How My Mind Works

It’s probably just me. I’m probably the only one who sees it, the only one who can’t stop seeing it. This is the way my mind works. 

This is my view every Sunday morning at Hope Church down in the Lodge. I sit in the same seat every Sunday. No matter what is happening around me I see this dorky little guy—looking at me with that Cheshire Cat grin.

This past Sunday we had the Lord’s Supper. Didn’t matter. There he was, punking me with that smile. If anyone in the know at Hope happens upon this blog would you please tell me what this is and why it is up there? If it’s possible, would it kill you guys to put some tape over that face?

Now, I know what you’re thinking. I should not be so easily distracted. I should be paying better attention to the sermon and the music etc etc…True. But, I’m telling you—that little guy knows stuff!!

Counting the Days

Pam and I finally had our anniversary dinner last night at Perry’s steakhouse. It was our first time dining there but will not be our last. Every single thing was gloriously delicious, from the pork chop bites appetizer to the bananas foster dessert. Perfection. Our server was highly skilled and adorable. The atmosphere of the place was elegant and soothing. The bill was nuts, but this is 2025.

One thing both of us noticed was a bit annoying but not at all surprising anymore. Several men, even older ones who should know better, came to Perry’s Steakhouse dressed in t-shirts, wearing baseball caps—inside. Look, if this were Joey’s Hotdogs that kind of outfit would be fine. But what goes through someone’s head to walk into a first class fine dining establishment sporting a John Deere hat? This is the equivalent of showing up at a funeral wearing flip flops, Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. I am not longing for the days when men wore wool suits to baseball games in July. I realize that with changing times comes changing fashion and for the most part I’m ok with that. I’m glad that people don’t feel they have to wear a three piece suit every time they go to church or the office. But wearing the same clothes you would cut the grass in to a classy restaurant seems lazy and low class to this observer.

—Old Guy Rant Over

As the days on the calendar melt away one by one, I find my thoughts becoming more and more dominated by the pending arrival of my first grandson. He is due in eleven days. Kaitlin sent us pictures of the finished and waiting nursery last night. I actually felt a lump in my throat as I watched the guided tour video she sent. I tried to imagine her sitting in the rocking chair reading a book to him. I pictured him standing up in his crib holding on to the rail. I thought of what it is going to feel like when I hold him for the first time. I have been waiting for these moments for many years. Pam and I talked about it last night at dinner. What was it like when she went into labor with Kaitlin and Patrick? The odd thing was that she couldn’t really remember much about either experience. I remembered even less. All I really remember about it all was how profoundly it changed my life, how my entire life is divided into before I became a father and after I became a father. Maybe it will happen again. All things that happened before I became a grandfather will fade. My new role as Pops will provide me with the juice I need to finish my life well.

Katlin and Jon, like Patrick and Sarah after them, will have it a lot harder than we did, bringing new life into the world. The world is more expensive, more fast paced, less dependable. They will have the added struggle of managing social media and other technologies at odds with raising healthy, well adjusted children. But they will have one advantage that we also had, maybe the best advantage of them all—loving, supportive and devoted grandparents.

FINALLY!!!

Ok…finally, after 3 months of frustration, confusion and much disruption, our kitchen is done. There are still a few things left to clean up and Pam will paint the bare spots over the next few weeks but for the most part, the thing is done.

BEFORE…

AFTER…

This was all Pam. Every decision, every idea, every hard choice was made by her. She would show me something and I would say, “Looks great, Hon.”…and I meant it. Everything looked great compared to what it looked like before. But it would have taken me ten minutes to pick out a backsplash, even less time to pick out door handles. But Pam operates differently than I do. She’s a grinder, a planner, a girl with the mind of an engineer. She agonized over each choice, laid everything out on spreadsheets, drew up lists of pros and cons. But, because she did, it turned out perfectly. 

On the down side…it will now take me at least three months to learn where everything belongs. Probably added fifteen minutes to my job of emptying the dishwasher in the morning, “Sweetie? Where does the carrot-peeler go again?”

Chapter Three of John Doe

The Yankees won game one 2-1, walking it off in the bottom of the 9th on a single by Bill Dickey. John listened to the game on the radio in the parlor with a few other men. The entire game a took a little over an hour and a half, which seemed awfully fast to John for some reason. John had no memory of what the score of the game would be, only that he was certain that the Yankees would win. After the game he took a shower and removed a pair of pants and a clean shirt out of his dresser. Then he started walking back to the hospital. He wanted to be there when Carol arrived for her night shift to thank her for the bread. He remembered that she arrived every evening by 6 o’clock so he made sure he was sitting at one of the benches in front of the hospital by 5:30. He saw her step off the bus at the corner. She was exactly how he remembered her, stiffly starched uniform, her hair stuffed securely underneath her cap. She walked briskly, not looking up from the pavement as she drew near to him. He stuck out his hand and touched her arm—Hello, Carol.

It had startled her and when she looked up at him she looked momentarily frightened, but then she recognized his face and smiled.

Oh John, you scared me for a second! Its so good to see you. Why are you here? Are you not well?

No, no. I’m fine. I just wanted to thank you for the basket you left for me. I had no way to contact you so I took a chance that I would see you here.

Carol glanced down at her watch and then back at John. I’m so glad you liked the bread. I made it myself. She reached out and took his hand in hers. There’s so much I would love to talk with you about…if you’ve found work? how you like the boarding house? have you remembered anything?…but I’ve got to check in in just a minute.

Then she quickly dug through her purse and pulled out a small notepad and a pencil, scribbled something on it and handed it to John as she started to step away from him and towards the revolving door of the hospital. That’s my home address. I live there with my mother. I have this Saturday off. Why don’t you come by for lunch so we can catch up? As she was about to enter the revolving door she shouted back to him…I hope to see you around noon! Then she was gone.

The next day The Yankees won game two 4-0 when Monte Pearson threw a complete game 2 hit shutout. The game was even shorter than the first one, lasting less than 90 minutes. John was amazed at how fast the games were. Again, the outcome was never in doubt in John’s mind although the only player’s name that rung a bell was Joe DiMaggio. The first time he heard the announcer say his name it felt like a small electric charge flickered across his brain. The name sounded beautiful and familiar but John wasn’t sure why. 

The next day was Friday and Oscar was in a particularly good mood around the breakfast table due to the fact that it was the day of the month that his disability check from The Army came in the mail. Oscar made the announcement with great enthusiasm. John had wondered how Oscar managed without a job, although he was sure that everyone else wondered the same thing about him. John’s curiosity got the best of him…I’m sorry Oscar, but how did you get disabled?”

Everyone at the table looked up from their plates at John, then shifted their eyes towards Oscar. The room was suddenly as silent as a tomb.

Oscar’s face which had been alive with excitement had gone dark…I was in France during the war…Argonne. They been sending me my disabled pension every month since. Least they could do.

John felt bad for asking. He hadn’t noticed a disability, no missing fingers, not even a limp. Maybe he had been shot. Suddenly, John hoped that Oscar would drop the subject.

Got hit a couple of times and gassed once. But they gave me the disability on the count of my nerves was shot. ‘Shell shock’, they call it.

John didn’t respond. Wishing the conversation would die out from neglect.

You look too young to have been in that fight there John. How old are you anyway?

John reminded himself then and there to never start another conversation until his memory returned. There was no telling where they might lead and what awkward moments might arise. He had been asked a question which he didn’t know the answer to but had no desire to admit such a thing to this group of men, or anyone else. No where near as old as you Oscar, he answered with a false smile as he took his plate over to the sink. He was able to slip out of the kitchen and down the steps to his room without any further inquiries, but when he shut the door behind him he sat down at the small desk and found the note that had come with Carol’s bread basket. he flipped the card over on its blank side and wrote—World War I, battle of Argonne Forrest…Joe DiMaggio…Yankees sweep the Reds 1939 World Series…Hitler invades Poland, World War II begins…lunch with Carol tomorrow.

He spent Friday walking all over Charlottesville. He felt stronger and the sun was bright in the sky. The Indian summer heat wave had broken and there was a whiff of autumn in the breeze. Walking through the town aimlessly hadn’t been his plan for the day but each street beckoned him further along. There was no game today. What else was he going to do, he reasoned. The thought occurred to him that perhaps he would happen upon a place or person that was familiar. But everything seemed brand new, like touring another country where you didn’t know the language.

Eventually he turned a corner and found an impressive building, with ornate columns two stories high along the front. Above the ironworks door were the words, “Jefferson  Madison Regional Library”. John felt it again, the momentary jolt of recognition, an electric charge through his mind—Thomas Jefferson…James Madison…he whispered to himself, then took the card out of his pocket and jotted their names down.

He saw a lamppost with a large clock where the light should have been. It was 3:00. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He stopped at the first bar he came to, a respectful place with table cloths on every table, although they all looked dirty. The place was half full of people eating sandwiches and drinking beer out of plain clear glasses. He found a seat at the bar, ordered a bowl of tomato soup, a ham sandwich and what looked to be the only beer the place had on draft, one that was unknown to him…Baltz. The soup was decent, hot and flavorful. The sandwich was alright although the bread tasted stale, and the beer was dreadful, a thin pale yellow brew that tasted like flavored water. It made him wonder why he had ordered it in the first place. Did he like beer…from before? For John, everything about life had been divided between the baffling now and the unknown before. It was exhausting, but each small memory, so far limited to history and baseball, had energized him, filling him with hope that it would soon be over, that he would someday soon be made whole. But as he wandered his way back to the boarding house he wondered about how they had found him, alone, naked, bruised and battered. The thought of revisiting that reality sent a shiver through him. Maybe he didn’t want to remember and that’s why he couldn’t. The mind has reasons for keeping secrets. But every night when sleep came, so did the vivid scenes from the old house, clear and precise, like a play without a plot, each scene suggestive of nothing.

When he woke up on Saturday he took his second and final allowed shower of the week. The water was lukewarm and the bar of soap he used was scratchy but it felt glorious to be clean again. It was one of the few pleasures of this new life. He had not yet come to grips with just how bad the men of the boarding house smelled, not just them but almost everyone he encountered, except the nurses at the hospital who all smelled like disinfectant. As he thought more about it he realized that his new world was filled with odd smells, the outdoor rancid rainy odor of wool clothes, the strident smell of gasoline and burning oil from the cars as they passed by, the creeping, hovering stench of mothballs. he took a final look at himself in the mirror, recognizing nothing, then started the long walk to Carol’s house.

The closer he got to the place the nicer the houses looked. The lawns were bigger and better kept, the cars parked on the street were less bedraggled, shinier. He finally reached the address Carol had scribbled on the card and was astonished at the place, a stately Victorian house with two curved gazebos at both ends of the front porch that ran the entire width of the house, ornately carved gingerbread trim sprinkled everywhere, freshly painted and enchanting. He rechecked the address. It wasn’t at all what he expected. As he was walking up the steps Carol appeared at the door. It was the first time he had seen her out of her nurse’s uniform. She had long brown hair and seemed shorter somehow, but her face and eyes were the same, kind and welcoming.

I’m so glad you came! And right on time. Come on in, lunch is almost ready.

The inside of the house looked exactly the way John had thought it should…polished furniture, artistic paintings of sweeping landscaped on the wall, and sparkling clean. John walked hesitantly, looking for signs of the mother and feeling out of place. Carol led him into the kitchen where a table for two had been set next to an oversized fireplace. Have a seat, John. Can’t wait to hear how things are going with you. She sat across from him at the table. Hope you like manicotti. Its in the oven now. It will be a while before its ready. 

John wanted to speak, he needed to thank her for her kindness and for the gracious invitation, but was strangely unable to find the words. He just sat there growing more embarrassed with each passing moment. What the hell was wrong with him, he thought. Carol’s intuition came to the rescue of the awkward moment. She leaned in and said, Its alright, John. Everything is going to be ok.

How do you know? Everything is not ok and hasn’t been ok for weeks now. Do you know something that I don’t?

Carol smiled knowingly, No, but I have faith.

In what?

In you…and in the amazing regenerative capabilities of the human body. I’ve been a nurse for eleven years now and I’ve seen some horrible things as well as my share of miraculous things. I have complete faith that you’re going to get your memory back.

It was probably the hundredth time she had told him that everything was going to be ok. It was her most common refrain in the hospital. She probably said it to every patient she had ever had. It most likely had become second nature, one of the soft and dependable lies that nurses tell even the most hopeless cases in their charge. Consequently, it meant nothing. John knew it and thought that most likely Carol knew it too. But what else would a good nurse say? Sorry, this will probably kill you. I give you three weeks, four weeks tops.

Carol took the manicotti out of the oven, served it up on two blue plates and sat a basket of bread between them in the center of the table.

I guess you made this bread too?

Yep. This is my mother’s old recipe. Then she picked the entire loaf up and split it in two, placing one half on her plate and the other on John’s. Then she poured some oil out of a green bottle on two small bowls next to each plate. She dipped a piece of her bread in the oil and dabbed it for a while, showing John the way forward without words. John took a bite and was overwhelmed by the comfort of it all. 

Where is your mother? He asked while taking his first bite of the manicotti.

She’s resting now. I take care of her. A nurse comes in while I’m at work but I’m with her every night and on the weekends. She has problems with her memory too. Several years ago she started forgetting things and now she no longer even knows who I am. The doctor’s call it dementia. Dad passed years ago so she just has me now.

They sat quietly eating for a few minutes. Then Carol asked, so how are things with you?

John wanted more than anything at that moment to tell her a comforting story, his equivalent of “everything is going to be ok,” but what came out was—Carol, I’m not from here.

Carol lifted her napkin to her mouth and returned it, perfectly folded, beside her plate. How can you be sure? If you haven’t recovered your memory naturally none of Charlottesville would seem familiar. I would think that considering where you were found its more likely than not that you are from this general area at least.

John took a sip of his wine then attempted to clarify—No, that’s not what I meant. I don’t believe that I’m from…this time. 

Carol’s smile faded slightly as she stared at him across the table…I’m not sure I understand.

Can’t say that I do either, honestly. But…I know things that I shouldn’t know.

What kind of things? Carol folded her hands together and placed them under her chin.

John hesitated, questioning whether he should be honest. There was a risk that he might repel the only person he knew that could be considered a friend with such a tale. But he felt the powerful desperation of loneliness, of having no one to share his doubts with, no one with whom to commiserate. He decided to take the chance.

Do you remember the day at the hospital when I asked you what year it was? The next morning I asked the nurse to bring me a newspaper, but I already knew what the headline would be. I knew that on September the 1st of 1939–Hitler would have invaded Poland, knew it with absolutely no doubt or hesitation.

Maybe it was your mind playing tricks on you. Maybe you heard us talking about it during the night. It was all anyone was talking about that night.

That’s not the only thing, Carol. I was in the parlor last week and heard the announcer talking about the upcoming World Series between the Yankees and the Reds. Somehow…I knew in that very instant, without the shadow of a doubt that the Yankees would sweep the Reds in 4 games. I was so confident I had one of the men there set me up with a bookie and I placed a 25 dollar bet. They are already up 2 games to none. Game three starts in a few minutes. The Yankees will win that one too. I even knew one of the player’s name…Joe DiMaggio. 

Well, he’s a very popular player. Carol’s smile was gone and her eyes narrowed with concern.

The scariest part of all this is that I know other things too…things that won’t happen for quite a while.

Like what?

John finished the manicotti, wiped his mouth with the cloth napkins and laid it in a rumpled heap on the table.

If I tell you I’m sure you’re going to think I’m crazy and I wouldn’t blame you if you did, and if you want me to leave I will understand and I will and will never bother you again. 

Carol looked on in silence, her chin still balanced on her folded hands.

John looked up from his plate, straight into her eyes. In a couple years, on December 7th, 1941 to be precise, the Japanese are going to attack one of our naval bases at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. Over 3000 men will be killed and a few days later we will declare war on Japan and Germany. We will then be in the middle of World War II.

John…What are you saying? I can’t believe this. How do you?…I mean…how um…

I don’t know, Carol. All I know is that I am sure of it. Absolutely sure. But there’s some good news…

What good news? Carol had tears in her eyes.

The good news is that…we win.

After lunch they moved out on the front porch and listened to the game on the radio in silence. The Yankees won to go up 3-0. Carol was still trying to come to grips with John’s story, turning the impossible over and over in her mind as a cool autumn breeze drifted by. She was not ready to concede that any of it was true. She considered herself a person of science, despite the many miraculous healings she had witnessed as a nurse, in which she saw no contradiction since the miraculous were just those things that science had not yet stumbled upon. John’s story was a combination of the real trauma he had suffered and his lost memories, his mind a minefield of confusion and mystery. Predicting a sweep by the Yankees wasn’t necessarily evidence of clairvoyance, they were the three time defending champions, after all. As far as the future attack by the Japanese, she had no mitigating excuse for a prediction so specific and astonishing. But as she sat with him listening to the game she was overcome with empathy for the man. His eyes were the eyes of a lost soul, wandering in a strange land, with nothing firm to hold on to, no substantial memory to cling to except the worthless, placeless house across the street from a church. She felt drawn to him, as if he were somehow her responsibility, that she had been called by God to look after him. Despite her high regard for science, Carol still believed in God. She had found that she could not contemplate the beginning of all things without the notion of a universal power as its catalyst. But her belief in God didn’t extend to any of the earthly institutions which claimed to represent him. Her’s was a belief free of doctrine or restraints which over the years made faith both easier and far more difficult. It was easier to find God in a mountain meadow than it was inside a moldy old building. It was easier to believe in God without the doctrines of religion and the demands they made on her. But it was also harder to cling to any belief without any defining characteristics, just her own personal fancies that were subject to every fowl mood and ill wind that came along. But she felt the weight of his presence on this brisk fall afternoon and the certainty of her job…to look after and care for this strange man.

I think its safe to say that you were a big baseball fan…before. That’s a start, right?

I suppose so, John answered. I was at a park a while ago and I saw a kid playing catch with his dad and I felt a little spark. There was something soothing about it. Maybe it was something I loved from before. It would explain this business with the Yankees sweeping the Reds.

So, if they do…how much will you win? Carol managed a relaxed smile.

A hundred bucks.

Carol’s eyes brightened, the surprise lighting up her face. Are you kidding? Well, how much will you lose if the Reds win a game?

Twenty-five bucks.

Oh my…I hope your instincts are right. I don’t like gambling, John.

This isn’t gambling. Its stealing. This has nothing to do with “instincts”. This is a fact of history.

I hear you. I do. But, I don’t have your confidence…and to be honest, I’m not sure I believe you.

I understand, and I’m not really asking you to believe me. I just needed to tell somebody, I needed to speak the thing out loud and you were the only one I know…and trust.

You hardly know me. How do you know I can be trusted?

I hardly know you? Compared to what? Actually I know you better than anyone else in the world at this moment in time. How do I know I can trust you? I don’t. I can’t be sure of anything…but there’s something in your eyes that tells me that you are a good person. Even if you're not, I guess I’m desperate for a little hope and it feels worth the risk to believe the best about you. You’re the one taking the risk here, inviting me over to your house like this. If I get my memory back there’s a possibility that we both might discover that I’m a terrible person, and judging from the condition I was in when they found me I’m starting to think that might be the case.

How bad can any man be who plays the piano like you do?

John looked away, having nothing to say about the mysterious experience in the hospital chapel. Nothing he had experienced since the moment he woke up compared to the out of body sensation at the piano. The minute he saw the sad little spinet under the window he was drawn to it by some unseen force. With each step his heart seemed to slow its beating. His body felt a release, an unwinding of the tension that had taken such a fierce grip on his body. When he placed his hands on the keys he felt a brief chill, then a rush of blood flowing to his fingertips. The music that had poured out of the instrument was familiar to him, he knew the melody, he could feel old knowledge guiding his touch. He realized that his eyes were closed and his mind free of darkness. When it was over the tension returned with a vengeance, the mystery of his past even murkier. Who the hell was he and what had just happened? He suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to escape the chapel and the beguiling instrument and to never think of it again.

Carol saw his hesitation and quickly dropped the subject, replacing it with something of a diagnosis—I think that if you want to recover your memory you need to start with the things you know to be true, you are a baseball fan, you seem knowledgeable about history, and somewhere down the line you learned how to play the piano. Lean into those three things.

Ok, Doc..

John smiled at her for the first time, the shadow of a smile, Carol thought, but a smile nonetheless.

Well, Mother will be awake soon, so I better get to it.

John had lost track of time and began apologizing for overstaying no his welcome.

Nonsense! Carol smiled. I’m so glad you came.

Maybe next time I’ll buy you lunch somewhere. I mean, after game four I’ll be loaded.

That would be nice, John.

Carol watched him walk down the front steps then disappear around the corner. She closed the front door behind her and closed her eyes, collecting herself, gathering a basket full of disparate emotions. Instead of going upstairs to check on Mother, she paused at the parlor. The baby grand was alone in the corner. She walked over, sat down, closed her eyes and began playing the first haunting notes of Chopin’s Nocturne #2.