14 Days and Counting

I’m in a holding pattern. The official countdown is 14 days. That’s when I will get to see both of my children again, under the same roof, at the same time, granted, that “roof’ will be a Holiday Inn Express near Winston-Salem, NC, but beggars can’t be choosers! Kaitlin will be receiving her Masters Degree in English Literature from Wake Forest University, and we are flying Patrick down for the event.

We have reached the season in life where we can count on one hand the number of times we are all together as a family, which is natural I suppose since for 20 years we could count on one hand the number of times that we weren’t all together! We see Kaitlin much more than Patrick, and now that she has a job teaching English in Henrico County starting in August that discrepancy will grow even larger. Even though this bothers me…a lot, it falls into the ever expanding category of things about which I can do nothing. I can’t imagine many scenarios which will bring Patrick back to Richmond upon completion of his Masters studies at Westminster, so I will have to get used to these infrequent family reunions. Actually I consider myself fortunate that I will have Kaitlin so close. Many parents can't even say that.

I look at the calendar and see Thanksgiving, Christmas, perhaps Easter, and summer vacation as the four opportunities for family togetherness in the years ahead. Of course there will be many other trips to see one or the other of them, especially once they marry and especially once grandchildren arrive. But for now, it’s those four. This is not a bad thing, something to lament and complain about. It means that my children are getting on with life, becoming functioning adults, fully participatory citizens. It also means they haven’t become unemployed, aimless wastrels living rent free in their old bedrooms, good thing since Patrick’s old bedroom is now a movie room. Sorry Bud.

What this all means is that we will have to make the most of our opportunities. Two weeks from today will be a fabulous day. We will celebrate Kaitlin’s accomplishments; we will go to see the Great Gatsby, we will eat an expensive dinner somewhere, then sit around drinking coffee and having fun.

Can’t wait!  

More War Stories From Dad

Last night we took dinner over to Dad. After the dishes had been put away, we sat down in the den with him to visit for awhile. Out of nowhere he started talking about his time in the Navy during WWII. For the first time, he told the story of how he came home. It was fascinating stuff and illustrates just how small our world has become.

Dad had been sent with four others from the New Hebrides Islands to another base a thousand miles away for purposes that were unclear. When the job was done, he and his mates hitched a ride on a merchant marine tanker for the thousand mile trip back to the New Hebrides Island base that was his home. The voyage took 5 days, and by the time he finally made it back, he was informed that he had missed the troop ship that was supposed to take him back to the states, and another one wouldn’t be available for three weeks! The duty officer gave him a jeep to drive and told him that he would be duty free until his ship arrived. Two and a half years since leaving home, 8,000 miles from family, 110 degrees in the shade, and nothing to do for three weeks!

Finally, his ship arrived and he made the voyage from the South Pacific to San Francisco. Once there, he boarded a troop train that meandered across the country to Little Creek, Virginia near Newport News. There he was debriefed, and checked for diseases, then discharged. He boarded a bus that delivered him to Farmville, then a taxi that drove him the last 17 miles to the home he hadn’t seen in 2 and a half years. The first person to see him was my Grandmother, who burst into tears at the sight of her boy and said, “God has brought you back to me!” Then my Aunt Emma, who had become a beautiful 13 year old teenager while Dad was away, ran up to hug him. Quite a scene.

I cannot imagine as a parent, sending my child off half way around the world into harm’s way for 2 and a half years, knowing that I would never see them or hear their voice the entire time they were away. When Kaitlin spent 12 weeks in China a couple of years ago, we would have skype dates where we could look at her and catch up as if she was in the room. Despite those virtual visits, it was nerve-wracking to be so far from my only daughter. I can’t imagine how much worse the sense of isolation and helplessness would be if she had been at war and I had no communication with her. The technological advancements we take for granted have indeed made our world a much smaller, less foreboding place. My Grandmother wouldn’t recognize this world. It makes me wonder what’s in store for my unborn grandchildren.

My New Machine

Any motivational speaker worth his salt will tell you that your attitude determines your altitude, or something like that. In other words, how you choose to think about something goes a long way towards determining how you feel about it. Is the glass half empty or half full? Is that a light at the end of the tunnel or a train? Does that envelope you just got in the mail from the IRS contain a refund check or an audit notification?

I am the new owner of a Phillips Respironics Remstar Pro C-Flex+ with a System One Heated Humidifier and the Resmed full face mask, deluxe model 2. I have been avoiding this purchase for over 15 years but was recently lured back into the CPAP world with promises of newer, sleeker designs which were much less “intrusive” than older models. One advertisement I read, while waiting to be fitted for the above device, claimed that its product was so comfortable; I might forget that I was even wearing it! Unfortunately for me, that particular model didn’t work for my particular “face shape”, which was a very polite term my technician used when she meant to say, “ginormous nose”. So, I am stuck with a full face mask that I feel certain I will never forget that I’m wearing.

The physics behind this contraption is rather straight forward. To prevent you from snoring and gasping for breath all night, the machine forces air at varying degrees of pressure through your mouth and nose. The pressurized air forces your nose and lungs to stay sufficiently open all night which allows you to sleep peacefully and quietly through the night. Think of that Golden Retriever with his head out the window of a car driving down the interstate, jowls flapping in the 70 mph breeze and you’ve got the picture. Or at least that’s how they drew it up back at the lab. The problem is…getting comfortable with the mask. If the fit is too loose, air rushes out all around the fit, making a noise something like a level 5 hurricane and waking you and everyone within a two mile radius up 7-10 times a night. But, if the fit is too tight you wake up with deep red lines imprinted in your face, making you look like the psycho villain in all those slasher movies. This is where this attitude business comes in.

When I put the mask on and look in the mirror, I have to decide who it is that I see. I am either a dying asthmatic, Hannibal Lecter when the cops first arrested him and slapped that thing on his face to prevent him from eating his guards, or a brave and heroic B-17 pilot braving a sky full of flak, flying day time bombing missions over Berlin in WWII, or even a Top Gun pilot flying an F-14 Tomcat somewhere in harm’s way. It’s all about attitude.

Last night, I fell asleep with scenes from “Memphis Belle” playing in my head, and slept straight through the night. This morning I feel well rested and energetic. As a bonus, that ammunition factory on the outskirts of Berlin is a smoking pile of twisted metal baby!!

Global Warming, Jason Collins, and the Joys of Anonymity

A group of a dozen very angry looking Congress-persons yesterday opened up a new front in the war against Global Warming. We must address this crisis with renewed vigor, they informed us, because it is forcing women and girls the world over into…prostitution. A list of iron-clad evidence was presented from droughts in Africa to Hurricanes in New Orleans that wreak particularly grievous devastation among women. One spittle-projecting speaker informed us that Hurricane Katrina displaced some 83% of single, low-income mothers. Aside from the fact that I would think that the modifier, “low income” unnecessary when describing single mothers, I would have liked to know what percentage of single, low income fathers were likewise displaced. This entire news conference brought to mind that old joke about the New York Times headline, “World Ends Tomorrow. Women and Minorities Hardest Hit”.

Then there was the announcement yesterday that Jason Collins, an NBA player had announced in the pages of Sports Illustrated that he is gay. That’s Sports Illustrated, the magazine about…sports, not Cosmopolitan, or Vanity Fair, magazines about …sex, or the New York Times, Washington Post, or the Village Voice, newspapers about… identity politics. This was awesome news for the score keepers of inclusion, diversity, and multi-culturalism, since Mr. Collins is both gay and black. If only he were also Muslim, the press would be clearing space on Rushmore by now to judge from the exalted coverage this announcement received. One could not escape the universal celebration of courage, from morning television to the President’s news conference. I feel confident that, although Collins played in only 6 games this season and scored only 1.2 points a game despite being over 7 feet tall, he will find himself a roster spot on a team in the NBA next year, along with a book deal and a realty show. Although I am not much of a gambling man, I would be willing to place a rather substantial wager on the fact that next January, Jason Collins will be sitting next to Michelle Obama in the gallery at the State of the Union address.

Yesterday was the sort of news day that reminds me that I am part of the great anonymous hoard of Americans about whom no one ever agitates. When was the last time you heard anyone take up the cause of the troubled German-American Redheaded Bricklayers of Wisconsin, or Americans of Confused Ethnic Lineage? On the other hand, guys like me never get scape-goated or profiled either. Nobody ever responds to a terrorist attack by saying, “Damn those Scotch-Irish Bastards!!!” Come to think of it, I like being anonymous.

My Generation Has Ruined Facebook

I first joined Facebook, believe it or not, at the insistence of my kids who thought it would be a great way for me to stay in touch with the youth group kids who had gone off to college. That was maybe eight years ago, and I am here to tell you that we have ruined Facebook for everyone else.

Facebook used to be this crazy, exciting, borderline profane place for college students to have this huge conversation about crazy, exciting and borderline profane things. Now, we grown-ups have turned it into a den of lies and posing through the practice of “Facebragging”. You know exactly what I’m referring to, don’t you? There’s that mother of three angels who treats us to this status or something close to it every morning…”My adorable husband got up early today to fix me a homemade croissant and I’m eating it out by the pool along with my freshly brewed cappachino with the soft wind blowing through my hair as I read my favorite devotional. God is so good!” This status hangs heavy with the clear implication that “…and in my case, he has reason to be!!” Or there’s that middle aged man in denial who posts something like this, “Just got back from my 10 mile morning run in 73 minutes, A NEW RECORD! Now I’m hopping into the shower, then heading to work where I think I’m going to win Agent-of-the-Month…again! Why does God love me so much?!!”

If you’re wondering why Facebook is now losing members and its share price is in the tank, you need look no further than your newsfeed. Gone are the inappropriate pictures of drunken sophomores, gone are the to the death arguments over who was a better band, Pearl Jam or Nirvana. Now we have 50 year olds posting idyllic Instagram photos of their new puppies, old ladies posting political conspiracy theories about Obama being from Mars, and a plethora of those insipidly cutsie Hallmark formulations like, “My Sister, My Friend…share this if you love your sister, ignore if you don’t”

So, kids, let me be the first to apologize for screwing up your perfectly fine social website. In the interest of honesty and in an attempt to inject a little realty back into the medium, how’s this for a status:

In the last 24 hours I have dealt with a severely painful degenerative shoulder, the humiliating purchase of a CPAP machine, and a violent bout of diarrhea. My 55^th year is off to a blazing start!

Molly Update II

Everywhere I go people ask me how Molly is doing. It’s very gratifying to hear how concerned my friends are about her, and it also demonstrates the incredible emotional power that animals have in our lives. So many people have told me their own stories about a beloved pet that had to be put down and how horrible a thing it was to do. And yet, somehow in the telling, they are transported back into great memories of their time together, and soon the stories begin, stories of humor and tenderness, that make the pain of loss somehow worth it in the end.

Molly has good days and bad. This past Thursday was a bad day. She had no appetite, was listless, and showed no interest in even being patted. Every now and then she would let out a soft groan where she lay on the floor, as if in pain. I began to think that the decision that I haven’t wanted to even think about was at hand. But then Friday morning she began to rally. Her appetite returned along with some of the old perkiness and enthusiasm for snuggling. Before the end of the day and ever since, she has been something approaching her old self.

I gave Molly her weekly bath Saturday, and was reminded that she indeed is sick. As I ran my hands across her back and sides I could feel her ribs and the hard edge of her backbone, something I have never been able to do before. I had to take extra gentle care, since at times she stiffened at my touch. This was particularly sad since she has always loved bath time. Now, it seems a labor.

But, she still eats, goes to the bathroom and seems happy and engaged, so I suppose that the round- about answer to the question, “How is Molly”, is Molly is doing alright. For me, the hard part is the waiting. I so wish that I could look into her eyes and ask her how she’s feeling and once, just one time, she could answer me in English, “I feel like crap, Dad. Its time.” or “I feel perfectly fine! Don’t worry about me. You’re doing a great job.” But she doesn’t speak my language. She speaks a dog language full of feeling and intuition, packed with raised eyebrows, cold nose nudges and heavy sighs. I must pay close attention, or I’ll miss something.

42. Go See It!

Went to see 42 last night. As a baseball fan, I had been waiting for this film for quite a while. The story of Jackie Robinson is the best and worst of baseball living together in the same story. It took two very special men to pull off the intergration of Major League baseball in 1947, and this film did a nice job of telling the story of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey.

Harrison Ford was sensational as Rickey, the Methodist, cigar-chewing old codger, and owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Chadwick Boseman, who I have never seen in anything before, played Robinson with athletic if not dramatic skill. Although the movie was a bit slow in places and entirely too long, I thoroughly enjoyed it, because it remained true to the history.

As we were leaving, I asked Pam what she thought. My wife isn’t exactly the world’s most rabid sports fan, to say the least. But, she liked the movie a lot, except she said something that is both very true and profound at the same time. She said, “I liked it, but it had a Hallmark feel, like a made for TV movie. But, come to think of it, most baseball movies are that way.”

It’s so true! Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, A League of Their Own, Pride of the Yankees were all that way. The reason is simple. At its heart, baseball is a romantic thing. Football is about testosterone and violence, basketball is about urban machismo…baseball is different. Baseball has a rhythm, it has a season. It’s about streaks and statistics. Baseball lends itself to conversation. One can attend a baseball game and talk about life at the same time. People fill out their score sheets, eat popcorn and talk about their kids between innings. In the seventh inning, everyone sings. Romance. Baseball has its share of violence. There are, after all, bean balls, bench-clearing brawls, plays at the plate, that sort of thing. But baseball has never been ABOUT the violence. We fall in love with the players who demonstrate the most grace on the field. That outfielder whose long strides make his diving catches look effortless, the left-handed hitter with that silky Ted Williams swing, that amazing rookie who runs the bases like his cleats are on fire.

Sadly, baseball no longer has the appeal it once had; it no longer holds the entire nation in sway every summer. We are a nation who very much likes its violence, and prefers its grace in small doses at church. But for me, baseball is still king. I prefer its unhurried pace, the absence of clocks. Must everything be timed? And I suppose I will always be a sucker for baseball movies, despite the Hallmark qualities.