A mom went shopping the other day.  It was a day in early December and she was picking up some Christmas presents for her family.  The stores were crowded with other shoppers but she was in a good mood humming along to the Christmas music playing in the background.  At the checkout she bought 1 candy cane to give to her youngest daughter.  Her daughter, Molly, had blonde hair and blue eyes, and she was just at that age where she loved everything about Christmas.

The little girl squealed in delight when she saw the candy cane and wanted to open it immediately, but it was too close to dinner and the mom didn’t want her to have candy before dinner so she told her daughter to save it for later.  Molly said she would save it for the next day and take it to school.

All during the morning the little girl was finding it hard to pay attention to her school lessons.  She kept thinking about the candy cane she would have at lunch.  During her math lesson she made her 11’s look like candy canes, during her vocabulary she hoped one of the words was candy cane but it wasn’t, but she added it to her list anyhow.  She even told her best friend about her candy cane, and then she told her she would give her a piece because that’s what best friends are for, to share candy canes with.

Finally it was lunch time and Molly hurried to the lunch room and excitedly unpacked her lunch.  Her best friend, Emily, wanted to open the candy cane first, but Molly said they should eat their lunches first and save the candy for last.  So that’s what they did and it sat on the table between them.

But they forgot about Mark Snell…Mark Snell was a couple of years older and he was big and mean and he never packed his own lunch.  Instead Mark Snell would take food from other people’s lunches, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from Joey and a pudding cup from Mary and if anybody had any candy Mark Snell was sure to find it and take some of it.  Just as Molly was finishing her lunch and about to open her candy cane, Mark Snell appeared behind her and snatched it out of her hand.

“Give it back” wailed the little girl, but Mark Snell never gave anything back especially candy.  He held the candy cane just out of the little girl’s reach even as she tried to jump up and take it back.  In fact Mark Snell laughed at the little girl and he had a particularly evil laugh, the kind you always remember even when you grow up and never see Mark Snell again, you remember his laugh. Just then the school bell rang and all the kids began packing up their things and heading off to their next class, and the little girl was left standing there, sad for she had not gotten a chance to eat her candy cane.

Mark Snell knew he couldn’t eat the candy cane in class so he put it in his backpack.  He decided he would eat it after school in his bedroom while he was playing video games.  Mark Snell’s two favorite things to do were play video games and eat candy.  His hands and fingers were always sticky or chocolatey and he always wiped them on his shirt or pants or if he was playing video games in his bedroom, he would wipe them on the bedspread because that’s what boys like Mark Snell do.

But Mark Snell didn’t get a chance to eat the candy cane because his friend invited him over to play video games at his house, and his friend had the new zombie killer video game and if there were three things Mark Snell liked it was candy, video games and killing zombies in video games.  He was so excited about going to his friends house to kill zombies he totally forgot about the candy cane as he threw his backpack across the kitchen floor where it skidded and then thudded into his mom’s leg as she stood in the kitchen doing the dishes.  She yelled after him to “come back here and pick up this backpack before you go anywhere,” but it was no use, Mark Snell was on his way to his friends house to kill zombies and perhaps wipe his sticky fingers on his friends bedspread.

Mark Snell’s mother sighed and asked her daughter, Joy, to pick up her older brothers backpack and take it to his room.  She didn’t really want to pick up her older brothers backpack but she knew better than to say no to her mom when her mom was busy in the kitchen, so she trudged down the hall dragging the backpack behind her.  His backpack was really heavy and she struggled to lift it on to his bed.  What did he carry in there that made it so heavy she wondered.  She tiptoed to the door to make sure no one was coming down the hall and then she quietly opened the backpack.

There was a bunch of crumpled papers and a couple of books she had never seen her brother reading, and a rubber snake that almost made her scream, but she recognized it as the one that he had hid under her pillow the week before, because that’s what kind of a brother Mark Snell was, always hiding rubber snakes and toy spiders under his sisters pillow.  Then she saw the candy cane at the bottom of the backpack.  She couldn’t resist taking it out and holding it in her hands, this could be pay back for all the mean jokes and other rotten big brother stuff he did to her. She put it in her pocket and quietly closed up the backpack and tiptoed back to her room.  She didn’t want to eat it at home because she didn’t want her mom or her brother to see it, so she figured she would take it to school the next day and eat it there.

The little girl was excitedly showing the candy cane to her best friend when the teacher, Mr. Hunter walked into the classroom.  Mr. Hunter was an older teacher who had a knack for stopping disturbances in his classroom before they started, and the presence of candy was definitely a disturbance waiting to happen.  Joy did not see her teacher until he was standing over her, he had his hand out and she knew he would take her candy cane.  He didn’t say a thing, he just shook his head and she sadly handed over the candy cane.  He put it in his desk drawer with all the other objects that he had confiscated, things like whoopee cushions and fake vomit and lots and lots of candy.  He kept thinking he should clean out his drawer some day but he never did.

At lunch that day the lunchroom was unusually noisy as the first snow of the year had begun to fall.  The children were talking loudly and excitedly about plans for after school snow ball fights and snow man making.  There was one table of 4 little girls who were not talking about after school activities.  They sat quietly and glumly eating their lunches, two of them had a candy cane taken away from them and the other two had been promised a piece of the candy cane.

Just then Mr. Hunter entered the lunch room, he had not packed a lunch so he figured he would see what they were serving today.  It appeared to be some sort of brown slop and some potatoes.  He decided he wasn’t really that hungry after all and he would skip lunch.  As he was walking back through the lunchroom he saw the 4 sad little girls sitting at a table all by themselves.  Mr. Hunter was not an unreasonable man, he had daughters himself and although they were now older, he had hated to see them sad.  He knelt down next to Joy and produced the candy cane from his pocket.

“If you promise not to bring candy into my classroom again, I’ll give you back this candy cane.”

The little girls eyes widened with excitement and she eagerly nodded her head, she had the candy cane again.  She would open it immediately and share a piece with her best friend.  But then she noticed the two other girls at the table.  They looked very sad, in fact Molly looked like she might start crying.  The little girl was silent for a moment as she looked at the candy cane and then at her best friend, and then at the other two little girls.

“Would you like a piece of my candy cane?” she asked the other girls.  “We could split it so we all get a piece” she added.

Molly who was on the verge of crying, suddenly was quite happy and her best friend was happy too.  In fact all 4 of the little girls were happy, because the candy cane that had been given to Molly by her mother and then taken away by Mark Snell and thrown in his backpack, and then sneaked out of his backpack by his little sister and then taken away by Mr. Hunter, the candy cane that had made 2 little girls very sad was now making 4 little girls very happy.

 

 

 

 

 

We have four drawers in our kitchen.  I don’t know if this is an average number of drawers for a kitchen as I’ve never really looked at other peoples kitchen drawers.  I suppose some kitchens would have more drawers depending on the size of the kitchen, but I really can’t imagine having less than the four we have.  Each drawer has a specific purpose and items that go in that drawer.  God forbid the person who puts something in the wrong drawer.

One of the drawers is for the kitchen towels, dishcloths and hot pads and there is definitely a specific order, hot pads in back, two rows of towels and the wash rags on the side.  Another drawer contains the silverware and small utensils, like the ice cream scoop, the lemon press, the measuring cups, some small spatulas and small tongs.  The third drawer contains the larger utensils, the soup ladle, the mash potato masher the grill tongs and also the knives which are contained in their own special holder.

The fourth drawer is known by everybody in the house as “the junk drawer.”  It seems to be the drawer that everybody throws stuff into if they don’t know where it goes in the house or if the item doesn’t already have a specific place to be put.  I once mentioned to my wife that perhaps if we cleaned out the “junk drawer” we could get rid of the “junk drawer” and then use that drawer for something else.  She responded that everybody has a “junk drawer.”  I casually pointed out that we did not have a “junk drawer” when I was growing up, that everything had a place and everybody knew where things were without having such a drawer.  My wife did not respond to that comment, instead I received a look that told me I should not bring up the idea of cleaning out the “junk drawer” again, and perhaps it would be best if I not mention what we did or did not do when I was growing up.  Since that short discussion I’ve tolerated the “junk drawer.”

The other day I was rummaging around the “junk drawer” as this is the only way to actually find something in the drawer.  For what I was looking for, now I can’t even remember, but I decided to take an inventory of the drawer, and I must say I was quite surprised how much stuff is crammed into this drawer.  So much stuff that occasionally the drawer will be difficult to close, or even worse difficult to open as something has gotten pushed up and jammed the drawer from opening.

There are two main containers that hold the majority of the items.  The first one is a small plastic container that holds tape.  We have scotch tape, masking tape, electrical tape, duct tape, double sided tape, packaging tape, packaging tape on a roll that has a perforated edge to cut the tape and black athletic tape, which I think is from when my son was playing lacrosse and he was taping his sticks.  Like a lot of items in the “junk drawer” the black athletic tape was probably purchased for a specific one-time use, but now is not really needed and was never thrown away.

The other container is a metal type tray with many small compartments holding an odd assortment of items.  There’s safety pins, staples, clothes pins, paper clips, gorilla glue, a utility knife, rubber bands, metal hooks for hanging pictures, plastic hooks for hanging I don’t know what, a bottle opener, a potato chip bag clip, krazy glue, a small candle, a small measuring tape, a bag full of washers and many, many screws and nails of various sizes.  This is not a complete listing of items in the metal tray but it is an exhausting one.

Behind the containers and crammed in between the containers are other items such as a kitchen lighter, a lint brush, a lid for the dog food once its been opened, a letter opener, 3 packs of playing cards and a plastic bag containing small birthday candles and a number 8 birthday candle.  My son is now 16 years old and I can only surmise that this number 8 candle was from his 8th birthday party and somehow this candle and the other birthday candles were saved and no realizes they’re crammed in the back of the drawer.  I didn’t realize they were back there until just now.

In the front of these containers are probably the only two items anybody really opens the “junk drawer” for, the envelope containing the coupons for grocery shopping and the batteries.  We have a half open package of 9 volt batteries, for the smoke alarms, and a half open package of triple A batteries.  Each package started off as a 12 pack, so there are about 6 batteries in each package.  We also have a sandwich bag containing some other loose batteries.  A couple of D size, one C size and 3 or 4 double A batteries.  Of course you never really need 1 or 2 of the C or D size, you always need like 4 or 5, so these have probably been in there for god knows how long.

Like I said before, the only items that are used regularly out of the “junk drawer” are the coupons and the batteries.  I’m sure most of the other items could be found a home some where else in the house, probably in the tool box or in the drawer of the work bench in the basement.

I suddenly realized that the drawer in my work bench in the basement is much larger than the kitchen drawer and would hold at least three times as much junk as what’s currently in the “junk drawer” so maybe its not a good idea to suggest a cleaning out and re-purposing of the “junk drawer.”  After all, according to my wife “everybody has a junk drawer” and sometimes its just best to leave well enough alone.

Thought for the day:

Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die tomorrow

It’s morning in a small, quiet Midwestern town.  In a typical middle class neighborhood a family has just returned from a week long summer vacation.  The mom heads to the basement to begin washing the vacation clothes.

She tells her 4 children to throw their dirty clothes down the chute to the basement.  The clothes begin dropping from the ceiling, soon she’s ankle deep in clothes, she sighs.  Shirts, shorts, sweatshirts, pants, bathing suits, a shoe clunks her in the head….shoe?  “NO, not your shoes” she yells to the ceiling, but the shoes keep falling and the towels, so many towels.  How could there be so many towels she wonders, we were on vacation.  The lady suddenly realizes she’s waist deep in clothes but the onslaught has stopped and she thinks that’s all of them.  But it’s not, suddenly a literal downpour of clothes of biblical proportions starts falling.  The lady is finding it hard to move her legs, she reaches for the container of soap pods, her hand rummages around and she realizes in horror that there’s only 1 soap pod left.  The clothes keep falling, there now shoulder deep and she’s struggling to move, struggling to keep her head above them.  Finally the last clothes fall and she hears small steps on the stairs, it’s her youngest child carrying an armful of towels.

“I got a couple of towels to be washed” she says in her small voice, “I gave the doggy’s a bath but I didn’t do it in the bathtub, I did it in the kitchen.”

She throws the towels on top of the pile covering the lady and goes skipping across the basement humming.  “I’m going outside, have fun momma.”  Up the stairs she goes turning off the light at the top of the stairs.

“Honey, the light, no wait, honey could ya just help me for a second…anybody, anybody, I could use a little help down here.”

The lady’s in the dark, buried by a mountain of clothes with just one soap pod and it’s Monday

 

There’s a 2×4 board in our basement.  That in itself is rather unremarkable, there’s lots of 2×4’s in our basement but this one runs vertically from the floor to the ceiling, and although I’m no expert at construction this one seems pretty important.  It’s part of the support structure for the stairs, but that’s not the only reason I think it’s pretty important.  This 2×4 has a series of lines and numbers on it starting about a third of the way up.  You see this is the 2×4 that I would back my son up to and tell him to stand straight and tall, then I’d put a ruler on the top of his head and draw a line.  He’d step back from this board and then we’d measure it to the floor…this 2×4 and the lines and numbers on it represents his growth chart.

The first date on the board is January 30, 2008.  We moved into this house in April of 2007 and if I would have been smart I would have measured him the day we moved in, or maybe on his birthday in August or a specific day every year like New Years Day, but for some reason January 30 is the first date.  Looking up that date, it shows that it was a Wednesday, and not much really happened on that day.  It was probably a cold winter day in Michigan and we were probably in the basement playing after dinner.  He would have been 6 years old then, still small enough to ride his little bike in the basement.  He’d go down there and just ride around doing laps for about an hour.  As a parent is there anything better than an activity that keeps your kid busy for an hour and it tires him out?  Or we might have been playing floor hockey with mini floor hockey sticks and some makeshift nets and a ball. Some time during the evening I must have had the idea to measure him.  The numbers next to the line say 3′ 10″.  Looking at it now it comes just past my belly button.  He was still small enough to pick up and carry around, small enough to hug and kiss whenever you wanted, small enough to still wrestle around with for fun.

It would be a year and half later before I measured him again, July 16, 2009 and the numbers next to it say 4′ 2″.  A little bit bigger but certainly no big growth spurt yet.  I sit here wondering why were we in the basement on a summers evening in July.  Perhaps a summer thunderstorm blew in and chased us inside for the rest of the night.  During that time we had a cat who lived in the basement, mainly because our dog would chase her to the basement whenever she tried to come upstairs.  She would usually be sitting in her box on the shelf watching over us, she had learned the hard way to stay away from the small child on the bike or throwing the ball around.  If there was a thunderstorm she would make herself even scarcer, hiding behind boxes until it was over.  She passed away last year but sometimes I still expect to see her down there in her box on the shelf.

The lines and numbers continue February 16, 2011….February 8, 2012, wow almost exactly a year apart, good job by me, and then March 3, 2013.  He had grown to 4′ 11″ and then just 5 months later another line and he crossed the 5 ft. barrier.

Then a curious thing happened, there are no lines and numbers for the next 4 years.  Not until July 12, 2017 and by now he’s 5′ 11″, the same height as me.  I sit here trying to recollect why didn’t I measure him during that time period and I honestly don’t know why.  Four years, that’s a long time.  He went from being 11 years old to being a teenager, that had long since past his mom’s height.  The years just seemed to pass, he went from the little kid riding his bike in the basement to the kid playing lacrosse, going to friends bonfires, and talking about high school.  It was all just a blur and the lack of lines on the 2×4 seem to represent that.

He had his 16th birthday last month, he’s up over 6 ft. tall with long curly hair.  The little kid with the buzz cut who’s shorter than me is only seen in pictures now.  He passed drivers education and went and got his license.  He’s got my old car, and I bought a new one.  He runs cross country on the high school team and he’s able to drive himself back and forth to practice  On weekends he goes over to a friends house for team bonfires and as he goes down the driveway I stand looking out the window.  He pauses at the end of the driveway, he puts his turn signal on, I wonder how long that’ll last.  I picture him looking left, then right and then left again like I taught him, and then slowly pulling out onto our road.  As he disappears down the road with his newfound sense of freedom, I can’t help but think…I hope he follows his dreams and has no regrets.

 

Thought for the day….

Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be.  But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today….

Hemingway

 

 

 

 

 

It was the end of a long work week. Only 5 days long but one of those weeks that seemed much longer.  Too many deliveries, too many miles, the days running into each other.  I drove home on Friday night wanting to unwind, shake off the week, end it on a positive note.  Although dinner was waiting, I had no interest.  I checked with my wife about her plans for the evening, she had none except for a book and the couch, evidently her week was also long and frustrating.  I usually like to work out as soon as I get home, lift some weights perhaps do some yoga to unwind, but tonight felt different.  I wanted to be outside, wanted to take advantage of a beautiful summer evening  at the end of a difficult work week.  My bike was calling me.

I hopped on and began my regular route, a 16 mile loop through the back roads and farmlands around my house.  Within the first mile of my loop is a freeway overpass, a short little climb that gets the legs moving and the heart pumping.  Whenever I’m on one of my rides I’m always accompanied by the voices in my head.  The voice that talks to me about work, how I can do better, how I should have handled a particular situation.  Sometimes that voice stays with me for a long time, tonight I pushed that voice aside quickly.  Then there’s the voice that talks to me about my teenage son.  This voice tells me about the things I should be telling him as he approaches his 16th birthday, things he needs to know, responsibilities that need to be met.  Some of these are things I wish somebody had told me when I was his age, not that I always would have listened.  Then there’s the random voice, talking to me about friends or other family members, my aging parents and their declining health.  Usually these voices stay with me for the first couple of miles, and there’s always one constant voice…the voice on my phone app tracking my distance……

distance traveled 1 mile

time 5 minutes and 33 seconds

speed 12.4 miles per hour

split speed 12.4 miles per hour

I reach a straight paved stretch of road that has very little traffic on it so I know I won’t have to move off to the shoulder.  It’s a 4 mile stretch on a slight decline, so slight you probably wouldn’t notice it in a car, but on a bike, it’s noticeable.  I’m in a rhythm now, the up and down of the pedals, the sound of the chain as it goes around, the hum of the tires on the pavement.  Only one voice in my head now, all the others have been pushed aside, no longer bothering me, no longer a distraction…..

distance traveled 5 miles  

time 25 minutes and 16 seconds

speed 13.6 miles per hour

split speed 15.2 miles per hour 

That was a fast mile, I wonder if I have a tailwind but the flag on a passing house stands limp.  I’ll probably pay for the increased tempo on the way back, but for now it feels good, the miles passing quickly as I pass fields of corn ready for harvest and pastures of cows grazing at the end of the day.

I turn onto the bike path that connects our small town with the nearest one to the south.  On a weekend ride, when I don’t have anything else to hurry home to, I might ride this path to the next town extending my ride to 20 or even 25 miles, regretting the last few miles as my legs feel like jelly and my ass gets sore from the bike seat.  As the summer day is quickly becoming a summer night, I only stay on it for a mile and then turn for home….

distance traveled 8 miles

time 41 minutes and 11 seconds

speed 13 miles per hour

split speed 13.8 miles per hour

The paved road I’m on quickly turns to a dirt road and an ever so slight incline and I know the long slog home has begun.  The dirt road is bumpy and uneven, my tempo decreases and I feel like I’m going so slow as I weave back and forth across the road trying to find a flat stretch.  I no longer look at my surroundings, only focusing on the 20 feet immediately in front of me.  The voice tells me of my progress……

distance traveled 12 miles

time 53 minutes and 44 seconds

speed 13.5 miles per hour

split speed 12.4 miles per hour

Another slow mile passes but I’ve made one last turn for home.  It’s a 4 mile stretch and I know the worst is over, the dirt road smooths out and I know it will soon turn back to pavement.  I pass a house that has one of those little free library’s at the end of their driveway.  I’ve always wanted to stop and peruse the books to see if there’s anything that would catch my interest.  I should probably bring a small backpack because I would probably find more than one book and then how would I navigate the last few miles home holding books as I steer.

distance traveled 15 miles

time 1 hour and 9 minutes

speed 13.4 miles per hour

split speed 12.8 miles per hour

One mile to go and I see the freeway overpass.  Just a short climb and then an easy downhill all the way to my driveway.  I check behind me to see if anything’s coming, there’s not, then I shift gears, rise out my seat and begin climbing.  As I crest the overpass, I see a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction.  As it draws near, I suddenly see a small brown object catch my attention in my peripheral vision.  It’s a fawn about to jump the guardrail and cross the road.  All three of us, the fawn, the vehicle and me are converging at the same place and time.  At the last second the fawn becomes spooked and heads back down the hill, back to the pond by the freeway.  The vehicle passes, probably never even seeing the fawn.  I coast down the hill pondering what just happened.  If that fawn had jumped that guardrail it probably would have crashed into me or just avoided me, either way I probably would have lost control and fell towards the oncoming vehicle.  The driver probably would have been startled and not having room to maneuver on a freeway overpass….well….

I spread my arms out wide, lean back as I far as I feel comfortable and feel the warm summer air rush over my face and body as I coast down the hill to my driveway…

distance traveled 16 miles

time 1 hour and….

I turn off my phone app and just enjoy the silence

 

Thought for the day….

Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about…..

Be kind….always

 

 

 

 

Last day of school….let those words sink in, think about them and what it means.  Say it out loud…last day of school.  Even to adults those 4 words bring back powerful memories.  At the end of every school year I hear those 4 words and I get a little bit jealous, I think about the absolute joy the last day of school brings to kids, perhaps only Christmas morning brings more joy and excitement.

I hear those words and I dream for a few minutes how wonderful it would be to have the summer off, to sleep in if you wanted to, or to rise early if that was your way.  To have no plans and still have a day filled that left you wishing there was more time.  To spend hours with friends not because you’re in the same class or school, but because you want to be with them, to do stuff or do nothing at all, and quite frankly either option is fine.  So for a few minutes I’ll dream of that summer vacation and make summer plans.

I want to ride my bike for miles and miles and miles until my legs burn, and only then will I turn around and head home knowing it’s going to be a long slog back.  I want to find a trail I’ve never been on, and ride or run it hoping it takes me somewhere I’ve never been but nowhere in particular, and then back to where I started again. I want to enter a local 5k race that starts early on a Saturday morning and run like I used to with joy and happiness not worried about how I’ll feel next day.

I want to kayak in the river and swim in the lake maybe on the same day.  I want to stick my hand into a cooler filled with ice and find a bottle of beer on the bottom that’s so cold and refreshing that I drink it down in 3 long gulps.  I want to lay in my hammock on a hot summers day and read a book until  it falls out of my hands because I have fallen asleep.  I want to have bonfires in our backyard as day turns to night and roast marshmallows and make s’mores.  I don’t really even like s’mores but a lot of people do and I like to watch other people eat them as they get all gooey and sticky.

I want to walk along a beach and watch the waves make my footprints disappear behind me, erasing my presence seconds after I was there.  While I’m at the beach I’ll sit in the sand, bury my feet and wait until the stars come out and then I’ll lay back and just be there.

I want to see fireworks in all their glory light up the sky and watch the wonder and amazement in the eyes of little kids.

I want to sit on my deck, and watch the fireflies come out blinking here and there like little lighthouses of the bug world.  While I’m sitting there I’ll watch the bats come swooping around the yard, fluttering wildly from the front yard to the back chasing and (I hope) eating thousands of mosquitoes.

I want to attend a minor league baseball game with my son, a game where I don’t care who wins or loses and I don’t know any of the players, I just want to watch baseball on a warm summers night played by guys who just love the game.  Speaking of baseball, I want to fall asleep with my phone, used to be a transistor radio, under my pillow listening to a game from the west coast, a far away destination like Los Angeles or Seattle and listen to the radio announcer describe the action as I drift off to sleep.

I want to eat ice cream, perhaps every day, although I shouldn’t and try to find a place that makes sundaes in little baseball batting helmets, and then I’ll take the helmet home and wash it out and add it to my collection.

On the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, I’ve always wanted to see the sun rise over the lake on the east side of our state, Michigan,  and then later drive over to the west side of the state and watch it set into another lake that night.  A perfect beginning and end.

Thought for the day…..some pursue happiness, others create it

 

I started playing tennis again.  This in itself is not earth shattering news except for the fact that I can’t really remember the last time I played. It’s probably been 20-25 years since I seriously hit a tennis ball around.  About 5 years ago I tried to get my son interested in it.  We went out a couple of times and hit the ball around but it never caught his interest.  My dad got me interested by dragging me to the courts with him.  I think my mom made him take me to get me out of the house and doing something, he played with a buddy once a week and I followed along.  He’d give me a ball and tell me to hit it against the backboard while he and his friend played.  Sometimes I’d hit the ball over the backboard and fence and have to go search for it, eventually that became less frequent and I became good enough to hit with my dad.  I remember hitting the ball off our garage door which was made of wood and had these panels.  I became accurate enough that I damaged the one panel so that my dad had to keep nailing the panel back into the door.  I took lessons in the summer at the local courts, and when I got older I went to a week long tennis camp at the big state university.  I lived in the dorms, ate in the cafeteria and played tennis for 6 hours a day…best week of the summer.

Tennis became my thing.  I was a tall, skinny kid.  My basketball career ended when I was cut from the high school JV team.  I never even tried football, I’m quite sure I would have had various body parts broken, and my baseball career ended early in Little League when I got plunked in the square of the back by a hard throwing but wild side-arming pitcher.  After that I always had one foot in the proverbial bucket if not dugout, which is good for not getting hit, but not good for actually hitting.

Tennis was my thing and I was into it, lived it, breathed it, read books and magazines about it, lamented why there wasn’t more tennis on TV.  I had a few friends and of course they also played.  We spent many a summer nights at the courts.  We’d go late after all the “beginners” had gone home.  We were serious or so we thought.  There was nothing worse than being on a court with a couple of beginners on the court next to you and their stray balls kept rolling onto your court interrupting your play.  We knew when the lights came on and more importantly when the lights went off, and there were many a night we were the last ones on the courts as the lights flicked off and we were left scrambling to collect the balls in the dark.  Eventually one of us would pull our car up to the fence and turn on our headlights to find that one ball that had disappeared into the darkest corner.  Surprisingly, none had us had girlfriends, but that’s another story.

In a cruel twist of fate, my high school did not have a boys tennis team.  The millage failed to pass before our freshman year and a bunch of the minor sports got cut.  When the millage passed a year later only some of those sports were reinstated.  There was a girls tennis team but not a boys one, and no, I’m not still bitter about that.  Although I’m not the only one who has that feeling, whenever I see one of my old tennis playing buddies its a guarantee one of us will say something like…”can you believe they had a girls tennis team and not a boys team, what the hell was up with that.”

Sometime during my 20’s, the buddies I played tennis with started moving away, moving on or both.  Spouses were acquired, soon babies followed, eventually I followed suit and the couple of hours on the weekend that I used to play tennis were taken up by pushing a stroller, then by kids activities, then the dreaded organized kids activities, and next thing you know your helping coach one of your sons teams and you have equipment in your garage and the team tents are transported in the back of your truck.

My tennis racquet used to be in a prominent place in my closet, the master closet right in the master bedroom.  I don’t remember when, but my beloved old Wilson wood racquet became banished to the basement, and not just any part of the basement, but that far dark corner of the basement where the light doesn’t seem to reach as strongly and it always smells a little damp and musty.  In fact a lot of my old stuff seems to end up in this corner.  A box of trophies, yes there are some tennis ones, and yes I should probably get rid of those, my old baseball cards and no I’m not getting rid of those, and also my tennis racquet, one step away from the donation pile.

I was talking to a friend at work a month ago.  We were killing time waiting for freight to arrive, chatting about sports and what we used to play back in the day.  Much to my pleasant surprise she said tennis was her sport and that she had been on her high school tennis team.  I asked if she still played and she said it had been awhile, maybe like 10 years since she had seriously hit the ball around.  She thought she still had her racquet kicking around in the garage somewhere, it had survived various moves but she actually hadn’t swung it for quite some time.  We decided to get together when the weather became nicer and just hit the ball for awhile to see if either one of us still could.  Both of us must have been a little apprehensive about playing again because we both made clandestine visits to the local courts to hit the ball off the backboard to knock the rust off our swings, and then we agreed to meet one Sunday morning at 9:00.

We’ve played 3 times now, and I’ve never had more fun playing tennis than these last 3 weeks. We’ve progressed to where we’re playing games and sets, and sometimes she wins and sometimes I win, but I honestly don’t care about that, I’m just happy to be back out there on the courts again.  We laugh and joke around and even do a little good- natured trash talking (she’s originally from New York so she’s much better at that than I am).  She’s very good, you can tell she used to play a lot and she’s competitive in a good way.  She surprises me sometimes with her ability to chase down shots I thought were winners and yet she gets them and usually hits winners past me.  We always play on court 3, the net appears to be at the right height unlike on some of the other courts, and there’s less cracks and less puddles after it rains.

I used to dislike it when my opponents played well, I wanted to win all the time, tennis was my thing so I had to show everyone I was good at it.  I had to beat my dad, could never stand to lose to my friends and my little brother who hardly ever played, well I showed him no mercy.  Now, its different, and not just because my knees ache the rest of the day after I play.  I want to play well, but mainly I just want to have an enjoyable experience for both of us.

I hope she plays as well or better than me every time.  I revel in those times we have a long rally or when she hits a winner past me.  I want her to do well and get better, and mainly I want to play something I loved once before, but forgot how much I loved it, but rediscovered it on court 3 at 9:00 on Sunday.

Thought for the day…..If you can meet with Victory and Defeat and treat those two imposters just the same

 

My job as a courier for a package delivery company takes me to many places every day.  Depending on the route I’m doing, some days I go to lots of businesses, and you get to know the people on a first name basis.  You know the stops that can be difficult, the packages usually heavy and plentiful. You get to know which stops the people are friendly and which stops their miserable.  And, of course you get to know which stops have the cute receptionist that is willing to sign for the packages.  I might linger at those stops a little longer, ask them about their weekend or their family.  Some days I have a lot of residential deliveries, the stops unmemorable unless there’s an aggressive dog there.  I’ve been bitten twice, most of the people I work with have been bitten at least once, and we all remember those houses.

I occasionally have deliveries for senior citizen, assisted living facilities.  In the elevators there is usually a posting of the activities for the week.  It’s usually a rotation of bingo, chair exercises, movies and sing along nights.  I silently think to myself that I’d rather be dead than live in one of those places, but I’m sure the people who are living there never thought they would end up there, but age and circumstances led them there.  For most people there, it’s probably the best thing for them and once you accept that fact you can get on with living.

A few years ago I had a delivery to one of these places.  It was early afternoon, just after lunch time, the dining room was empty, the tables cleared as I walked toward the kitchen where I heard the workers conversing loudly over the sound of dishes being washed.  I almost missed him as I walked past, but there was a solitary older gentleman sitting by himself at a table looking out the window.  All the other residents had left the dining room, some were probably doing some afternoon activity like crafts or playing cards, others were probably watching TV and napping.  He was the only one in the dining room and he was just looking out the window, he didn’t see me as I walked by either time, once on my way to the kitchen and then on my way back.  He never moved , he just sat there looking out the window.

I’ve often wondered what he was thinking, alone with his thoughts on a random Tuesday afternoon.  The romantic in me likes to think that he was remembering a long ago lover and their short but passionate love affair.  He thinks about her in quiet moments and softly says her name out loud so he doesn’t forget it, he wonders whatever happened to her and mostly he wonders if she still thinks of him as he thinks of her.

Or he might have been thinking he wished he had a dog to take for a walk on such a beautiful day.  He’d take it to a park and let it off it’s leash and let it run around freely, perhaps he’d have a ball to throw to him and the dog would bring it back enthusiastically.

Maybe he was thinking he wished he still had a car and he could just go for a ride, maybe he’d end up at the beach and he’d watch the sunset into the lake.  Then he’d drive to the local ice cream stand and get a banana split with whipped cream and eat it quickly before the ice cream melted.

Perhaps he was thinking about his time in the service, the friends he made, how they promised to be friends for life.  Some of those friends never made it back and he thinks about them every day.

I think about this older gentleman every time I have a delivery to one of these places.  I wished I would have stopped, I had a couple of minutes, heck I probably had 5 minutes.  I could have stopped and asked him his name and how is day was, maybe ask him what his career was or if he had any advice for a young guy.  What struck me the most was the absolute silence of the place.  It was so silent I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, the endless march of time.

As the years have gone by I wonder if I really saw him, was he really there or was he a figment of my imagination, or perhaps I was seeing myself years in the future.

 

Thought for the day…

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?

 

 

I ran into an old friend the other day.  She was leaving somewhere as I was going in, we literally bumped into each other.  It had been years since we had seen each other, we both said that at the same time as people often do when its been years since they’ve seen each other.  We were part of a group of friends that all used to hang out together years ago.  We would all get together for dinner or drinks, or go on outings together.  Over time people got married, some got divorced , others started families, people moved on, the group started breaking up and we all saw less of each other, until the only time we saw each other was when we bumped into each other, someone leaving somewhere as someone else enters.

After about 5 minutes of catching up on jobs, families and what other friends in the group were doing, the conversation started to lag, there were awkward pauses.  She said she had to be somewhere, I don’t remember where, but she left me a question to ponder.  She said someone had just asked her this question and it really made her think, and now she was asking everybody she knew the same question.  She said she wanted a thoughtful response,  I could take my time and text her the answer in a few days and with that she scribbled her cell number on a piece of paper and gave a quick hug and hurried off.

If you could have dinner with one person in the history of the world, living or dead famous or not, known to you or just somebody you always wanted to meet, who would it be?

I pondered the question all the way home and was still thinking about it as I lay in bed that night.  Who would it be?  Perhaps a famous president like Lincoln or Washington and we could discuss great moments in American history.  Maybe another founding father like Alexander Hamilton, although I would have to try to explain to him why there was a hip-hop musical about him and the other founding fathers.  I laughed as I thought of this, my knowledge of hip-hop is probably as limited as Alexander Hamilton’s and I’m afraid dinner would be a disaster.  I’ve always enjoyed sports and famous athletes, a dinner with Babe Ruth would certainly be memorable or maybe Jackie Robinson.  Or maybe a famous comedian like Robin Williams, that would be an interesting dinner, you could just say anything and off he would go and you could just sit back and watch him, dinner as performance art.

I was still thinking about this question as I was shaving the next morning.  I was also pondering if I should shave my goatee, it had turned all gray in the last year and I was worried it was making me look old.  As usual I was over thinking the question, about dinner and the goatee, the answer, about both, was literally staring me in the face.  It was someone I knew but also didn’t know at all, someone with an interesting story who had overcome hardships, someone who’s story I should know better.  The answer about the goatee would have to wait, the answer about dinner was easy, it was my grandfather.

My paternal grandfather was an old man from the very first time I remember him.  As a kid, every old person seems old but he seemed really old.  He was short with gray hair and glasses, he walked slow and occasionally he would argue with his wife in a foreign language.  We would see him at holidays and a couple of other times during the year when we would visit.  Usually it was on a Sunday and we would have the traditional two o’clock Sunday dinner.  I never actually remember doing anything with my grandfather, no outings to the park or store, no playing catch in the yard.  We would just go over and visit, and I would think to myself….he’s very old.

But, I would choose my grandfather for this unique experience because you see my grandfather was an immigrant.  The details of his journey to America and the life he led are not known to me, perhaps I have not been as curious as I should have been.  He immigrated from the Slovak region of Europe.  It was probably after World War 1 but before World War 2.  He was part of the great wave of immigrants coming to America lured by the American dream.  I would start there, asking him about the old country, asking him about the hardships and difficulties of every day life and what had he heard about America that enticed him to pack up and leave.

I’m sure like most immigrants of that time he arrived with the clothes on his back and maybe all his possessions in one suitcase, maybe a few dollars in his pocket.  I would want to know how he ended up in Detroit, had he heard about the growing auto industry and that there were good paying jobs available?   I would ask about my grandmother, a woman I had never known, she had died when my father was quite young.  I would want to know all about the hardships of an immigrant in America, the language issue, did he know people already here who helped him get settled?  Did he face anger and discrimination being an immigrant?  Did people think that there were too many of “those people” coming over to take their jobs and use the system without really contributing?  And most of all I would ask about my father and his siblings and what life was like  in Detroit in the 40’s and 50’s when Detroit was one of the greatest cities in America.

I imagine we would drink some cold beers and finally I would take out my phone and show him some pictures, although I’m sure that would be a 10 minute conversation about why my phone was in my pocket and how did I have pictures on it.  I’d show him pictures of my son, his great grandson.  I’d tell him his great grand son was a pretty good kid who was growing up quickly and had ambitious dreams for the future.

I would tell him that life was good, and I would thank him for taking a chance and being brave, more brave than I could ever imagine, for coming to America and overcoming great odds and hardships and for being a good father to my own father.  I know he must have been a good father because my own dad is one of the most kindest, gentlest, patient souls around and he must have got that from him.  I imagine we would share one last long hug before going our separate ways, far richer for the experience.

 

Thought for the day…..

Those who are truly open minded are not easily offended

 

 

 

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