Well, it’s finally happened. That number we were betting on has at long last come up. It sure seemed to take its time but well, we finally hit it. Eighteen! What a great number! All it took was a roll of the dice, some risk and a little luck.
No, we didn’t win the lottery. Something better happened. Our son turned eighteen and we, his exceptional parents have won a long-standing bet. What we did was play a long shot on that giant spinning roulette wheel, THE UNIVERSE. We bet we could get our son safely to eighteen without hitting any of those ‘negative’ odds which included specifically- smoking, drugs, alcohol, a pregnant girl, tattoos, holes-in-body and Mohawks. Yes, it was a tough bet and the odds it seems were stacked heavily against us. In the ‘Grand Scheme of Things’ sweepstakes, many kids don’t get to thirteen, let alone eighteen without acquiring at least two of those universally kid-friendly prizes. But, we did it. We won! And what did we get? A payoff every parent would eagerly want: Simple Relief. Who wouldn’t be grateful to have a child still in one piece with no apparent addictions, piercing or squalling little ones? Yes, it’s an extraordinary feat and we, the proud extraordinary parents, are very pleased!
I suppose we can’t take all the credit. The boy ultimately had to make his own choices and decisions along the way. From what I can see, he made some good ones. Certainly there were pressures from his peers with all the smoking, alcohol and odd hair styles flying about and he may have tried some things that had unforeseen consequences, but the barber was never ever far away.
Now, we’re not expert parents by any means even though the Universe in its wisdom insists otherwise. I tell myself I’m an okay father and my wife is an even better mother. Perhaps we’re just a bit unconventional, that’s all. We started out like most novice parents following tried and true parental techniques such as mindless kindergarten, cliché summer sports camps, and “high-income family” friends. We then endured the many years of floundering through the long and painful journey of adolescence, guilt and denial. But now here we are at eighteen and the boy, though not perfect, has arrived on the brink of manhood virtually unscathed. He is not I and he is not his mother. It’s a win/win pay-off.
I can’t speak for my wife but I can easily take claim to something else here, the ‘Ignorance is Clean Hands’ award. It’s a consolation prize that many parents accept which releases them of their guilt for all the things they “could have, should have” done, all the things that would have helped propel their child toward becoming the person the grandparents always envisioned. It’s the “my god, if I had only known?” defense. I accept this prize gladly. I still wear so many blinders; I might be wise to carry a cane.
During this journey to manhood, we taught him basic “common sense” common sense: honesty with one’s self, kindness to others and staying clear of religion but it turns out, much of his outcome was influenced by random spins on that universal wheel. It took a lot of faith and luck but as every parent learns, there is a point when you just have to let go. We let go between fourteen and tomorrow. It wasn’t a real ‘letting go’; it was more of an unleashing.
He’d be gone half the night, disappearing with ghostly friends and acquaintances to who knows where. Thanks to the cell phone, we still had contact even though it was just a message to “CALL US, GOD DAMN IT!!!”
It wasn’t easy, waiting for a phone call or staying up until three in the morning to actually witness him walking safely through the door. The sleepless nights were difficult but that was always part of the deal; up with feedings and diaper changes, up with last minute homework and school projects, up with “it’s time for that person to go home.”
Yes, it’s been a long dream, a nice dream and it continues to unfold.
It’s three a.m. and I awake abruptly to the sound of tapping and music. It’s drifting from our son’s room. I go immediately back to sleep. I’m in that dreamy mode where my house is on fire but it’s perfectly okay. I’m burning up but it may be just the dream. I’m drifting back to Kate Beckinsale in black leather and me howling. I awake again at four to the sound of different music, without a smoking Kate. The music sounds a bit louder and familiar. Perhaps he has left his computer on so I lurch like a zombie to his room. Ironically, it is the Zombie’s Leave Me Be playing on his I-Tunes and there greeting me with a euphoric “What’s up” is my bushy-eyed son, tapping away at his computer.
“Well, besides me and my blood pressure, you are,” I say. “Why are you still up?”
“I can’t sleep.” I can tell he’s all jazzed up like a night-vapors cat on mescaline.
“You’ve been up for… like, thirty-eight hours!” My timing and reasoning skills barely register before noon but his don’t either, so we don’t argue the point.
“I know, I know. I was just about to go to bed.”
“Better leave me a-lone… you’d better leave me a-lone” the Zombies croon.
“Alright. Get some sleep then. You can’t be up all night like this.”
It’s four in the afternoon when he finally rolls out of bed. This has been going on for the past year now, up all night creating music while in between, silently tapping what seems like Morse code to friends on his I-phone or computer. Apparently, there are a lot of speech-deprived teenage insomniacs out there. When we were kids, we’d be asleep before midnight unless it was a weekend. Of course, we didn’t have any of the technology these kids have today. We were burdened to communicate with pen and paper or actually perform the rare act of ‘voice speaking’. Not much of that these days.
“You’ve got to get to bed earlier.”
“I know.”
“That’s what you said last night.”
“I know.”
“But you didn’t?”
“I know. I will.”
“When are you going to bed then?”
“I don’t know.”
It’s not lost on me that this is just the beginning of a new game with a new bet waiting to be made. He’s now technically a man, a semi-responsible adult, driving, looking for work, functioning in a jungle of tapping woodpeckers and all-night night owls and searching out his future. I‘d be happy to bet on this next phase. All we have to do now is settle on the next magical number, which I believe is twenty-one, another milestone to manhood. He’s matured quite a bit but I’m betting that some of those same pitfalls of late nights, smoking, drugs, alcohol, a pregnant girl, tattoos, and holes-in-body are still lurking and in play out there somewhere.
My wife and I are up for it though and I know he is too but I’m hedging my bet a little that he probably won’t be up before three.
Sep 8, 2009
Aug 23, 2009
Short Circuits
I have a friend who recently asked me to do him a favor. Jim, my ‘very good friend’ had just purchased a brand new 42” flat screen and needed my help in setting it up. I say ‘very good friend’ because he gave me a free TV, his old Sony 32”, which weighed as much as a Panzer 38(t) tank but worked just fine.
Jim has a nerve disorder that limits his legs, arms and hands from operating in a way he’d like them to. He can drive a car, do his own shopping and cook his own meals but his balance and mobility are severely challenged. Little tasks that require dexterity such as screwing in a light bulb or changing a battery are annoyingly impossible. Every six weeks, he drives himself to the hospital a hundred miles away for a blood transfusion.
I’m not an electrician or gadget geek but I can open a box and lift things so I went over and helped him set up the new flat screen. All I really had to do was plug it in, secure it to a console, adjust the viewing distance to his living room recliner and put batteries in the remote. He programmed the rest.
“I don’t know why I got this damn thing,” he said, flipping quickly through the channels. “There’s nothing worthwhile to look at. It’s mostly crap.”
A few weeks later, he ordered another one for his bedroom.
Jim’s interests lie in simple day-to-day retirement living. Nothing complicated. His home is a single level townhouse, clean and uncluttered for easy maneuvering and carpeted throughout to reduce his risk of falling. Even the tiled kitchen floor has bathroom rugs strategically placed to avoid slippage. There are handrails along some of the walls and he can go from one part of the house to another in a few short steps.
He spends much of his time reading, watches cherry-picked TV shows and dabbles around on his computer. His family visits periodically and he has someone who comes in to clean. I visit him every couple of weeks to see how he’s doing. With the flat screen on mute, we’ll sit and talk for several hours about the community, politics, work, religion (in our cases, lack of) and life in general.
I assume he likes his quiet independence but I wonder if he gets bored living this insular life.
“Have you ever thought about doing something creative,” I asked him, flying an ill-thought premise that the physically challenged were looking for something to do. “I’m participating in an art show in a couple of weeks which might be fun. Ever try…you know… painting or sculpting? As soon as I said it, I cringed a little.
“I paid a guy to come in here and paint that wall orange,” he smirked, and then added, “Nope, I’ve never really had an interest in creating art, not that I don’t appreciate great works by others. Honestly, I don’t have a creative bone in my body.”
There are a series of art shows that happen a few times a year in our resort community and local artists and wannabees are encouraged to pony up around a hundred bucks to acquire a space and partake in the humiliation. The show I entered was swarming with art enthusiasts, crafty crafters and bargain hunters. Like a kindergartener’s Parent’s Night, our proud inspirations were arranged on tables and hung about on makeshift screens. Every kind of creation was displayed for the uninspired to critique and then hopefully consume. Candles, jewelry, pottery, soaps, T-shirts, belt buckles, driftwood sculptures, paintings of every kind; all of it spread down a sunny lane of white-tented booths where inside, the artists primped and fawned over their wares. It was hard to tell who the actual artists were, as some seemed to hang back, mixing casually among the customers or slumping in nearby chairs, nonchalantly ‘fake-talking’ with friends. It’s a ploy we artists use to protect our egos and red faces. Only when someone lingers more than twenty-four seconds around a piece does the gifted one jump up and act like a used car salesman in order to close a deal and make a buck.
The booth featuring my own clever gems was directly across from a senior women’s group; a gaggle of women painters who seemed strangely comfortable wearing sunflower sunhats and cheerful vests. Slumped in my chair, I watched as they urgently set up their creations on racks and along the front of a long collapsible table. They were very excited and hopeful, praising each effort of their large and small original paintings featuring mainly two themes: abstract floral and abstract fish. Our resort community has an insatiable appetite for this look. The ‘beach’ look. Everyone wants art with at least one of these elements portrayed: any kind of exotic flower, any kind of multi-colored fish, any kind of multi-colored sunset, any kind of boat, foamy wave, pelican, dune landscape, seahorse, mermaid, cute kid with pail, or any blinding wearable top featuring galumphing words such as ‘LIFE’S A BEACH or ‘LIVIN’ THE DREAM!’ splayed across it.
The senior women had this look down, from hackneyed attempts at orange mauve sunsets to exploding green and yellow palm trees. I did observe some good paintings though, interestingly thought out and competently rendered and quite surprisingly, a couple I could imagine hanging in the Louvre.
My own grid-laden booth displayed non-painted digital prints of local iconic architecture I had created on my computer. To my mind, they were very ‘NOW!’ I had been inspired by the “you’ll sell a million of these” refrain echoing around in my head. “You’ve got to do the art shows down here,” I was told by my supportive friends and family. “This shit will sell like hot cakes!”
By mid-afternoon, the painterly women’s booth was teeming with salivating buyers, humming and hawing over the golden sunflowers brightly slathered in oil and the figurative fish heavily filleted by palette knife.
“That painting of the flying fish?” my friend Frank said, nodding at an over-sized acrylic of what was either a sparkly fish jumping or a giant white-foamed wave cascading. “It’s $400! That’ll never sell.”
Four hours later after sitting in skull peeling heat, we dismantled the booth in relative silence. During the day we had watched the person next to us sell a ton of inexpensive pre-wrapped soaps (a good ‘beachy’ buy), a booth down the way rid themselves of over-priced mobile-art driftwood (good for stoking the old beach bonfire) and a gentleman take possession of the infamous ‘Flying Fish/Cascading Wave’ piece, eagerly handing a check to a befuddled still-life Grandma Van Gogh in Sunflower Hat. Maybe it was the sunstroke, but I swear I saw some guy leave with a painted piece of recycled plywood with ‘I’M A BEACH BUM & LOVIN’ IT’ scrawled on it.
As for my sales, they didn’t come close to what I had laid out for the booth, frames and digital prints.
It’s tricky, the art show circuit. Trying to guess the aesthetic tastes of people and their appreciation of art is an art in itself. I keep forgetting that this is a beach resort and those coming here are looking for three things: the beach, the beach and the beach. It’s not complicated. Perhaps I should play it safe and create something, dare I say it, ‘beachy’. I’m sure I can be inspired if I can find just the right hat.
“How’d the art show go?“ Jim asked me on a later visit.
“Not bad,” I lied. “I might do another one. Maybe. You want to try it too?”
“I probably mentioned this to you before,” he smiled, shifting comfortably back in his recliner, “but I don’t have a creative bone in my body.”
There was a moment of silence.
“So, what’s on the set?” I said, couching back in my own chair.
“It’s the same old crap. Nothing much to choose from.”
He plucked at the remote and proceeded to methodically punch the buttons; each channel quickly skipping by like capricious viewers at a resort town art show.
Jim has a nerve disorder that limits his legs, arms and hands from operating in a way he’d like them to. He can drive a car, do his own shopping and cook his own meals but his balance and mobility are severely challenged. Little tasks that require dexterity such as screwing in a light bulb or changing a battery are annoyingly impossible. Every six weeks, he drives himself to the hospital a hundred miles away for a blood transfusion.
I’m not an electrician or gadget geek but I can open a box and lift things so I went over and helped him set up the new flat screen. All I really had to do was plug it in, secure it to a console, adjust the viewing distance to his living room recliner and put batteries in the remote. He programmed the rest.
“I don’t know why I got this damn thing,” he said, flipping quickly through the channels. “There’s nothing worthwhile to look at. It’s mostly crap.”
A few weeks later, he ordered another one for his bedroom.
Jim’s interests lie in simple day-to-day retirement living. Nothing complicated. His home is a single level townhouse, clean and uncluttered for easy maneuvering and carpeted throughout to reduce his risk of falling. Even the tiled kitchen floor has bathroom rugs strategically placed to avoid slippage. There are handrails along some of the walls and he can go from one part of the house to another in a few short steps.
He spends much of his time reading, watches cherry-picked TV shows and dabbles around on his computer. His family visits periodically and he has someone who comes in to clean. I visit him every couple of weeks to see how he’s doing. With the flat screen on mute, we’ll sit and talk for several hours about the community, politics, work, religion (in our cases, lack of) and life in general.
I assume he likes his quiet independence but I wonder if he gets bored living this insular life.
“Have you ever thought about doing something creative,” I asked him, flying an ill-thought premise that the physically challenged were looking for something to do. “I’m participating in an art show in a couple of weeks which might be fun. Ever try…you know… painting or sculpting? As soon as I said it, I cringed a little.
“I paid a guy to come in here and paint that wall orange,” he smirked, and then added, “Nope, I’ve never really had an interest in creating art, not that I don’t appreciate great works by others. Honestly, I don’t have a creative bone in my body.”
There are a series of art shows that happen a few times a year in our resort community and local artists and wannabees are encouraged to pony up around a hundred bucks to acquire a space and partake in the humiliation. The show I entered was swarming with art enthusiasts, crafty crafters and bargain hunters. Like a kindergartener’s Parent’s Night, our proud inspirations were arranged on tables and hung about on makeshift screens. Every kind of creation was displayed for the uninspired to critique and then hopefully consume. Candles, jewelry, pottery, soaps, T-shirts, belt buckles, driftwood sculptures, paintings of every kind; all of it spread down a sunny lane of white-tented booths where inside, the artists primped and fawned over their wares. It was hard to tell who the actual artists were, as some seemed to hang back, mixing casually among the customers or slumping in nearby chairs, nonchalantly ‘fake-talking’ with friends. It’s a ploy we artists use to protect our egos and red faces. Only when someone lingers more than twenty-four seconds around a piece does the gifted one jump up and act like a used car salesman in order to close a deal and make a buck.
The booth featuring my own clever gems was directly across from a senior women’s group; a gaggle of women painters who seemed strangely comfortable wearing sunflower sunhats and cheerful vests. Slumped in my chair, I watched as they urgently set up their creations on racks and along the front of a long collapsible table. They were very excited and hopeful, praising each effort of their large and small original paintings featuring mainly two themes: abstract floral and abstract fish. Our resort community has an insatiable appetite for this look. The ‘beach’ look. Everyone wants art with at least one of these elements portrayed: any kind of exotic flower, any kind of multi-colored fish, any kind of multi-colored sunset, any kind of boat, foamy wave, pelican, dune landscape, seahorse, mermaid, cute kid with pail, or any blinding wearable top featuring galumphing words such as ‘LIFE’S A BEACH or ‘LIVIN’ THE DREAM!’ splayed across it.
The senior women had this look down, from hackneyed attempts at orange mauve sunsets to exploding green and yellow palm trees. I did observe some good paintings though, interestingly thought out and competently rendered and quite surprisingly, a couple I could imagine hanging in the Louvre.
My own grid-laden booth displayed non-painted digital prints of local iconic architecture I had created on my computer. To my mind, they were very ‘NOW!’ I had been inspired by the “you’ll sell a million of these” refrain echoing around in my head. “You’ve got to do the art shows down here,” I was told by my supportive friends and family. “This shit will sell like hot cakes!”
By mid-afternoon, the painterly women’s booth was teeming with salivating buyers, humming and hawing over the golden sunflowers brightly slathered in oil and the figurative fish heavily filleted by palette knife.
“That painting of the flying fish?” my friend Frank said, nodding at an over-sized acrylic of what was either a sparkly fish jumping or a giant white-foamed wave cascading. “It’s $400! That’ll never sell.”
Four hours later after sitting in skull peeling heat, we dismantled the booth in relative silence. During the day we had watched the person next to us sell a ton of inexpensive pre-wrapped soaps (a good ‘beachy’ buy), a booth down the way rid themselves of over-priced mobile-art driftwood (good for stoking the old beach bonfire) and a gentleman take possession of the infamous ‘Flying Fish/Cascading Wave’ piece, eagerly handing a check to a befuddled still-life Grandma Van Gogh in Sunflower Hat. Maybe it was the sunstroke, but I swear I saw some guy leave with a painted piece of recycled plywood with ‘I’M A BEACH BUM & LOVIN’ IT’ scrawled on it.
As for my sales, they didn’t come close to what I had laid out for the booth, frames and digital prints.
It’s tricky, the art show circuit. Trying to guess the aesthetic tastes of people and their appreciation of art is an art in itself. I keep forgetting that this is a beach resort and those coming here are looking for three things: the beach, the beach and the beach. It’s not complicated. Perhaps I should play it safe and create something, dare I say it, ‘beachy’. I’m sure I can be inspired if I can find just the right hat.
“How’d the art show go?“ Jim asked me on a later visit.
“Not bad,” I lied. “I might do another one. Maybe. You want to try it too?”
“I probably mentioned this to you before,” he smiled, shifting comfortably back in his recliner, “but I don’t have a creative bone in my body.”
There was a moment of silence.
“So, what’s on the set?” I said, couching back in my own chair.
“It’s the same old crap. Nothing much to choose from.”
He plucked at the remote and proceeded to methodically punch the buttons; each channel quickly skipping by like capricious viewers at a resort town art show.
Aug 5, 2009
Some Loose Screws
If I’m lucky (or cursed) enough, I may get to live for thirty more years or so. That would put me well into my eighties. Along the way, my skin and bones will wear and tear and I’ll drop an occasional screw or two. Teeth and eyesight will crumble and fade. Memory, desire and reasoning will exit the body. Eventually it will all collapse completely. Like all things fallible, I will just stop.
That’s okay. Nothing lasts forever. But while I’m here, I’d like to pass the time in relative ‘togetherness’. I don’t want to end my life, a limp limbless vegetable in some aseptically clean setting. That’s week-old asparagus in a Publix produce aisle. No, I’ll be happy to keep my upper story in tack and my lower framework functioning for as long as I can.
The human form is a complicated entity. Some believe an “intelligent designer” created us. If that were true, our teeth would be made of titanium, we’d have Clark Kent eyes and the words, ‘hemorrhoid’ and ‘erectile dysfunction’ would not exist. I’m not buying the intelligent designer thing. I believe in the theory that we are evolved beings with questionable parts, all different yet somewhat the same. For instance, I barely have enough hair on my face for a decent beard but there’s a haystack of it rising above my skull and plenty sprouting from my shoulders, upper arms and ears. This useless growth doesn’t do anything to enhance my jaw line. I’ve got friends who can grow full beards in minutes but they are completely bald on top. Questionable parts? Toenails. Why do we need nails, other than for scratching that partial beard? I find them uncuttable and recently, unreachable. Eyebrows, ear lobes, male nipples, the appendix; I could go on.
As for our minds, it’s a bit simpler. Thinking gradually slips away. I’ve noticed my memory faltering the last couple of years. It’s disconcerting. Yes, some of us will fare better than others. My neighbor is in his nineties and functions quite well living on his own. I’ve seen him struggle to recall a person’s name but after a week, he does eventually remember it. I’ve also seen him carry a bear of a microwave oven into his house. I can barely take out the garbage and I’m thirty years younger. He’s a leathery old man, impeccably clean and organized. His home smells floral; a pleasant fragrant smell of a popular air freshener. He’s always on the move, going either on long foreign trips or short self-driven excursions north of here to see family and friends. “I’ve got to do it now,” he once laughed. “It’s now or never.” For him, never is just around the corner.
It’s logical that a sense of humor can lead to long life. It signals to our consciousness, ‘a happy mood!’ which can be as simple as a light amusement to a cracked buffoonery.
What is laughter anyway?
I’m beginning to believe, at least in my case, that it might be insanity. It’s a fine line.
When our mother was dying, my siblings and I had the all-too-common occurrence of falling into fits of laugher. That may sound crazy and cruel but it was never on purpose. Laughter was frightfully spontaneous for us growing up, as my sister, two brothers and I would react to ‘any event’ that would suddenly start us all giggling. My dad was an easy participant too, fracturing into hysterics over some long lost recollection. He wouldn’t (or couldn’t) even finish the story. He’d sit for five minutes in his chair quivering, tears on his cheeks. Then he’d start all over again. My mother would giggle at the laughing hyenas shaking at the dinner table and tell us to stop, then, continue her quiet sniggle. My grandfather was the happiest old person I knew.
We would laugh anywhere and at any time; in church, in an elevator, on the phone, at visiting relatives, at the delivery guy delivering pizza, and yes, even in our mother’s palliative care hospital ward. Why, I don’t know. I’d defend it as a crazy response to an awkward or stressful situation. We most certainly didn’t want to laugh; it would just turn on like a tap and once started, wouldn’t stop. I would panic with the sweat-soaking realization that I might not be able to stop no matter what the consequence. I mean, what kind of person laughs hysterically while their mother lies dying a few feet away?
It may have had something to do with borrowing the chair, sitting next to our mother’s elderly sleeping roommate. Cramped at the foot of the bed, I slipped over and wrestled up the chair and in doing so, rang it loudly on the woman’s bedpost.
BBOOOOONNNGGGG!
That’s all it took.
‘Earndt…earrrndt…earrrrnnnnnnnnnhhhhnnnn’, my sister, the sound of a cold engine turning over, her rumbling laugh erupting. I could sense my brother Mark’s shoulders already shaking in the dimly lit room. My older brother, George who desperately tries to control his laugh by holding it in, started with a rhythmic chugging. When hysterical, I ‘m the sound of pinched air leaving a balloon. ‘hhhhhhhaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’
There we were, a hissing cacophony of big air exploding out of the room. I dropped the chair and buried my face in my mother’s robe hanging on the wall. George, with a finger to his mouth, managed a shaking “shhhhhh” which did nothing to stop us. Mark and Simone stumbled into the hall. In the distance, I could hear my brother’s snorts and my sister’s barking echoing down the corridor. I expected my mother to sit up and tell us to stop. That would have been sobering. Neither she, nor her roommate moved. I wondered what the staff might think if observing such a thing. “Are they laughing or crying? Or are they crazy?” They’d probably seen it all.
Five minutes later, after we had all composed ourselves, we quizzically wondered what had been so funny in the first place. Nothing really. It was always like that.
As kids, we used to tease our sister that the folks had adopted her from the local mental hospital on the hill and we’d all have a good laugh, well except for Simone. Now I wonder? Perhaps with my faltering memory, I’ve forgotten the real story. Maybe we all came from the hill; four tittering loose screws that the parents heard as they drove passed one day. “They sound like a happy bunch of imbeciles, don’t they? Up for a good laugh dear?”
Even now, when I call one of my siblings, there’s a ninety-nine point nine percent chance that the conversation will include at some point, hearing the phone drop on the other end, followed by the echo of a far-away airless howling.
I pray for relief that I will stop but while in the middle of it, there is no mercy. Not for anyone.
That’s okay. Nothing lasts forever. But while I’m here, I’d like to pass the time in relative ‘togetherness’. I don’t want to end my life, a limp limbless vegetable in some aseptically clean setting. That’s week-old asparagus in a Publix produce aisle. No, I’ll be happy to keep my upper story in tack and my lower framework functioning for as long as I can.
The human form is a complicated entity. Some believe an “intelligent designer” created us. If that were true, our teeth would be made of titanium, we’d have Clark Kent eyes and the words, ‘hemorrhoid’ and ‘erectile dysfunction’ would not exist. I’m not buying the intelligent designer thing. I believe in the theory that we are evolved beings with questionable parts, all different yet somewhat the same. For instance, I barely have enough hair on my face for a decent beard but there’s a haystack of it rising above my skull and plenty sprouting from my shoulders, upper arms and ears. This useless growth doesn’t do anything to enhance my jaw line. I’ve got friends who can grow full beards in minutes but they are completely bald on top. Questionable parts? Toenails. Why do we need nails, other than for scratching that partial beard? I find them uncuttable and recently, unreachable. Eyebrows, ear lobes, male nipples, the appendix; I could go on.
As for our minds, it’s a bit simpler. Thinking gradually slips away. I’ve noticed my memory faltering the last couple of years. It’s disconcerting. Yes, some of us will fare better than others. My neighbor is in his nineties and functions quite well living on his own. I’ve seen him struggle to recall a person’s name but after a week, he does eventually remember it. I’ve also seen him carry a bear of a microwave oven into his house. I can barely take out the garbage and I’m thirty years younger. He’s a leathery old man, impeccably clean and organized. His home smells floral; a pleasant fragrant smell of a popular air freshener. He’s always on the move, going either on long foreign trips or short self-driven excursions north of here to see family and friends. “I’ve got to do it now,” he once laughed. “It’s now or never.” For him, never is just around the corner.
It’s logical that a sense of humor can lead to long life. It signals to our consciousness, ‘a happy mood!’ which can be as simple as a light amusement to a cracked buffoonery.
What is laughter anyway?
I’m beginning to believe, at least in my case, that it might be insanity. It’s a fine line.
When our mother was dying, my siblings and I had the all-too-common occurrence of falling into fits of laugher. That may sound crazy and cruel but it was never on purpose. Laughter was frightfully spontaneous for us growing up, as my sister, two brothers and I would react to ‘any event’ that would suddenly start us all giggling. My dad was an easy participant too, fracturing into hysterics over some long lost recollection. He wouldn’t (or couldn’t) even finish the story. He’d sit for five minutes in his chair quivering, tears on his cheeks. Then he’d start all over again. My mother would giggle at the laughing hyenas shaking at the dinner table and tell us to stop, then, continue her quiet sniggle. My grandfather was the happiest old person I knew.
We would laugh anywhere and at any time; in church, in an elevator, on the phone, at visiting relatives, at the delivery guy delivering pizza, and yes, even in our mother’s palliative care hospital ward. Why, I don’t know. I’d defend it as a crazy response to an awkward or stressful situation. We most certainly didn’t want to laugh; it would just turn on like a tap and once started, wouldn’t stop. I would panic with the sweat-soaking realization that I might not be able to stop no matter what the consequence. I mean, what kind of person laughs hysterically while their mother lies dying a few feet away?
It may have had something to do with borrowing the chair, sitting next to our mother’s elderly sleeping roommate. Cramped at the foot of the bed, I slipped over and wrestled up the chair and in doing so, rang it loudly on the woman’s bedpost.
BBOOOOONNNGGGG!
That’s all it took.
‘Earndt…earrrndt…earrrrnnnnnnnnnhhhhnnnn’, my sister, the sound of a cold engine turning over, her rumbling laugh erupting. I could sense my brother Mark’s shoulders already shaking in the dimly lit room. My older brother, George who desperately tries to control his laugh by holding it in, started with a rhythmic chugging. When hysterical, I ‘m the sound of pinched air leaving a balloon. ‘hhhhhhhaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’
There we were, a hissing cacophony of big air exploding out of the room. I dropped the chair and buried my face in my mother’s robe hanging on the wall. George, with a finger to his mouth, managed a shaking “shhhhhh” which did nothing to stop us. Mark and Simone stumbled into the hall. In the distance, I could hear my brother’s snorts and my sister’s barking echoing down the corridor. I expected my mother to sit up and tell us to stop. That would have been sobering. Neither she, nor her roommate moved. I wondered what the staff might think if observing such a thing. “Are they laughing or crying? Or are they crazy?” They’d probably seen it all.
Five minutes later, after we had all composed ourselves, we quizzically wondered what had been so funny in the first place. Nothing really. It was always like that.
As kids, we used to tease our sister that the folks had adopted her from the local mental hospital on the hill and we’d all have a good laugh, well except for Simone. Now I wonder? Perhaps with my faltering memory, I’ve forgotten the real story. Maybe we all came from the hill; four tittering loose screws that the parents heard as they drove passed one day. “They sound like a happy bunch of imbeciles, don’t they? Up for a good laugh dear?”
Even now, when I call one of my siblings, there’s a ninety-nine point nine percent chance that the conversation will include at some point, hearing the phone drop on the other end, followed by the echo of a far-away airless howling.
I pray for relief that I will stop but while in the middle of it, there is no mercy. Not for anyone.
Jul 11, 2009
Muddled Thoughts of Woodstock Remembered
Twang…twang…hummm…twang…buzz…
oh hello, didn’t see you there. I was just flubbing around here on the old guitar trying to remember that song by that group… what was there name? They were at Woodstock. Country Joe and something. Canned Tuna?
A Tin of Tuna? Mmmm.. that sounds delicious.
Something about a fish. I forget how it goes. twang…buzz…
This guitar here, I’ve had it for over forty years. It’s the size of a baby cello. twang…bzzz...twang. Cliff, one of my friends in high school, made it in shops class. He wasn’t very good at math or deciphering scale measurements. He was more of an abstract thinker. Psychedelics I remember. I’ve been practicing this opening riff to the old Who song, “I’m Going to Explain” or whatever it was called. “I’ll Explain Later”, that’s it. Remember…Bah!…Bah-ba!… Bahhh! Bah-ba! I think they did it at Woodstock.
Oh boy, yeah Woodstock. August 1969. twang…twang…buzzzz…
This year is the 40th anniversary but it seems like it was just yesterday. Or the day before. What is today, by the way? Wow those memories come seeping back man. Three days of peace, music and mud. A lot of mud. That’s what I remember…the mud. And the music, it was something else. It was muddied too and distant but I still heard them all… Jimi, Janis, the Who, Canned Tuna, Santa Anna, the Doors, Dylan. twang…twang…hummm…
I was, let’s see, ha, the mind seems to be slipping some these days, oh about eighteen back then…. twang…twang…
I do remember looking up through my parent’s basement window and seeing my best friend, Jorge on his knees growling, “hey Desieldorfor, grab some dough and a sleeping bag. Yasgur’s farm awaits!” I was puzzled because it looked like a large cat with a rat’s face peering in at me. I had just dropped some acid. “Farm?” Okay I told him.
We took off with some guy Jorge knew from school who had wheels. I think his name was Roscoe or Rothco, something like that. Off we went on this unplanned adventure to New York and an ‘Aquarian Festival’. It was the ‘Age of Aquarian’ or some crazy thing. Remember that song?… twang…twang…hummm… it is a drowning of the age of Aqu…anyway, it was a chance to get away from the SS back on the home front there in North Dakota. The ol’ Herr Fuhrer and Frau never said anything. I don’t think they knew I was gone. I did say bye to my little brother Mark who came chasing up behind Romeo’s car with my sleeping bag. Thanks Mark. I don’t know what I’d do without you.
To tell the truth, I don’t remember much about the trip having just dropped that acid. twang…twang…twang…buzz… We dropped another tab just as we were leaving the city.
I do remember lying in a field and it was raining pretty hard. I was trapped in my mudbag, damn that cheap bag and zipper… twang… and I could hear music playing off somewhere down a hill. Mostly I recall some farmer guy plowing by in a tractor, zig-zagging around a couple of us sleepy people. He was yelling at us, “fuck hippie, git outta here!” then,“OOOOH SHIT.” The rest is foggy. Twang…twang…buzz…
I guess Woodstock was a huge happening and there were drugs and music and plenty of bands to see and a ton of them got even more famous but I didn’t see them. I didn’t see anybody. We never did get to Yasgur’s farm.
We got as far as old farmer Rawley’s potato field about five miles from my house. Appears that acid was a real mind-bender.
I remember waking up in a rather comfortable bed…my own. And there was little Mark standing beside it holding my muddy sleeping bag. He told me I had been gone a day. twang… twang…Old Rawley had called the cops. Seems he ran over Jorge in his sleeping bag. The ground was so wet and mucky; he sunk into it like a log in quicksand. He was okay. Not a dent. And apparently all that music I heard…KCSN-92.5 FM blaring from Roy’s car, which had somehow found its way into Rawley’s ditch. Man those were some crazy times but I think most of us turned out all right. Twang…twang…buzz…twang
My little brother Mark called last week and asked if I wanted to go out to New York to celebrate the 40th anniversary. A lot of things have changed since the 60’s but not Mark. He’s still looking out for me. He’s like that Who’s song, “The Kid is Alright”. He even bought me that Woodstock DVD for Christmas. He said he didn’t want me to ever forget the experience. twang…twang…hummm…twang…buzz…
I’m now just a regular family man and I don’t need too many drugs these days to enjoy myself. I mostly get my high at my job landing airplanes. Maybe Mark’s right. We should go to the celebration and I’ll bring along Janine and the kids too. And when they ask, “Gee, were you really here?” I’ll pull out this baby cello and twang that wonderful old riff from that Who song, “I Can Explain”.
I really can.
Twang…twang…buzz… Twang…twang…buzz…
oh hello, didn’t see you there. I was just flubbing around here on the old guitar trying to remember that song by that group… what was there name? They were at Woodstock. Country Joe and something. Canned Tuna?
A Tin of Tuna? Mmmm.. that sounds delicious.
Something about a fish. I forget how it goes. twang…buzz…
This guitar here, I’ve had it for over forty years. It’s the size of a baby cello. twang…bzzz...twang. Cliff, one of my friends in high school, made it in shops class. He wasn’t very good at math or deciphering scale measurements. He was more of an abstract thinker. Psychedelics I remember. I’ve been practicing this opening riff to the old Who song, “I’m Going to Explain” or whatever it was called. “I’ll Explain Later”, that’s it. Remember…Bah!…Bah-ba!… Bahhh! Bah-ba! I think they did it at Woodstock.
Oh boy, yeah Woodstock. August 1969. twang…twang…buzzzz…
This year is the 40th anniversary but it seems like it was just yesterday. Or the day before. What is today, by the way? Wow those memories come seeping back man. Three days of peace, music and mud. A lot of mud. That’s what I remember…the mud. And the music, it was something else. It was muddied too and distant but I still heard them all… Jimi, Janis, the Who, Canned Tuna, Santa Anna, the Doors, Dylan. twang…twang…hummm…
I was, let’s see, ha, the mind seems to be slipping some these days, oh about eighteen back then…. twang…twang…
I do remember looking up through my parent’s basement window and seeing my best friend, Jorge on his knees growling, “hey Desieldorfor, grab some dough and a sleeping bag. Yasgur’s farm awaits!” I was puzzled because it looked like a large cat with a rat’s face peering in at me. I had just dropped some acid. “Farm?” Okay I told him.
We took off with some guy Jorge knew from school who had wheels. I think his name was Roscoe or Rothco, something like that. Off we went on this unplanned adventure to New York and an ‘Aquarian Festival’. It was the ‘Age of Aquarian’ or some crazy thing. Remember that song?… twang…twang…hummm… it is a drowning of the age of Aqu…anyway, it was a chance to get away from the SS back on the home front there in North Dakota. The ol’ Herr Fuhrer and Frau never said anything. I don’t think they knew I was gone. I did say bye to my little brother Mark who came chasing up behind Romeo’s car with my sleeping bag. Thanks Mark. I don’t know what I’d do without you.
To tell the truth, I don’t remember much about the trip having just dropped that acid. twang…twang…twang…buzz… We dropped another tab just as we were leaving the city.
I do remember lying in a field and it was raining pretty hard. I was trapped in my mudbag, damn that cheap bag and zipper… twang… and I could hear music playing off somewhere down a hill. Mostly I recall some farmer guy plowing by in a tractor, zig-zagging around a couple of us sleepy people. He was yelling at us, “fuck hippie, git outta here!” then,“OOOOH SHIT.” The rest is foggy. Twang…twang…buzz…
I guess Woodstock was a huge happening and there were drugs and music and plenty of bands to see and a ton of them got even more famous but I didn’t see them. I didn’t see anybody. We never did get to Yasgur’s farm.
We got as far as old farmer Rawley’s potato field about five miles from my house. Appears that acid was a real mind-bender.
I remember waking up in a rather comfortable bed…my own. And there was little Mark standing beside it holding my muddy sleeping bag. He told me I had been gone a day. twang… twang…Old Rawley had called the cops. Seems he ran over Jorge in his sleeping bag. The ground was so wet and mucky; he sunk into it like a log in quicksand. He was okay. Not a dent. And apparently all that music I heard…KCSN-92.5 FM blaring from Roy’s car, which had somehow found its way into Rawley’s ditch. Man those were some crazy times but I think most of us turned out all right. Twang…twang…buzz…twang
My little brother Mark called last week and asked if I wanted to go out to New York to celebrate the 40th anniversary. A lot of things have changed since the 60’s but not Mark. He’s still looking out for me. He’s like that Who’s song, “The Kid is Alright”. He even bought me that Woodstock DVD for Christmas. He said he didn’t want me to ever forget the experience. twang…twang…hummm…twang…buzz…
I’m now just a regular family man and I don’t need too many drugs these days to enjoy myself. I mostly get my high at my job landing airplanes. Maybe Mark’s right. We should go to the celebration and I’ll bring along Janine and the kids too. And when they ask, “Gee, were you really here?” I’ll pull out this baby cello and twang that wonderful old riff from that Who song, “I Can Explain”.
I really can.
Twang…twang…buzz… Twang…twang…buzz…
Jun 24, 2009
Inner Sanctum
“My body is a temple.”
I’ve heard this quote a lot. Those embracing such an idea are typically young and fit, inhaling and exhaling deeply as they lightly towel off after a vivid morning workout. They have a glow about them as bright as sunshine. These saints view the body as something to be respected. They see their vessel as a holy place. They exercise daily, eat the right nourishment, and down the correct Redline Extreme drink. Their goal is to keep evil out and only the good in. I’m all for that. The problem is, my temple is in ruin. It’s starting to crumble. It’s this ‘age’ thing.
It begins when we enter the world, fresh and pliable and continues downward until we are crumbling dust. Meanwhile, there’s this lifetime; this time-chewing wild-goose chase in which we search for answers to keep the body young. It’s quite pointless. The outcome is always the same. We all end up eventually with our scrawny gooses cooked. It’s enough to make you sick. As we age, our arteries stiffen, our body fat increases and our primary organs flirt with atrophy. On the outside, we sag and wrinkle and shrink like bugs to the flame. I’ve read we should avoid direct sunlight and use sunscreens. Though I don’t aspire to live my life as a tight-skinned vampire, I do try to be conscious of the elements. No, I take that back. I rarely use sunscreen though my wife always tells me I should. I’m just lazy. My complexion is light and I burn easily but I really want that tan! I rationalize that like white bread in a toaster, burning is the quickest way. There are scores of ads that point to your “skin-care professional” for the best products for your skin. I’m not buying it. Laser treatments, injections and dermabrasions are costly, somewhat uncomfortable and can take 4-8 weeks to see a result meaning it takes 1-2 months of actual aging to look younger. No my friend, there are no instant miracles out there that can save our dilapidated and shrinking shrines. I’ve come to my own personal understanding about my own tabernacle: ‘What I put into it will eventually come out of it’, one way or the other.
My health has had its ups and downs, nothing too serious like heart attacks, strokes or major part replacements. My downs involve nature’s natural discomforts, things like stomach cramps, indigestion, joint pain, constipation and occasionally, an obscure foot bump. These ailments may be indicators of something more sinister awaiting but for now I’ll just enjoy them and be thankful I’m not at the doctor. That’s the last place I’d want to be. Ending up at the doctor means the home remedies aimed at eliminating these afflictions aren’t working. I’ll peruse the medicine cabinet in search of the standard antacids, laxatives, or pain relievers to help alleviate the discomfort. For a foot bump, (actually a Planters wart on my heel from walking around in flip flops all day), I’ll unravel a foot of silver Duct tape and wrap my ankle like a Spartan about to invade Troy. I’ve heard the glue in the tape can ‘cure’ anything, even a wart. This remedy does seem to work as the bump has receded to about half its size but I’m left wondering if I’ve absorbed unwelcome chemical toxins into my system through the tape? I mean, if it’s quietly killing that hearty wart, how’s my thymus faring?
When these traditional remedies fail to work or not quickly enough, I’ll move on to loftier remedies. As with many temple rituals, I’ll resort to prayer. It’s cheap, painless and the results vary. I’ll pray (from within my temple) that I won’t fall apart too quickly. I’ll pray that it was just a momentary glitch that has caused the discomfort in my lower bowel. Perhaps that pasta was a bit too spicy, that mayonnaise a little too far past its expiration date, that chicken frightfully undercooked. I’ll pray my organs will supernaturally heal themselves. My prayer involves revisiting a scene from Lord of the Rings where the rotting dead are attacking the kinder Muppet people. The battlefield and fiery landscape surrounding them resembles the battle raging within my lower guts. I’ll then envision Galapagos or whatever his name is, riding in on his white stead and systematically smiting them all as that evil ‘burning eye’ dissolves. Transposing these images to the inner walls of my intestine, I’ll lay calmly as the battle for my Middle-earth rages on and quietly pray that my own personal ‘ring of fire’ will extinguish itself. It’s a long shot for that kind of remedy to work but it’s a passive, positive approach and better than calling an ambulance. It’s choosing mind over matter.
What ultimately cures any of these ailments is time. It’s an average of five days of discomfort and lag time and then one morning, the system is restored. I’m left to reflect on the old adage – which came first, the chicken or the egg? The supernaturally answered prayer or the normal ‘my system cured itself’ result? Whatever the case, there is much self-congratulations for an ordeal well absorbed, an oath to strictly monitor what I consume and an affirmation to adhere to a better, life-changing lifestyle which will include these keys to longevity: avoid violence, drive safely, don’t drink, smoke or do drugs, ask for help when you need it and have meaning in your life. I dug these keys up from a website that caters to people like me who can’t seem to follow the simple rule of ‘if it’s hurting you, then just stop!’ None of these keys are surprising. They are common sense and you’d have to be an imbecile not to simply understand them.
My temple is quiet now. It’s amazing how the body heals, how the mind corrects and recovers, then forgets. Within 6 hours of recovery, ordering a pizza seems just the right celebratory note and later, a chocolate chip cookie or two, a comforting reward for knowing my inner sanctum is in such good hands.
I’ve heard this quote a lot. Those embracing such an idea are typically young and fit, inhaling and exhaling deeply as they lightly towel off after a vivid morning workout. They have a glow about them as bright as sunshine. These saints view the body as something to be respected. They see their vessel as a holy place. They exercise daily, eat the right nourishment, and down the correct Redline Extreme drink. Their goal is to keep evil out and only the good in. I’m all for that. The problem is, my temple is in ruin. It’s starting to crumble. It’s this ‘age’ thing.
It begins when we enter the world, fresh and pliable and continues downward until we are crumbling dust. Meanwhile, there’s this lifetime; this time-chewing wild-goose chase in which we search for answers to keep the body young. It’s quite pointless. The outcome is always the same. We all end up eventually with our scrawny gooses cooked. It’s enough to make you sick. As we age, our arteries stiffen, our body fat increases and our primary organs flirt with atrophy. On the outside, we sag and wrinkle and shrink like bugs to the flame. I’ve read we should avoid direct sunlight and use sunscreens. Though I don’t aspire to live my life as a tight-skinned vampire, I do try to be conscious of the elements. No, I take that back. I rarely use sunscreen though my wife always tells me I should. I’m just lazy. My complexion is light and I burn easily but I really want that tan! I rationalize that like white bread in a toaster, burning is the quickest way. There are scores of ads that point to your “skin-care professional” for the best products for your skin. I’m not buying it. Laser treatments, injections and dermabrasions are costly, somewhat uncomfortable and can take 4-8 weeks to see a result meaning it takes 1-2 months of actual aging to look younger. No my friend, there are no instant miracles out there that can save our dilapidated and shrinking shrines. I’ve come to my own personal understanding about my own tabernacle: ‘What I put into it will eventually come out of it’, one way or the other.
My health has had its ups and downs, nothing too serious like heart attacks, strokes or major part replacements. My downs involve nature’s natural discomforts, things like stomach cramps, indigestion, joint pain, constipation and occasionally, an obscure foot bump. These ailments may be indicators of something more sinister awaiting but for now I’ll just enjoy them and be thankful I’m not at the doctor. That’s the last place I’d want to be. Ending up at the doctor means the home remedies aimed at eliminating these afflictions aren’t working. I’ll peruse the medicine cabinet in search of the standard antacids, laxatives, or pain relievers to help alleviate the discomfort. For a foot bump, (actually a Planters wart on my heel from walking around in flip flops all day), I’ll unravel a foot of silver Duct tape and wrap my ankle like a Spartan about to invade Troy. I’ve heard the glue in the tape can ‘cure’ anything, even a wart. This remedy does seem to work as the bump has receded to about half its size but I’m left wondering if I’ve absorbed unwelcome chemical toxins into my system through the tape? I mean, if it’s quietly killing that hearty wart, how’s my thymus faring?
When these traditional remedies fail to work or not quickly enough, I’ll move on to loftier remedies. As with many temple rituals, I’ll resort to prayer. It’s cheap, painless and the results vary. I’ll pray (from within my temple) that I won’t fall apart too quickly. I’ll pray that it was just a momentary glitch that has caused the discomfort in my lower bowel. Perhaps that pasta was a bit too spicy, that mayonnaise a little too far past its expiration date, that chicken frightfully undercooked. I’ll pray my organs will supernaturally heal themselves. My prayer involves revisiting a scene from Lord of the Rings where the rotting dead are attacking the kinder Muppet people. The battlefield and fiery landscape surrounding them resembles the battle raging within my lower guts. I’ll then envision Galapagos or whatever his name is, riding in on his white stead and systematically smiting them all as that evil ‘burning eye’ dissolves. Transposing these images to the inner walls of my intestine, I’ll lay calmly as the battle for my Middle-earth rages on and quietly pray that my own personal ‘ring of fire’ will extinguish itself. It’s a long shot for that kind of remedy to work but it’s a passive, positive approach and better than calling an ambulance. It’s choosing mind over matter.
What ultimately cures any of these ailments is time. It’s an average of five days of discomfort and lag time and then one morning, the system is restored. I’m left to reflect on the old adage – which came first, the chicken or the egg? The supernaturally answered prayer or the normal ‘my system cured itself’ result? Whatever the case, there is much self-congratulations for an ordeal well absorbed, an oath to strictly monitor what I consume and an affirmation to adhere to a better, life-changing lifestyle which will include these keys to longevity: avoid violence, drive safely, don’t drink, smoke or do drugs, ask for help when you need it and have meaning in your life. I dug these keys up from a website that caters to people like me who can’t seem to follow the simple rule of ‘if it’s hurting you, then just stop!’ None of these keys are surprising. They are common sense and you’d have to be an imbecile not to simply understand them.
My temple is quiet now. It’s amazing how the body heals, how the mind corrects and recovers, then forgets. Within 6 hours of recovery, ordering a pizza seems just the right celebratory note and later, a chocolate chip cookie or two, a comforting reward for knowing my inner sanctum is in such good hands.
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