Tag Archives: Fathers and Sons

Rearview Mirror, Righteous riffs

Colophon: March 6-10

In no particular order … an incomplete, un-edited, accounting of the stuff that got me through the week:

Monday afternoon, inviting some student leaders from BYU’s Experience Design program to our team’s weekly meeting. Co-creating the agenda with Michaela, a senior in the program. Her showing up prepared with some custom slides to guide the menu we’d discussed (she, a badass). Their team giving us a prompt for our Story Circle, “How did you get here?” Every answer a window into each other’s Story. Me, choosing not to overthink it, confessing how I am here in spite of myself, and (still) basking in awe at that fact.

Not getting back to sleep Monday night and instead of the obligatory trying in vain to doze, getting outta bed and going downstairs to write, finishing something for Karry to read on her late morning work break.

Getting a hand-written letter in the mail from my niece on Monday, and saving it until Wednesday morning, when I knew I would need it most. Walking outside to tear the envelope so I could savor it while listening to the chattering birds whispering their reminders that today matters. 

That letter filling my cup full, and me needing every ounce of it on a Wednesday that drained it to the dregs. 

Leaving the office late, depleted, for home and Peter texting me asking about dinner. Said I was thinking pasta since I assumed I’d be solo. Five minutes later, he shooting me a recipe he found and a shortlist of ingredients to pick up on my way home.

Getting home a few minutes before him, filling the pasta pot, getting out the cutting board, peeling the garlic, making us salads. He coming home from his Wednesday classes and commencing to chef up the new recipe. Calling new tunes for me to hear (he’s digging Ghost these days). While he worked and I sipped from a freshly cracked Malbec, our easy conversation the best Wednesday medicine. Filling our plates full and watching Duquesne in the A-10 tourney. While the Dukes lost, Peter’s delicious dish earning an automatic bid to our future family dinner bracket. Coming this close to crushing an entire box of pasta between us. Sun-dried tomatoes … who knew? 

In my Friday morning feed, a jet-lagged Patti Smith, from her tender room, her cat Cairo in her lap, honoring John Cale, her late-husband Fred Smith, and her kindred spirit Robert, on the anniversary of the latter’s day of passing, reading just the most beautiful passage from their story, Just Kids, the product of a promise kept, nine years in the making.

Staying up late Thursday night putting slides together for a Friday client meeting that I really wanted to slay. Rising early Friday morning on little sleep but with an epiphany. Scrap my slides. Tell a story. On my 45-mile commute into work, randomly tuning in a random episode of a podcast I’d only dipped toes in, and the episode the perfect pre-presentation pump up, had me literally clapping and shouting affirmations at the stop light into the industrial park, drawing the most curious stares from the car next to me. Clicking into my client meeting shot out of a cannon and fully caffeinated, naked of slides, armed only with a (glorious) story. Me OK with whatever the outcome, knowing I served their curiosity and attention as best I could, and gave them the best possible window into my humble offering. Authenticity over polish. 

My Friday work week ending on the highest of notes with my monthly connection with my P.S.F. (Professional Serendipity Friend), and listening to her gloriously effervescing hours after returning home with her husband from a sacred return pilgrimage to New Orleans. Us feverishly making notes of treasures to share with the other. Our conversational jazz making time melt (like all good jazz does). 

Karry calling me on my way home, confessing the weather too gray and cold to go back out in (me agreeing), and she calling in a takeout order from the Catholic Church Lenten fish fry across town, me picking it up, and us sitting lights out in the living room in the glow of Friday night whatever’s on, communing over church kitchen cole slaw, fries, hushpuppies and Heinz-baptized cod.  

Saturday morning, listening to Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way, steaming coffee in my favorite Saturday mug, my antenna still up … and typin’. 

Amen.

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Fathers and Sons

Angels and the Outfield

He just brought it home one day after work and presented it to me. No set up. Not born of a previous request or conversation.

The Glove. 

Reggie Jackson model, waffle-pocket Rawlings. The Finest In the Field. 

Said he’d bought it from an acquaintance. Some guy he knew from the store. Paid $25 for it, used.  I remember him feeling shrewd about the deal.

It was huge. The finger holes were like catacombs. My 10-year-old digits barely reached.

And, oh, it was really used. The traditional method of breaking in a glove is to place a baseball in the pocket and tightly tie the glove closed with string so that you preserve a sweet spot for the ball. The Glove must’ve been given a Swedish Massage and then placed, empty, under the tire of a dump truck. Its pocket folded over its fingers like pages in a book. Its leather soft and pliant. It was so broken in I could clap with it. What padding it had was massaged into sweet surrender (presumably by the Swedes). But given that my fingers barely filled 25% of its real estate, padding wasn’t really relevant to the equation. 

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Righteous riffs

Reminiscing in tempo ….

I can’t remember when I found them, I just remember as soon as I saw them I had to get ’em.

For him.  

That was us for a good 14 years, from my first gig as a 14-year-old until I gave up my spot on the bandstand a couple years after getting married.   

I think I made them a Christmas present. And I was right. He treasured them. 

For years afterwards, whenever I’d visit, he’d always point ’em out from their privileged perch on the mantle in the living room. “I smile every time I look at them,” he’d say. “They make me think of all the good times we had.” 

And then we’d reminisce about those good times. 

I know exactly what he means.

I took them back when we cleaned out the old house four years ago. Gave them a privileged perch on the shelves leading upstairs, so I’d see them every time I came home. 

I smile every time I look at them. They make me think of all the good times we had. 

That’s what I’d tell him if I could call to wish him a happy birthday today. 

I can hear the sound of his voice pitching up the second he recognized it was me, as pure as the tone of his horn.  

“Peeeeeeete!” 

He was always genuinely glad to hear from me every time I’d call. What a gift that was.

That’s what I’m missing today.

I’d call him to wish him a happy birthday, and he’d be the one making me feel good.

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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, Postcards

The world just went away there for a few minutes ….

April 3, 2020, 11:07 p.m.

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.

And evidently, letters to my baby.

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Fathers and Sons

The Quest for the Creek….

Note: found the below in an old journal, and it struck me as it did then … one of those moments that melts the world around you for a good, long moment … before it, itself melts. When we were kids we’d hold a snowball back and put it in the fridge to save it for summer time. Honoring that feeling by putting this old snowball right here ….

Saturday afternoon, after Peter snowblew the driveway, I shoveled the deck, and Em indulged neighbor kids who came for snow angels and “wheeeeeees” down the humble grade of our yard, the three of us donned our snowsuits, grabbed sleds and tube, and trudged through the woods behind our backyard.  Destination: the big hill that technically belongs to the American Legion but which we unofficially commandeer when there’s enough snow to test the wondrous law of gravity. 

We assessed the snow’s vintage —soft and puffy, in need of some packing. So, following Peter’s lead, we made investments with each run down the hill —and trudging walk back up —  kneading the snow like dough, a little longer, a little wider.

The tube, by far, was the conveyance of choice, offering the pure enchantment of spinning, friction-free descent. 

We spent a glorious hour outside, indulging in a good foot of soft powder and mid-20’s temperatures. There were tumbles, wipe outs, and even an inspired attempt to see if the blue sled would hold the three of us at once (um, it didn’t). 

But it was all mere prelude to the gifts of Sunday afternoon, when Peter and I returned for seconds. The intervening 24 hours had smoothed away the powder and added a thin crust of ice to the previous day’s paths. With our first couple runs, we glided farther, carving fresh prints into the untouched white. With each foray we pushed our ruts out a little farther still. 

After about 20 minutes I looked down from the top of the hill to where Peter had just tubed a new distance record and called out, “We should try for the creek”–pointing to the stream that separates the Legion’s field from the hill of houses on the other side. Even with his last run, we were probably a good 50-60 feet of untouched snow from the water.  

But now we had a quest.

And, where Sunday snow days are concerned, life goes much better with a quest. 

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Fathers and Sons

The Things We Remember ….

February 8, 2016

I had the privilege of sharing a few words at Dad’s service on Saturday.

Told those who came that I knew exactly what Dad would say if he were physically able to be with us. 

I was pretty sure he’d have said exactly what he said to me about 8 or 9 years ago, under very different circumstances. 

(Some of you may have heard this story before. But, as some of you may also know, our Dad was not above getting great mileage from a good story – ha). 

He was scheduled for surgery … no, make that surgeries (plural) … on an aneurism in his stomach, and another one in his leg. It was scheduled for first thing in the morning in Pittsburgh, which, when you live in Uniontown, means that you have to get up in the middle of the night. And my sisters Missy and Kim, as they often did, shouldered the burden of getting Mom and Dad out the door and shuttling them to the hospital (no small task, given that Dad had to be early for everything, while our Mom, um, was not as meticulous about her punctuality). Laurie, as she always did, met them at the hospital and made sure they got checked in. 

By the time I got there, Dad was prepped, and was in a room waiting on the surgeon (who was delayed by some other emergency). Mom and the sisters were keeping him good company. After a while, Mom needed to go out for a cigarette (Gram always needed her smoke), and the sisters accompanied her, leaving the boys by themselves for a couple minutes. 

Think about what might be going through your mind if you were the 80-year-old lying in the hospital bed, after having to get up in the middle of the night, suffering that long drive down Route 51 thinking about your pending surgeries, forced into that hospital gown that barely covers your dignity, only to be asked to wait for goodness knows how long on the surgeon? What would be going through your mind? 

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