Waking up, thinking of saints this Sunday morning.
Yesterday, Karry mentioned in passing that it would have been her Mom’s 90th birthday.
I confessed that over the past couple of days I found myself registering the month and days, sifting my brain as if there was a birthday I should be remembering, but coming up empty.
Betty passed way too early, at 71, from colon cancer. Can’t believe it’s been 19 years. Peter and Emma were so young.
There’s a photo we keep on the mantle in the dining room.
I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but I think it was the first time we visited her house after her passing.
I just remember it was a photo that demanded to be taken.
On the day I remember entering the house through the garage door (as we almost always did) … taking the stairs up to the main floor … and coming to the top of the steps.
Instinctively looking left.
When Peter was young and we’d visit, Gram would always leave a present for Peter in the window in the dining room.
Usually a little Matchbox car or truck.
Once loosed from the car, he’d tear up the steps, expectant … look left and make a beeline to the window to see what treasure she had left him.
She never forgot. He never even had to ask. Even when we’d show up unannounced, there was always something waiting for him in the window.
I always thought that the ritual of that was just the most perfect summing up of Karry’s mom.
While I hid my enthusiasms better than Peter, I always came up those steps, expectant, too.
You knew there would always be a simple kindness waiting for you.
A sweet tea.
An egg sandwich.
Something from the garden.
And, if it was Sunday, a feast for the ages.
Oh, how she threw down on Sundays.
On the day we visited after her passing, I remember looking left and seeing the window sill empty.
But instead of feeling the emptiness of that, I registered the sight of the sun’s morning rays blasting through the window, bathing the sill in the most wonderful light.
As if the heavens were conferring their eternal special blessing on that tender, sacred space.
It struck me in the moment, as it still does these 19 years later, as the perfect embodiment of Betty’s love and kindness.
The promise of a present always waiting in the window.
When Karry was pregnant with Emma, people would ask Peter, who was three at the time, whether he wanted a little brother or a little sister.
His answer was always the same.
“No.”
That one still cracks me up.
I mean, for a three-year-old … that’s a glorious comeback, right there.
And when I called Karry’s Mom from the hospital to let her know it was, in fact, a girl … and Betty, in turn, informed Peter (who she was watching while we were at the hospital), he made a beeline for the kitchen sink, climbed in the space underneath it, and shut the door behind him.
Years later, whenever people would ask me about our kids, I’d find myself saying, “My son’s ____ (16 … 18 … 20, etc.) , and he’s still getting used to the fact that he has a little sister.”
All of the above, true.
So … to be gathered around the table last night in our tiny dining room, surrounded by all our Christmas and life clutter …
… the four of us slow-savoring every bite of the by-request chocolate meringue flourless cake big brother made his little sister for her 20th birthday …
… listening to them geeking out with each other about the cake’s cross section …
… him sharing with her how the recipe’s author discovered how to do the marbling on top, and how he was meticulous in following the directions … for fear of all the inherent gluten-free and dairy-free landmines …
… how he’s never been one to follow directions … a proud by-product of the Fordyce stubborness he comes by honestly …
… getting to bear witness to a big brother’s pride in receiving his little sister’s approval.
Forgive me if it’s gonna take me awhile to get used to that fact.
I mean, that he wanted to get it just right for her.
Let’s just say … such sweetness is worth the wait.
Initiating the excavation of our attic a couple weekends ago (there be dragons), I was forced to reckon once again with all the plastic storage tubs in which Mom lovingly slash compulsively packed away just about every artifact from my childhood. The dozen or so tubs which I’ve been methodically sifting and editing ever since we emptied the old house a few years ago.
Recently I cracked open one tub particular that made me giggle out loud — a container of books from my elementary school years. The vast majority of which were procured during all those epic (epic, I say) Scholastic Book Fairs of yore. I can still conjure the feeling of exhilaration of slow-browsing the tables on Book Fair days and having the agency to choose my own adventures.
It was such a genuine feeling of capitol “T” Treasure hunting.
The archeological evidence suggests that, through grades 1-6 I trafficked exclusively in four genres: sports, monsters, dinosaurs, and these beauties.
Hello old friends.
My younger self memorized each and every one of these. Front to back, cover to cover.
What a gift it was (is?) to be reminded.
I don’t think my younger self loved anything more than making people laugh, with the possible exception of the Six Million Dollar Man (the two-part Bigfoot episode? SWOON.)
These books were my training wheels before I graduated to committing my brother’s Steve Martin albums to memory. (Cruel Shoes, anyone?).
Digging deeper into the tub, I was reminded that those books were also responsible for me landing my first and only stand-up gig — in the 6th grade.
I remember Mrs. Shaffer summoning me to her room over lunch one day. Though I didn’t have Mrs. Shaffer for class, I was among the quivering majority that was profoundly afraid of her. She had a booming, eviscerating yell that echoed in the hallways of Hatfield Elementary, easily traveling across the hall to strike second-hand fear into those of us in Mr. Gibel’s class.
Duly summoned, I remember knocking on her classroom door, and she motioning me to stand next to her desk.
Gulp.
First thing outta her mouth … “People say you’re funny.”
I mean, what does a sixth-grader do with that?
Impatient with my stunned silence, she phrased it in the form of a question: “Are you funny?”
Mrs. Shaffer didn’t play.
I remember managing a sheepish, “Depends on who you ask, I suppose.”
Heck … all I knew was that I loved aiming at the target … had never paused to consider how good I was at hitting it.
I loved bringing fresh caches of knock-knocks to the dinner table, loved trading jokes with Dad while riding around in his Sherwin Williams van (his humor veered heavily towards cornball), loved practicing Steve Martin bits when no one else was around.
I’m not sure there was any greater music to my young ears than laughter produced from thin air (aside from maybe the theme from the Six Million Dollar Man).
Mrs. Shaffer went on to explain that she was planning a country and western theme for her big annual spring musical. For context, Mrs. Shaffer wasn’t the Busby Berkley of Hatfield Elementary. Busby Berkley was the Mrs. Shaffer of musicals. She then revealed the reason for my summoning: she was looking for someone to tell jokes — ‘Hee-Haw’-style — in between the numbers. (It was the 70’s y’all.)
I’m pretty sure she didn’t really ask me so much as assigning it like homework — one didn’t say no to Mrs. Shaffer. All I know is that, upon the asking I was all-in.
First order of business was to pick a partner. I went with my heart and picked Dan — my first best friend — as my straight man. It would be our first appearance on stage since we performed an avant garde rendition of “Rhinestone Cowboy” before our kindergarten class, during which Dan strummed the guitar he didn’t know how to play, which helped distract the class from our forgetting most of the words. I am still in proud possession of the vivid memory of us walking home from Areford that afternoon on a cloud. I remember turning to Dan — his six-string still loaded on his back — and saying, “We’re gonna make it BIG.”
Alas … if such was ever to be our elementary school destiny, it would be in comedy, rather than song.
Next came the work of crafting our set list. This is what I’d trained for. I meticulously culled troves — troves, I say — of comedic gold from my vast library of joke books, sourcing supplemental material from teachers, family and friends.
A sample forever etched in memory:
Pete: You ever been to a hula dance?
Dan: What’s a hula dance?
Pete: It’s when they put one crop of hay in the front field, and one crop of hay in the back field. And when the music starts … they rotate the crops.
Ahem.
We prepped a program’s worth of such material (which Mom, of course, saved) …
… which we unleashed on an unsuspecting audience while standing between corn stalks in front of the stage where classmates offered their pre-pubescent renditions of Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin’’ and Johnny Cash’s “North to Alaska.” As an aside, my favorite number was the Anne Murray banger, “Could I Have this Dance?” … where I won the lottery by being paired up with Julia Pudowkin (DOUBLE SWOON), who lost her side of the lottery by having to hold my sweaty hand for three minutes and 17 seconds .
While I do recall having to leave some of our best material on the cutting room floor (f*cking 6th grade censors), I remember some of our stuff killed. Remember the indescribable feeling of making an entire room full of adults laugh. Can still conjure the sound of it echoing in our booming cafeteria with the basketball hoops wheeled to the corners. To this day I can hear it as clearly as Miss Shaffer’s booming voice across the hall.
And even when the jokes fell flat, I remember instinctively dead-panning or double-taking to coax laughs from the ashes. Thanks to Steve Martin for teaching me a thing or two about timing.
While my vague recollection of our performance brings to mind the old Dennis Miller line, “I haven’t seen choreography that stiff since the Lee Harvey Oswald prison transfer,” I don’t think we were all that bad for a couple of 11-year-old Rhinestone Cowboys.
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A question that often gets asked — I’ve often asked it of others — is, “If you could go back, what advice would you give your younger self?”
While a worthy question, it’s based on the assumption that our older selves have the market cornered when it comes to wisdom.
But there’s another question that maybe doesn’t get asked as often as it should.
“What advice would your younger self give present day you?”
Having spent the better part of the last couple weeks in conversation with my younger self, I have a pretty good idea what elementary school Petey would tell grown-up Pete.
Which I actually thought about a couple weeks ago … when everybody was happy around the table, pushing nine o-clock on a Thursday night, after Karry blew out the chubby #1 birthday candle Peter had improvisationally fished from the drawer behind him and balanced on the heavenly angel food cake that she’d brought back from work a couple pieces light … after she paused for a couple good seconds to ensure she got her wish just right, making me smile that she took the time … after Peter revealed how he’d picked the eau de parfum he’d gotten her — the way he said PAR-fooooom — from the locked case at Marshalls, scent unseen because “the Internet said it smelled good ….”
When in that moment … I made everyone laugh … the spark catching the kindling perfectly … oxygenating everyone’s genuine cackles … their hands-off-the-wheel-let-go laughs … their heads-back-I’m-gonna-pee-myself laughs …
… which left me savoring the sounds like white icing from my fingers … as Karry wiped tears before turning to her next gift as I received hers … in the reminder that there is no greater feeling on earth than being responsible for coaxing her glorious and singular Only Karry laugh from thin air.
That feeling.
And in the ashes of that moment, I caught a glimpse of my younger self … walking home from Areford on his kindergarten cloud.
Finally caught up to him, I should say.
Tapped him on the shoulder and let him know that I’d been listening. Told him I hope he didn’t mind my eavesdropping.
Earlier in the week, when they asked me where I might like to go for my birthday dinner, I replied, “Surprise me.”
They hate it when I do that.
So this is after a long week.
After Karry’s long Saturday shift.
After I came down with a cold earlier in the day that left me a leaky, and mostly miserable, cauldron.
After getting dressed for a nice, though not fancy, birthday dinner.
After arguing in the driveway about whether to make the long drive into the city in the rain or just cancel the reservation.
After loudly debating whether we were in any shape to even enjoy a nice meal in our diminished states.
After Karry got behind the wheel to adjudicate the decision.
After I barely said a word from the back seat the whole way in, sulking.
After we found an open spot on the street.
After Peter, without a word, went around to the back of the car and fished out the umbrella he’d retrieved from the garage before we left, and did this ….
This is after I, unconsciously, slowed my walk behind them, even though it was raining harder than when we’d left … just so I could soak it all in.
After thinking of the Japanese art of Kintsugi, of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, which makes the piece beautiful because of its cracks.
A son, holding his umbrella high, to shield his mom from the rain.
I’m not sure why, but this just melted me. For some reason, it made every bit of everything that came before worth it. Maybe even all of the past 53 years.
This is me in my diminished state, after receiving the best birthday gift I am not capable of even wishing for — the gift of bearing witness.
“Surprise me,” I said.
And to think, I almost let it slip through the cracks.
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.
A couple weeks ago Karry was violently cleaning out out the dining room, rooting through old drawers, filling garbage bags with stuff she didn’t want to think twice about. Of the two of us, she is, by far, the most qualified for the task. My wife is not the sentimental type. I, on the other hand, ensure that my wife will always have drawers to clean out. But in the midst of her editing, something gave her enough pause to seek me out downstairs. She tossed an envelope on my desk. “Yeah, you probably forgot about that one.”
On the outside of the envelope, my handwriting:
To: Peter
From: Dad
Christmas 2001
Inside, a letter. From me to my baby boy. Days before our first Christmas together.
Buried treasure.
I have no recollection of doing this.
Which is exactly why I did it.
I learned quickly during those eight months that time was no longer to be fucked with. From the moment Dr. Bulseco announced, “It’s a Boy,” we became unwitting passengers on a turbo steamroller, and would spend as much time under it as in the cab.
So, early on I made a point to mark time whenever I could steal a moment. Scribbles in a journal. Postcards from the road. Notes on a computer.
Letters for Maggie 