Tag Archives: love

Fathers and Sons, Righteous riffs

A whole new day ….

So, um, all of this happened.

Even if I had the time or inclination to squeeze it all into a smaller suitcase for you, I’m not sure I would. 

It’s just too damn good. 

Not the writing itself … just the events as they unfolded. 

This is me reminding myself that the most important choice is not this word or that word … it’s picking up the pen in the first place. 

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Couple weeks ago when the big blizzard hit, I was supposed to be in Lexington with my oldest for a boys weekend I’d gifted him / us for Christmas.

Our annual-ish pilgrimage to Kentucky to see the Wildcats men’s basketball team play. 

Given the forecast I couldn’t see us making it back home on Sunday, which would’ve made a mess of Monday … which would’ve spilled all over the rest of the week. 

So the night before the Friday we were supposed to leave, I made the tough call to cancel. 

It was the responsible choice … even though it broke my heart.  

Got screwed on our Air BnB, as our host had sub-zero interest in even a partial refund. 

Lost out on our tickets, too, which weren’t at all cheap when I’d got ‘em at Christmas, and rendered all but worthless by the weather.

The heart-breaking part, though, was missing out on spending time with my son. 

He’s just good light to be around.  

Bummed and with nothing to do but wait for the snow that would require so much shoveling, I made a conscious choice.

I spent time imagining the weekend we might have had. 

What we might have done. 

Seen. 

Tasted. 

Noticed.

Wrote my imaginings down in my journal. 

In minute detail. 

Wasn’t the same, but it was warmer than wallowing. 

And it allowed me to lavish some of my ever-fraying attention on what I appreciate about the gift of spending time in my son’s good light.

For the rest of the weekend, when I wasn’t shoveling or snow-blowing, I was imagining. 

Treated it as if I was making myself a big ole’ pot of soup with no recipe.  

Had no intentions of doing anything with it. 

Just wanted to metaphorically stand in front of a boiling pot and inhale the steam while it all cooked down and the snow fell. 

Nothing more than an exercise to keep my attention productively occupied.

Until a couple days later, I remembered that I owed my friend Jim a letter. 

Had not sent him anything yet in the new year. 

I try to make my letters worthy of Jim’s attention. 

In reciprocity for the treasure he shares with me. 

Jim’s a gifted poet. 

In his 90’s. 

Health has been failing him as of late. 

Still writes. 

Often achingly, always beautifully. 

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the act and the substance of what Jim shares with me. 

For starters, he hand writes everything … in wobbly but persistent, near-calligraphic penmanship. 

Sends me photocopies of his hand-written stuff. 

The intentionality of just that — let alone how he makes words dance — fills my heart. 

Our last correspondence was a golden phone call one evening a couple months ago, when he called just to let me know how much our correspondence means to him … and apologized that his short breath has kept him from going upstairs (where the printer is) to make me photo copies of his latest poems. The act of him, despite his circumstances, calling me … just to let me know that? 

Better than getting a letter in the mail, let me tell you. 

Though lately confined to the downstairs of his house, Jim’s aperture on the world remains wide.

He lets so much light in.  

Despite his body failing him from a long life’s wear, his poet’s eye, ear and heart remain undiminished. 

I find myself often saying aloud how I hope to someday write as well as Jim does in his 90’s.

In the days after the blizzard … seeing all the snow on the ground, I imagined that he probably felt even more cooped up than we did. 

I tried to think of something I could send him that he might appreciate, but nothing came to mind. 

I hadn’t written anything lately that I felt was worthy. 

Then it hit me. 

Maybe he’d appreciate some of the soup I’d been toiling over … about the weekend I never had.  

So I sloppily ladled some of it onto a page, stuffed it into an envelope, and dropped it into the mail. 

This is what I sent … 

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“Thursday, Jan. 27, 2026 7:49 a.m. 

Dear Jim,

I hope this note finds you keeping warm. Karry just left for work, I think it’s one degree out. I am working remotely today so am anticipating a day of not having to leave the house, other than to walk to the mailbox and drop a postcard in the mail for Emma. 

Oh, the weather of the world. 

This past weekend Peter and I had planned to make our annual pilgrimage to Lexington to go see the Kentucky Wildcats play. We’ve done it for three or so years. Thursday night we decided to cancel our plans. I didn’t see us being able to make it back on Sunday, and we both needed to be home for work on Monday. The Air BnB host wouldn’t give us a refund, and we lost out on our tickets, but most of all, I just missed the experience of spending the weekend together with Peter. So, rather than wallow in disappointment, I decided to alchemize my circumstances … decided to write a story as if I was writing a journal entry commemorating the trip I imagined us having. Since I approached it as a journal entry, I allowed for the requisite frayed edges … 

A brief excerpt 

Saturday 

I’d be the first one up, maybe a small pot of coffee, a deep inhale from a half-full bag before scooping grounds, let myself be seduced by the slow, gurgling percolation … pour a half-cup into one of the host’s old mugs fished from the cabinets, scribble a few words at whatever desk or counter, a weekend post card from Kentucky to Em … coax Peter awake early enough for … a cold walk over to Stella’s, ceremonially donning our Big Blue gear before heading out, he lending me a jersey from his collection, I’d pick John Wall given the choice.

We’d wait for two together at the counter to open up, and I’d rub my hand over the old coin embedded in the worn and weathered wood … confirmation.  

Soak it all in like maple syrup … the tattoos and bleary-eyed chatter of the staff too young too early for a Saturday morning, listen for whatever they’re playing, maybe Tyler Childers … 

… scan the poems framed on the walls on the way to the bathroom, one about Fallingwater … catch clips of expectant, game-day banter buzzing from the tables as I pass through. 

Warm my hands around a mug of black coffee Kentucky straight from a fresh pot … 

… agonize with Peter over our day’s biggest decision … go with Stella’s Hot Brown – the work of the angels — or just eggs, bacon, home fries well-done and those biscuits I sometimes dream about … yeah, proly that, leave the Hot Brown to legend. 

He’d ask the girl about the steak and eggs … sometimes we’re just looking for someone in this world to help us say yes. 

After ordering, the expectation and my topped off cup enlivening our conversation, I’d ask him his top 5 favorite Wildcats of all-time, and he’d give the cosmic question the attention it deserves … Herro, SGA locks for him, me, I’d proly reach all the way back to my first favorite, Kenny “Sky” Walker, who used to glide so gracefully from on high when he’d throw ‘em down … we’d refine and adjust our lists like safe-cracking thieves listening for confirming clicks til our waitress returns to put our plates down in front of us. 

Us just staring like beggars for a couple respectful seconds … and before reaching for the salt and pepper … one of us would certainly say Grace out loud … and oh my gosh … is there anything better than first bites?

Couple years ago a wise person gifted me the notion that, wherever we are, whenever we are, it’s an opportunity to ask the question, “What’s for me here?” It’s baked in the idea that things don’t happen to us, they happen for us. That we always have agency despite our circumstances. That’s among the reasons I remain soooooo inspired and grateful for both the act and the substance of your writing, Jim. I remind myself that the most important choice that you make is not this word or that word … it’s picking up the pen in the first place. 

Keep writing, my friend …  “

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Got home after 9 p.m. just this past Friday night, after meeting my wife and son for a comfort-food-filled dinner after a long Friday that dropped anchor on an already long week.

Proceeded upstairs, slow-dragging eff bombs across a few of the steps, sloppy-mop-style, as my right knee reminded me it is just not happy with me these days.  

But before trudging down the hallway to get ready for bed, I stole a glance at the dining room table to see if there was any mail. 

Saw an envelope on the place mat in front of my chair. 

Stepped close enough to see my name scrawled in Jim’s persistent near-calligraphic hand. 

Thanked the universe aloud for giving my Saturday something to look forward to.

Next day … I exercised monk-like restraint in waiting until I was sitting in the front seat of my car in the parking lot across the street from where I’d just finished a transcendent Saturday morning coffee date with my niece …  to pluck Jim’s letter from my bag.

Whereupon I melted in place. 

There were two pages in the envelope. 

They weren’t photocopies. 

They were the genuine articles, hand-written on notebook paper. 

First page was a letter, dated Feb. 4. 

With Jim’s permission, this is what he wrote to me. 

“Pete, 

Thanks, your letter of imagining, shaking me out of my accustomed lethargy. 

Eliciting an immediate response, to your creativity — woke me up today. 

Dull winter days, lasting forever chill, testing my old will to find something new and challenging to do. 

Friends, like you, willing to take the time, and energy, to remember, with compassion, a lonely old man, far away, appreciated greatly — as we wait the renewed spring of life’s productivity. 

I daily, nightly, pray for all your family, for love, God’s strength, to enliven your hopes and activity. 

Keep sharing, and God be ever with you all. 

Love and care, 

Jim”

The note itself, poetry. 

But the second page contained the poem. 

Signed, dated and … 

"Dedicated to Pete and Son's Imagined day,"

Imagine That!

I salute man's unique gift of imagining,

bringing life to an entirely new world, 

of what might have been, 

setting his feet on streets where he's never been, 

feeling an intimate touch of impunity, 

looking into eyes never meant for me. 

Imagining, escape from a world of set destiny, 

freedom to create, in god-like accuracy, 

people, places and things, 

of sheer, imagined fantasy, 

perfectly fashioned and enjoyed, if only momentarily

my own separate world of autonomy. 

The coffee is perfect, the eggs even better,

the son at my side, a co-conspirator, 

not hindered by time, or other places to be, 

we idle, an hour, in a diner's protective imagery, 

reality forever bypassed, in this freedom's play,

to make a day go entirely our way. 

Having had our opportunity, in spite of a short dismay, 

life always has a way of disappointing us, 

I have created a whole new day, 

paper and pen and who's to say, 

which of the two will last the longest, 

in our time-clouded memory?

__

Oh my gosh.

I hope to some day write as well as Jim writes in his 90’s. 

My heart was singing the entire 37-minute drive home from where I’d met my niece for coffee. 

Had to pee by the time I pulled in the driveway.

Climbed upstairs and made a beeline for the bathroom that sits off my bed room. 

On my way back through, I instinctively grabbed an old journal off my unmade bed. 

Cracked it open to some random page that, it turns out, wasn’t random at all, and read the words I’d been moved to scribble on a page on some forgotten day some years ago … with only a vague hunch that my someday heart might need them to help me make sense of a cold world. 

A quote from Rick Rubin. 

“We share our way of seeing in order to spark an echo in others. Art is a reverberation of an impermanent life. Enduring affirmations of existence.”

__ 

From the thaw of a weekend-ruining blizzard … a poem for this world that would have never otherwise existed … 

… If I hadn’t imperfectly imagined what was lost … and shared my way of seeing it like thrown together soup

… to warm an old poet’s heart … moving him to write and share spring once again.

Every bit of all of it … nothing more and nothing less than the reverberations of impermanent lives. 

Enduring affirmations of our existence.   

A whole new day, paper and pen and who’s to say … 

which of the two will last the longest?

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Ink-stained elegy ….

Disclaiming that I’m operating sans coffee this morning (boil water advisory in Washington County, which is so on-brand for a week and a world that could use some disinfecting), so please forgive any typos and dissents into incoherent, rambling despair ….

Broke my broken heart this week to read that Bezos eliminated the sports department at the Washington Post.

Poof.

As a former second-rate sports writer who knew enough to know what good sports writing looked like, knew enough to know his Murrays from his Boswells from his Angells from his Alboms from his Colliers from his Jenkins, knew enough to know that fields of play give professionals and teenagers the same Shakespearean stage to live out most of life’s tragedies and comedies, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly, but always truly, and that in the hands of the right deadline saint, the record could show as much, who knew enough to clip, underline, asterisk, and scribble down golden turns of phrases like collecting seashells for keeping hoping some of it might rub off, who knew enough to know that when he read Roger Kahn’s Boys of Summer that one summer that good sports writers were just good writers who happened to write sports, who knew enough to know that the local versions of those deadline saints who I got to watch and read up close were (and are) just as great, and even greater for shining and reflecting their good light without big spotlights, who knew enough to inhale the scent of a new edition like bread come midnight fresh off the the press before proofing it for the later editions, who knew enough to know that the smudge on your fingertips after reading was what made for a sacred act, who knew enough to know that tomorrow those pages would be lucky to line bird cages before being tossed in the trash so don’t get too full of yourself, who knew enough to know that it was one thing to hit it out of the print park once, but could you do it again tomorrow? And what about the next day? Who knew enough to know that love and commitment are proven only in the act of showing up again and again and playing hurt to stare down a blank page and a deadline, who knew enough to know that to love something with your whole heart is to miss it with whatever’s left of your whole heart when it’s gone, who knew enough to know that when his mid-50s self stumbled into that Waynesburg coffee shop last summer and saw they had a take-one-leave-one book shelf, he reached for the cover-stained, out-of-print edition of Sports illustrated Great Baseball Writing like he was rescuing it from a burning building …

… which he was.

Who knows enough to know that it would be hypocritical this morning to ask if he knows anyone who subscribes to the Atlantic and would they mind sending him a PDF of Sally (who did it as well as any ever did) Jenkins’ elegy, “You Can’t Kill Swagger” published a couple days ago … and that, in the asking lies the blood, like ink stains on my hands for not wanting to scale the paywall for a whole damn subscription.

– 30 –

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29 years, 149 days ….

Was pulling laundry from the dryer yesterday, under strict guidelines from Karry. 

Which she made me repeat out loud before she left.

Which didn’t upset me at all. 

We both know my track record.  

Set myself a timer for 10 minutes for the two pairs of leggings (black and gray) that needed pulled out early. 

At eight minutes, I still remembered black and gray, but texted her to triple confirm that both were pants.

After the rest of the load finished, I neatly (for me) folded and hung everything else. 

Even remembered to check the lint screen.

“She’d appreciate that,” was an actual thought in my head. 

It was covered from the full load.

The lint was the brightest purple.

From the big Eeyore sweatshirt she got at that Disney discount store in Orlando. 

Probably why it was on discount. 

Made me smile … not sure why.

Maybe because I was the only person in the universe who knew that something she loved made the world purple. 

Took me a few seconds to roll it off the screen and into a ball.

Thought about saving it for her.

Nah, she’d think it was weird.    

Took a picture of it before I tossed it in the garbage, though.

So I’d remember.  

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Time, an appreciation ….

“But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down. Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.” — David Foster Wallace, “This is Water,” Commencement Speech to Kenyon College, 2005

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Walked into the post office yesterday morning carrying the hand-written card and extra copy of Dave Eggers’ “The Captain and the Glory” I was sending to a best-friend for his January birthday. After picking out and addressing a padded envelope, I went to take my place in line … just as a mom and her young son were walking in. 

The boy, maybe eight, was carrying a package at least half as tall as he was. Could barely peek over its top. Based on the way he was waddling, the contents had some heft. 

Carrying the lighter of our respective loads, I let ‘em go in front of me.

The post office people behind the counter were in the process of switching shifts — logging in and out and whatnot — so our patience was, um, appreciated.

Mom asked the boy if wanted to put the package down while they waited.

“I’m holding it,” he said, defiantly, standing on one leg for a sec so he could adjust his grip.

I smiled at such innocence.

Obviously, his first time waiting in line at the post office. 

Within a few seconds he was grunting.

Mom moved her suggestion from the interrogative to the imperative. 

He remained a stubborn helper. 

However, his strength timed out before the glacial logging in process. 

He put the box down. 

Looked around and noticed the floor-standing carousel of gift cards strategically placed near where the line begins. 

Asked Mom if he could have a dollar for a Roblox gift card. 

Upon which she proceeded to explain the business concept of disintermediation to her child. 

Told him it was ‘cheaper’ to just purchase credits from the site, rather than going through a middle man. 

She wasn’t merely patient. She was generous.

You could tell they spent a lot of time together for how easy their conversation was. 

Reminded me how much I enjoyed conversing with our kids when they were young. 

How much I learned from the way their minds worked. 

“Thank you for your patience, can I help the next customer?” 

The son cupped his hands back under the box. 

Hoisted. 

Waddled over to the counter and heaved it up there himself. 

“I see you brought your helper,” said the freshly logged-in counter person. 

“She can’t lift with her one arm, so I have to carry things,” said the boy, carrying the conversation as responsibly as he did the box.

Over the next couple minutes of the transaction, the adults left space for the boy’s participation.

He complemented the clerk on her gift cards, relaying how he wanted a dollar one, but his Mom said it was better to buy credits online.

“Have you ever gotten a gift card before?” the clerk asked, as she processed the postage for the box. 

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes my Mom gets me one … when I do good things.”

I inferred from the small sample size I was witnessing that he had a few credits in the bank. 

Meanwhile, a line began to form behind me, headed by a white-haired, tightly-coated, tightly-lipped older woman. 

Who was out of both stamps and patience.

As the boy elucidated on his upcoming birthday and that one time he was late for football practice, the woman’s huffs under her breath were oddly comparable to the boy’s grunts under the box.

I made smiling ‘what-are-you-going-to-do?’ eye-contact with her a couple times to give her frustration a chance to froth over. 

She returned a couple huffy head shakes and an unsmiling eye roll. 

In these moments I like to remind myself that the exact same experience is experienced differently by the folks experiencing it. 

The reasons for a tightly-coated elder’s impatience can be just as valid as a Mom’s inexhaustible well. 

The post office can sure test both. 

Sandwiched in between — both me and time standing still — I saw life flash in front of me. 

And over my shoulder. 

Before me … a Mom doing her best to teach her boy how the world’s supposed to work, while protecting him from how it actually does with her one good arm.

Behind me …  the world’s grumpy restlessness to just get on with it.

“Thanks for your patience … Can I help the next person in line?”

I waited an extra second so I could watch the boy reach for his Mom’s hand as they left the counter.

What to the world looks like an eight-year-old’s obliviousness to time … the 55-year-old knows is, in fact, the keenest appreciation.

 

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Excursions

Dancing with Vonnegut ….

I’d just finished writing my last coffee shop letter of 2025 when I remembered we were out of envelopes at home. 

Opted for a surgical strike at Shop N’ Save, as I also needed shampoo (ran out a couple days ago) and ginger beer (just in case New Year’s Eve called for Moscow Mules). It’s right down the road from the coffee shop, saving me a trip to Wal-Mart or Target, which I try to avoid at all costs. 

The lot was pretty full with folks picking up New Year’s provisions. 

Walking in to the vestibule with the shopping carts, I saw the gentleman from the Salvation Army tucked in the corner keeping his kettle. Delighted me to see he had his banjo with him. I see him often when I visit, though not always with his banjo. He plays softly, not too fast. Sounds like folk music to me, possibly songs from his native country, but I’m not sure. He and his kettle used to sit inside the store where it’s warm, but awhile ago he told me they don’t like him playing inside, so when he brings his banjo he sets up shop in the vestibule … where it’s not warm. The majority of folks coming in and out pass right by him. 

The feeling I get seeing him with his banjo in the wintertime is the same one I get seeing lightning bugs in my back yard in the summertime.

Feels like a gift. 

Since I never know where to look for my stuff, I walked through the main body of the store, past the deli and the prepared foods counter. Caught a conversation just as someone said, “I’m playing at the President’s Pub Sunday … from 11 to two.” I turned to see a local musician I recognized, a jazz guitarist, talking to a person in a wheel chair.

I kept on walking for a couple seconds … before turning back around. 

Found the guitarist by the apples. 

“Excuse me,” I said. 

He looked up. 

“Did I hear you say you’re playing at the President’s Pub on Sunday?” 

Yeah, he said … confirming the time.  

“Oh, wow,” I replied. “I didn’t know they had jazz there anymore.” 

Yeah, he said. “They have music every Sunday. It’s not always jazz, though.”

It’s been years since I visited the President’s Pub on a Sunday morning. 

Remember going there the Sunday after my Dad’s funeral, listening to jazz and spilling a couple glorious tears into an Old Fashioned … and buying one for the pianist who took my request for Stardust. 

Not sure I’ve been back since.

I turned the corner past the bread just as two older ladies bumped into one another. They hadn’t seen each other in a while and fell into a big hug with their winter coats on. Asked each other if ‘everybody’ was all right and doing well. I didn’t have to know them to know how much they meant it.

As they wished each other Happy New Years, I went to walk around them, but an older guy with a shopping court was moving with purpose, so I paused to let him pass. 

“No, go ahead,” he said. 

He had right-of-way so I deferred. 

“No … please,” he insisted.

It was a small thing, but I got the sense he was looking for a place to put some New Year’s Eve kindness, so I accepted his invitation.

I didn’t even make it to the envelope aisle before I saw a different version of the scene I’d just witnessed — two other ladies who hadn’t seen each other in a while. They actually ‘whooped’ when they recognized each other. 

More winter coat hugs and Happy New Years. 

And behind me, I again heard the music of the older man who let me pass inviting another stranger to go in front of him. 

He and his cart were on a roll. 

And as I took the scenic route to find my envelopes, shampoo and ginger beer, I thought of Kurt Vonnegut. 

Who liked to tell the story of a time he went out for envelopes. 

How his wife thought him foolish. 

“Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man,” Vonnegut said in a version of the story he told to PBS. 

“You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

“I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And ask a woman what kind of dog that is.

“And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”

After going through the self-check out, I did a quick inventory of the treasure I collected during my surgical strike …  

… a serenade from a kettle keeper who would rather be cold … as long as it meant he could keep his fingers dancing … 

… an older person out shopping for someplace to put his kindness … 

… the joy of New Year’s Eve winter coat hugs between old acquaintances.

The Shop N’ Save’s usually good for reminding me of things I forget I need. 

Though I didn’t see any babies, I had a helluva good time buying the envelope for my letter to my daughter.

On my way out I made sure to say thank you to the kettle keeper for playing me back out into the cold. 

And as I tried to remember where I parked my car in the crowded lot, I was already thinking of Sunday … 

… and whether the guitarist shopping for apples might know Stardust. 

 

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Excursions

The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 7: Fahrenheit 451

Joe Mugnaini’s brilliant cover for the first edition of Ray Bradbury’s incendiary novel. 

The book holds a special place in my heart for a couple reasons, on top of its timeless cautionary tale.

My daughter and I read it aloud together across many Saturday coffee-shop mornings when she was a young teenager, which was my first re-read of it in a good 20 years or so. What a wonderful way to be reacquainted. 

And during our re-reading, I was profoundly moved by a passage late in the book when Montag, on the run, encounters a group of kindred spirits living in the woods on the outskirts of town. And around a campfire, he remembers his grandfather. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to this passage since.

Its still glowing embers warm me as much as the campfire that coaxed the words from Bradbury’s typewriter.

It’s not only been medicine to my heart, but I’ve shared Bradbury’s beautiful words with friends and kindred spirits seeking warmth in the darkness of their own loss.

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the (person) who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” 

Always makes me think of the gardeners I’ve known in my life.

Reminds me to keep planting.

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The 12 Days of T-Shirts / Day 3: As You Wish

In the slim chance you are unfamiliar with the reference, watch Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride, or — even better (trust me) — go read William Goldman’s novel on which the movie’s based.  

“As you wish was all he ever said to her. 

“That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying, ‘As you wish,’ what he meant was, ‘I love you.’”

The perfect choice for weekend chore work in service of one’s Buttercup.

I find that wearing this liberates me from having to say much, which thereby lessens my odds of saying something dumb, and/or something that will get on Buttercup’s nerves. 

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Recipes ….

Left the house yesterday morning to meet my sister for coffee. 

There are few more lovely reasons to leave the house on a Saturday morning. 

Figured I’d swing by the post office first to pick up some stamps.

Planned to write my daughter her weekly postcard after having coffee with my big sister. 

No line when I got inside. 

Saw Maria standing behind the counter … which made me smile. 

Maria’s worked at the post office for 28 years, if I remember correctly. 

She told me last time I picked up a lasagna from her. 

Not at the post office.

At her tender restaurant A la Maria’s, on LeMoyne, where she spends her weekday evenings … lovingly making her Mom’s old Italian recipes.

Maria’s place holds a special place in my heart. 

When Karry and I got married and moved into the World’s Tiniest Apartment in East Washington, Maria’s mother ran a restaurant out of the basement of her home a couple blocks from us. 

In our early Kraft-Mac-and-Cheese-Can-of-Peas-for-Dinner days, Paesano’s was our one monthly splurge. 

Saturday night.

If the weather was nice we’d walk. 

It was BYOB so we made a ritual of picking up a $10 bottle of wine.

Made sure we were in our seats by 7 o’clock, so we could watch X-Files re-runs on the big TV that hung in the dining area …

… while slow savoring food made with love from an Italian mother’s kitchen.  

We’d take our time walking our full bellies back home — the next day’s leftover lunch in my left hand, Karry’s hand in my right. 

Everything my Saturday night could ever want back then. 

Maria’s lasagna is perfection. 

Architectural is the best way to describe it. 

Sharp corners. Rectilinear. Towering. 

Don’t know how she does it.

Every lasagna we’ve ever made at home comes out of the pan (deliciously) gloopy.

Maria’s could serve as a tornado shelter. 

Comes with about a 1/2 inch of standing red sauce pooling in the bottom of the to go container. 

Every time I get home and crack open the styrofoam box, Pavarotti sings ‘La donna è mobile’ in my head.

Comes with two thin slices of Italian bread, essential sponges for sopping up every last drop from the plate when you’ve sadly run out of lasagna.

When I put my sopped-clean-post-lasagna plate in the dish washer, the other dishes are like, “I think you meant to put this back in the cabinet.” 

So it should come as no surprise how it made me smile to see Maria behind the counter at the post office yesterday morning.

“Miss Maria,” I greeted.

“Mr. Riddell.”

“Postcard stamps?” I asked. 

“Cleaned out. Election folks bought ‘em all up.”

“Awwww. Really?”

Asked her when they might get more in. She said they’re on order, from Kansas.

“They send them regular mail … so, who knows?”

Coming from a post office person, the “Who knows?” struck me as funny. 

She said I could try the McMurray store. They have everything there. 

I thanked her for letting me know, and exhaled defeatedly, as I didn’t have the time nor inclination for a special trip. 

Was just about to say out loud that my visit wasn’t in vain, though, since I got to see her …  

… when Maria interjected. 

“Otherwise, you’d have to go two busses and some grapes.”

“Uh …. I’m sorry, what?”

“To make up the 61 cents,” she said.

Pre-caffeinated, I wasn’t following at all. 

She pulls out her drawer, takes out a couple packs of stamps. 

Starts to do math. 

Explains the busses are 28 cents … 

“So two of those …. plus a five cent stamp,” she says, holding up a pack of grape stamps. 

“So you’d need a lot of stamps,” she chuckled.

“Wait …,” I said. “Postcard stamps are 61 cents?”

“Yep. Regular stamps are 78 cents, post cards are 61.”

I had no idea. 

In my mind I thought postcard stamps were like 19 cents.

Sixty-one cents …  for such little real estate.  

I felt dumb … for having hundreds of post cards at home. 

She started to put the booklets back in her drawer, when I interjected. 

“I’ll take the busses and grapes,” I said. 

“Oh, you want to do that?” she asked.

“Just to get me through today,” I said. 

What I meant was that I’d just take a booklet of each as an interim solution. 

“Oh, so you just want enough for one?” she asked.  

I didn’t think you could do that.

I smiled at the smile on her face as I watched her tearing off a postcard’s worth of individual stamps from their booklets. 

“I guess I’m going to have to write smaller,” I said out loud. 

She broke apart the three I needed, laid them loose on the counter. 

Then an idea popped into her head.

“Here’s what you do ….” 

I watched her pick up a bus, peel it off, and carefully lay it across the other bus. 

Wasn’t sure what she was doing … maybe just consolidating onto one piece rather than sending me out with three loose stamps? 

Then she peeled the grape and surgically laid it across the second bus. 

“There …. That’s what you do,” she said. 

Proudly. 

“Leaves you more room to write,” she said. 

Oh. 

“So you can lay them across each other like that on the post card?” I asked. 

“Yep,” she said. “Only the ‘USA’ needs to be showing.” 

And I giggled out loud …  like a five-year-old who’d just seen an adult perform magic.

You should see what she does with a lasagna, I’m tellin’ ya. 

In the town where I live, there’s a person who will not only let a clueless, pre-caffeinated little brother cobble together a postcard’s worth of stamps … but will take the time to bunch ‘em as tight as the law allows … so he has as much room as possible to write to his daughter about how much he misses her.

__

And after just the loveliest visit with my big sister …

… I took out my favorite pen …

… and the postcard I’d plucked special from my massive, impractical inventory …

… took my time writing small and neat …

… doing my best to make every word count …

… with all the reverence I could muster …

… as I imagined a mother might …

… writing down her favorite recipes for posterity.

Everything my Saturday morning could ever want.  

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Postcards

It’s still good ….

Sunday morning I’m downstairs at my desk when my wife pulls in the driveway, back from picking up groceries after church. 

She likes going to the early service. 

I stay behind and write. 

Both reverent in our pews, attentive to the divine.

Hearing the garage door, I walk out to help her carry in. 

Find her sitting in her car, windows up. 

“You on the phone?” I mouth, making a telephone gesture with my left hand. 

She rolls down the passenger window. 

“I wish you could see your Dad right now,” she says. “His boxers are sticking out above his pajama bottoms.”

She has our daughter on speaker. 

“ ‘Thank you for helping carry in the groceries,’  is what she means to say,” I interject, loud enough for the bluetooth to pick up.  

“And his t-shirt’s too small. Belly’s sticking out.” 

I’m provoked into issuing a statement.  

“I will not be shamed for operating in Cozy Mode on a Sunday morning,” I enter into the record. 

“It’s almost noon,” my daughter chimes in on speaker.

I almost miss being a target of their pile-ons. 

“And, let it be known that Cozy Mode may remain in effect for the next several hours,” I add, which is simultaneously the most defiant threat I can think of, and quite possibly the most pathetic utterance of my life. 

“He looks ridiculous,” my wife adds, grossly overstating the obvious.

Or, overstating the gross obvious.  

“OK, I’ll go in and change, and you can carry in the groceries,” I fire back. 

Was pretty proud of that one. I’m usually not that quick. 

“And I’ll take back the salami I picked up for you.”

She is always that quick. 

Caught me flat-footed. I didn’t see the salami coming. 

Night before, she’s putting finishing touches on the grocery order. Asks if there’s anything I want to add. 

I think for a couple seconds.  “Ooh … do we have any ….”

“Don’t even say ‘salami,’”

In legal terms I believe her asking me the question is what’s known as ‘entrapment,’ but I digress. 

I braced a second too late for what I knew was coming next. 

“I’ve thrown out the last three bags you asked me to get.”

This is true. Not sure I even opened ‘em. 

“I’m not getting it again to have to throw it away.”

Totally understand. So wasteful. 

I feel remorse for requesting salami that I habitually ignore.

I’m not sure why I do this. 

I genuinely like salami. I mean, in between two slices of bread with some yellow mustard? Perfection. Makes salads instantly, you know, fancy. Rolled up with a slice of provolone … it’s like Cozy Mode on a plate.

I have it in my head that salami keeps for a long time. Takes weeks to cure, doesn’t it? You always see ‘em hanging from wooden ceilings on TV. 

So I feel no sense of urgency with salami. Assume it’s always going to be there.

I’m surprised when she throws it away. 

Every time she does, part of me thinks, “It’s still good.” 

I realize I may not be in full command of the facts on the topic.   

Maybe I should start treating it like an avocado. 

Clock’s always tickin’ on an avocado. Doesn’t give you a chance to take it for granted. 

Or … maybe I just like the idea of salami more than, you know, consuming it.

Regardless, the way she kiboshed my request before I could even make it the night before left me convinced I’d have a lot of time to ponder the mystery while living out the rest of my salami-free days.

A punishment fitting the crime.

But … she added it to the order. 

Awwwww.

“She still loves me,” I thought.

At least enough to give me another chance.

I may or may not have placed my hand over my heart after she said it. 

Or, you know, over my t-shirt that’s at least one size too small. 

I mean, she got me salami. 

I’ve come to appreciate that such tiny graces are the wobbly cobblestones that give a marriage a chance to find its fragile footing.

“It’s still good,” I thought.

The fact that I only became aware of her kind gesture when she threatened to take it back was not lost on me.

Clock’s always tickin’ on an avocado. 

“We are such an old married couple,” I said, loud enough for the Bluetooth to hear.

For the record, I was praising us, not shaming us.

Love looks different at 54 then it did at 24.

Says the guy whose boxer shorts are peeking out over his drooping pajamas past noon on a Sunday.

Sometimes you have to put on your cheaters to notice how beautiful it still is. 

I went around back to grab the grocery bags.

Still attentive to the divine.

 

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Excursions

Sit, stay ….

Went for a walk over lunch the other day in the industrial park near our office. 

Note to self — take more walks over lunch. 

Figured I’d go 15 minutes out and double-back. 

I followed the concrete sidewalk as far as the giant fenced cell tower behind one of the Mitsubishi buildings. 

In the 20 years I’ve worked here, I’ve never gone farther than the big tower.

Was about to turn around … just as a person happened to be coming the other way, earbuds in.

“Excuse me,” I said. 

Asked him where the rest of the trail goes.

“If you keep going straight through the woods, it comes to a park.”

Said he believed there might be a left and a right, too, but he’d never done those. 

His response made me curious enough to break my routine and keep going.

Two minutes later I found myself under a fairy-tale-worthy canopy of trees … when I happened upon this.

 

The plastic bag’s what got me to stop. 

And smile autonomically. 

I can’t remember if I actually said, “Awww,” or … just felt it.

My heart immediately filled thinking of the tender deliberateness of whoever thought to take the photo.

And get it printed so small … at the perfect size to invite a closer look.

Then framed. 

And come back … to give the world passing by … a reason to stop … and autonomically smile.

I wondered at what point the thoughtfulness occurred to put it in a plastic bag … to give it a chance against the elements.

Wondered if they brought the pup when they placed it.

Wondered if they said anything.

I wondered if they knew how much it might mean to a stranger out for a walk over lunch … to be reminded that such gentle souls exist in this world. 

I just stood there for a few minutes … and danced with a million questions I will never know the answer to.

If the photographer knew Kyle. 

Family maybe? 

Kyle’s dog? 

They go for walks here? 

Or maybe it was a stranger who just noticed the bench and thought Kyle’s memory might want some company.

Considering the possibility that there might be such people in the world was enough for me.

Faith, hope and love … all wrapped up in a tiny plastic bag left loose on a bench.  

I wished on the spot for it to remain there forever. 

Though I knew it was just as likely that it might be gone by my next walk.

I’ll let you know.

Just in case … I wanted to wrap it all up … to protect it from the elements … and leave it here for you to stumble upon and smile … and wonder while the world passes.

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