Ski season is winding down here in Michigan.  It never seems to last long enough, it either starts too late or it ends too early.  Here it is the middle of March and its just about over.  I always plan on skiing more than I actually do, whether its work or family commitments the season just slips by and I’m left wishing I had gone a few times more.  In Michigan we don’t really have mountains to ski on, we have hills.  Sure we have some big hills and some medium sized hills, but I get to the bottom of them and I always wish they were longer.  Sometimes it feels like you spend more time riding the chairlift than you do skiing.  Because of that you can meet some pretty interesting people on the chairlift.

The most bro-tastic chairlift ride was with two college dudes who happened to attend the same college I did 30 years ago.  What commenced was a rollicking conversation as I quizzed them about some of the bars that I had frequented and if they had also been there.

“So is the Cabin still there I asked,”

“Oh dude that”s a great bar, that’s the first bar I went to in Mt. Pleasant.”

“How about the Wayside”

“Of course dude, that’s where you go to pick up chicks.”

I was a little disappointed that they had not heard of the Pub.  The Pub was a little bar in downtown Mt. Pleasant , it wasn’t very big and I think all they had was a jukebox, but it was a great place to hang out with your friends and drink and talk.  It also had Thursday night drink specials featuring 2 for $5 Long Island ice teas.  If you were going to go to the Pub on Thursday nights and drink Long Islands then you either didn’t have Friday classes or you were blowing them off.

They said they would have to check and see if the Pub was still around.  By this time we had reached the top of the hill, we fist bumped each other and went our separate ways with them bellowing at me “have a great run dude.”  Ah, college kids, don’t ever change.

Another memorable ride was with a high school girl who didn’t even realize I was trying to talk to her.  This was because she had her ear buds in listening to her music.  She was kind enough to take them out and indulge me in some conversation.  Although she spoke flawless English, she had a wonderful European accent.  She said she was an exchange student from Germany and when I remarked how great her English was, she said it was mandatory that every student learn English beginning in the third grade.  I’ve always thought that Europe does some things better than us and their willingness to learn multiple languages is definitely one of them.  She said that she had been skiing since she was 3 and that every year year her parents took them on a ski trip to the Italian alps.  I said she must be a little disappointed skiing in Michigan compared to the alps and that she needed to go out west to ski on some mountains comparable to the alps.  I saw her many times that day, she was an excellent skier and with her ear buds in and music playing she seemed to be having a wonderful time.

Another memorable ride was with a precocious young girl who was not skiing but was snowboarding.  I asked her how she was doing and she took one big breath and said the following with no pauses or stops or anything…

“I’m doing fine, isn’t it a great day, its so beautiful today, my dad works here so I’ve come out every weekend since they opened which was Thanksgiving weekend, I taught myself how to snowboard, well I did take one lesson but all the instructor wanted to teach me was how to stop and I already know how to do that, I wanna know how to go fast.  I keep trying to go over the jumps but sometimes I fall but it doesn’t hurt or anything.  I have a brother and he snowboards too and he’s better than me right now but I told him someday I’m going to be better than him.  I have a special needs sister and on Thursday they have a program here that lets special needs kids come out and a bunch of volunteers help them ski, my sister has spina bifida  so they put her in a sled and ski down the hill with her in the sled.  Isn’t that a great program, you should see the smile on my sisters face.”

By now we had reached the top and I had maybe interjected a “wow” and a “really” into the conversation.  My head was spinning with everything she had told me and I seriously needed to take a break.  She jumped off the chair said over her shoulder “see ya.”  What I really wanted to tell that little girl was…don’t ever change.

The one person I wanted to ride in a chairlift but never got the opportunity to was “Batman.” I’m not kidding, there’s a guy who dresses up in a full Batman costume and skis all over Michigan.  I’ve seen him a couple of times this year, he has his own Facebook page called “Batman on the slopes.”  I’ve remarked to other chairlift companions as we’ve watched Batman ski down a hill that you have to be a pretty good skier to wear a full Batman costume and ski, you can’t be a beginner or even average.  And believe me Batman is good.  The funny thing is I’ve never seen Batman actually ride a chairlift or even be in a chairlift line, but he’s always at the top of the hill or on his way down.  Hmmm…makes me wonder how Batman gets to the top of the hill.

There were many other memorable people I rode up the hill with this year…the guy who insisted on putting the safety bar down because he had issues with heights and then proceeded to tell me about the new skis he just bought and how great they were.  I bought new skis this year too, but I don’t tell everyone about them even though they are great and better than yours.  The lady from Romania who lived in Chicago and was with a ski club from the Chicago area.  The two middle school age boys who talked cattily about their friends the whole ride up the hill….and I thought only middle school girls did that.

I was on one of the last rides of the day, the hill was clearing out, the sun was disappearing, the wind had started to blow, it was getting colder.  I was riding in the chairlift by myself lost in my thoughts, reflecting on what a great year of skiing it had been.  The season had passed too quickly, I hadn’t skied enough, there were missed opportunities when I should have been skiing but I wasn’t.  I noticed a lone skier coming down the hill, it was my son.  He’s only been skiing for 3 years now and he’s still needs to improve his skills but he loves skiing, loves being outside, loves going fast.

I realized what I was going to miss was the long car rides with him to the hill, sometimes the miles passing in silence, sometimes him remarking about my taste in music, (I’m stuck in the eighties), and sometimes his opening up about what was happening in his world with school and friends and such.  I was going to miss our ski day lunches in the crowded lodge as we ate a brown bag lunch we hurriedly packed that morning…a sandwich, a can of Pringles, some fruit, trailmix and maybe some jerky.  And most of all I was going to miss watching him improving and getting better each time we skied, him loving the same thing I do.

I had reached the top of the hill and I quickly jumped off the chair and raced down the hill…I had one more chairlift ride of the season and I knew who it was going to be with.

 

Thought for the day…

When you forgive, you don’t change the past you change the future

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Sunday I went for a walk in the woods.  It was a cold, overcast winter day in Michigan.  One of those gray days that makes you wonder when was the last time you saw the sun, but in reality it had probably only been a couple of days.  I was sitting around the house, there was nothing on TV I wanted to watch.  I’m not one of those people that “binge” watches an entire season of a show in one weekend.  I know some people do that, and if that’s you that’s fine, it’s just not me.  I had finished a book a couple of days before and I hadn’t decided what to read next, and although there were probably a couple of projects around the house to do, I wasn’t really in the mood to get started on them.  In other words I was restless.

As an afterthought, I asked my teenage son if he wanted to join me and much to my pleasant surprise he accepted.  He was sequestered in his room under the guise of doing homework although I suspect he might have been watching “you tube” videos or “snap chatting” with friends.  My son had reached that age, 15, where he wants to spend less time with his parents and more time with his friends, either in person or in the virtual world. He’s an outside kid at heart and he might have been feeling a little cabin fever which is why he accepted my offer.  I thought this might be a good opportunity to have some father and son time, to talk with him about how things were going in his world, his adjustment to his first year of high school.  We pulled on our coats, hats, gloves and boots and headed outside.

We have a 4 acre piece of property with half of it being an open field and then farther beyond that a thicket of woods.  If the first 5 minutes were any indication it might be a pretty quiet walk as my son was silent as we traversed the open field.  But there must be a certain magical quality about the woods for as soon as we entered them my son started opening up as if the great towering trees would hold all secrets that couldn’t be discussed in the open field.  During the warmer months of spring, summer and fall my son regularly walks our property usually at dusk and then reports back to us on all the wildlife he has seen, the number of deer grazing off in the distance, the flock of turkeys strutting around. He probably knows the property as well as anyone except his grandpa who has lived out here for almost 50 years.

“I’m going to be getting my permit this week” he started with.  Ah yes, his driving permit.  Is there anything more frightening to a parent than the thought of their kids beginning to drive? It seems like yesterday I was wiping his nose and cutting his meat and now I’m going to be handing him the keys to a vehicle?  I didn’t want to tell him, but at times it actually frightens me to think of him driving.  I drive for my job so I see it every day, the distracted drivers, the angry drivers, the distracted angry drivers.  I keep trying to impress upon him the importance of being a safe, defensive driver and not letting friends dictate how you drive and for gods sake never drive and text. I’ve said all this to him numerous times and I hope he has listened, so now I just told him that it’s a major responsibility and a milestone moment as a teenager, but it’s a privilege that can be easily taken away if he’s careless.  He gave the typical teenage “huh huh, I know.”  God I hope so.

The woods were very quiet on this Sunday as if the cold had forced all creatures to hunker down.  My son pointed out some trees that had fallen since the last time he had been back here, some had fallen completely to the ground and others were being propped up by an adjoining tree.  I wondered how soon those trees would also break, unable to support the burden of holding up a partner.

“I usually sit on this log when I come back here” my son exclaimed suddenly.  We had come to a massive tree laying on the ground, how long it had been there was hard to tell but it had moss growing on it so it must have been awhile.  We sat on it and I instantly felt the cold of the tree permeate my body, if he also felt it, he didn’t show it.

“How’s school?” I ventured.  The adjustment from middle school to high school had been a difficult one.  My son spent the first month of school proclaiming he didn’t like any of his classes or teachers and if this was what college was like then he wasn’t interested in college.  We tried to tell him that it would get better as he got used to the workload, and his grades were still very good but I knew it didn’t come easy.

“I think I might want to go to a trade school after high school” he said.  He had mentioned this before and we said that was certainly a possibility, that those were very good jobs and when you need a plumber you need a plumber.  I mentioned to him that he still had a couple of years before he had to make that decision, but it was good that he was thinking about it.  I don’t want him to totally give up on college just because high school is hard, so I told him that not everyone who goes to college knows what they want to do, that a lot of people find what they want to do in college, and perhaps if he tried it that might also happen with him.  I also told him that college was more than just classes and studying.  The whole experience of being on your own and living and interacting with different people was the real benefit of college.  We sat there awhile longer in silence and he said he wanted to go down by the stream.

There’s a small stream that meanders through the back half of the property that if I could draw or paint it would probably be the prettiest little stream you ever did see.  It makes a couple of sweeping “S” curves around some trees and then disappears in the distance to I don’t know where, the mystery of it makes it so much better, so much more grand.  It’s actually not much of a stream and more like a small creek that probably goes nowhere and in the winter when it’s frozen it’s not so grand.  We scrambled down the bank to the edge of it and stood there looking at it, the top of it frozen, although not all the way through as we could see a trickle of water flowing underneath the ice.

“I could join the military after high school” he proclaimed.  Another topic we’ve talked about before.  “It was good enough for grandpa.”  My father-in-law is a Vietnam vet, so my son is curious about the idea of serving in the military.

“Well that’s true” I said “but you realize that grandpa didn’t make a career out of it, and it was a different time, there was a war going on.” I was proud of my son for even considering military service but I am apprehensive about the whole idea.  I was beginning to realize this walk in the woods was very different from any other, these were adult size questions on his mind, questions that had no easy answers.  As a parent you try to guide, motivate, nudge, and mentor your kids in the right direction or in a direction that you think is right for them.  As they grow older you realize you can’t make all their decisions for them, but letting go and letting them make their own decisions and possibly mistakes is very difficult.  The instinct to protect them is powerful, perhaps the most powerful of all parental emotions, but whether as parents we like it or not, we have to let go a little and let them choose their own path.

I suddenly wanted my son to stay 15 forever just like I wanted him to stay 10 forever and 5 forever, to not have to make these big decisions in the coming years, to just be a teenager wandering around the woods on the weekend.

We turned away from the stream, he gave me a hand getting back up the bank and we headed in the direction of home.  We emerged from the woods into the open field, our house appeared off in the distance a 5 minute walk away, but it looked farther in the diminishing light.  I wondered how it looked to him as a 15 yr. old compared to me as a 51 yr. old. Did he see a place he could always come back to, always find comfort and love or did he see a place that he wanted to get away from.  A wisp smoke emerged from the chimney, my wife had started a fire in the wood stove, the house would be warm when we got back, that suddenly seemed very appealing as I noticed that my feet were cold and wet.  God I hate wet feet.  We stood there a minute lost in our thoughts….

“C mon, I think there’s some pizza from last night in the fridge” I said.  “Nah, I ate it all for lunch” he proclaimed.

I silently cursed the appetite of a teenage boy, he must have seen the look on my face because he grinned that grin I know so well and laughed and said  “I left one piece for you, I knew you’d want it.”

We went for a walk in the woods the other day…it won’t be our last, they’ll be many more.  My son knows himself better than I do, that’s tough for a parent to admit but it’s true and it’s a good thing.

 

Thought for the day….4 things you can’t get back

The stone after it’s thrown

The word after it’s said

The occasion after it’s missed

The time after it’s gone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was working out tonight, lifting some weights, and I had my pandora music app on the 90’s alternative station.  Usually I go for the 80’s rock or maybe the summer hits from the 80’s but sometimes when I’m lifting weights I feel like playing the 90’s grunge music. Just seems to fit with the whole lifting weights thing.

Anyhow, the song “Bittersweet Symphony” came on. Great song, great tune, not much in the vocal department but it works.  The problem with that song is I never can remember who sings it, because around that same time a song came out called “The Freshmen.”  One of them was sung by “The Verve” and the other one was sung by “The Verve Pipe” but I’ll be damned if I can remember who did what.  I’ll admit I can’t name another song by either group so my reference for both groups is the one hit song that each group put out.  I’ll also admit I’m not the most knowledgeable person about music and the artists and bands and who did what, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one with this problem.  My wife is one of these people who is very knowledgeable about music and in fact can recall just about any song lyrics and sing just about any song upon hearing the tune.  It’s really quite remarkable, I often joke with her that it’s too bad there isn’t some way to “cash in” on this talent.  When the movie Beauty and the Beast was coming out last year and all the commercials were on TV, she would launch into the entire soundtrack each time a commercial for the movie would come on until finally myself or my son would tell her to please stop before we heard another round of “Be our Guest.” What I’m trying to say is she knows music.  But when I asked her who sang “Bittersweet Symphony” she said she couldn’t remember, that it was either “The Verve” or “The Verve Pipe.”  So I say again I don’t think this is just a “me” problem.

So I had this idea, what the two groups should do is tour together and play each others songs.  And I’m guessing unless your really a hard core fan most people might not notice that there doing each others songs.  People would probably look at each other for a moment and perhaps even remark that they didn’t know they played this song, they thought the other group played it, but they probably would think they just had the one group confused with the other and just go with it.

Imagine being a band and playing for years in small bars and clubs in your hometown and struggling to make a name for yourselves and then finally you hit it big, like really big with a pop hit that everybody knows but around the same time another similarly named group hits it big with their first hit.  What would the feelings be, anger, jealousy perhaps resentment or after awhile acceptance and maybe even humor.  I think if either group came to view it as humorous, that it must have took a while to achieve.

Thought for the day….You didn’t come this far to only come this far

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was grocery shopping in the local mega super store. It seems every community has at least one of these now, the groceries on one side the general merchandise on the other…one stop shopping.  I had my list, meticulously made by my wife. My son needed a new water bottle, he had dropped his other one and the top had cracked or something like that and never mind that he had 2 or 3 other ones in the cupboard, for some reason those weren’t right, this was the water bottle he takes to school and fills up throughout the day.  He wanted one with a locking cap so it wouldn’t spill in his backpack, and the ones in the cupboard didn’t have that so he needed a new one.

I figured there might be a handful of different models to choose from at my local mega super store.  In fact much to my surprise there was an entire aisle of nothing but water bottles, so many that the aisle had its own name at the end of it to let you know where you were, although I’m quite sure anyone would know that you were in the “hydration” aisle. There were big ones, small ones , medium sized ones. Some came with a type of agitator if you wanted to mix something in with your water. There were bottles that could keep your liquid hot or cold for up to 8 hours at a time and I suppose if you needed that then that’s a great feature. Some had locking lids, some had straws, and some had straws, locking lids and agitators.

I never knew we had advanced the water bottle market so progressively. You see the water bottle I use is an old Gatorade bottle that I fill up with water and carry it with me throughout the day and after about a week I get a new Gatorade and then use that as my bottle for the next week. I never knew what I was missing or what I needed.  But do I really need any of these fancy water bottles, after all its just water I’m carrying around.

I spent about an hour doing the grocery shopping that day, and by far the most time I spent in any aisle was the “hydration” aisle.  My son got a new water bottle with a locking lid but without a straw or agitator and without the 8 hours of guaranteed coldness.  I got a new lemon lime Gatorade.

Thought for the day…..

Don’t take life too seriously.  Don’t plan too far ahead, nothing ever happens the way we expect, so don’t waste your energy

 

 

 

I’m starting this blog as a way to express myself in a fun and creative way. To get back to something I enjoy doing…writing, in its most basic format.  Simply writing what I see and observe, hopefully this will be humorous and enjoyable for readers.  A sometimes quirky look at the world we live in without being too serious.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy….