It's already to the point that I can't clearly remember when the kids all lived at home

I used to live with all of these people. Just don't ask me about the details.

It's not like Terry and I are 80 years old or anything. We're not even officially empty nesters yet.

But to my surprise, I have trouble remembering the days when all seven members of our family lived together at 30025 Miller Avenue. The last time it happened, I think, was 2015. Maybe 2016.

Which for the math-impaired isn't even a decade ago.

Yet things get blurry when I try to recall what the mornings were like, or how we all squeezed in around the kitchen table for dinner. I was at work quite a bit of the time, of course, but I was there enough that I should be clearer on the details.

What I do remember is general chaos most of the time. Sports, band, church activities, movie nights, sleepovers, vacations. It was great, but it has all run together in my increasingly addled mind.

It's the small-but-important details that have escaped my brain. Who slept in which room? Who left the house first in the morning? At what age did they start spending more time with their friends than with us? Were Terry and I the only ones who woke up for late-night infant feedings, or did the newborns also awaken their siblings?

It's all a jumbled mass that has separated itself into two broad periods of time: the years when Elissa, Chloe, Jared and Melanie lived with us (1994 to 2022) and the years when it has just been Terry, Jack and me in the house (2022 to the present).

The particulars are increasingly fuzzy.

Naturally, this effect is most pronounced with my 30-year-old daughter Elissa. I know she lived with us for the first 20 or so years of her life, and I remember many individual moments and milestones, but the day to day is indistinct.

What did she eat for breakfast? How often did she hang out in the living room and talk with us? Where did she do her homework?

You got me. I was there, but I just can't recall much of it.

I would feel much better if other middle-aged parents consoled me with tales of their own kid-related amnesia. Otherwise, I can only conclude that my cognitive decline is accelerating and I am that much closer to being a drooling mess who can't even remember yesterday, let alone 10 years ago.

Memories of sleeping on the floor in my parents' air-conditioned bedroom

I've lived in just three houses my entire life. The only one that has had central air conditioning is the one I live in now.

Not to get all "back in my day" or anything, but when I was growing up, I don't think central air was a thing. At least not among the middle class people I knew.

When it got hot in the summer, we would usually just sleep on top of the covers with the window open. It wasn't the most comfortable arrangement, but when you're a little kid and don't know any better, it does the trick.

There were times, however, when it was so hot in the evening that even that approach didn't work. That was when my parents would invite me to sleep in their bedroom, which had a luxurious window air conditioning unit.

(I say "luxurious" because it was a powerful 70s-era model designed to cool a space much larger than their bedroom. My dad would crank it way up, too, resulting in meat locker-equivalent temperatures.)

Mom would arrange a little nest of blankets at the foot of their bed for me to sleep on and under. Many times I remember laying there curled up with a smile on my face, happy not only to be comfortable but also to be in the same room as my mom and dad.

It was a level of security and contentment that I have seldom known since.

Not that I don't feel secure and content in my life. I do. But once you become a parent, your job is to provide security and contentment more than to experience it. It's a responsibility those of us with children embrace willingly.

Still, even now when we have the AC on and I'm nestled in bed next to Terry, I often think about those times when I happily slept on the floor in my parents' room.

I can't explain it, but on those nights, I knew I was loved.

My sister would have been 71 years old today and sometimes I can't remember exactly what her voice sounded like

 

That's Judi posing with Elissa, Chloe, Jared and Melanie in what was probably 2006 or 2007.

Every once in a while I stop and try to remember exactly what my dad and my sister Judi sounded like.

We have old video recordings of them, and of course I still know their voices. But as the years go by, it takes a little more effort to recall those sounds in exact detail.

This fall, it will be 25 years since Dad passed away, and in May it will be 15 since Judi left us so unexpectedly. That's long enough (at least for me) that their voices don't spring as readily to mind as they used to.

Which seems so strange considering they were both such important parts of my life for so long. You would think the sound of them talking would be indelibly etched in my mind.

And I suppose it is. It just takes a few extra seconds to pull it out of my memory banks.

We are blessed to live in an age when we have digital records of what our loved ones looked and sounded like. I just never thought I would need them.

Whether it's age on my part or simply the erosion of memory over the distance of years, I'm glad I can still bring up recordings of them both using only a few mouse clicks. It's a crutch I don't mind relying on.

Happy birthday, Jude.

Those mundane home movies of yours are immensely valuable

Like most families, we have gigs and gigs of digital videos of our kids as they were growing up.

While home movie cameras have been around for more than half a century, the digital era has made it exponentially easier to chronicle your family history and share it with everyone (whether they're interested or not).

Lately, having watched some of our videos from the chaotic mid- and late 90s, I've come to realize the importance of these personal archives.

I had forgotten, for instance, just how crazy those days were for us. Logic suggests having four (and later five) little kids in the same house is inevitably going to generate some degree of mayhem, but it had slipped my mind just how fun and crazy it all was.

The short clip above is a scene from our family Christmas 1998, and a quieter account a week later of little Jared eating baby cereal for the first time.

Nothing earth-shattering, yet there is so much to enjoy in those two minutes:

• The tumult of voices that punctuated every family Christmas
• A shot of my mother-in-law and father-in-law, now both gone, as their granddaughters Courtney and Elissa present Grandpa with a gift (a weather rock, as it turns out)
• Hairstyles I had forgotten about, and a long-since-faded hair color (dark brown) for me
• Jared's little Cleveland Lumberjacks hockey bib
• Jared's less-than-enthusiastic reaction to his first taste of something that wasn't breast milk (I believe the cereal was mixed with breast milk, but after a few spoonfuls, it didn't seem to help)
• Scenes from our old house on East 300th Street

As I said, none of this is life-changing or especially significant to anyone but us. Yet I can't get over how wonderful it all is.

As time goes on and your children inevitably grow up and move on, you forget the small moments that made up the fabric of life. The big events are great, of course, but your existence is mostly the everyday stuff, the memory of which brings back feelings you forgot you ever had.

Thank God for digital video.

Learning (finally) to appreciate the memories while you're still making them

Thank you, Ron Kotar, for one of my favorite shots of drum major Jack!

We are in the midst of a 10-week period during which Friday nights in our family can only be described as chaotic.

For many years now, our Friday evenings from late August through the end of October have revolved around high school football games and halftime band performances. All of our kids have been members of the Wickliffe Swing Band at one point or another, and my son Jared also kicked for the football team for three years.

At the very least, that has meant hastily consumed dinners, getting kids to the school on time before a game, and dressing up in our finest Blue Devil gear.

But this year the chaos—I can think of no other appropriate word—has ratcheted up by a factor of about 10. To wit:

• Jack, who is enjoying his senior year victory lap, is both co-drum major and band president. These roles encompass a lot, not the least of which is trotting out to the center of the field at halftime along with his fellow drum major Clare, flinging a baton high into the air, and trying to catch it when it comes back down. All with 90% of people in the stadium watching the two of them. I don't know how nerve-wracking it is for Clare and Jack, but it's terrifying for me.
  
  
• Terry, who has long volunteered her time to the Swing Band, has taken her involvement this year to a new and presumably unprecedented level ("unprecedented," at least, in Wickliffe band history). She is not only in her second year as Band Booster president and her ninth year as chair of the uniform committee, she also recently took on the official title of "assistant director." Like, she's now an official Wickliffe City Schools employee and everything. It is risking gross understatement to say she is invested in the success of this ensemble.
  
  
• My Friday night contributions pale in comparison with Jack's and Terry's, but I'm in my ninth year as the Swing Band announcer as well as my first year as the full-time Wickliffe football PA announcer. The poor people who come to our games cannot escape the reach of my voice without running to their cars and driving home.

So fall Fridays are a production. They're also fleeting. If Wickliffe doesn't make the state football playoffs this year, after tonight we only have six games to go. Then, just as suddenly as it began, it will be over.

This time next year, Jack will be in college. Terry may or may not continue her involvement with the band, but it will be at a scaled-back level if she does. And while I still plan to announce, it won't feel quite the same as it does this year.

All of which is why I'm enjoying every second of this season. You would think, with five children (four of whom are out of high school and in their 20s), I would have learned long ago how quickly it all passes and to appreciate it. But until this year, I really hadn’t.

For the past decade and a half, we've always had at least one child at the high school, with the promise of more to come. Even last year we knew Jack still had his senior season ahead. So I just jumped from one event to the next without ever stopping to take in the moments and savor each one.

Now, with something of a life transition staring us in the face, I find myself pausing on Friday nights and just looking around. I listen to the crowd. I watch Jack march. I observe Terry in her element, doing everything she can to make sure the band is put in the best position to succeed. And I smile at all of it. I take a breath and acknowledge what a special time this is for us.

And how, in no time at all, it will have passed us by.

As recently as a month ago, I dreaded the thought of it ending. But now I don't really mind that much. Just being present in the moment and knowing it's a memory in the making changes the whole dynamic. It will end, yes, but that's OK. It's special BECAUSE it's going to end.

At the beginning of every halftime show, I get to announce Jack's name as co-drum major and Terry's name as assistant director (she's only just now getting comfortable with me doing that...not much of a spotlight-seeker, that one). Even counting upcoming band festivals, there are fewer than 10 such opportunities remaining.

With each one, I lean into "Jaaaaaaaaaack Tennaaaaaaant!!!" and "assistant director MRS. Terry Tennant!" just a little bit more.

What an incredible blessing this has been. And still is. And always will be.

I will never forget the feeling of moving into our first house

I was 22 years old and hadn't even graduated from college when I made my first mortgage payment.

It was March 1992 and Terry and I had just got the keys to our first house. We were going to be married that June, so I lived there by myself for a few months while finishing up my undergraduate degree at John Carroll and working my first full-time job at The News-Herald.

It was a hectic, heady period, and I still consider it to be one of the most exciting times I've experienced. For several weeks there, it was just life milestone after life milestone.

All of it was great, but nothing quite beats that first time we walked into the house when it had become ours. Houses belong to grown-ups, and suddenly this particular one belonged to us. We were little more than kids, yet we were responsible for everything that happened in and around 1913 East 300th Street.

That was admittedly a little scary, but the thrill of it far outweighed any dread.

Nearly 30 years later, we still have a mortgage. And we've moved on to another house where we've lived for 18 years. And of course we managed to fill up both houses with children, laughter, and memories.

And I'm still cutting the grass. Until I break down and hire someone to do it, I hope to be cutting the grass for years to come.

It's a life that began three decades ago in that beige house with the enclosed front porch and the (seemingly to us) big backyard.

What a ride it has been. What a ride it will be.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Saturday in the Park: What is your earliest memory?

Asking people about the very earliest thing they remember in their lives is a tricky business, for at least two reasons:

• What they think is their earliest memory may not actually be their earliest memory. You're going back to toddler-hood here, and I'm not sure your brain's recollection of those times is to be trusted, at least so far as sequencing events goes.
  
  
• What they see as a memory may not have happened at all, but may be something they think happened or that they actually dreamed at some point.

Which is why I'm not entirely sure this really happened, but I believe my earliest memory to have occurred sometime in the latter half of 1972 when I had just turned 3, or maybe slightly earlier. And here's why:

The memory itself is walking out of my room (or my parents' room...wherever it was I was sleeping at the time) very early one morning into our living room, which back then had these hardwood floors. And I remember picking up a copy of the album pictured above, which is "Chicago V" by the band Chicago.

I remember that part distinctly because I thought the cover was so cool. Chicago V came out in July 1972, and I'm guessing my brother Mark would have bought it soon after its release. Or maybe my sister Debbie? Either way, we had a copy.

I can't go back further in time than that, and it was a relatively minor thing that I believe to have happened.

What's your earliest memory, and how confident are you it actually happened and/or that the details in your mind are accurate?

(By the way, "Chicago V" included the classic Chicago song "Saturday in the Park," and today is Saturday and all, so you were getting this post no matter what.)

Everything I think is true about my past is apparently wrong

Not long ago, I found a plastic bin in our storage room filled with memorabilia from my high school and college years.

When this happens and you're in your mid-40s, you may as well block off the next couple of hours on your calendar, because you're going to have a grand old time rummaging through that bin and reliving what apparently passes for your glory years.

And it was fun. Among the items I came across was a spiral-bound booklet recapping my senior football season in the fall of 1987. I read through almost the entire thing.

Football was a funny thing for me. I was the only person I knew who played football mostly to stay in shape for track, which was my main sport. For most other guys, sports like track were used to stay in shape for football.

I was a running back, and a career back-up at that. This was partly because I had some excellent athletes playing ahead of me in Scott Martin (tailback) and Ron Szinte (fullback). I was faster than both of them, but they were both stronger than me and had much better football sense.

We also had a very good team overall, going 8-2 my senior year and losing to Youngstown Cardinal Mooney, the eventual Division III Ohio state champions, in our one and only playoff game.

As a result, I carried the ball on the varsity level fewer than 30 times through four seasons. I managed to score four touchdowns during that time, and I somehow averaged more than 10 yards a carry my senior year, but I was never much more than a third option when it came to running the ball in our Wing-T offense.

Which was actually fine with me. Like I said, football was there to keep me in shape in the months before indoor track started. And what I mostly liked about it was the contact and daily routine of our practices.

Anyway, as I read through that old booklet and relived those 11 games from my senior year, I realized that over time I have completely fabricated many memories about them.

Final scores I have in my head were wrong. Carries I thought I had were nowhere to be found in the stats. And details I was sure would never leave my brain were almost as inaccurate as they could be.

This leads me to believe that at some point when we reach our 20s, we create a narrative of our childhoods and our high school experiences that we take as gospel truth. And many times it is.

But in some cases, we either believe what we want to be true, or else we inadvertently change up the story in our heads and after awhile it becomes our own personal version of reality.

I can't tell you whether this is good or bad. Only that it is.

I'd like to think that my overall impression of high school is accurate. As I remember it, I had a ball. I have no desire to repeat that time of my life, really, but all in all, it was a fun time for me.

So now I'm scared to death that somehow these happy memories are going to get blown up the way my supposedly crystal-clear football memories were rocked by reality nearly 30 years after the fact.

Do me a favor: If I served time in prison or something when I was in high school and I've simply blocked it out, please don't tell me. I'm perfectly fine living in this Bubble of Happiness I've created for myself.