So, we got married on a Saturday. I started grad school on a Monday. In the space where the honeymoon was supposed to go, we instead went on a cruise through Pittsburgh rush hour traffic, Karry riding shotgun to make sure I didn’t get lost.

We launched our new life from the world’s tiniest apartment. Four rooms atop a two-car garage. Bathroom so tight that you couldn’t use the toilet without bumping your knees against the tub.

If we’d consciously based our career choices on trying to make the least amount of money possible, it wouldn’t have looked much different than the English (his) and Social Work (hers) majors whose accompanying student loans kept our hearts and home humble.

With her working full-time and me going to school full time and balancing a research assistantship and a part-time job working nights at the paper, we were often two ships passing in the night. On the rare occasions our schedules intersected, we kept things simple. We put our own spin on dinner and a movie.

Finding ourselves spent and spat out after a long week, we quickly settled on our go to meal: frozen fish sticks drenched in Heinz ketchup accompanied by heaping piles of Kraft Mac n’ Cheese. Washed down with Cokes over ice. When we were feeling fancy, we’d crack open a can of Bush’s Baked Beans for a three-course meal. I took care in evenly distributing the sticks. She’d always insist I take extra. We’d pass the dining room table en route to the living room so we could sit on the floor and watch re-runs of the Six Million Dollar Man (because it was on, and, um, it was awesome).

We’d go for seconds during the commercials.

____

Last Friday night, rains washed out the creek that floods just about every option to our house. I was on my commute home, oblivious, when Karry called to navigate me home. Take the Jessop Exit, hop on Chestnut by The Tower …. Come up behind Hill House….

Twenty-two years in, my co-pilot still makes sure I don’t get lost.

Pulled the car in the driveway, came up the stairs, and spied her in our tiny kitchen, spent and spat out by a long week.

Neither she nor the breath of a warm oven able to keep a secret.

I plucked the scent from the air, quickly stole a glance at the stove … a boiling pot and the empty blue box of next to it. Behind the boiling pot, a smaller one warming a fresh can of baked beans.

She was feelin’ fancy.

An involuntary smile broke wide across my cheeks.

“Emma doesn’t believe you’re going to eat it, but I set her straight.”

We’ve graduated from a tiny apartment to a tiny house. A kitchen too small for a dishwasher; the nightly sinkfull still keeping our hearts and home humble.

When the timer of our old Brady Bunch oven buzzed, I took care to evenly distribute the fish sticks onto our paper plates. She insisted I take extra. We made room for heaping piles of Kraft and a couple spoonfulls of Bush’s. Poured Cokes over ice.

“Go find us some Six Million Dollar Man,” Karry said as a joke, forgetting that she’d bought me a DVD collection a couple years ago for Christmas.

I fished it out (pun regretted), unopened, from the shelves in the living room.

“No way,” she said.

I dialed up the epic two-part episode from Season 3: The Secret of Bigfoot (starring Andre the Giant as Sasquatch). We sat on the living room floor.

It was as cheesy as the Kraft … and every bit as awesome.

We paused the DVD when we needed to go back for seconds.

___

For years, we’d always both smile and blush at the remembrance of our “signature” meal.

Last Friday it was only smiles, no blush.

After years of searching in vain for the recipe for a long relationship, I think I’ve finally realized that the secret has nothing to do with any recipe.

Because when one has fish sticks in the freezer, and Kraft in the cupboard, one does not need a recipe.

The secret is in remembering to occasionally pause the DVD to go back for seconds.

 

Feb. 27, 2016

Met my sisters at the old house last Saturday to officially start The Process.

Of rummaging, assessing, divvying, donating, and discarding the material and emotional accumulations of two lives intertwined for over 60 years as husband and wife, and nearly as many as Mom and Dad.

I didn’t really have or take the time to think about what to expect.

As odd as it may sound, I was just kinda’ looking forward to experiencing the initiation of The Process through my big sisters’ eyes.

Being the youngest by 10 years, I’ve developed a fairly insatiable curiosity about the early chapters of my parents’ … parenting, and my older siblings’ sibling-ness.

So Saturday I found myself in good company for the bittersweet sorting of and through treasures.

That’s ‘treasure’ in the true sense … of artifacts whose worth transcends and mocks any monetary connotation.

I wasn’t but 30 seconds into my arrival, when my oldest sister Kim unfurled a near life-size version of her seven-year-old self. The likeness produced the same smile it elicited 53 years ago, when Aunt Janet hand-painted it for the rounds of “Pin the Tail on the Kim” that must’ve set a pretty high bar for seven-year-old birthday celebrations in the neighborhood. It’s worth noting that the only artifact that survived my sister’s 7th birthday party was the hand-painted, personalized decoration made by my aunt.

The true gifts aren’t always disguised as gifts.

My sister Laurie ushered me upstairs to my old room. In so many words warned me to brace myself.

That my mom was a packrat was no surprise to me.

But the stacks of lovingly and meticulously—packed tubs that my sisters had extracted from my old bedroom’s closets were not merely the product of someone incapable of throwing things away. They were time capsules whose future value to the one who would open them was well-known by the one who packed them.

I was stopped cold by the first lid I pried off.

Staring back at me was a card from one of the times Billy Karwatske’s Dad took us to the Civic Arena to see professional wrestling, a memory I had had no reason to recall in literally decades. Scanning the names took me back to some BIG moments, like the first time my impressionable 10-year-old ears experienced the truly indescribable reverberation of an arena-full of blood lusty and thirst-quenched Yinzers chanting, “Bruno! Bruno! Bruno!” as the larger-than-life Sammartino throttled the overmatched evil in front of him.

The hair on my arms may or may not have still been standing as I literally bounded down the steps to show my sisters, not pausing to consider how little interest they might have in my reminiscing about the first time I saw Andre the Giant in six-man-tag action live. Although we lacked the means for such clinical diagnoses back in a day, I’m pretty sure that the experience was my first time completely LOSING MY SHIT.

Yeah. One item in to the first box I was.

It heralded an afternoon (and afternoons to come) where progress was to be measured in ways other than assessing and editing.

What moved me about all the containers stacked and strewn about my old room had only so much to do with presents from my youth, but much more to do with the presence of my mother, which I felt as strongly on Saturday as I have since her passing last March.

As I lingered in my old bedroom, Mom and I communed over artifacts whose significance had become even greater in their retirement. I’m confident that she took her time (oh, that woman could take her time) recalling each sweet memory before she sealed the lid on another full tub. My memories were of the very same kindred spirit as I began unpacking them.

I eventually sobered (slightly) to the task at hand, appreciating each container as its own chaptered snapshot … of my childhood, teenage years, college, my first jobs, my old newspaper clippings. I managed to stuff my heart, and my old Subaru, with as much as each could accommodate, and, once home, stacked the first row of tubs in a corner of our already over-stuffed garage.

_____
I’ve found myself spending some quality time visiting my past over the past several months. Though I’ve made fresh tracks along familiar and forgotten roads, I have no intentions of dwelling there.

But the sacred act of blowing dust from such beautiful remembrances has opened my eyes …

…to the preciousness of the present
…to the opportunities we all have to make of the moments memories worthy of someday finding their way into tubs sealed like time capsules
… for loved ones to crack open like buried treasure
…and realize anew, like the generation before them, that the true gifts are not always disguised as gifts.

I recently found myself feeling very thankful … for, of all things, a summer Sunday thunderstorm.

That happened about 32 years ago.

I remember it as one of those glorious, near-Biblical downpours – the kind that mid-summer, Southwestern PA humidity teases and taunts until it comes down full-throated and angry. The kind whose sound used to mesmerize me as it drumrolled, fortissimo, the aluminum awning on our tiny front porch, pouring in a sheet over its edge.

I remember that particular afternoon storm being accompanied by lightning that flashed with such frequency and bad intent it made you involuntarily wince as you waited the couple beats to learn from the companion thunder crack if any trees or transformers had born the brunt.

It was mid-afternoon and Mom was getting an early dinner ready. We were to eat early because Dad was playing music that night.

On the surface, an every-third-Sunday-night gig at a Moose Club in Perryopolis may sound more like punishment than anything, but Dad loved that particular job. It had absolutely nothing to do with the money, as once each of the nine pieces of the orchestra had been paid, the cut was a measly $25 for three hours. Nah, for Dad, the payoff was in the freedom the band had on those Sunday nights. Things were looser at the Moose than the typical gigs — the opposite of the structured, 14-setters that dictated what kind of song had to be played when. On those Sundays, Sam, the bandleader, would even let the musicians request a chart that they wanted to play, or hadn’t played in a long time … or a jazzier chart that was more fun to jam on than to dance to. And playing from 8:30-11:30 a short drive down Route 51 was a breeze compared to the four-hour jobs they’d drive an hour or more to.

As Mom got things ready in the kitchen, I remember the phone ringing in the dining room, and me getting up to answer it (days before caller ID when a surprise always waited on the other end). It was Sam, calling to let Dad know that the Moose had lost power due to the storm, so the gig was cancelled.

I relayed the message, and remember Dad being bummed, but also being OK with not having to rush the rest of the afternoon, and getting his evening back.

Though there was no longer any reason to eat early, Mom finished what she’d started, and the three of us sat down to eat at the kitchen table.

That’s when the phone rang a second time, about 45 minutes after the first call.

This time Dad answered. It was Sam again, calling to let him know that the Moose got power back, so the dance was back on.

So, Dad resumed his gig-prep ritual, getting a shower, doing his teeth (which took a good 30-45 minutes. I’m not sure there was ever a trumpet player more meticulous about his teeth), laying out his suit, his mute bag, etc.

No big deal.

Until the phone rang for a third time. Sam again.

He’d been able to reach everyone in the band … except the drummer, Bob, who also happened to be my drum teacher. In the age before cel phones, when answering machines were still a novelty, you either got ahold of someone, or you didn’t. Sam figured that Bob must’ve gone out to eat or something after learning that the gig was off.

“Tell Pete to get ready, just in case Bob doesn’t call me back,” Sam told my Dad.

Now, this was suddenly a big deal.

So, I was 15 years old. I’d been taking drum lessons for about a year and a half at my father’s, um, insistence. I literally came home from school one day to learn that he’d signed me up for lessons. I had never previously expressed an interest in the drums. And there was no precedent for my father signing me up for anything that we hadn’t previously discussed. But I was an agreeable kid, and, hey, drums were cool, so I just rolled with it.

I didn’t pay much attention to the not-so-subtle clues as to my Dad’s intentions. When he signed me up for lessons he informed me that he’d already pre-arranged with the instructor (Bob) that I was to learn all styles of music, not just rock. He wanted me versed in the bossanova, the rhumba, the cha-cha, and of course, jazz and swing.

I humored my Dad by going along with this, though my heart beat more in time to big, fat backbeats.

My Dad had started having me tag along on gigs with him, just to listen. I remember at first feeling awkward riding to gigs with guys 40 and 50 years my senior, and then sipping Pepsis for four hours while listening to old music and watching old people dance. He’d also asked Sam to make me some tapes of the band for me (which he recorded ‘live’ on an old Radio Shack Realistic recorder), so I could play along at home, applying the beats I was learning in my lessons. Full disclosure: I’d always skip past the boring slow ones, and just played along to the passable jump tunes … In the Mood, Kansas City, etc.

But I always assumed that the tapes and the ride-alongs were just for exposure, and really, to humor my Dad.

The prospect of playing an actual gig was not even close to being on my radar when Sam called that Sunday afternoon. For one thing, my drums had never left my practice room in the back. I didn’t even have cases for them. And since Dad-slash-Santa had delivered them already set up a couple Christmases back, I didn’t know how to tear them down.

I remember taking them apart that afternoon for the first time afraid I wouldn’t remember how they went back together. When I wasn’t freaking out, I was praying hard that Sam would call back saying he’d gotten ahold of Bob. Alas, a fourth call never came.

The rain had long since stopped by the time Mac came to pick us up. I remember carrying my cymbal stands out one by one, gingerly laying them down in the back of his Chevy Suburban, and covering them with a blanket so they wouldn’t be tempted to roll.

When we were done loading the truck, Mac commented, “They look like dead bodies.”

Not the encouragement I was looking for.

When we got to the Moose, Dad helped me set things back up, bought me a Pepsi to calm my nerves. Sam loaned me an oversized tux jacket, and a gratuitously large, velvet, clip-on black bow tie that wore crooked.

A veteran professional band leader who had logged decades as a successful high school band instructor, Sam was his usual picture of calm. I’ll never forget his only instruction to me, which he delivered with a wry smile: “As long as you begin and end with the rest of the band, you’ll be fine.”

By the time everybody tuned up and gathered on the bandstand, I was in full panic. I gave my full attention to Sam’s every word and gesture, locking into the tempos as he counted off the tunes. From there, I focused on Ralph, the keyboard player (and Sam’s son). Specifically, I hyper-focused on Ralph’s left hand, which he used to play the bass line. After a couple verses, I’d turn my attention back to Sam and wait for him to signal whether the song ended in tempo, if things slowed down, or if everyone was to play the last notes together.

To compensate for all the tunes I didn’t know (which were legion), I’d exhaust my humble bag of tricks on the few that I did, “In the Mood,” “Kansas City,” etc. Imagine a nervous, 15-year-old rock-and-roller turned loose on Glenn Miller. Yeah.

For the others, it was a lot of ‘boom-chicka-boom’ until a tune came to a merciful conclusion. I found myself regretting skipping over all of those boring, slow tunes in the practice room.

I remember little else other than surviving the longest three hours of my life … thanks to a constant stream of advice and encouragement from Alice (our singer) and the guys in the band.

When it was over, I gratefully collected their smiles and handshakes, and then collected myself before turning my full attention to trying to remember how the heck to tear my drums back down.

Then Sam came over to me. Asked me to put out my hand.

Into which he put $25 … my share of the evening’s take.

I still can vividly recall my 15-year-old self’s feeling of surprise and exhilaration as I stared at the money in my hand. It felt like a million bucks to me.

In that humble transaction, I went from being a scared-shi*tless 15-year-old to being a professional musician.

But that paled in comparison to what he did next.

He asked me if I’d consider being his regular drummer.

Excuse me?

He said he was looking for someone who could make all the gigs. Bob sometimes played with other groups, forcing Sam to find subs. He wanted someone steady.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that there was nothing in my performance that evening that earned me the invitation.

But I never gave him a chance to reconsider his offer.

And, for the next 13 years, I rode along in vans with guys 40 and 50 years my senior, playing old music for old people.

And loving every single minute of it.

The long drives to the gigs, listening to my Dad and his musician friends talk music and tell tales of guys they played with and places they played.

Seeing it as my honor, as one of the younger guys, to help carry the equipment up and down the steps of whatever hall we happened to be playing in.

Over time, learning every chart inside and out … not just beginning and ending with the band, but catching every kick and squeezing the juice out of every chart. Laying down a mean rhumba, cha-cha and bossanova for the dancers to indulge themselves.

Delighting in the ritual and routine of it all. The rhythm of the set up and tear down. The meticulous way everything perfectly loaded and packed into Mac and Sam’s vans. The way each musician would warm up (I can still hear Mac playing the Theme from the Godfather every time he pulled his alto from his case). Which halls had the best food. Losing myself in Dad’s trumpet solos.

And, to this day, you could quiz me on the #s of the charts in Sam’s book. “Love” by Nat King Cole? #252. “Two-o’ Clock Jump” by Harry James? #320. Dean Martin’s “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You”? #143. “Cherry Pink”? #125. “Begin the Beguine?” 95.

All of it.

And I hope that, somewhere over the course of the 13 years that followed, that I became deserving of the faith and investment Sam placed in a nervous 15-year-old who didn’t know his Artie Shaw from his Cole Porter.

And for the record, I still have the $20 bill that Sam put in my hand after that first gig. (I recall allowing myself to spend the fiver at the county fair a couple days after the gig.)

A couple weeks ago I heard the news that Sammy Bill passed away at age 89.

My deepest condolences to his son Ralph, with whom I also had the (absolute) pleasure of sharing a bandstand with for many of those years.

Sam was never anything but good to me the entire time I held down his drum chair. Thanks to him, I got to fulfill my Dad’s dream of sharing a bandstand with his son. To this day, it remains one of my greatest joys in life.

I’m just one of probably over a thousand young musicians whose lives Sam enriched through his love and gift of music.

So, for that summer Sunday thunderstorm from 32 years ago …

I am thankful.

 

Facebook reminded me of the post below from two years ago, and it brought the requisite smile (it’s one of my favorite scribbles).

Sept. 13, 2015

A RANDOM ACT OF MAGIC — Was kinda’ a rough school/work week for my daughter and me. So we made plans after we finished our Friday to go for tea in the morning at our favorite place down the road.

Got up to a beautifully gray, autumn-crisp, drizzly, no-hurry Saturday (the BEST kind). She changed her mind about eating breakfast at home (so we could leave earlier) and was dressed and ready by 8:45. She had her Harry Potter shirt on, and after seeing me grab my Star Trek tee off the floor, informed me that that just would not do. She walked over to my closet and handed me my Potter shirt, the one she bought for me a few months back.

I’ve learned not to argue with any woman bent on dressing me.

Me: I need a hat.

She: Yes. Yes you do.

Earlier in the week the teenager decided to appropriate the purple hand chair from the game room to his pending-manhood cave. The purple fingers had served as the downstairs hat rack. Fumbling, I couldn’t find where he’d parked the displaced hats.

Not wanting to keep my girl waiting, I was forced to leave the house with my ‘fro unkempt.

I’ve also learned not to keep the lady waiting.

Me: Got the book?

She: Check.

Halfway there …

Me: Didn’t bring the cups?

She: (nonchalantly): Not this time.

The full ritual consists of her bringing the truly awesome set of Alice in Wonderland tea cups and saucers that her former baby sitter gave us in the spring, into which we pour the hot tea the young baristas serve us.

As an aside, I always wanted to be the guy who brought his own pool cue into the bar.

I turn as many heads, though, being the Dad who brings his own teacups into the coffee shop.

There were a couple people in line when we got there, giving us ample time to peruse the case displaying the rows of fresh cookies and muffins.

Iced green tea for Em. Toasted bagel. She laid claim to their last two pumpkin cookies (one each to bring back for her mom and brother. She’s the family’s thoughtful one.). Small coffee for me, and a breakfast sandwich that they panini press with love.

She asked me to read while she sipped and snacked.

We’re just past halfway into the fourth book in the H.P. series (The Goblet of Fire). A good number of the pages have been joyously read aloud Saturday mornings (and perhaps more than a few with our ever-improving British accents) at the tea shop’s tall table. It’s a common enough occurrence that when I recently popped into the shop solo, Emily, one of the regular baristas, asked me where the “little muggle” was.

As far as the book goes, the 44-year-old and 10-year-old unanimously agree it’s the best entry so far.

It’s the one where the main characters start to notice that they are boys and girls, and Rowling does a really nice job of re-creating the first awakenings of all those awkward and exhilarating moments (for which I unapologetically remain a complete sucker).

Em and I are so into it that when Hermione appears at the ball for the Tri-Wizard tournament, revealing the date that she had so suspense-fully kept a secret from Ron and Harry, I turn from the book to say the name directly to Em. “No way!” she says. And we gossip for a good minute before returning to the pages.

We finish the chapter and Em decides it’s time for us to sample the pumpkin gelato. We share a taste off the tiny plastic white spoon and Em decrees that, while good, it can’t hold a candle to the salted caramel.

I’ve learned not to get in the way of the lady when it comes to sweet things.

We resume reading, and are so sucked back in to the story that we barely notice Emily (the barista) leaving the counter and crossing in front of us to climb on top of the shelf behind the more comfy recliners in the back of the shop to adjust the sound system.

I’ve been at the shop in the past where the satellite radio craps out and the girl or woman at the counter has to literally scale the wall to adjust the receiver, which is a good 12-14 feet of the ground. Just adds to the local shop’s character as far as I’m concerned.

It’s a regular enough occurrence that Em and I didn’t think twice about it.

Until a couple pages later, when Emma looks up from her pages, her eyes wide as our ceremonial saucers. She turns to me with just the biggest grin on her face.

“Listen!” pointing into the air.

“You know what that is?”

I’m my typical two steps behind her.

“That’s the music that they play at the beginning of every Harry Potter movie!”

Sure enough, my ears register the epic score.

We about fell off our broomsticks.

I’m not sure I can conceive of a more thoughtful gesture than Emily climbing the wall to add to what I had been convinced was an already perfect ritual.

I walked up to the counter, and exchanged knuckle touches with our new favorite barista.

Emma was still over the moon. “How did you do that?”

Emily: “It’s a playlist on Pandora. I went with Chamber of Secrets. A little more upbeat than the Deathly Hollows.”

To have a waiter or waitress know your order when you walk in is one thing. To have one curate a soundtrack for you?

Returning to our chairs, the music made the next couple chapters pass by in cinematic fashion. We lost ourselves in the pages.

In a word, it was magical.

One of those moments that I knew on the spot that I will never forget.

Just to be safe, though, I napkin-sketched it for posterity.

It’ll make for a pretty decent bookmark.

 

But I didn’t need the reminder, because two years hence, the hasty Pen-Sketch spell I cast that day that transformed a napkin into our bookmark is holding strong.

Each and every time we’ve cracked open the sacred text since, we’ve been reminded of ‘Emily’s Righteous Move’ marking our place. As an aside my daughter and I are proudly pursuing the Guinness World Record for the slowest progression ever through the Harry Potter series. We are presently savoring our way through the final installment, The Deathly Hallows. Knowing the end is approaching, we are treating it (in advance) like a victory lap. We read aloud to each other mostly in small doses these days. A few pages here. A chapter there. On rare occasions, she’ll beg for a stretch beyond a chapter when we catch a groove. She doesn’t have to twist my arm.

I’ve grown to love scarcity. Finite amounts. Beginnings and endings. As a counterweight to my deep desire for things I love to last forever, I’m learning to look forward to things, to appreciate things in the moment, to enjoy them as long as possible, and to kindle and cherish their memories.

There is only beauty because of death, the poet wrote.

Knowing the clock is (always) ticking intensifies and focuses our emotions, ensuring we invest them preciously, intentionally.

Kids, anyone?

That’s why I love the seasons. Even though I lament their passing from one into another.

So, on the occasion of my birthday, I find myself thinking about bookmarks.

I love the work of a bookmark … marking the place where you left off … so you’ll know where to pick up and move forward.

But I’ve also been known to use a bookmark to mark a place I know I’ll want to return to. I recently violently edited my bookshelf downstairs, during which I came across the various journals I’ve kept from different points in my life. Looking back, I see those journals as bookmarks … places where I’ve left off along the journey.

So, it is in that spirit that I hereby bookmark 47 … with 47 things that I find myself in love with on Sept. 17, 2017, in no particular order.

• The little nook in the back yard where we never find enough time to build a fire and just listen to the night and what the world has to say to us.
• Making Karry laugh spontaneously.
• The friends I’ve had since elementary and middle school that I don’t see often enough, but, when I do, instantly close the gap of the years and distance between us. The folks who love you both because of, and in spite of, where you came from.
• Speaking of, I found myself (out of nowhere) yesterday, thinking of one of the best mix tapes a friend ever gave me, and downloaded the tunes to a playlist that I made the official soundtrack of my weekend.
• My oldest sister Kim, who just called and sang Happy Birthday to me, like my Mom and Dad used to. We both could hear Dad’s harmony in her rendition.
• Sending and receiving hand-written cards or notes in the mail (hint).
• A Poorboy without tomato with a side of fries washed down with a Pabst draft at Potter’s.
• Meloni’s bleu cheese dressing drenching a salad with unapologetic beets and anchovies while Sinatra and Dean croon in a crackle overhead.
• Drover’s fried-to-perfection hot wings enjoyed at one of their outdoor picnic tables in the cool sundown cricket-crisp of late summer.
• Two with everything at Shorty’s, and a large shared large fry with gravy while sitting at the table in the back where the floor slants under the dripping air conditioner.
• Falling under the spell of Emma’s killer British accent when we read at the coffee shop or before bed.
• Holding hands with Karry down the driveway after we put the garbage cans out on Thursday nights.
• The poetry rendered in calligraphy by my friend Jim Little.
• When I stumble across a word whose meaning I don’t know, and, out of respect for Dr. Bower, my old college professor, I write it down in the margin or a journal and look up its meaning.
• When my neighbor up the street, Mr. Engel greets me with a wave, an encouragement, or an appropriately snarky comment when he sees me huffing my way around the block.
• Knowing I can ask Karry anything and that she will shoot straight, regardless of whether it’s what I want to hear.
• Being my son’s passenger in the old Subaru. Without headphones on his ears or a screen in front of his face, it’s about the only place where we just talk. And it’s awesome. I will miss the heck out of this when he gets his license.
• Any time and every moment I get to spend with my brother.
• The motley crew of sweet souls I’ve met over coffee and our love for good writing at the coffee shop.
• Friends and co-workers who inspire me towards my better self.
• The exhale of eating weekday dinner at the dining room table with the family.
• The view from my seat at the dining room table of one of my framed favorite photographs, which sits over Karry’s left shoulder when we’re having dinner. It’s a photo I took years ago of the windowsill of Karry’s mom’s dining room, where Mam used to place a new Hot Wheels car for Peter every time he’d visit. Once he finished the top of the steps, he’d run over to the window expectantly to see what she had left for him. The picture captures a blast of sunshine pouring through the window. It symbolizes everything I want to remember about Betty’s house.
• When a member of the family seizes a moment to quote one of my Mom’s old sayings. Like when we’re enjoying a meal and one of the kids describes it as “luscious.” Or, when someone explains a mistake they made by saying, “I thought ….” which triggers, in response, my favorite all-time saying of my Mom’s. “You know what ‘thought’ did? ‘Thought’ shit his pants.”
• Listening to Pirates games on the radio outside, regardless of the score, for the sheer pleasure of listening to Bob Walk or Steve Blass (Greg Brown, too).
• Saturday mornings.
• Drives out to Amity or along old Route 40.
• The back-and-forth conversations I have with our cat Victor, who I am confident is thinking to himself during the exchanges: “He thinks I’m really communicating with him right now, when in fact, I’m plotting your ultimate conquest, and really the only thing left to decide is whether there will be room for you in the new world order as a servant or not.”
• How cute Karry is when she brushes her teeth, and how much it pisses her off when I remind her of this.
• Reading what my daughter writes.
• Listening to the Pittsburgh Symphony on WQED-FM Sunday nights as a balm to the prospects of Monday.
• The t-shirts hanging in my closet that are older than my kids.
• The humbling and appreciated proactive phone calls and letters from each of my three sisters, who make time in their busy lives to let me know they are thinking of me.
• Waking up in the middle of the night thinking it’s 5:30 when it’s only really 3.
• Sitting in the driveway with the car running, or driving an extra lap around the block, so the song can finish.
• When Karry puts on a color that is her color and it just stops me in my tracks.
• The empty journals that I’ve collected over the years patiently waiting for me on the bookshelf.
• My son doing better and going farther than I did.
• The Podcast portion of my current commuting-survival-guide, featuring The Moth, This American Life, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Rolling Stone Now and Revisionist History.
• Hard guitars paired with a sloshy hi-hat. Currently in love with “Monster” by Soraia from their soon-to-be-released album.
• Walks around the block with my daughter when she wants to tell me about a book she’s reading or just finished. She gushes. I listen. Sometimes when she’s really fired up, we take an extra lap.
• When Karry and I divide and conquer a Sunday and go to bed exhausted, but ready to face the next week.
• My Vitamix blender.
• All the songs that make me think of my Dad.
• Pie. (Karry got me an Apple one for my birthday). I love pie.
• Dating different books until I find one that keeps me looking forward to our next date. Currently in a relationship with The Great American Novel by Phillip Roth. His wielding of the vocabulary and ear for dialogue is delicious and absolutely unfair.
• The fearless and undaunted among us who remind that This too shall pass.
• Whenever folks remind me how awesome it is when you reserve a kind thought in the day for someone else.

Thanks, guys.

 

 

Felt like sitting down and writing a postcard from 21 years down the road to the two 20-somethings in the enclosed pic, on the anniversary of their exchanging I Dos inside beautiful Trinity Church on a sweltering hot August Saturday afternoon ….

I don’t want to freak you out, but you’re betting yourselves against a big world, and, at the risk of stating the obvious, you don’t have many chips in your pocket.

I also don’t want to spoil it for you, but it will only get better.

Not easier. Just better.

Pete … Karry will do everything in her power to make sure you don’t get lost. She’ll even ride with you to make sure of it. I’m speaking literally and metaphorically, here. She’ll make sure you survive grad school. She will give you confidence when your supplies run dry. And, she’ll make a mean fish stick and mac-and-cheese dinner, and sit with you on the floor of the world’s tiniest apartment and watch the Six Million Dollar Man with you. Trust me, it will be awesome.

Karry … marrying a guy without a full-time job is a big leap of faith … but your patience will pay off in ways you could never predict. In the meantime, you’ll be great at what you do, and you’ll do just fine for the both of you.

Pete … don’t worry that you don’t quite know what you want to be when you grow up. Don’t worry that you may never know that answer. You’ll do OK in the searching.

Though you may think that right now, in each other, you have everything you will ever need in the world, you are totally wrong.

Kids will change everything.

Moments after a screaming baby boy enters the picture, you will realize that you haven’t a clue, have no idea what you’re doing, and could not be more unprepared for what’s about to come.

But you won’t be alone. Your parents have been waiting for this moment all their lives. Karry, your Mom will reveal her true superhero identity. She will blow your mind. She will paint your living room when you are not home. You’ll grow more close than you ever thought possible. You’ll survive the sleepless nights. You’ll survive going back to work.

And your son will bring you so much joy you won’t be able to resist giving him a sibling, though it will take him a good 16 years (minimum) to warm up to that idea.

You will learn early and often that your hearts have the capacity and resiliency to both explode and break with love.

You’ll have front row seats to the two most beautiful babies you have ever seen. Then you’ll blink and they’ll be young adults.

You’ll read them The Kissing Hand on the first day of elementary school. And every first day of school after that. You’ll make them pose against their will in the driveway, then you will cry when the yellow bus takes them away to kill summer after summer.

You’ll get to be Santa Claus. Then you won’t.

Karry, Pete will consistently drive you speechless by doing the same damn things over and over. He will also  pioneer new and surprising ways. On the other hand, he’ll occasionally make you laugh until tears stream down your face. And, Pete, you will never grow tired of being responsible for making Karry smile.

You’ll get on each other’s nerves like you can’t imagine. Then you’ll wake to a new day and realize that, whatever it was, it wasn’t such a big deal.

Karry, you will learn that there are far more important things in life than work. And that it will still be there whenever you decide to return. Pete, you’ll have a chance to reward Karry’s patience and sacrifices.

Your parents will stay with you only for as long as you need them, though you will wish it was so much longer.

You’ll see the years start to take their toll.

You’ll give thanks every day, and curse time with the same breath.

You will remain each other’s biggest fans.

And when everything else fails, you’ll bang on God’s door in the middle of the night demanding him to open up, that you know he’s in there.

Twenty one years later, you’ll find yourselves still betting against a big world without many chips in your pocket.

And you will realize that you still haven’t a clue, have no idea what you’re doing, and could not be more unprepared for what’s to come.

And though you’ll long for the days when you didn’t know what you didn’t know, if you knew all of the above while you were standing at the altar of Trinity Church on a sweltering summer Saturday afternoon ….

You’d do it all again.

I got there early to try and grab a table ahead of the Sunday Church crowd, since we were expecting 10 or so.

But before going in I just had to check the wall outside.

Yep, still there.

Scrawled in green kids-menu crayon on the wall next to the steps, in my son’s eight-year-old hand.

Be Back Soon!

I still remember giving Peter crap when he committed the act of vandalism so many years ago, during one of our family’s legendary long goodbyes on the back porch of Meloni’s Italian Restaurant. Feels both like yesterday and a lifetime ago.

For decades, young children and in-laws alike have grown restless on Meloni’s back porch, waiting for the family’s extended farewell scenes to fade to the blacktop of the parking lot. Mom was never in a hurry to let a celebration end.

And when it came to family goodbyes, no one could filibuster like Anna Margaret Riddell.

The process would begin inside the restaurant … with the Table Hugs, which, to the untrained eye, read like actual Goodbyes. In reality they only marked the initiation of the “Fixin’ to Leave” phase — kind of like a stretching of the goodbye hamstrings. In the classic version of the ritual, Mom, blood pressure freshly elevated from the family fistfight to pick up the check (she hated to lose, and swore vengeance when she did), would initiate a deceptive first round of hugs at the site of the first person arising from their chair. Owing to the mastery of her craft, she’d sometimes manage a second loop around the table before she escorted, or was escorted by, the last to leave.

Once we got Mom to the porch, the goodbye clock didn’t formally start until she had her post-meal cigarette, which she took on one of the stone benches to the side of the awning. In an effort to move things along, the family was not above deploying Operation: Grandchild Sacrifice … where we’d order one of the grandkids “to go smoke with Grandma,” when we sensed the table was itching to break up.

__

Ever since I can remember, back to the days when I played the roll of the family’s restless eight-year-old, Meloni’s was always THE PLACE for family celebrations.

Whenever we had a reason to celebrate, no discussion was ever needed. And no one ever argued the choice.

Our family has gathered around one of their signature long tables to celebrate visits from relatives (where the fistfights over the checks rivaled Ali-Frazier), light birthday candles, cut anniversary cakes, and open graduation cards. My nieces and nephews and I literally grew up around the long table immediately to the left of the restaurant’s side entrance.

A long Meloni’s table was always the perfect (and safest) place to introduce new boyfriends and girlfriends to our loving, idiosyncratic family. As years passed, we’ve table-hugged those boyfriends and girlfriends into husbands and wives, and eventually, into parents of their own.

It’s where Karry and I announced our wedding plans to my family.

It’s where Mom and Dad celebrated their 50^th anniversary.

It’s where the family gathered after Mom’s memorial service.

It’s where my sisters and brother gathered in June on what would’ve been my parents’ 67^th wedding anniversary.

A major reason it’s remained so special to us over the years is that is has changed so little. It first opened in 1950. And it’s to the credit of the previous and current owners that they recognized a good thing when they tasted it.

It’s the kind of place every small town worth its red sauce has, had or should have.

Red checker cloth tables. Stenciled Italian scenes running along painted white walls that meet wood paneling. Dimly lit wooden bar lined with tall red stools and flanked by classic green booths along a wall blooming with old photos.

Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra supplying a crackly soundtrack. The smell of an old social hall scented by decades of home made boiling red sauce.

The atmosphere nourishes every bit as much as the food.

The menu might as well be carved on stone tablets, as it hasn’t had reason to change in years. It reads like a Shakespeare sonnet (no wasted syllables), and each of us has memorized our favorite parts.

Salad is a given for just about everyone, either as a side or as an antipasta entre. Technically speaking, Meloni’s homemade bleu cheese dressing is the true given. The salad part is merely a conveyance for the dressing, which is so sublime, I must now pause for a moment of silence out of respect….

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mom would always insist that I order the Veal Parm, though I seldom needed the nudge. Tuesday Night Veal Night is a Uniontown institution. For years, one of my favorite parts of Facebook has been seeing an old friend from the neighborhood post ritual checks-in with his Dad for Veal Night.

Dad swore by their spaghetti with meat sauce and meat balls. He swore more loudly on takeout occasions when he got home to discover they gave him marinara or dropped a ball. Speaking of takeout … back in the day, you could bring your own pot from home for Meloni’s to fill with pasta and sauce. Raising four young kids in the early 60’s, Mom and Dad brought home more than a few pots. Dad also lovingly recalled the years when Meloni’s served as the place where the local dance musicians would gather in the wee hours after weekend gigs … to talk shop and tell stories before heading home.

I can remember my first memories … the ritual of parking in the Sherwin Williams lot (where Dad was the store manager), and walking across the street so we could enter through their magical side entrance. The climb up their long, narrow, low-ceiling corridor felt like a secret passage. The olfactory crescendo that built as the hallway elbowed left (allowing you to steal a glance through the kitchen window to your right). The door that spat you out at the front of the restaurant, where the early arrivers announced your presence with a yell, triggering Opening Hugs.

__

I was the early arriver last Sunday. Succeeded in grabbing us a long table ahead of the church crowd. Kissed my three sisters and hugged my brother upon their arrivals. My nephew Kenny was, fittingly, the last to arrive. A former restless-eight-year-old himself, he accompanied his beautiful wife, Maria, a former new-girlfriend-at-the-table, and their indescribably adorable 11-month old son, (Little) Kenny, who will become a big brother himself next year.

We were in no hurry to order, though perusing the menus was little more than a perfunctory act. Salads, antipastas, pastas. I debated for a hot minute, and waited for Mom’s voice in my head to encourage me to order the Veal Parm.

There was an extra seat at the long table, allowing us to switch seats so we could catch up with everybody throughout the meal. Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, we just ogled over Little Kenny.

We were in no hurry to leave. Conversation was dessert.

Laurie mitigated the fistfight over the check by picking up the bill when no one was looking. I gave her some crap for it, like Mom might have (minus the swear words). It felt like quoting a scene from a favorite movie.

Laurie then asked everyone to raise their glass, and we leaned them across the table to clink to Mom and Dad.

Then came the table hugs, before we made our way through the mostly-empty dining room, having long outlasted the post-church crowd.

And we paused on the porch, initiating another round of hugs that, by my calculations, lasted exactly one cigarette long.

As the scene unfolded in front of her, Maria spoke for generations of in-laws and young children alike, when she said quietly to herself, “Oh, I thought we already said goodbyes inside.”

It’s nice to know that, after all these years, the filibuster can still sneak up on the unsuspecting.

Before the scene faded to the blacktop of the parking lot, I checked the wall again. Brushed my hand across the fading kids’ menu green crayon graffiti, allowing the eight-year-old version of myself to exchange a high-five with my former eight-year-old.

Unconsciously, I spoke the words aloud, and they came out as a prayer … for hopefully generations to come.

Be Back Soon.

Ninety-nine cents, or two dollars?

That was the biggest financial decision that that the nine and 10-year-old boys from our neighborhood faced on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis in the summer of 1979.

Which rubber coated baseball to buy?

Option A: The 99-cent K-Mart special … which, candidly, possessed few redeeming qualities beyond its price tag. Had a cork center that, when you bounced it, made a harsh sound that pretty much expressed aloud its lack of interest in returning to your hand. Had maybe had three or four good swats in it before it would go completely lopsided.

Option B: The $2 Wilson Comet … the Cadillac of Rubber Coated baseballs … consistently produced the truest, juiciest, hops in the universe, of which Areford playground was indisputably the center of, in that magical summer of ‘79. You could mash a Comet forever and it never lost its shape. I can still remember the sensation of this one time I met the Comet with the sweet spot of my trusty, 28” aluminum bat just right … barreling it back through the box for a ground rule double before the centerfielder even had time to turn and give chase. That feeling still lives in my wrists … and, not only that, still jockeys for position in my top 10 all-time physical sensations.

So, on the surface, the choice might seem like a no-brainer … pay the extra buck and call it a long afternoon. But on the surface of Areford playground, which was pure, unadulterated asphalt, it was a surprisingly nuanced decision.

Really, the choice between the indestructible Wilson and the very combustible K-Mart special came down to who was going to be playing that day.

If the lineups were going to be full, the K-Mart special was the rational choice.

A fuller lineup meant more of the older boys, and by older I mean older than my nine-year-old self. More of my elders meant more home runs, meaning a greater probability that the ball would get lost. See, a lot of bad things could happen to a ball once it cleared the straight chain link fence that bordered the outfield.

In right, it could roll under the locked fence of the football field. And though a fence was far from a deterrent to any upstanding citizen of our neighborhood, we’d proved that point often enough at Areford for the township to emphasize its preference by stringing barbed wire across the fence top.

In center, it could get lost in the tall weeds in front of the old gym. And Jeff Hughes said he once saw a snake over there, and once was enough to dampen our curiosity in disproving his theory.

Down the line in left, we’d have to root through the neighbor’s yard. And our having plunked a few off their house rendered the adult inhabitants slightly less hospitable than, say, the bleacher bums in Wrigley field who graciously tossed home runs back onto the field.

Conversely, if the lineups were going to be thin, thin enough where we’d have to play pitcher’s hand, or opposite field out (translation: if we couldn’t fill out the right side of the infield and outfield), we’d be inclined to spring for the Wilson. Thinner lineups meant fewer older boys, which meant fewer home runs, increasing the likelihood that a $2 ball might survive until we’d have to head home for supper.

But the $2 for a Wilson got you more than just the ball. See, you couldn’t get the Comets at K-Mart. For the Cadillac, you had to make a pilgrimage to the baseball room in the back of Dice’s Sporting Goods store on the corner of Main and Morgantown in downtown Uniontown. Dice’s was as close to heaven for a nine year old as Kevin Costner’s cornfield was to his character in Field of Dreams.

After tingling the bell on the front door, and subsequently unsuccessfully petitioning one’s Dad for a cold glass bottle of soda from the pop machine just to the right of the entrance, one matriculated through the front of the store, past the apparel and paraphernalia of all the other incidental sports (you know, like football) to the back room — The Inner Sanctum. Where one was greeted with the leathery smell of gloves stacked higher than cornstalks all along the right side. While my dad chatted with the owners, I’d fish out all the left handed models and try ‘em on, pound my fist into the Reggie Jackson or Steve Carlton autograph in the palm of it, and draw a deep intoxicating whiff.

The whole left side of the room was nothing but bats — real wooden bats – laid horizontally in boxes on shelves, their length in inches numbered on the handles that peeked out from their cardboard box containers. I can remember the summer when I graduated from 27” … to where a 28” felt just right in my hands … you’d slide one out, sometimes just to hear that glorious sound of wood sliding against wood, just like a big leaguer pulling one out of their personal shelf. And the first thing you’d do is check to see whose name was scrawled into the top … as if the name testified to the quality of the lumber. For the record, I still have my 28” Pete Rose.

Ninety-nine per-cent of the time, I’d be lucky if I had the $2 for the ball, so would invariably have to put the gloves and bats back. But on the rare occasion where I might have enough loose change from that week’s lemonade sale, I’d open up the magical un-marked drawer that contained a compliment of resin bags.

Didn’t matter that we played slow pitch with a rubber-coated baseball on an asphalt playground. The chance to procure a powdery plume of powder bouncing a resin bag on your hand before breaking into the windup of whatever pitcher you happened to be that day … just added to the fantasy.

Because we didn’t play as ourselves.

This was ’79.

One through nine, we were The Antelope. Tim Foli. The Cobra. Captain Willie. Mad Dog. The Hammer. Scrap Iron. Ed Ott, and The Candy Man. And wherever we were in the lineup or on the field, we considered it our solemn duty to faithfully recreate their every tick and mannerism.

From Stargell’s signature windup, Parker’s threatening coil, or Milner’s stoic, stone-faced, presentation to the pitcher… to their defensive equivalencies — the way Moreno glided under a pop-fly to squeeze it textbook with two hands, or how Parker defiantly, non-chalanted his putouts one-handed, sometimes with a snap that left our fathers cussing his show-boating while secretly revering his athletic brilliance.

We even took the opposing teams seriously. Between the hundred of packs of baseball cards we procured from the Dairy Mart, and WWOR Channel 12, which carried the Mets (and, more importantly, Saturday morning WWF Wrestling), we knew opposing teams lineups almost as well. We’d meet on Mullen Street and walk the two blocks up to the playground, which gave us just enough time to carve up the opposing team’s lineup. I remember one summer weekday walking past a neighbor’s house while choosing from the Mets roster. Since I was a mere fourth grader, most of the good players were picked by the time I got to choose. So on that day I announced I’d be Joel Youngblood, the Mets catcher. Old Jack Simenna, who lived a few houses down from us, heard me, and from that day forward, even into my adulthood, called me Youngblood every time he saw me. I don’t think he ever knew my real name. It was always, “Heyyyyyy Youngblood.”

But when my team got to be the Pirates, I was always Omar Moreno, mostly because the older kids picked Stargell, Parker and Madlock … and I had zero power. For the record, I didn’t hit a single home run over the home-team-friendly fence that year, but I did hit 13 inside-the-parkers and batted a robust .625 out of Omar’s crouch. I know this because after returning home, but before washing my hands for dinner, I’d write down my statistics from every game we played in a spiral notebook. While cleaning out my old room at my parents’ house earlier this year, I found my stat sheet. As Casey Stengel might say, you could look it up.

An although very few K-Mart specials or Comets were harmed in the pursuit of my batting average, my teammates were not as kind with our investments.

See, there were a shitload lot of home runs hit in the summer of 79. The home run chase, the only officially recognized statistic on the asphalt, was really a four-horse race between the fifth grade regulars: Kevin, Jeff, Brian, Scott. I watched with awe and reverence as their totals climbed in excess of 200 apiece, or so they claimed. It was a self-reporting system that technically relied on, though didn’t expect too terribly much from, the honor system. And as history records, the 1970’s were far from immune to inflation. As home run totals skyrocketed and the race tightened the deeper we got into summer, the fuller the rosters became. This was due in no small part to the desire to keep your competitors from claiming they hit 12-home runs the day you weren’t there. As the race got more serious, we found ourselves procuring, and, therefore losing, a lot more Wilson Comets. And subsequently bumming from our parents in $2 increments with greater frequency, knowing we’d need at least two or three balls to get us through an afternoon. As I recall, Kevin and Jeff distanced themselves from the rest, benefitting from the fact that their families didn’t go on extended summer vacations, while Brian’s and Scott’s did.

For the record, in the days when one could count on a field full of buddies and an ample supply of Comets, one really didn’t care that one’s family never went on summer vacation.

The summer of 1979 was not only the last time the Pirates won the World Series, but it was also our last glorious summer on the asphalt.

As fate would have it, the following season the community baseball league widened its geography to pull from our township, and so we were all swept into Little League.

Uniforms. Baseballs with seams. Fields with dirt and grass. Umpires. Parents. Coaches.

The first thing that Mr. Meadows did was break me from my Omar Moreno crouch.

For the record, I never hit .625 again.

But I’ll bet you two dollars and whatever lemonade stand change still jingling in my piggy bank that if we met on a summer afternoon on Mullen Street … I could still carve up two 1979 rosters in the time it would take us to climb the two hills to the asphalt of Areford playground.

Memories like that bounce back as true and reliable as a Wilson Comet.

 

 

 

As the youngest, by 10-15 years, of five kids, I grew up looking up.

My older brother and sisters were well on their way to doing adult things when I was at my most impressionable. Before I was 10, my oldest sister Kim had been a Marine, my sister Laurie, married. I held them all in some measure of awe, particularly my brother.

He baptized me at the altar of football. Taught me the sacrament of swearing at the Steelers on Sunday afternoons, Toughened me up (translation: beat the crap out of me) on hundreds of downs of goal-line drills in the living room (he= Jack Lambert; me = Preston Pearson). Ran me ragged running down-and-outs, down-out-and-ups, and posts on the street outside our house, coaxing me well beyond my appetite with pleas of ‘just one more,’ and ‘last one,’ which were seldom what they claimed.

He was responsible for my early musical education. The early lessons came packaged in the 8-track tapes sporting labels faded from wear, and in the FM radio, whose strains wafted from the basement where he lifted weights to the top of the steps where I sat and listened. From his example I learned every word of the hymns of my youth … Clapton, the Doors, the Doobies. The ceiling on early cool for me was riding co-pilot in his immaculate powder blue Buick on summer afternoons, windows down, stereo wide open, while he did his best Jim Morrison on the opening verse of LA Woman.

He was the first mythic figure of my youth. He had an ornery streak, a turn of phrase that pushed the boundaries of euphemism. He and his buddies found a lot of trouble in their fun in their rowdier moments. I remember him coming home one weekend night with a black eye, a sucker punch that, before the transaction was complete, he made sure the sucker regretted. I wish I could forget the aromas in our bedroom on Saturday mornings after his late Friday nights. His football buddies seemed larger than life, in character as well as stature. I hung on every word of his stories of adventure with his band of rogues, and committed them to memory just like the bits from the R-rated Steve Martin albums he let me listen to.

I was also on the receiving end of some of his ornery streak. I remember a school night in seventh grade when I heard him giggling downstairs (we share versions of the same high-pitched giggle when we get wound up). I didn’t discover the source of his mirth until I was at my locker the next morning, when Tom Rocks nearly doubled over in laughter while pointing at my winter coat. I looked down to find my lapel monogrammed with green felt letters spelling out, “Mr. Shitbar.” (I just high-pitch-giggled writing that). Though I initially feared expulsion if discovered, I wore it like a badge for a few days, until our Mom discovered it, ripping the letters off, and him a new one. In full disclosure, being on the receiving end of his ornery streak had its advantages, too. Exhibit A: the six-packs of Heineken I’d find under the Christmas Tree during my teenage years.

He taught me that there was a world beyond the streets of my neighborhood. Aside from our family’s epic Bicentennial excursion to Gettysburg, our family never went on vacation. During his grad school years at WVU, he always reserved a late-summer day for us to road trip to Morgantown to pick up Mountaineer gear. I considered those sacred pilgrimages.  Though I’m tempted to blush at the humble geography involved, I can’t overstate how magical those trips were to my pre-teen self, or how cool I thought myself wearing my WVU gear to junior high. After all, I had brought them back myself from exotic far-off lands (ha).

He made time for me even after he got married. When he and Maur got their first apartment in Hopwood, he’d invite Dad and me out to watch Steeler games on Sundays. I remember shooting .22 after the games in the back yard (which was a great way to burn off the frustrations of those mid-80’s Steeler teams.). I also remember one Saturday night when he gave me and a buddy the keys to their apartment while they were out on a date … and full access to his epic stash of video rentals he’d copied on his wickedly awesome two-VCR set-up. The epic-ness of the experience can only be appreciated when remembering that video rental stores were the only way to see movies outside the theater in those days. (Those were the years when HBO pretty much stood for, “Hey, Beastmaster’s On.”). I remember me and my buddy making our own nachos and watching my first screening of The Breakfast Club, with a Chuck Norris chaser. Saturday night boy cave nirvana.

I remember seeing my brother as a father for the first time. Remember Mom and Dad whisking me with them to the hospital to meet their first grandson. Remember awkwardly extending a handshake to my brother when he came out of the operating room to greet us. He ignored my gesture, and, instead scooped me up in the biggest big bear hug and said, “I’m afraid a  handshake’s just not going to cut it, bud.”

A version of that hug has marked our every greeting and goodbye since.

For The Win 

And I remember, a year later, on my 16th birthday, playing him one-on-one in our tiny, walled driveway. Since it was barely single-car wide, and since he had a good 40-50 pounds on me, the postage stamp size court heavily favored his girth over my moves.  For 15 years, I had been the Washington Generals to his Harlem Globetrotters, with him teaching me humility over and over (and over). But we hadn’t played each other in a while, with most of his time of late being soaked up by new parenthood. I’d gotten a little better since the last time we played … my shot a bit more practiced, his showing some rust. I got up on him early. Answered every one of his baskets with one of my own.  I was on my way to beating him for the first time in my life. I think we both felt it, and it pushed each of us harder. But his competitive streak always had deeper grooves than mine. He went full bore, contesting every drive, every shot. With the winning score within my reach, I drove left, and he moved quickly to cut off my path. As he did so, it forced me into the wall of the driveway, where my left hand met the corner of the top block, busting it open. It began bleeding pretty good, and the depth of the gash prompted a trip to the ER, where it earned a few stitches.

I remember Mom being super pissed at him for being too rough on me, a refrain she could trace back to those years-ago knee football contests in the living room.

I never blamed him for any part of it. He was giving me his best, and making sure my first win wouldn’t come cheaply. He was more than holding up the Big Brother end of the bargain.

For the record, since we didn’t finish, neither of us counted it as a win in my favor.

For the record, we never played again.

Though I was trying like hell to beat him at the time … looking back, I’m kinda’ glad that we never finished the game.

My brother was always, and in many ways still is, my hero. For all the reasons above, and a million reasons more.

I’m not so blind to believe that he was or is perfect. He’ll be the first to admit that.

But not many heroes get to retire with a perfect record.

Mine did.

And I have the scar to prove it.

On the occasion of his birthday, I suppose I could’ve just dropped a card in the mail. But, to borrow a phrase …

I’m afraid a handshake’s just not going to cut it, bud.

Love,

Mr. Shitbar