I now have a lawn mowing guy and a snow plow guy, and I feel spoiled

For 30 years, I cut my own grass and shoveled the snow out of my driveway. Neither of these things is my favorite chore, but it was a point of pride that I did them myself.

Now someone else does them, and I'm not sure what to think.

It started last November when I was out shoveling the aftermath of the first snowstorm of the season. A guy drove up in a plow truck and asked if I wanted to hire him to clear our driveway for the winter.

His name was (and still is, for that matter) Jason. I asked how much he charged. He asked what I thought was fair. It turns out he normally does only commercial snow removal, but he was going to be in the neighborhood regularly to clear his mom's driveway anyway and could do mine whenever needed.

I told him he had a deal and I would get back to him on the going rate for residential driveways our size.

It was one of those mild winters where the plow guy comes out way ahead financially vs. the number of times he actually needs to clear the snow, but I didn't care. Jason is reliable and does a thorough job. I'm willing to pay a premium for that kind of service.

Yet...each time he came, there was a part of me that would watch him through the living room window and think, "What am I, 90 years old? I should be out there doing that myself. I don't need a plow guy."

Which I realize is dumb, but I was so used to me and/or the kids shoveling the snow that having a non-family member do it seemed strange.

Now fast forward to this past spring. I had some extra money from my PA announcing work. I knew my least favorite part of the time period from, say, April through October was cutting the grass. I saw a few landscapers advertising on our local community Faecbook page, so I reached out to one who had good reviews.

His name is Nick. He came over and assessed our yard and told me he could cut the grass, edge/trim and clean everything up once a week for $50 a pop. It takes me a little more than an hour of concerted effort to mow our half-acre lot, so this felt like a pretty good deal.

Now Nick comes every Monday to take care of my grass. I see him out there doing a nice job and I think to myself, "This is great! I love not having to worry about it anymore. I should have done this years ago. Of course, the fact that I've given it up also makes me a wuss."

I cannot escape this way of thinking. This idea that asking for help – even hiring help – is some sign of weakness. It makes no sense, but then many things that run through my brain these days make no sense.

Speaking of which, Terry and I have a strange mental block when it comes to remembering Nick's name. At various times (this is true), we have referred to him as Jason, Josh, Ryan and Kyle, in addition to this actual name.

Maybe I really am 90 years old.

Dress pants and khakis are way more comfortable to me than jeans

When I began my career, I worked at a newspaper. My summer office attire was a t-shirt and shorts. If I was feeling fancy, it was a pair of jeans and a polo.

When I transitioned to the 9-to-5 world in the mid-90s, the bar was raised to wearing a dress shirt and tie most days. For my first PR job at the Cleveland Clinic, it was a full suit every day, apparently on the off chance that as a hospital spokesperson, I might unexpectedly be asked to go on camera if a TV crew showed up and wanted a statement (which never actually happened).

Nowadays I have a formula when it comes to dressing for work: If the weather is warm, you will see me in a button-down shirt and a pair of solid-color pants (either dress pants or Dockers). If it is chilly, I wear the same thing with a sweater over top of the shirt.

I rarely stray from this approach. As a 53-year-old suburban dweller, I feel it is my right to dress in a boring, formulaic manner.

Here's what I don't get: Why do office workers treat "jeans days" as some sort of bonus? Over the years at the various organizations where I've worked, there has always been a desire for Friday jeans days. Or in the case of certain office competitions, one of the prizes has often been a jeans day.

I do not understand this. Maybe I'm buying the wrong jeans, but to me, jeans are not the ultimate in comfortwear. I would much rather wear my looser-fitting dress pants or those good old, dad-approved Dockers. They just feel better, especially when I'm wearing them for 9-10 hours at a stretch.

Office dress codes have evolved to the point that – at my place of employment, anyway – you can wear jeans just about every day of the week if you want. And I have done that before, but it only served as a reminder that jeans are not the sartorial delight they're cracked up to be.

Of course, your perspective on this may vary greatly. I'm someone who honestly never minded wearing a suit and tie every day (it greatly simplified the process of picking out clothes in the morning, I'll tell you that). So maybe my definition of "comfortable" clothing doesn't necessarily match that of the rest of the world.

There's also this: I'm a man. Maybe women value jeans more highly than the office-approved alternatives they're given.

Jeans were originally developed in the 19th century for mineworkers, weren't they? I'll you what, then...the next time the Materion Corporation asks me to descend 300 feet underground to search for gold, I'll throw on a pair of Levis.

In the meantime, my closet full of patterned button-downs and black, blue, gray and brown pants serves me just fine, thank you very much.

I try so hard to find stuff in my own house before I finally resort to calling Terry

 

No stereotype is universal, but some are pretty close.

One, in my experience, is that men are curiously unable to find things. Things that are right there in plain sight. Things that seem impossible to miss.

Yet I manage to do it.

Please understand, this is not for lack of trying. When Terry sends me to the basement to fetch something, I go down there with every intention of not looking like an idiot.

"Get me the big blue bowl," she will say. "It's behind the folding door, second shelf from the bottom, right next to the Christmas cookie cutters."

"That sounds easy enough," I think to myself. "Folding door, second shelf from the bottom, next to the Christmas cookie cutters. Got it!"

I make my way to the basement, slide open the folding door and kneel down to get a good look at the second shelf from the bottom.

No big blue bowl.

I look again. Still not there.

I move some things around on the shelf. Nada.

I look on other shelves, thinking maybe she just had the wrong one in mind. Again, nothing you could remotely describe as a big blue bowl.

I go back to the second shelf from the bottom. The situation there is unchanged. There are many things on that shelf, but as far as I can tell, nothing big, nor blue, nor bowl-like.

I head back upstairs to report that she is perhaps mistaken and ask her to think where else the big blue bowl might be.

"It's there," she tells me. "Look harder."

Annoyed, I go back to the basement, knowing the big blue bowl isn't suddenly going to appear out of thin air. And of course I am right. There is no big blue bowl on the second shelf from the bottom.

I yell up to her that she's welcome to come down and see for herself that the bowl is not where she believes it to be. As she comes down the stairs, I imagine the heartfelt apology she will offer when she discovers I am right.

She strides over, bends down, looks at the second shelf from the bottom and...pulls out a very big, decidedly blue bowl and stares at me for a moment.

I am dumbfounded. Gobsmacked, even. I don't understand it. I was looking right at it the whole time. But it never registered. I never saw it. It just...well, I blame my brain, which clearly doesn't understand what a "big blue bowl" is and has failed me yet again.

Terry shakes her head slightly and takes the bowl upstairs.

I pull out my phone to Google "treatments for cognitive impairment."

Somehow, after 31 years, we're still married.

Apparently we age in fits and starts

Six months ago, I thought I was doing pretty well in the aging department. I had just lost some weight, I only needed reading glasses very occasionally, I was free from any sort of chronic pain, and I was even starting to add strength training to my normal walking/running regimen.

Then some things happened, some of which were beyond my control:

• Suddenly, a lot of books and documents became awfully hard to see. Things I could read unaided at Christmastime are now, shall we say, a little out of focus. I have reading glasses stashed everywhere.
• That weight I lost? Gained it all back. And then some.
• A couple of weeks ago I fell. More on that below.
• I haven't lifted a weight in a few months.
• My hair, which has been a mix of gray and white for some time now, suddenly seems a lot whiter.

Thankfully – blessedly – I am still free from chronic pain. But the way things are going, I'm not counting on that lasting much longer.

As for my fall, that was admittedly my own fault. I was watching the Cleveland Guardians baseball game on my phone and not paying attention as I attempted to walk down the three steps that lead from the kitchen to our mud room.

I missed the first step, which meant I was going to miss every step. Down I went, landing hard on my backside and right elbow.

My butt is fine, if I do say so. But I STILL can't put much weight on the elbow (i.e., like when you rest your chin in your hand).

Even worse, as Terry points out, when the doctor asks if I've fallen in the last six months, I'm going to have to respond "yes."

That hurts.

I'm only 53, so it's not like I'm a senior citizen. But what I've noticed so far about the aging process is that you can be going along just fine for months and years at a stretch, confident in the thought that you're doing a good job holding back the tides of time.

Then a whole bunch of things happen in succession, reminding you what they mean when they say Father Time is undefeated.

Of course, 15 years from now I will long to feel 53 again, since this aging thing only tends to go in one direction (and it's not the direction you're hoping for).

The good news is this: So much of how we're going to feel as older adults is under our control now. Proper diet, exercise (including flexibility and balance work), stress management and maintaining social connections can overcome a whole lot of genetic baggage.

Even better is that you can still indulge in the "bad for you" things you love, but it has to be occasional and it has to be controlled.

Those are my only two problems when it comes to, say, eating sweets: "occasional" and "controlled."

Other than that, along with maybe the occasional tumble and an alarming reliance on cheap CVS reading glasses, I think I've got this aging thing under control...mostly.

I'm writing a book and cannot stand to read my own words anymore

I don't know what prompted it, but a couple of months ago I decided I was going to publish a compilation of my best blog posts. If all goes well, it will be released sometime this fall.

Actually, the 50 posts in the book may not necessarily be my "best." They're more like my "favorites." As I combed through the 840 posts I've written over the past 12 years, I picked out the ones that either made me laugh the hardest or the ones of which I was most proud, for whatever reason.

The book won't be intended for mass-market distribution. It's more of a pet project for friends and family, though I will gladly accept sales to random people who happen to stumble across it on Amazon.

Creatively enough, it will be titled "5 Kids, 1 Wife." At first I wasn't sure what to call it, but my longtime professional acquaintance Brian Sooy (a published author and marketing guru) suggested appropriating the name of this blog as the title. It's concise and compelling, he told me, and it gives readers a quick taste of what they'll find should they choose to buy the book.

He was right, as usual.

There will be a section on parenting, a section on family and relationships, a catch-all section labeled "Other Things on My Mind," and yes, a small section on my short-lived game show career.

The good folks at Kindle Direct Publishing make it relatively simple to create your own book. As Amazon's publishing platform, they allow you to distribute your work widely and easily in both electronic and hard-copy format. Thus, my book will be available as a paperback or as an e-book, depending on your preference.

Still, self-publishing is not something you accomplish in an afternoon.

First there's the writing. In my case you would think this part was easy, since I was choosing from among hundreds of pre-written, already-published blog posts.

I thought that, too. Then I started working through them and found my initial list had something like 120 posts I might potentially include in the book. It took a good while to whittle the list down to the 50 posts I liked best, and that I thought told some semblance of a collective story.

Then I started re-reading them and realized I needed to do some heavy-duty editing. It's not that they were poorly written. It's just that my writing style has become more economical over time, and the early posts especially needed some trimming in terms of word selection and sentence construction.

I have done five complete edits of these posts, pruning them from a bloated 41,000 words to the sleeker current total of just over 38,000.

At first it was fun to read my old stuff. By the third edit, however, it was torture. None of it seemed remotely entertaining anymore. By the fourth time through, I was thoroughly sick of reading my own material.

Let's not even talk about the fifth and final edit, which I can only characterize as a slog.

Once I got through that, there was the matter of finding photos to go with some of the posts. These had to be photos of sufficient resolution for inclusion in a printed book and to which I owned the rights or had permission to use.

Given those narrow parameters, there may be 20 images in the book once it gets to final form. Maybe.

Then I remembered I'm not a graphic designer and that even the most text-heavy books need some design to make them attractive. Enter another professional from my past, the talented Jamie Feldman, who is going to create the front and back covers.

I've also engaged an interior book designer from the UK named Catherine to work with me on typeface selection, page layout, and creating an engaging look and feel on each page.

I really should have hired someone to copy edit the book for me, as well, but I've already spent enough money on what is supposed to be an informal personal project, so I did that part myself.

I know people like Stephen King have staffers who handle most of this process for them, but now I wonder how many times he read through, say, "The Shining" before vowing never to open one of his own books again.

Believe me, brother, I can empathize.

I guess I thought I would be more emotional about my youngest graduating from high school

For many years I've tried to imagine this point in time.

Even when our son Jack was just a little guy, I often looked ahead to his high school graduation. What would it feel like, knowing an era in our family was coming to an end? How would I react to the conclusion of a very long journey involving the Tennant family and Wickliffe schools?

After all, Tennants have been students in this district for 50 of the last 61 years. It began when my family moved here from Euclid in the spring of 1963 and continued with only the slightest of interruptions when my brother Mark graduated in June 1975 and I started kindergarten that September.

There was an 11-year hiatus from the time I graduated in 1988 until Elissa started at Wickliffe Elementary in 1999. But since then, there has always been some combination of our kids in the schools.

Now, come May 15th when Jack dons the cap and gown, it all comes to an end. As a family, we're exiting stage left.

What I expected, when I thought about it those many years ago, was that I would be filling up Facebook right about now with a series of sentimental and highly emotional posts. I figured I would be lamenting daily about time going by so fast and little Jack getting his diploma the same way his four siblings did before him.

But I haven't done that. I haven't felt especially moved to do it.

And I wonder why.

It's not that I don't care. That's not the case at all. It's just that I'm...tired, I guess. 

Many families have reached this point before us, and I think most would agree it's a long road. Even when it's an especially enjoyable road, as it thankfully has been with our children, it's still a long one. It takes its toll mentally, emotionally and even physically (I'm fine never again having to move another chair or heavy table around the middle and high schools as an event set-up volunteer, thank you very much.)

Terry is the one who keeps Jack organized and focused on a daily basis – as one must often do with 17-year-old boys – but I still find myself running on fumes as we approach the finish line.

Speaking of finish lines, it doesn't help that Jack's senior track season has been all but derailed by a recurring calf injury. This was supposed to be the year he peaked and ran his personal-best times over 800 and 1600 meters. But as I type this, he hasn't even participated in half the meets.

If you've ever had a calf injury, you know how long they take to heal and how easy it is to make them worse when you push yourself too hard trying to come back.

I suppose there's also the fact that, while Jack and Terry are at home doing school-related stuff, I'm at work earning the money we all need to live on. There are events and activities I miss.

That has always been the case, though. Nothing new there.

In the end, it may simply be one of two things:

(1) Maybe the rush of emotion and sentimentality is yet to come. Maybe, once that jam-packed mid-May weekend of prom, senior awards and commencement arrives, I'll start feeling all the feels I anticipated in the first place.

(2) Then again, maybe I'm mistaking quiet contentment for apathy. Maybe this is the way years of worrying about the kids, helping them through the tough times, and taking pride in their achievements was always going to culminate.

Maybe this all ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

A low-key, joyous whimper. Accompanied by a half-smile and a look ahead to all the exciting things yet to come in our lives.

We're not even in our mid-50s yet, Terry and I. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, we still have a lot to do and a lot to look forward to.

It just won't necessarily involve the Wickliffe City School District anymore.

I think it's what the word "bittersweet" is supposed to describe.

More than half a century later, we still live in our hometown

My opinion of Wickliffe, Ohio, is not to be trusted.

No matter what aspect of the city you're talking about, I'm going to paint the rosiest picture possible. I will ignore the issues and tout the traditions. I will gloss over population loss and economic blight and instead draw your attention to our wonderful high school Swing Band and the fact that we have seven beautiful parks in just four square miles.

Five minutes with me and you'll be convinced Wickliffe is paradise on earth.

I know this about myself. I know I am incapable of looking at this city – the place I've lived for all of my 53 years – with anything resembling objectivity.

It's one reason why, when friends have suggested I run for school board or city government, I have declined. I would be incapable of addressing the problems our community and our schools face simply because I often refuse to admit there are any problems.

Well, there's that and the fact I really don't want to get 10:30pm phone calls from residents complaining their trash hasn't been picked up or the guy next door is playing his Metallica records too loud.

It should be noted that while I've lived in just three houses my entire life (each within two miles or so of the others), I am not sheltered or insulated. I have traveled somewhat extensively, both within the U.S. and internationally, for business and pleasure.

I've visited many places. I've met many people. I've experienced dozens of cultures.

And yet my wife and I are Wickliffe lifers. More importantly, we're intentional lifers. We are blessed to be in a financial position that allows us to live in a wide range of places. We have options.

What we have chosen, however, is to remain in the 44092.

Why? Why stay in a city that has lost 40% of its people since 1970? Why remain in a town that has seen so many of its anchor businesses pack up and leave, has no grocery store, and according to some, is slipping into the abyss in a hundred other ways?

Those are legitimate questions, not all of which I can answer convincingly. But I'll give you five reasons why we've stayed, and why we're likely to be here at least a while longer, if not forever. Take these for what they're worth.

#1: I believe in the current administration
Mayor Joe Sakacs, who took office 15 months ago, is a bundle of energy and enthusiasm. He has grabbed the easy wins while still taking on the bigger economic development challenges that have stymied past city leaders. He communicates well, seems to work closely with his council and staff, and has a vision for what the city can be. Never underestimate the power of a well-crafted vision.

#2: I believe that what once was can be again
One of the criticisms leveled at this community (and rightfully so) is that the city and the schools are bound by tradition. We stick to ways of doing things because that's the way we've always done them. I'm always one to seek new and better approaches, but understand this: Much of what is labeled "tradition" is simply a recognition that, in many respects, we were a better Wickliffe at some point in the not-too-distant past. We were closer to our neighbors. We were optimistic. We had a solid tax base and a school system that produced alumni who went on to do great things. We still have elements of that, but at some point we drifted into mediocrity. It doesn't have to be that way.

#3: I believe in my neighbors
People from surrounding communities will often comment on the closeness of Wickliffe-ites. "You all know each other," they say, or "You all talk the same." In some cases, we have been – nicely, I think – labeled "a cult." However you characterize it, there is a bond from having grown up and/or lived here. As my football coach always said, "Wickliffe kids are never the biggest, and maybe they're not the fastest, but they always turn out to be the toughest." Calling it a "can-do" attitude is probably cliché, but people in this city band together and get stuff done.

#4 I believe in the power of a good school system
In a few months, the schools I attended will all be gone. My elementary school was demolished years ago, but now the middle and high schools will be razed as our students move into a beautiful new K-12 campus. In terms of how the state measures school performance – standardized testing, graduation rates, etc. – Wickliffe schools have never really been "bad," but they have been the very definition of "so so" for many years. The rapid advance of technology is changing the way we need to educate our children in the 21st century, and my hope is that the new building will facilitate this change. If we play our cards right, this can be a "destination district" where families want their kids to attend school. I believe that can happen, and that it will have an overwhelmingly positive effect on the community in the next decade and beyond.

#5 - I believe in the value of identity
I had the wholly undeserved honor of being inducted into the Wickliffe Schools Alumni Association Athletic Achievement Hall of Fame last September. In my acceptance speech I said this: "Each of us identifies ourselves in a variety of ways. We are husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. We define ourselves by the jobs we work, by the hobbies we pursue, by the sports teams for which we root, and by the political views we hold. I'm certainly no different. First and foremost, I am husband and father. But not far behind on my personal list has always been 'Wickliffe Blue Devil.'" People who know me know I'm a "Wickliffe guy." And in that, I believe, is power. Positive change often comes about simply because a group of people with a shared identity and shared goals make it so. I think that can and will happen.

And so we stay. So far, it feels like the right choice.