Category Archives: The Road Ahead

The Road Ahead

Something To Look Forward To

Going through mail late Wednesday night after a long week of long travel, I noticed a letter from a friend, a single rose amongst all the junk mail. Rather than opening it on the spot, I made plans to save it until Saturday morning, where I might savor it at the coffee shop down the road, where our friendship was born a handful of years ago. Lately, I’ve tried to make a point of giving myself things to look forward to. When it works well, my Saturday mornings become sacred spaces, a chance to replenish some measure of all the week’s taxes. 

Yesterday, though, had a few plot twists that kept me from filling my cup, both figuratively and literally. It was well past 1 p.m. and I found myself driving around after running a couple errands.  Robbed of my ritual, my head was not in the best of spaces. The coffee shop closes at 1:30 on Saturdays, so I’d missed my window. 

I was about to return home, where I’d probably grumpily wallow through the rest of a ruined Saturday, when I remembered I still had the unopened letter in my bag. On a whim I navigated to the Eat n’ Park off Oak Springs Road, which I hadn’t visited in years, but which was in heavy rotation when the kids were younger. Pulling into an open parking spot triggered a memory of an Eat n’ Park Saturday long past, when Peter, maybe 9 at the time, attempted to order a Boys’ Day-Out lunch consisting of mashed potatoes, a baked potato, french fries and potato chips. I remember telling him at that time that if his mother was with us, she would stab him in the eye with a fork.

I wasn’t really hungry, and I’d already had the morning’s coffee, but the idea of a big table and a comfy booth sounded … comforting for some reason. 

The hostess seated me near the front.

So, hours late, off schedule and way off course, I exhaled from my comfy booth and fished the letter from my bag.

Though deep into his 80’s, my friend Jim writes his letters with a calligrapher’s hand (though he saves his best penmanship for his poems).

As one whose handwriting has degraded so much that I have long resorted to typing my letters (though I try salvaging a measure of dignity by choosing a typewriter font … lame, I know), I delight in reading the hand of others. Tearing open the letter, I pluck just a brief note from my friend. Letting me know that the timing of my last letter to him was of great encouragement, as he received it on the day of his wife Mary’s passing. He had only months ago placed her in a personal care facility, after caring for her for years and through the Pandemic as she slipped further into dementia. In his last letter to me he wrote unflinchingly, achingly but beautifully about being physically separated from his wife for the first time in their 66 years of marriage. A minister and former Army chaplain during his long full life, Jim always writes mindful of God’s audience, which begs an even greater reverence from his fortunate reader. 

He closed his short note by sharing that his final Valentine’s gift to Mary was a new book of poems he’d written over the past three years, finished several days before she passed. The title: The Road Bends Upwards (those four words a poem unto themselves). 

He wrote in my letter that Mary chuckled when he read the collection’s dedication to her over the phone … 

Duck your head

Close your eyes

Take my hand

And we will walk this road

One more time 

Together

My eyes filled as I read his words.

The ineffability of the inevitable disassembling of a long love on this earth. And still the poet reaches for the only tool he knows to claim the shaky ground beneath him. Knowing the effort will come nowhere close to its mark. Just as any long love misses as much as it aims at. Grief rendered in all its aching beauty.

Yes to that. 

I still held Jim’s note in my hand when the server stopped by my table to take my order. I somehow managed to mumble an order without my voice catching and then just sat there. 

A few minutes later my server brought me my sandwich. I began mindlessly picking at it. 

From my booth near the front, I faced the hostess station, so got to see everyone who came in. 

I was maybe midway through my sandwich when I looked up and saw an older couple being led to their table. They had to be in their 70s, maybe older (I’ve never tried to be good at guessing such things). They cut quite a contrasting presence. He was bald, tall and broad. She was his diminutive opposite, short, petite with a shock of straight gray. Candidly, though, I may not have given them a second thought, still so deep and lost in my figurative and literal sitting with the contents of Jim’s letter … if it wasn’t for one thing that caught my eye.

They held hands.

And took their good time in no great hurry. Heads high, looking forward, not saying a word as they followed the hostess in front of them.

The way they held each other’s hand, in their mismatched nylon coats, I swear to God they walked the worn carpet of our old Eat n’ Park like they were walking down the aisle of a church.

As if they hadn’t lost a step in probably the 50 years that passed since their I dos. 

It was like, in each other’s hand, they were reaching for the only tool they knew to claim the shaky ground beneath them.

Yes to that. 

Thanks to Jim’s friendship, his letter, his example, I found myself mindful of God’s audience. How else could I account for choosing to wait to open his letter until Saturday? My careful Saturday morning plans blowing up?  Finding myself at an Eat n’ Park I hadn’t visited in years to crack open his beautiful letter? Looking up from my front row seat to catch the fleeting glimpse of an old love still standing the test of time? 

And in the process … giving me something to look forward to … well beyond the end of any week. 

So, in between bites of my turkey club, I claimed the shaky ground beneath me, to honor my friend and his beloved. 

To stab at the ineffable, knowing going in that the effort would come nowhere close to its mark.

Love misses as much as it aims at.

And, before I gathered my things and myself to return to whatever was left of my Saturday, I asked for the check of the happy old couple seated at their wedding table near the salad bar. 

For Mary and Jim 

Sun finds me sitting alone at a big booth near the front

Saturdaying a double-decked turkey club, 

toothpicked together much like my morning, 

triangled in quarters just how I remember it


when enters an old couple,

he big, tall and bald, 

she small, gray and boss, 

following the hostess in procession, 


holding hands and walking slow

maybe because they are just old

maybe just because it’s as fast as they can

or just maybe 


because the warmth of each other’s hands 

is their knowing secret, 

still bewitching them like a good campfire

after all these years into a slow savor


claiming the worn carpet ‘neath their feet

as their I (still) do aisle,

rendering my booth a front row pew, 

and me grateful for the gift of bearing witness,


enrobed in nylon mismatched coats 

a king and his queen, regal,

as the hostess now way on ahead

waits to seat them next to the salad bar 

Yes to that. 

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The Road Ahead

Saving Time

Springing forward always makes me think of Sad Sam Jones, who pitched in the major leagues from 1914-1935. 

In Lawrence Ritter’s “The Glory of Their Times,” Sam tells of how he never threw over to first base to chase back a runner.  He once went five years without even attempting a pickoff move. “I once heard Eddie Plank say, ‘There are only so many pitches in this old arm, and I don’t believe in wasting them throwing to first base.’”

That’s how I feel about the clock in my car, the one clock I have dominion over. I never turn it forward and back. Although I don’t have the extension of my major league career to think about, I dedicate the occasional stray thought to the preservation of one of my few useful services to my family: I’m really good at opening jars. “Dad?” Karry will call from the kitchen. “Help.” 

Given that the vast majority of my contributions to the house fall under a loose category I like to call, “Intangibles,” I’m mindful of getting the most from my meager talents.  This is why I never complained all those years we went without a dishwasher. Any excuse to stand next to Karry.

So, for going on 25 years, I’ve saved myself two turns a year (fifty jars if you’re keepin’ score). My car clock’s in permanent Spring Forward Mode, so it’ll now be accurate for the next six months.  For the rest of the year, it’s always an hour earlier than my car says it is. During the winter, every time I turn the ignition I experience a small satisfaction realizing it’s not that late. Always makes me feel a little ahead of the game. Though it mostly has the opposite effect on my passengers, each of whom tends to experience an ‘Oh sh*t, what time is it?’ momentary freak-out. 

Like most of my idiosyncrasies, it drives my family nuts. But I like having an excuse to think about Sam Jones when I think about spring. I’d like to think that Sam would appreciate that, too.

There are only so many twists in this old wrist.

Can’t wait until Opening Day. 

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Postcards, Rearview Mirror, The Road Ahead

18,250 Sunrises ….

Not comprehensive, or in any particular order … just what comes to one’s mind upon being gifted approximately 18,250 sunrises ….

  • That, when I was a desperate for a date to a fraternity party, she said yes. And the subsequent circles we danced to Meat Loaf (if I recall), and the subsequent goodnight kiss, and the Johnny Walker Red that may or may not have been responsible for the courage behind that kiss, and, indirectly, the subsequent 29 years.
  • That I got to be on the same stage with my Dad when he’d close his eyes and shred Harry James’ opening solo on Two O’Clock Jump. The numbers of all the good charts we used to play (#95, #39, #124, #20, #209, #93, #117).
  • Gathering with my best childhood friends every Christmas to decorate a tree, sip some Old Crow, and bear witness.
  • A big sister who let me pick out my first rock n’ roll record at the National Record Mart.
  • A daughter who still says yes when I ask her to read with me, and who savors a good turn of phrase as much as her old man.
  • A sister who sends me a card, cartoon, or clipping every week to let me know she’s thinking of me.
  • A son who asks me to hit golf balls with him even though I am beyond redemption. And on the grander scale, a gracious soul who forgives me for having tried way too hard.
  • Running under all those perfectly aimed and timed fly balls Dad launched just within the waffle-pocket reach of the oversized, Reggie Jackson model Rawlings he bought with the best $25 he ever spent.
  • Em’s Saturday morning omelets with toast (oh, and while I’m there, her home made mac-n-cheese doused with Red Hot in the manner of holy water).
  • An older brother who, like the good offensive lineman he was, wore down my parents’ resistances to allow me a clean running lane through my teenage years.
  • Roger Khan, Roger Angell, John Updike, Myron Cope, Gene Collier, David Halberstam, Roy Blount Jr. and all the others who taught me that good sports writers were just good writers who happened to write sports.
  • The small graces … squeezing toothpaste on her toothbrush in the morning … walking down the driveway together after taking out the garbage … standing at the sink doing dishes …. blowing kisses to the window while leaving for work in the morning.
  • My favorite Sunday night Oldie’s DJ.
  • A sister who raised two beautiful souls on her own and now gets to enjoy her grandchildren, and the occasional glass of wine with her baby brother.
  • A neighborhood that knew the best recipe for growing adults was to let kids be kids.
  • Preserving the capacity to be awed.
  • A mom who saved everything, including the before-and-after-orthodontic molds of my teeth, the BEFORE sample prompting my daughter to re-coil, “That looks like it’s from a North American primate,” which is pretty much exactly what the girls in middle school thought, too.
  • That holding hands still makes everything OK.
  • Parents who gave me time and space to figure stuff out.
  • Chicken wings from Drovers, two with everything and fries with gravy from Shorty’s, a Poorboy without tomato, small fries and a Pabst draft from Potter’s.
  • Charlie Watts proving that eighth notes and a bemused smile are all one needs to build a pocket big enough to fit an entire world (translation: more is not always better).
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins writing his arse off for an audience no bigger or smaller than God herself.
  • Laurel Highlands Class of ’88.
  • Jazz on a rainy day and blistering guitars ‘neath a starry sky.
  • Our only family vacation growing up … to Gettysburg and Valley Forge during the Bicentennial. The sound of pee hitting a coffee can in the backseat on our no-stop drive to the middle of the state.
  • The bewitching crackle of a campfire.
  • The 1-4-5 progression.
  • How the very specific scent and feel of crisp late summer Southwestern PA mornings always makes me think of high school band camp.
  • The old, tiny teacher’s desk from Areford that mom salvaged and refinished … that makes me think of where I came from every time I sit down to write at it.
  • The best days in my life, summed up in eight words. “I do / It’s a boy / It’s a girl”
  • Remembering to look up.
  • Making her laugh so hard she cries.
  • When they were small enough to carry.
  • Knowing it’s in as soon as it leaves your hand.
  • That little dip in our neighborhood that breezes you five degrees cooler like a kiss on the cheek when you’re running down its hill
  • Ray Charles singing America the Beautiful.
  • A dry Kettle One martini and/or listening to Paul Desmond (same thing)
  • Every letter I’ve received in the mail and kept.
  • Riding in Dad’s Sherwin Williams van on Sunday afternoons looking for a playground hoop with a good net.
  • Being Santa Claus. Until you’re not.
  • Winning the in-law lottery.
  • Peter’s brown-sugar, oven-baked, banana ‘recipe’ he fashioned when he was seven years old, that, when properly muddled with vanilla ice cream, is the key to the universe.
  • How the smell of second hand smoke always makes me think of Mom.
  • City Lights Bookstore.
  • The sound of rain on a metal awning.
  • Nieces and nephews who made great daughters and sons, better sisters and brothers, and even better mothers and fathers.
  • All the encouragers.
  • That I remembered to write most of the good stuff down, to remind me when I forget about the good stuff.
  • Chapters left to write.

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Fathers and Sons, The Road Ahead

One Mow Time …

 

I was preparing for The Big Day. Bracing myself for The Goodbye Hug. Steeling myself for The Turn and Go.

Turns out, it was the effing lawn equipment that hit me like a haymaker.

Pulled into the driveway after work on the Tuesday night, and there, arrayed in the back yard …  his motley collection of rescues, resurrections, and acquisitions … all fired up and running full throttle to drain their gas before he left for college the next morning.

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What may look to the untrained eye like a few weed whackers, mowers, trimmers and an air compressor,  registered to my emotional Jell-O as Summer’s F*cking Death Scene.

I began borrowing from the stacks of emotional resolve I’d stockpiled for the next morning.

Didn’t see him at first, until I looked over and there he was, one yard over, having pulled out our old Cub Cadet for his last Official Neighborhood Mow. Boy was all business. I met his gaze and nodded, and he returned the gesture, so solemn I had to turn away for the tear rolling down my cheek.

Hadn’t even made it into the house and I’m reaching for the total meltdown hotline, which put me in touch with its flashback division.

It connected me to a memory 15 years ago, the signal crisp as yesterday. Practically the same scene, ‘cept this time I’m mowing. It was the first time I looked over and there he was, a stout little three-year-old, a couple rows beside me. He’d pulled out the self-growling mower he’d gotten on his birthday and was putting all he had into matching my pace, his two steps to my one.

Boy was all business back then, too.

I looked over and nodded, and he returned the gesture, so solemn I had to turn away to hide my smile.

When we were done, I thanked him for his ‘help,’ and joked to Karry that I hoped he maintained his enthusiasm long enough to eventually relieve me of my duties.

___

As soon as he grew tall enough for his upstretched hands to reach the top of the old Club Cadet, he began lobbying hard to take a turn. I remember Karry and I debating whether it was a good parenting decision or not, compromising on letting him tackle the flat rectangle where the flower bed starts in the back.

He put every thing he had into it – muscling a running start, locking his arms, and digging his feet into the ground until he willed it forward. When the boy sets his mind to something, he doesn’t let it go. From the first, he mowed straighter rows than me, which as Karry will tell you, isn’t saying very much.

By his second year in high school, he was handling a rotation of 3-4 neighborhood lawns, which earned him an invitation to help his aunt at her cattle farm. For his pre-driving self, that was the equivalent of making The Show. Once a teenage boy sees the world from atop a tractor, the world never looks the same.

He became as fascinated with the equipment as with the work. Soon he was poking around barns and sheds, discovering discards and broke-downs from summers past – an old mower here, an old weed whacker there. Took a shine to a years-abandoned riding mower. Drove his aunt nuts for about two weeks as he futzed with it, before reluctantly admitting what she’d known from the start: that it wasn’t worth saving. But with other stuff, he negotiated a deal with her that he could borrow whatever he could get running. We began noticing our two-car garage getting a bit crowded for the strays he’d bring home. The heart his Mom has for animals, he has for lawn gear.

__

He stuffed this last high school summer full with work, fun, and yard work (a summer-work-fun trifecta). He and his buddies took on some landscaping gigs for relatives and neighbors. It gave him an excuse to root around his friends’ garages and sheds, salvaging equipment that had given up the ghost. He pulled a busted mower that had sat idle for years and brought it home to work on. Like the first time his tiny hands wrapped around the bar, he put everything he had into it. Every day that week, whenever I’d ask Karry where the boy was, the answer was, “The garage.” ‘Til I came home from work one night, and he was in the driveway blaring his music.  He skipped “Hello,” for “Watch this,” and with one pull, and a little smoke, the sonofabitch roared alive. He beamed the biggest smile walking me through what he’d found wrong and how he fixed it. I’m not sure I’d ever seen him so proud of an accomplishment. He couldn’t wait to return it to his friend and re-create the moment. When he did, they whooped and hollered so loud, the neighbors came over to make sure everything was all right.

___

Eventually, I pulled myself together and made it into the house. After he finished at the neighbor’s and got cleaned up, we enjoyed a humble meal of his choosing — grilled hot dogs and onions, accompanied by foil-packed buttered potatoes, a respectful nod to scout camps’ past. We ate quietly, contentedly, on the back porch.

And much too soon for our tastes, the late summer sun dipped behind the houses across the street, calling us inside for cleanup and the final preparations for The Big Day.

As we carried dishes to the sink, the last of his weed whackers gave a final cough and ran dry in the dark back yard, yielding the evening’s soundtrack to the crickets … silencing a season 18 glorious summers in the making.

 

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Fathers and Sons, The Road Ahead

Ties That Bind ….

I don’t remember much from the dwindling days of my last high school summer, aside from not wanting to think about whatever was coming next. I dreaded the prospect of college, dreaded the thought that all my friends were going to other schools, dreaded the possibility that I wasn’t enough, and dreaded the closing of a chapter whose familiar pages I could recite from memory for all my re-reading.

But I do remember this.

A couple weeks before move-in day, Mom informed me that she was taking me downtown to Morris’s, the men’s store in my hometown, so I could pick out a suit. I remember she brought it up out of nowhere, but the way she said it gave me the sense that there was some gravitas associated with the exercise.

It was just her and me. I remember driving us downtown (my mother was a reluctant, and, by all accounts, bad driver).

When we arrived Mom informed the sales clerk, an older gentleman, of our mission, and he took over from there. When he asked me for my thought or reaction, I’d look to her for guidance. She put it back on me, since I was going to be the one who lived with the decision. The one that stuck was a dark blue navy with a subtle purple pinstripe. I remember breaking into a grin when he pointed out the purple in the stripe. It felt like an adult decision. Maybe my first.

I remember him marking the cuffs and the sides of the jacket with chalk for alterations. That’s when I began to appreciate the gravitas of the occasion for myself, since every piece of clothing I’d acquired in my first 17 years was plucked off a rack close enough for jazz. I remember the clerk auditioning ties, and the three of us unanimously electing a floral print of deeps that winked knowingly at the purple in the pinstripe. The old clerk said it was a very young look. Mom approved.

tie

When it was time for checkout, he rang us up, and I remember getting a lump in my throat when he announced the total. It was a big amount, well beyond an extravagance for us. I asked Mom if we wanted to maybe look at other options, but she didn’t flinch. “You need a good suit,” she said, closing the case.

When I got home, Dad gave me a crash course in handling my own Windsor. I wore a tie so infrequently I just let them hang tied and lonely in my closet up to that point. Within days, I was off to begin my next chapter.

I put that suit to good use through over the next four years … and beyond. Unfailingly, I always caught a compliment or two on my tie. Whenever I wore it I remember it feeling like armor. It wasn’t a small feeling in those years when doubt and dread always seemed to have the upper hand on me. Mom was right, I needed that suit for college.

For the record, it still hangs in my closet, though the armor doesn’t quite fit the way it used to.

__

This past Thursday I accompanied Peter to Duquesne to cross a few things off his list before this week’s move-in. Picked up his parking pass, a laptop at the computer store, and his first bushel of books at the bookstore.

Before grabbing some dinner we made another stop.

“You guys look like you’re on a mission,” the woman behind the counter said.

“Dad says I need a suit for college,” he told her.

Peter put himself in Sara’s capable hands. She brought out options and colors.

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After trying on a couple, he gravitated to a bright blue number with a paisley for the interior. “That’s pretty sweet,” he confessed. He asked me for my opinion. Told him it was totally his call, but nodded my approval.

When it came to ties, he singled out a flowered print that winked at the blue in the suit, and we reversed engineered the shirt selections to match.

When it was time to check out, I was reminded that the price of a good suit can still tempt one to a double-take. But I was taught many years ago that certain college equations call for a higher math, and didn’t flinch.

I am confident the suit will serve him well, and in different ways than mine served me. He doesn’t need it for armor. For 18 he has a pretty good sense of who he is. I’m grateful for that.

So here’s to next chapters.

And to old chapters worthy of an occasional re-read to find your place.

 

 

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Postcards, The Road Ahead

Postcards ….

It was a typical divide and conquer evening, only made atypical by the milestone.

Our oldest turned 17 Wednesday.

Karry was on dance duty, which earned her a pilgrimage to Waynesburg to scoop up Emma and her friends, and put me, by default, in charge of wrapping presents and dinner prep.

I would not be Karry’s first-round pick for either chore. Under normal circumstances I’d be lucky to participate in these spring drills as a non-roster invitee.

Admittedly, neither task plays to my strengths (which, generally speaking, fall under a loose category that, for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just call “Intangibles.”). Family gift openers have described my wrapping as “primitive,” though I prefer “possessing of a charming, child-like quality.” Regardless, as with most things I’m not particularly skilled at, I compensate with enthusiasm.

So, I flung myself into the task of paper-cladding the humble pile of middle-of-the-week birthday gifts, most of which were feverishly procured slash Amazon-ed within the previous 48 hours (as per family, um, tradition). I fished my emergency stash of Sunday Comics from the drawer of my old Areford Elementary teacher’s desk (that my Mom fished from the ruins of our old neighborhood school about 40 years ago). Snatched the tape from the top drawer of the overstuffed chest where we keep the bills and The Neglected Stacks. In desperation I went digging through The Neglected Stacks for a couple extra blank birthday cards, since we had procured a couple more gift cards than birthday cards, and it somehow felt slightly less lame if we didn’t stuff multiple gift cards into a single envelope.

While digging deep into one of the far left stacks, I slammed the breaks on my feverish search when I happened upon … buried treasure.

Postcards.

From … Toronto. Vancouver. San Antonio. Utah. San Francisco. Las Vegas.

Addressed to … Peter.

All from about 15 years ago. When he was 1-2 years old.

From me.

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I was both taken aback, and taken back.

I totally forgot that the young parent version of myself used to write him postcards when I went on business trips. Forgot how much I hated leaving him and Karry in the days when miracles were more than a daily occurrence.

I just called home a few minutes ago and heard you saying, “Humpty Dumpty” – Mee Maw taught you that yesterday. And Mom told me that you walked 8 steps on your own. I am soooooo proud of you! Going three days without seeing you smile or hearing you chit-chat is too long.

It was a time machine to when the world was so much smaller … when we harvested simple moments of transcendence by the bushel.

I should be home tomorrow by 9:15 or so … hopefully you are still up. If not, I’ll put a kiss in my hand and put it on your head, unless you are sleeping with your butt in the air!

Yeah, he used to sleep sometimes with his knees under him, which made his butt stick up in the air. Whenever Karry or I would pass by his room and catch a glimpse, we’d call the other and just stand there, smiling in silence at the gift of him just … being. Reading my old words to the young him made me smile anew. And yeah, I remember putting kisses in my hand so I wouldn’t wake him. Sleep was a precious commodity for all involved back then.

Greetings from Vancouver. This is that place that mom showed you on the globe. I saw something today you would have found very cool. Out in the water in the bay I saw an airplane “driving on the water.” And it started driving fast and took off and flew up into the sky.

First time I’d ever seen a seaplane. And I experienced it through the awed eyes of my two year old who wasn’t there. As a wise person once wrote, you can only taste it for the first time once.

Greetings from Las Vegas! You would find lots here to draw your attention. At night you can hear lots of ‘woo woos.’

Woo woos = police cars. I’m not sure Vegas has been described so innocently before or since.

As I carry you with me wherever I go, I see these sites through your eyes.

In the stack were about 10 or so cards I sent over maybe a two-year-period.

At some point, I stopped writing them.

I’m not sure when. And I’m confident it wasn’t any sort of conscious act.

I remember reading a great essay that talked about The Last Time, and how we are seldom aware of The Last Time we’re experiencing something.

The last time you rock your child to sleep in your arms. The last time you read Goodnight Moon. The last time you play catch with your Dad.

The last time your Mom calls to wish you a happy birthday.

I don’t give myself credit for much, but I can honestly say that I think I’ve always possessed a keen sense of the passage of time. I used to journal a lot in those early days of parenthood. I knew that my future self would want to be reminded of all the daily amazings that drew ahs like fireworks and evaporated just as quickly. When I find myself feeling a little untethered, I’ll pluck an old journal from the shelf, and see what the life of the younger Us used to be like.

Sometimes it’s hard to recognize the people in my pages.

The miracles of the present age are of, um, a different vintage. When he wears pants at the dinner table? Minor miracle.

It’s tempting to believe that your children have always been the same person since birth. The cold fact is they are completely different people today than they once were. And they don’t care about those kids whose smaller clothes used to hang in their closets. The junior in high school doesn’t care that his two-year-old self used to run into my arms every time I came upstairs from work, or that his three-year-old self just had to pull his plastic lawn mower out of the garage and ‘mow’ beside me every time I cut grass, or the great pains he and I took to memorize the choreography to our favorite Wiggles routines. (Gooooo, Captain Go….). Those were gifts from someone other than the young man who now does donuts in the snow in the Wild Things parking lot.

Which brought me back to the small pile of gifts waiting impatiently.

I aborted my search for empty birthday cards.

Re-arranged the treasures in front of me back into a neat pile.

But instead of returning them to The Neglected Stacks, I wrapped the Sunday comics around them (with a charming, childlike quality.). Sealed them with Scotch tape. Tossed ‘em into the small mound.

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Moved on to kitchen stadium, where I proceeded to slice a ½ dozen tiny bowls full of veggies, set off two smoke alarms and set one paper plate aflame while Wok-ing the hell out of Peter’s made-to-order-stir-fry-birthday dinner, whose deliciousness almost-but-not-quite made up for the fact that I didn’t put it in front of an impatient, famished table until 8:30 because I kinda’ forgot to slice the beef until the girls returned home from dance.

However, grace (i.e. rescue) came in the form of Emma’s from-scratch Oreo cupcakes, thoughtfully and lovingly made for a sibling whose legacy of giving her nothing but big-brother crap is now in its 13th season.

Karry placed a candle atop a cupcake, Emma turned out the lights, and I nearly ruined everything by going for harmony on the final Happy Birthday To You (a sweet, but ill-executed homage to my Dad’s birthday serenades of yore).

Then the room fell quiet, and the world stopped long enough for the guest of honor to take his sweet time in considering his birthday wish.

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And in the silence, I wondered what the Dad who used to send postcards promising to put kisses in his hand for his sleeping baby boy might say to the one now sitting around a cluttered Tuesday night table staring, bewildered, at a newly-minted 17-year-old whose heart’s set on a Ford Mustang.

He whispered the only advice he could:

Write this down.

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The Road Ahead

‘Twas the Night Before ….” (Christmas in November)

[So, the past couple months? Pretty much a blur. Am a little overdue in taking my existential crisis in for a tune-up. Need to remind myself to pump the breaks a bit more often in 2018. Writing up an overdue Speeding Ticket from early November, 2017….]

So, Wednesday night around the time when I’m counting the minutes before my head hits the pillow, the 16-year-old’s deep voice carries up the steps from his down stairs bunker, where he’s paused his evening communal gaming ritual with his fellow-headset-ted snipers …

“Dad, can we go? You ready?”

What’s he talking about? My wife asks.

I knew.

“Grab a flash light … meet you downstairs,” he yells up.

In a couple minutes I’m his passenger in the Old Subaru, unofficially his old Subaru, and he’s snaking us, under cover of darkness, through town.

“Gonna take us past the Pizza Hut, like they’ll have me do tomorrow.”

I affirm his choice.

We make the right at the Hut, then a left at the next light onto Oak Springs Road, and a left into the Big Lots Parking Lot. He takes us behind the Big Lots.

“Hope we don’t get arrested,” I say, kidding, but not really kidding.

In true Peter fashion, we were cramming the night before the Big Test.

The subject: Parallel Parking.

He asks me to get out and stand in the grass and shine a light on the curb.

“One does not only parallel park in the sunshine,” I say in my best Yoda voice, remaining in the vehicle.

He huffs, but after 15 seconds of observing me not moving a muscle, slips it back into drive.

He makes his first approach … signals (nice)… passes the open space … stops … puts it in reverse … looks over his shoulder… eases off the break, turns … then cuts it … eases it forward. Exhales, then … cuts it backward … nudges it forward.

“They give three up and backs,” he says sheepishly.

I open the door, shine the flashlight on the gap between us and the curb. Not great, but …

“Acceptable,” I say.

“I can do better,” his reply.

It’d been a couple weeks since he last practiced, so a little bit of rust … forgivable.

He circles around for another pass. Pause. Reverse. He shows more patience this time before he makes his cut. Eases it parallel. Brings it forward … just once. I open the door. Shine the light. Two, maybe three, inches.

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That’s more like it.

He pulls out, this time unable to resist flooring it (a command which takes the Old Subaru a few seconds to process) as he circles back around the empty parking lot. I just shake my head rather than admonish. I remember doing the exact same thing in my parents’ old Mercury Monarch when I first became master of my self-locomotion.

He makes another pass.

And another. Another. Another. All of them pretty much bullseyes, a few of them so tight I close my eyes and brace myself for a curb kiss that … never comes.

After a while, he starts whisper-narrating the voice in his head … “OK … watch this … this is going to be perfect … not yet … not yet … oh yes … nailed it … Are you watching this? … Gucci.”

For some reason I find this about the funniest thing in the world.

“Please promise me that you’ll do this with the guy tomorrow.”

He begins to whisper-address me as if I’m tomorrow’s ride-along … “Oh yes, prepare for perfection … you might want to take a picture of this officer … show the boys back at HQ … oh, look at this! Look at this! Textbook.”

Pretty soon he has us both belly laughing harder than I can recall us both laughing together in … well …  way too long.

I let him say when, and he insists on a few more passes, putting at least a baker’s dozen in his rear view mirror. It’s like the cut in the montage scene in Rocky III where Rocky masters the footwork under Apollo’s tutelage and throws in a flurry of practice punches just for good measure.

Then he drives us home in the next-to-last car ride we’ll take where I’m a necessary component.

The last one comes the following afternoon, when I accompany him to the Driver’s License Center. He admits to being nervous though he has no reason to be.

Karry, who left work so she could meet us at the center, texts me to remind him to remove the air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. “Damn, your mother’s good, “ I gush to Peter as I pluck it down and put it in the glove box, until I realize she’s following in the car behind us (ha).

In the parking lot, I give him a handshake that he pulls into a hug, then I trade cars with Karry and head back home to field a work call.

I get jubilant texts from mother and son about 20 minutes later.

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The following Friday night he heads out to meet some friends. Before he leaves, he pauses to kiss his mother on the cheek for the first time in his 5,960 days on the planet.

And it’s that gesture, and not the sound of him pulling the noisy Subaru up the driveway, that gives her pause.

“Didn’t see that coming,” she said, summing up the past 16 years, and every moment from this point forward, as she unconsciously rubbed the place on her cheek where her baby boy had just kissed her goodbye.

Sometimes when you are bracing for one chapter closing, it’s a footnote in the margin that gives you a glimpse of the ones to come.

 

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The Road Ahead

Light and Debts ….

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets in

— Leonard Cohen / Anthem

One of the few things we all have in common is that we’re not content with the way things are.

The most important action within each of our grasp is to continue to ask the question, What if?

That’s how we imagine possibilities. That’s how we rise above present circumstance. That’s how we honor loved ones who are no longer with us. Those who are suffering yet and still.

As long as we keep the candle of our curiosity lit and fed … fear, hopelessness and helplessness don’t have a chance.

Share your truth. Your story(-ies). No matter how cracked and broken. It just may be somebody else’s bread.

_____

Had someone recommend Anne Lamott’s delightful Ted talk, which I will also commend to your care (https://www.ted.com/talks/anne_lamott_12_truths_i_learned_from_life_and_writing).

One of her comments in particular stopped me cold. She referred to the act of writing as “a debt of honor.”

I discovered this truth a couple years ago as my Mom slipped deeper into dementia.

I’ve had no greater encourager in my life than my mother. She always believed in me. Told me time and time again that you can do anything if you set your mind to it.

The shame of it is that for years, I didn’t believe her. Dismissed her praise. Her encouragement. Never thought much of myself. Or my writing. Have always struggled with any sense of self-worth. For most of my life, I’ve been really bad at receiving compliments. Never trusted or believed them.

Until my Mom stopped being my mom.

It was only then that I saw things differently. That it had nothing to do with me. And had everything to do with her.

And, without exaggeration, it was an epiphany.

I stopped worrying about whether I was any good (at anything) or not.

I was Anna Margaret’s son. And she believed in me.

So, my debt of honor is to bear her light to the world. Her beautiful light of encouragement.

So I write to honor her.

To honor her wit. Her orneriness. And her keen eye for bullshit.

What a gift it is to forget your perfect offering. To accept our cracks, and realize that it’s only because of them that light shines through.

Whatever your gifts may be, ring the bells that can still ring.

KR071

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Excursions, The Road Ahead

Perfectly Timed ….

Behind these smiles are some stories, that, if you hold them close enough to your ear, you can still hear the beer-sticky basement floor of 311 North Richill Street in them.

That sacred address was responsible for us first colliding in our late teens, and, thus, gathering together last night at PNC Park, to celebrate one of our own NOT turning 50 (as the sign indicates).

That sacred address had a significant hand in at least four of us somehow convincing pretty college girls who totally should have known better to first dance with us, and eventually to marry us.

We solely owe last night’s gathering to an inspired idea from one of them (much love and thanks to Natalie).

Though it was intended as a gift to Popie, it was as much of one to the rest of us: a perfectly-timed reminder that no distance of time can diminish a good story’s ability to coax an on-demand laugh, head shake, hi-five, wince, or blush. And that we experienced each in equal and abundant measure in that golden (ZE) Chapter of our lives.

It was good to hear that my first college roommate’s high-pitched giggle is still in regular rotation (and still higher-pitched than my own). It was good to throw a hug around my last college roommate (and unapologetically go back for seconds). It was good to learn of (and meet) kids who are just blowing their parents away with the young men and women they are becoming, and also of children who are younger karma vessels for the ornerier among us.

It was good to see that Popie still lets his smile have the run of his face.

I think my new favorite game on the planet is to put the 19-year-old versions of us in the left column, and our, um, not-50 versions on the right, and to draw the connecting lines. I’ll let you figure out which column features at least one naked street bowler and which features at least one CDC-supporting, life-saving chemist.

Used to be Friday nights would not end until the clock was deep into single digits, or before our butts hit the beer-sticky basement floor of 311 North Richill for a communal rendition of the theme from Hawaii-5-0.

So it was telling that the majority of us were exchanging goodbye handshakes and hugs by 10:30 (and well before the post-game fireworks)… in deference to our drives home and long-week-depleted energy reserves.

But, as the above picture proves, the smiles will keep.

And as the years have proven, so will the stories … and the bond.

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Postcards, The Road Ahead

Encore

 

I get this little tinge of expectation every time I go to the mailbox. It’s a dog-level expectation. No matter how many times I walk away disappointed, I still return the next time with a measure of hope.

Much like our old black lab, Sadie, who for years, and in vain, chased the chipmunks in our back yard. Though the chipmunks would always have a head start, always accelerate faster over short distances, and always make it safely back to their headquarters beneath the base of the basketball hoop, Sadie would invariably gather her poundage (which ranged between 80-102.5 in her mature years) into a full sprint, chase them back to HQ, and then feverishly paw and snort while the chipmunks mocked her from a safe distance (because chipmunks are, you know, punk bastards). She’d scratch at the base for literally minutes, oblivious to our calls, until we’d have to drag her away by the collar as she craned her head over her shoulder, let-me-at-‘em-style, all the while dog-growling the equivalent of “You wait. Next time, f*ckers. … next time.”

Like Sadie, no matter how often I return empty-pawed from the mailbox, I still think, there’s always a chance, as I stroll across the sidewalk and open the latch.

A chance for a letter, or a card. Or just something that catches my eye.

It rarely happens. And, it doesn’t take much. Karry will confirm that I’m nearly giggly when the Clipper Magazine arrives every month.

Couldn’t tell you the exact day, whether it was a weekday or weekend, but I do remember it was February 2016 … when I spied … THE CATALOG.

I remember plucking it from the bottom of the daily pile, and mindlessly scanning its pages looking for a single listing … from a lifetime ago.

That had no business still being there.

But, I’ll be damned … there it was.

Sanders: Intro to Ballroom.

A smile took over my face. Not the immediate, in the moment, oh-that’s-funny grin that burns off as spontaneously as it erupts. But the one that kindles itself from a sweet memory triggered unexpectedly. The kind that sort of wells, then breaks gradually and stretches wide … hangs around for a little bit, and leaves its warm echo even when your cheeks return to their normal resting position.

And, just like it did when I first spotted the very same listing in the community college winter catalog twenty years ago, it sparked an idea ….

___

The late-90’s version of the idea was to twist my then-new bride’s arm (a precursor to my stepping on her toes) into signing up for the once-a-week evening course at Trinity High School.

My reason went deeper than trying something new and fun with my best friend, though that was a piece of it.

I wanted to ceremonially close a chapter.

I’d just relinquished the drum chair of the 10-piece, little-big-band style group that I’d played with, alongside my trumpet-playing father, since I was 14 years old.

Without exaggeration, it was my dad’s lifelong dream to raise a dance musician.

He’d tried hard with his first four children, producing two tremendous piano players, but wasn’t able to coax either of them onto a bandstand. Though I never confirmed this with him, I’m inclined to believe that among my Dad’s first thoughts when my 39-year-old mom gave birth to me, 10 years after the birth of my closest sibling (I was, um, a bit of a surprise), was, “yep, a drummer.” A secret that I believe he kept to himself until I came home one day from seventh grade and he summarily informed me that he’d signed me up for lessons. And not only that, he’d already given the teacher marching orders that I was to be taught a myriad of styles, ‘not just rock.’ My curriculum was to include foxtrot, cha-cha, rhumba, waltz, samba, bossanova, and swing.

And that was that.

For the record, I’d never expressed any previous interest in the drums.

Yet a couple years later, I found myself spending my weekends riding in vans with musicians 40 and 50 years my elder, and entertaining senior citizens in dancehalls across southwestern Pennsylvania playing selections from the Great American Songbook.

And pretty much loving every minute of it.

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I still loved much of it when I finally quit 14 years later, after I’d started playing with a couple rock groups. I just wanted to try something different.

Dad was cool about it. He understood. He’d played with countless bands throughout his life. Knew the feeling when it was time to move on.

I had no intentions to even look over my shoulder, until one day I was mindlessly thumbing through a community college catalog when one listing in particular caught my eye.

Sanders: Intro to Ballroom.

And I knew on the spot that there was one thing I had to do before closing that chapter in my life.

Karry was a trooper.

We were horrible (at first), but it was a blast.

In no small part due to our instructors, Ron and Ruth Sanders. To the 20-something version of our selves, they were this totally adorable older couple. It was obvious that they’d been teaching the course for some time. Their teasing, corny jokes were well-rehearsed and in the fashion of an old married couple … about the female always following the lead of the male, about trusting the male’s sense of direction around the dance floor, about the perils of ‘spaghetti arms.’ But, man, were they something to watch. I believe Ron was a stone mason (or did similar hard labor with his hands) for a living. Yet his dance posture was impeccable. He was the picture of elegance and grace as he rose up on his toes and led Ruthie (as he called her) and her signature high heels across the high school cafeteria’s floor. It was obvious that they just loved dancing with each other. The highlight of each class was during break, when they’d put on a song and show us how it was done. We’d just watch in awe and with the biggest smiles.

But they were most gracious instructors, too, and coached us up on our foxtrot, cha-cha, rhumba, waltz, samba, bossanova and jitterbug. The toughest part for Karry was following my lead. She likes to be in control of things. Plus, she knows I have no sense of direction, and was (rightfully) dubious of my ability to navigate a circle.

It only got a little oogie those couple lessons when Ron and Ruth broke out the Lambada (the ‘forbidden dance’). I remember Karry and I dissolving into tears of laughter seconds into our first attempt, after I tried to look seductively into her eyes.

But gradually we got better and a bit more comfortable with all the (other) styles, deepening our arsenal with enough moves to soften the more mechanical edges of our technique.

Until we deemed ourselves more or less ready to take it to a real dance floor.

And dance to a certain little big band.

And, for me, to experience my Dad’s playing from the civilian side. For once, to be among the entertained, and not the entertainers.

I remember we picked a Saturday gig in Monessen. Can’t remember if it was a VFW, or an Elks, but I distinctly remember it bore that indescribable scent that all those old great halls have … that remains to this day among my favorite smells in the world (it’s like a built-over-decades building cologne of beer, smoke and men over the age of 50).

I didn’t tell my Dad we were coming.

I remember how happy he was to see us (incidentally, I don’t think there was ever a time when he was not happy to see Karry). How big a kick he got when we told him we’d been taking lessons for the sole purpose of coming to a gig.

I remember being the youngest ones on the dance floor.

I remember the band’s repertoire giving us ample opportunity to try out (read: exhaust) every step in ours.

I knew every song by heart.

I remember time standing still as Karry and I swooshed around the floor to Dad’s Harry James solo on “You Made Me Love You” … remember Alice, the singer, dedicating Nat King Cole’s “Love” to us, and working up a jitterbug sweat to “Woodchopper’s Ball,” which I discovered was just as fun to dance to as it was to play.

I remember kissing Karry a thank you on the night’s last foxtrot, ‘C’est Si Bon,’ before the band broke into their theme song, “I Still Get A Thrill.”

I remember a great Saturday night spent dancing with my best friend to my Dad’s horn.

I couldn’t imagine a more perfect close to that chapter in my life.

___

I hadn’t had occasion to recall that sweet memory until that cold afternoon in February, last year.

I was taking a few days off in the aftermath of Dad’s funeral, and couldn’t separate the flood of memories from the music he taught me to love. The daily walk to the mailbox had suddenly become bittersweet, as my dogged expectation was now rewarded with handfuls of cards and handwritten letters of love and condolence (that I’ve kept ever since in a drawer next to my bed). Until one day I spied a community college catalog peeking from beneath the pile, and, mindlessly began thumbing through the pages.

Sanders: Intro to Ballroom.

Couldn’t believe it.

And just like it did decades before, it sparked an idea.

I knew on the spot that there was one thing I now had to do before closing another chapter in my life.

But it didn’t feel right to ask Karry for an encore. It simply wasn’t a practical idea in the present circumstance, given schedules, given everything else she juggles in the unrelenting, herculean effort to keep the machinery of our existence functioning.

But …

… I had a daughter.

And, like my father before me, a responsibility — to ensure my child’s education included the finer points of the foxtrot, the cha-cha, the rhumba, the waltz, the samba and the jitterbug.

A little arm-twisting ensued (a precursor to my stepping on her toes).

But, like her mother before her, Em was a trooper.

And it was a blast.

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In no small part due to Ron and Ruthie. For the record, the intervening years had only added to their adorable-ness. They were telling versions of the very same jokes, still poking fun at the man’s sense of direction, still warning against the perils of “spaghetti arms.” And aside from Ron having a slight tremor in his right hand, and Ruthie occasionally having to pause to rest a sore knee, (though still defiantly rocking her super high heels), they remained a sight to behold in each other’s arms gliding across a cafeteria floor.

We were the youngest couple in the class (Emma, of course, by decades).

Though she’s a five-night-a-week dancer, Em found herself a bit out of her comfort zone. When it comes to her dancing, she’s used to being in control. Letting me lead took a little getting used to. Nonetheless, she was very patient with me.

However, I was surprised at how much I remembered, with a little refresher.

Her skill and my recall made us pretty quick studies, not to mention the darlings of the class.

The only slightly oogie part was the one session where Ron and Ruthie made us switch partners, and Em found herself coupled with a 50-year-old dude, an exchange that could not end quickly enough for her.

Aside from that … by the end of the class, we found ourselves fluent in Foxtrot, and cutting a reasonably mean jitterbug (our favorite).

And I’m proud to say, when it comes time for her wedding reception, my little girl will be able to educate her newlywed husband on the fundamentals of the polka.

The experience was the perfect reminder, with the perfect company, at the perfect moment, that loved ones who leave us never (ever) leave us. And that what they’ve planted in us are seeds for us to plant in others.

And so the best lives on.

The Great American Songbook.

Fathers and sons.

Wives and daughters.

And a chapter I now plan to keep open, and adding to, for years to come.

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