do it through an accredited agent.

Our tour guide Leo was outstanding. He was effortlessly trilingual (Portuguese, Spanish and English) and did a good job preparing us all for the experience.

Because Brazilian soccer is an experience. From the pregame festivities outside historic Maracanã Stadium to the match itself, rare is the time you can even hear yourself think. Everything about it is loud. All the time.

A small portion of the pregame crowd near Maracanã Stadium.

The streets around Maracanã were filled with people sporting Fluminense and Vasco de Gama colors. While it was technically a home match for Fluminense, the Vasco supporters seemed to be out in greater numbers.

We were told that Vasco fans generally draw from the region's working classes, while Fluminense fans are somewhat more affluent.

Regardless, we didn't overtly root for either team. We just tried to soak in the atmosphere. Outside the stadium there were fireworks aplenty (M-80s and bottle rockets mostly) and people yelling specific chants/cheers for their team. Europeans and North Americans mingled freely and happily with Brazilians and other South Americans, giving the whole thing an air of intense but friendly rivalry more than dark menace.

Once inside, we were struck by a few things that differed greatly from American sporting events:

• The only reason we knew the Brazilian national anthem was playing was because the players stood at attention and the words appeared on the video boards. The fans continued cheering loudly as if nothing important was going on. We couldn't hear the song at all.
  
  
• Once the match began, everybody stood. Everybody. The whole time. There was virtually no sitting.
  
  
• On a related note, people clogged the aisles of our section rather than just staying close to their seats. If you wanted to go get a beer or visit the restroom during the match, you had to wade through a dense sea of screaming fans standing in your way.
  
  
• I say "their seats," but there is no assigned seating in Maracanã Stadium. You just claim a seat and sit in it. If you leave, the seat is fair game for anyone else.
  
  

That's me and my son Jack before the start of the match.

Each side's supporters seemed to have an arsenal of chants and songs they would shout together in large groups. These were obviously in Portuguese (as were all game announcements and video board messages), and Leo tried to teach me one for Fluminense.

When the Fluminense fans launched into this particular chant, Leo turned around and looked at me like a teacher quizzing a pupil, but I immediately forgot almost everything I had learned. Instead I just sort of yelled along using nonsense words that somewhat approximated what I heard from the fans around me.

No matter, though. It was still a lot of fun.

In fact, the whole thing was a lot of fun...loud, crazy, and carried out in a beautiful language I will never be able to learn no matter how hard I try. But in the end, Fluminense's 2-1 victory (even including the shower of beer that hit us when Vasco scored the first goal of the match) was undeniably enjoyable.

I will not, however, be trying out anything I learned in Brazil at, say, the next Cleveland Guardians game. Between standing in someone's line of sight the whole game and claiming seats for which I don't own a ticket, something tells me I would be in a lot more danger at Progressive Field than I ever was at Maracanã.

Is tearing up at old Raffi songs a symptom of man-o-pause?

Elissa & me, 1994

When my now-31-year-old daughter Elissa was born, Terry was working a 9-to-5 job at Lincoln Electric while I worked nights as a sports writer at The News-Herald.

This was an ideal arrangement from the standpoint of child care in that, once Terry went back to work following her maternity leave, I was there every day to take care of Elissa.

When Terry got home around 5:30pm, I would eat some dinner then head out to cover a game or go right to the newspaper office for a shift on the copy desk.

Elissa, a champion sleeper almost from birth, thankfully slept until about 9:00am every day, which was a good thing for someone like me who didn't get home from work until 1:00 or 2:00am.

Many weekday mornings, I would awaken to the sound of Elissa on the baby monitor quietly playing in her crib or babbling the way infants do.

I would get out of bed and go into the nursery, and Elissa and I would greet each other with smiles and hugs.

I would then put her on the changing table, take off her onesie or whatever jammies she was wearing, give her a fresh diaper, and dress her for the day.

Usually I would pop a cassette into Elissa's little Fisher-Price tape player to give us some music as we went about this morning routine. We had a lot of kid-oriented cassettes, but the ones I remember most were from Canadian musician Raffi.

Raffi put out a string of smash hit children's songs in the 70s, 80s and 90s, my favorite of which included "Baby Beluga," "Morningtown Ride," "Bananaphone" and "The Changing Garden of Mr. Bell." These songs and many others of Mr. Raffi's take me back to those mid-90s glory days of new parenthood like nothing else.

Elissa, of course, remembers none of this. She was too little. But I think back to the way I would sing to her and she would smile, and suddenly the room gets very, very dusty.

This wave of nostalgia is perhaps unsurprising for someone like me whose kids are mostly grown and who is 2 1/2 months away from becoming a grandfather.

I also wonder whether it's a byproduct of the tongue-in-cheekily named "man-o-pause," which medically speaking is more about the gradual loss of testosterone in men and its related physical effects.

In my reading about male menopause, I don't see anything about hormone-related emotional swings, so either I'm just making this up or else I haven't read the right sources.

Either way, I wouldn't mind going back for just one hour to 1994 and listening to some Raffi tunes while changing and holding a smiling baby who was as happy to see me as I was to see her.

What a time that was in our lives.

Did I suggest that my son should commute to college because I thought it would be best for him, or because I don't want to move yet another futon into another dorm room?

Recently Terry accompanied our youngest child, Jack, to his orientation session at Cleveland State University. I've been to a couple of these orientations, and I've always found them to be at least somewhat fun and exciting for both parents and the freshmen-to-be.

As Jack gets ready to go back to the classroom after a two-year absence, he texted us a few weeks ago asking whether he should consider living on CSU's campus in Downtown Cleveland, rather than commute five days a week.

We've had three other kids live in dorms and/or off-campus housing near Cleveland State, so it certainly wasn't an unreasonable request.

Terry and I both, however, counseled Jack that, for him, it's probably best to commute for at least a year and get used to being in college before diving into the on-campus experience.

There's also the matter of student loan debt, which would rise considerably for him if he chose to live in a dorm (what with the cost of housing, food, etc.)

Jack wisely agreed with us, but then I reflected on the true motivation for the advice I had given.

On one hand, yes, I do think this is the best approach for Jack. I really do.

On the other hand, I have helped four of our children move into dorm rooms and apartments, none of which ever seemed to be on the ground floor but involved endlessly waiting for a single elevator that five dozen other students and their parents were trying to use.

It's a tiring process that involves lugging heavy bins and boxes of clothes, bedding and other dorm room accoutrements.

And I'll admit: While I strength train every week, it was one thing doing all of that in my 30s and even 40s. It's a somewhat different thing to do it in my mid-50s.

Oh, I can do it. I'll manage. It's not so much the actual moving as it is the prolonged recovery from moving that will inevitably follow.

Because, you see, that's what I notice about being this particular age: I can still do almost everything I've ever done, but if it's at all strenuous, my body (which used to bounce back in hours) will let me know about it for a solid day or two afterward.

I'll move your couch up the stairs, sure. I'm just desperately hoping you won't ask me to move the love seat, too.

In the end, I'm confident that what I told Jack came from the right place.

But if he decides to stay on-campus in future years, I'm requesting that a case of ibuprofen be kept close by at all times.

Every once in a while, I like to offer my wife examples of things an idiot would say

The AI-generated wife in this picture is looking at her AI-generated husband the way my real-life wife sometimes looks at me.

This is a fairly common exchange between me and my bride of many years:

ME (cleaning up the kitchen after dinner): What should I do with your glass of water? Dump it out?

TERRY: You should leave it it where it is and not touch it so I can have some later.

ME: Yes, of course! I knew that, but I wanted to show you what an idiot might ask in this situation.

This happens all the time. I ask what ultimately turns out to be a dumb question, and when I hear the answer, my only chance at recovery is humor.

Other situations in which I end up having to offer the "I was just letting you know what an idiot might say" defense include, but are certainly not limited to:

• When I'm looking for something in our house and she points me toward its easily discernible (for a non-idiot) location
• When I'm unloading the dishwasher and ask – for what may be the 37th time – which black plastic kitchen tools go in the tool turnabout and which ones go in the sliding drawer to the right
• When I ask what she's doing today after she has already told me twice
• When I'm trying desperately to open a package from the wrong end and she gently points out the "tear here" direction on the other side
• When I ask what time our family get-together starts instead of just looking at the calendar on the fridge
• When I'm trying to put something together and somehow miss the very clearly marked Tab A that goes into Slot B

And so on.

I view all of this as a helpful service. Without me, my wife would never know how to identify an idiot in her life.

Even though she has lived with one for 33 years.

How will I fill my days when I retire?

For many years before he passed, my father-in-law Tom liked to point out that he was retired and rarely had significant obligations on his calendar, unlike those of us still working for a living.

It would be a family get-together on a Sunday, and someone would say something like, "I have to work tomorrow." Someone else would chime in, "Me too."

Then Tom would flash that funny little mischievous grin of his and say, "Not me!"

I have often wondered what that life would be like.

Actually, we all get glimpses of it on our days off. Especially our weekday days off.

The stores and the roads are relatively empty. We're free to structure our time however we like.

And sometimes, after that giddy feeling of being unencumbered by job-related responsibilities passes, we're also free to be bored.

I look ahead a decade (or so) hence to my own retirement, Lord willing and the creek don't rise. The possibilities are intriguing and exciting, but I also worry I'll run out of things to do.

I imagine it takes a little while to get the hang of being retired. By the time I call it quits, I anticipate having been in the full-time workforce for 44 years or more.

That's a fur piece, as my dad used to say. Certainly long enough to develop deeply ingrained patterns of behavior necessary to survive and thrive in the world of work.

Changing those patterns can, I assume, be a bit of a challenge, especially when you reach an age when change of any sort is met with skepticism or outright annoyance.

How am I going to deal with that?

Maybe more importantly, how will Terry deal with having me around all the time?

I can't say for sure, but I can tell you something I noticed recently when talking with her.

It was a particularly stressful and busy week, and I sighed and said to her, "Am I retired yet?"

It took her less than half a second to reply with a sharp and emphatic, "No." The message I took away was, "No, you are not, and I would prefer you not be retired for as long as possible so I don't have to share this gloriously empty house seven days a week."

Maybe, if she has her way, I'll never have to worry about how I spend my retirement days because I'll never be allowed to retire in the first place.

So much of my mental wellbeing depends upon a nearly empty inbox

 

Please, as a favor to me, don't do this.

(NOTE: This post was originally published here four years ago on June 18, 2021. As is usually the case with these blog reruns, I have not changed my opinion on this subject.)

You may have heard it said that there are two types of people in this world: Those with zero emails in their inbox, and those with 5,000 emails in their inbox.

I am of the former camp. You can almost always fit my inbox onto one screen. It is stressful for me to have unread emails in any quantity, let alone a list that numbers into the tens, hundreds, or (gulp) thousands.

There have been times when I was watching a presentation by a co-worker sharing his/her screen, and for a brief second you could see Microsoft Outlook with an ungodly blue number like 32,418 next to their inbox, representing the total number of unread messages in there.

I would have a heart attack. Seriously, at that point you need to just start over.

I maintain an orderly folder system for both my personal Gmail and work Outlook accounts. These folders are divided into categories, and I place emails into each upon receiving and reading them. And many I just delete right away.

"What about emails that need to be acted on but I don't have the time to do it right when they come in?" you might ask.

Then have a "To Do" folder or something that tells you these are messages that need to be addressed in short order. Or make good use of a program like Microsoft OneNote or Evernote that allows you to easily create tasks and reminders for yourself.

Just, please, don't allow that blue "unread" number to get into the five digits. Or the three and four digits, for that matter. The aneurysm you save will probably be mine.

I was never a hat guy until long after the hair decided to leave the top of my head

This is me in a golf cart on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in France, and well, I just think that's a funny sentence.

I think it was the late 80s or early 90s, but at some point, guys in my generation decided they should start wearing baseball caps.

I should say American guys made this decision, as we seem to be the only ones who have done it.

I should also add that other guys besides me started wearing hats, because until the last couple of years, I never embraced the trend.

That was partly a result of my big head. I never felt I looked all that good with a hat on. Plus, there's a certain reality to buying a hat for a large skull. Sometimes even the adjustable ones are uncomfortably tight.

I lived happily this way for decades. At the same time, starting in my mid-20s, I began losing hair on the crown of my head. This is a genetic thing and, hey, it happens.

One result was that, at least five times every spring and summer, I would be outside for an extended period and my bald spot would turn red and uncomfortable.

I've always just lived with this, never quite making the connection that, if I were to start wearing hats in the warmer months, I would not get these sunburns.

It was only when my wife strongly suggested I keep a supply of hats in my car that I started wearing them, and even then it's really just an occasional thing for me.

In fact, I'm recovering from a crown-of-the-head sunburn as I type this in mid-May because I didn't wear a hat recently when announcing a high school baseball game. The temperature was on the cool side, and apparently to my brain, that meant there was no danger of sun damage.

Which is of course silly and wrong. It doesn't have to feel hot for the sun to burn you.

So I'm trying to get myself into the hat habit. I have 3-4 baseball caps and a floppy brimmed hat in the car, all of which make me look exactly like what I am: A middle-aged suburban dad and soon-to-be grandpa trying not so much to be cool but rather to ward off melanoma from the top of my oversized head.

It's an ongoing struggle.