Headin' north with my son

Back in 2013, Jared and I drove to Rochester, New York, to watch an outdoor hockey game where the temperature at opening faceoff was 18 degrees (and falling). The NHL games we're seeing this week will be played in indoor arenas, so there's that.

My son Jared and I will be spending a week in Canada on what I've been describing as "a hockey trip."

Yes, we'll hit some tourist spots, but our main purpose in the Great White North will be to watch NHL hockey. Specifically NHL hockey as played by my favorite team over the last 33 years, the Ottawa Senators.

Many times I have told the story how I, a lifelong Clevelander, became an ardent Sens fan.

It started back in 1992 when I was a sports writer for The News-Herald, our local newspaper. The International Hockey League's Cleveland Lumberjacks had just arrived in town and I offered to cover the team for the paper.

Being at best passingly familiar with the rules and intricacies of hockey, I set out to learn as much as I could about the sport (which included taking ice skating lessons Sunday nights at the rink in Brooklyn, Ohio).

I also decided I needed an NHL team for which to root. Ottawa had just come into the league, and seeing as how I was fascinated by all things Canadian, I decided the Senators would be my team.

This despite knowing not even a single player on their roster.

I figured once they became good, I could say I had been a fan since the very beginning.

Admittedly, "good" has been somewhat elusive for the Sens over time, though they did have a nice run in the 2000s, including an appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals in 2007.

I have seen Ottawa play live about a dozen times over three decades in cities ranging from Chicago and Pittsburgh to Tampa and Columbus.

But never in Ottawa itself.

Until now.

Jared and I will travel first to Montreal to watch the Sens take on Les Canadiens at the Bell Centre, after which we'll make the two-hour drive west to Ottawa. There we'll see my guys face off against the St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers.

Finally, for the first time, I can proudly wear one of my Senators jerseys as a member of the home crowd, without fear that an opposing fan will toss beer at me when I cheer a Sens goal.

Well, I suppose that could still happen, but it doesn't seem as likely to happen there as it does in, say, Pittsburgh.

Jared and I have taken several sports-themed trips together over the years, but this one is the most ambitious of all. As I write this, I don't know what the weather will be like, so I can't be sure the long drive to Eastern Ontario and Quebec will be smooth sailing.

Or even doable.

Still, we already have the tickets and I've already booked the hotel rooms. So worst comes to worst, we'll fly up there if we have to.

That would be expensive. But after all, this is hockey.

It's serious business.

A man's got to know his limitations. I have many.

The list of subjects about which I can confidently say "Oh, I know a lot about that" is exceedingly small.

This comes as no surprise to my friends and family. They'll tell you my knowledge tends to be extremely focused and not altogether useful.

Which I suppose would be OK if I hadn't spent the past 50+ years expecting that at some point, through some unknown process, I would come to understand a wide range of things.

But it hasn't happened. I have very little wisdom and even less common sense. I continue to be mystified by how appliances in my own house work, for example.

It also bothers me that I write every day for both personal and professional reasons, yet I'm not confident I can fully explain the proper use of a comma.

And a semicolon? Forget it.

I am, in short, stunningly ignorant on most topics.

This is one reason I have very few opinions, especially when it comes to politics. Someone will explain their point of view to me on an issue and I'll say, "Well, that sounds right to me." Then another person with an opposing viewpoint will explain their perspective and I'll say, "You know, that sounds right, too."

Maybe I just don't understand the nature of opinions. I'm looking for 100% black-and-white clarity when instead I should be looking for the perspective that seems to carry at least a little more weight. You can, I guess, acknowledge that a person brings up some valid points and still overall disagree with them.

Now, I don't want you to think I'm entirely useless as a human being. There are subjects on which I'm a pretty reliable source. Or at least you could do a lot worse than me if you have questions.

Here is the complete list of those subjects:

• The Australian band Men at Work's full discography and song lyrics
• The 1979 Cleveland Indians
• World War I battles on the Western Front, 1917-18
• Oatmeal: Is it just for breakfast? (THE EXTENT OF MY KNOWLEDGE HERE: "No.")
• Rolling a 300 game in Wii Sports Bowling
• Ottawa Senators goaltenders, 1992-present
• Choosing the correct container size when cleaning up after dinner and storing leftovers

And that's probably about it.

Oh, I'm also pretty good when it comes to Flintstones trivia. Call me the next time someone asks you what Barney Rubble did for a living.

To the Great White North we go, this time without the guy on stilts

A street performer very similar to this one
almost cost me my marriage in 1994.

My son Jack and I will be taking a weekend trip to Toronto, a wonderful city that is conveniently situated a mere 4 1/2-hour drive from our home.

I love Toronto, but more generally, I love Canada. This probably has to do as much with my passion for hockey as anything else, but there are many things to embrace about our neighbors to the north.

The first time I traveled to Canada was in 1985, when my dad took me and my friend Mel to Niagara Falls for a few days. There was something exotic about getting into the car and driving to a foreign country.

Because, let's not forget, Canada is its own nation. Many Americans, while acknowledging all that Canada has to offer, see it merely as the 51st U.S. state. This is both insulting to Canadians and ignorant of the fact that they have their own unique culture and worldview.

That should go without saying, but sometimes it feels like it needs to be said.

Over the years I have often returned to Niagara Falls (probably 10 times since that first expedition in '85) to go along with half a dozen trips to Toronto, five visits to Montreal, and one memorable-but-short stay in Ottawa. I've never been to Western Canada, but I hope to get there eventually.

The memorable day in Ottawa occurred in 1994. Elissa was only a few months old at the time, and Terry and I took her with us on a week-long driving vacation with stops in all of the cities named above.

When we got to Ottawa, Terry was feeling a little sick, so she tasked me with finding a drug store and getting some medicine while she stayed in our hotel room with infant Elissa.

Without an Internet to rely on, I asked around for a local drug store and got directions to a place a few blocks over. On my way there, I came across a street performer on stilts. He was very talented, so I stood for a while watching him.

I watched him longer than I realized, because by the time I reached the pharmacy, got Terry's medicine and returned to the hotel, an undeniably lengthy period of time had passed. She was understandably well shy of pleased at how long I had been gone.

For all she knew, I could have been dead.

But no, I was just watching the guy on stilts. Did I mention how good he was?

Anyway, I had just gotten into hockey around the time we visited Ottawa and decided I needed an NHL team of which to be a fan. The Ottawa Senators had come into the league a couple of years before, so I decided they would be my team, no matter how horrible they were at the time.

They have remained my team ever since. I have seen them play in person eight or nine times over the years in a variety of cities, though never in Ottawa itself.

I hope to get back there someday. And this time, if my wife is again sick, you can be sure I'll ignore the guy on stilts and focus on my mission of getting her medicine.

Probably.

Hockey, Jared and me: Bonding over sports with your kid

That's my son Jared at his office in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's an awfully big office.

All of my children have been involved in athletics of one kind or another, but only one is what you might call a "sports fan" like me.

That would be my son Jared. Since he was very young, our main connection has been sports. I coached him in t-ball and youth soccer, and over the years we have attended baseball, basketball, hockey and football games, and have made visits together to three professional sports halls of fame.

I assume this had at least some influence on Jared's choice of profession. He works for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team as Coordinator, Baseball Information & Communications, which means he spends a lot of time researching, writing and disseminating stats and information about the Rays to media and other stakeholders.

A lot of fathers and sons (and mothers and sons, and mothers and daughters, and fathers and daughters) connect through sports, whether it's competing or spectating or both. For us, most of the memories revolve around hockey.

For example, we're in our 17th year as season ticket holders for the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League. Jared and I have probably attended more Monsters games over that time than anyone else in the family.

We have also travelled to Columbus, Pittsburgh and Buffalo to watch National Hockey League games, and we even co-own a fantasy hockey team together.

There was also a stretch during the winter of 2010 when I would take Jared to a nearby ice rink every Sunday afternoon so he could learn to skate and play hockey from a coach. While he didn't take up the sport competitively after that, I do believe it deepened his appreciation of and love for the game.

All of this is to say that, while he and I talk about a lot more than just hockey and sports in general, that's where our strongest ties have been formed. We have cheered together for various hapless Cleveland teams, mourned playoff losses, and celebrated the Cavaliers' glorious NBA title in 2016.

Next month – one month from today, as a matter of fact – I will join him in Florida as we attend an NHL game in Tampa between the host Lightning and my beloved Ottawa Senators. It was a Christmas gift from Jared and his girlfriend Lyndsey, and I think it was a perfect one.

He's a good guy, that Jared. And an excellent fantasy hockey co-owner.

Most of all, he's my best sports friend.

Five knickknacks that have followed me from job to job and office to office for the last 20 years

I'm always interested to see how people who work in offices (at their place of business or remotely at home) decorate their desks, cabinets and bookshelves.

Photos are most common, it seems, and for good reason. I have a photo of Terry and me on my desk that I look at often and that serves to remind me why I do what I do 40-50 hours a week for the Materion Corporation.

But beyond the pics of kids, spouses and significant others, there are other little bits of office decor I always find fascinating. They provide some insight into what people value, what they do with their free time, and in general what their personalities are like.

I have worked in an office setting since 1988, if you want to call newspaper newsrooms "office settings." They are unlike traditional business offices in that they're generally loud, sometimes frenetic, and usually filled with what could most politely be described as irreverent conversation. I worked in newsrooms from '88 to '96 before moving into more genteel offices.

Since 2002 I've had something like 10 different offices at six companies. Each time I've switched jobs or undergone an office move, there is a core set of items I've smothered in bubble wrap and carried from place to place. They have stayed with me for most or all of these past two decades, and I can't imagine an office without them.

Draw whatever conclusions you will about me from these longtime office knickknacks:

The Laughing Buddha

In December 2005, I spent two full weeks in China meeting with journalists to pitch story ideas on behalf of the clients I represented as a vice president at Cleveland public relations firm Dix & Eaton. I picked this up at a Shanghai market for what I'm sure was a criminally low price, as the dollar was particularly strong against the Chinese yuan at the time. There's something about him that makes me happy, and I've always made a point of putting him in parts of my office where I'm sure to see him.

The Mexican Porcupine

Speaking of Dix & Eaton, about a year and a half after I joined the firm, we moved from Downtown Cleveland's Erieview Tower maybe a half-mile away to the 200 Public Square building. As people were cleaning out their Erieview offices, there was a table where you could discard stuff you didn't want to take with you, just in case others might be interested in it. This little guy was placed on that table (by whom I don't know) and I snatched him up for no other reason than I thought he was cool. A few of the toothpick quills have broken over the years, but he's still going strong and watches me all day long as I work.

The Globe

I always wanted a globe, and one Christmas Terry gave me this little beauty. It serves no practical purpose, but then again, what true knickknack does? Actually I take that back. In 2019, a day before we were scheduled to fly to Australia for a cruise, I spun the globe to North America then spun it to Australia, and it was the first time I realized how truly distant the two continents are from one another. It made the 15-hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney a little more understandable, so I guess the globe provided some benefit in that one instance.

The Puck

I am an ardent fan of the National Hockey League's Ottawa Senators. Have been since they came back into the league (following a 70-year absence) in the early 90s. I think I bought this puck and cheap plastic display case in Niagara Falls when I took one of our kids there way back when. It's a good conversation piece when someone asks the valid question, "How does a lifelong Clevelander become a fan of the Ottawa Senators?"

The Appalachian Trail Rock

Some years ago, my neighbor Tim did some hiking on portions of the Appalachian Trail. Knowing that a through-hike of the trail is a likely-never-to-happen bucket list item of mine, he very graciously brought back a rock for me, just so I could have a little piece of the 2,150-mile pathway I would love to traverse at some point before I get too old. I always thought that was really nice of him, and it serves as a reminder that we all need to have dreams.

Dramatis personae

When I launched this blog in December (as a continuation of the old "They Call Me Daddy" blog), it was intended for family and Facebook friends. Just a way for me to write about something other than broadband Internet, which is what I spend my days fixating on at work.

But along the way we've garnered quite a few new readers, largely as a result of being part of the News-Herald's Community Media Lab and also through the retweets and online recommendations of a few very kind regulars here. The result is that I can't just assume everyone knows who I'm talking about when I reference "Terry" or "Chris Dorazio" or "Percy."

So I thought it would make sense to run down the main characters who constantly pop up here...a sort of online scorecard for those new to our little group. To wit:

TERRY: My wife of almost 20 years. Pretty, smart and the glue that keeps my life together. Also an excellent kisser. Likes chocolate, Hallmark movies, and the color yellow. More on her later this month, as we're approaching the 26th anniversary of our first date.

ELISSA: My almost-18-year-old daughter. Smart as a whip, seemingly jaded, not a lover of children (which makes life with four younger siblings challenging, I imagine). Elissa is on the brink of selecting a college. I'm on the brink of financial collapse. These two things are in no way unrelated.

CHLOE: My 15-year-old daughter. The most unique individual I know. Not quite clinically insane, but well down that path. Chloe is very much the overachiever. I'm just starting to teach her to drive. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Chloe is one day named president of the world.

JARED: My 6-foot-tall, 13-year-old son. The Man Beast is a good soccer and saxophone player, though he tends not to do those two things simultaneously. Like his father, a fan of Cleveland sports and the Ottawa Senators. I have set the boy up for a lifetime of disappointment. What a terrible parent I am.

MELANIE: My sweet little 11-year-old daughter. Mel is a goalkeeper in soccer. It takes a special kind of person (*cough* CRAZY *cough*) to be a goalkeeper, so I give her credit. Melanie is also a great actress. Thankfully, she hasn't yet learned to transfer that skill from the stage to her home life, but I know it's coming.

JACK: My 6-year-old son. An evil genius. I used to say it was just coincidence that we decided not to have any more kids after he was born. Now I'm not so sure. In any case, he's good for at least one belly laugh a day. The most unintentionally funny person I know.

SEAN: Elissa's boyfriend. Her intellectual equal AND a sax player. This is a good combination.

CHRIS DORAZIO: Chloe's Vietnamese-Italian boyfriend. Always referred to by both his first and last names.

FRED, GEORGE & CHARLIE: The family cats. Fred and George are brothers. They are scared of Charlie, a stray we took in a year-and-a-half ago and the definite alpha male.

PERCY: Elissa's chinchilla. He has a cage that's nicer than my house. May outlive me.

S'MORES: Melanie's guinea pig. Chloe refers to her as "Muffins" for reasons only Chloe understands.

ROGER: Chloe's female dwarf hamster. Yes, female. Don't ask.

ALLIE: The gecko that started as Jared's pet but was recently hijacked by Elissa. Jared appears to be fine with this.

GINEVRA: Elissa's rat. By now I assume you are not at all surprised that we have a rat.


Life is a crazy whirl of people, pets and activities at our house, and these are the people/animals who make it happen. They should all be proud.