Happy Birthday

Today is my daughter’s birthday. I will not extol her many virtues again here. Some people grow weary of such Facebragging on my part with regards to my children, and I have great sympathy for that reaction, but at the end of the day I couldn’t possibly care less about anyone’s feeling who would begrudge a dad the joy of bragging about his children. Nevertheless, there will be no listing of accomplishments here, no heart warming vignettes, only a declaration that on this day in 1987, the world became a far better place when she entered it, perfect and pink with her ten fingers and ten toes (I was frantically counting), transforming her parents’ lives forever. She has been transforming lives ever since.

Happy Birthday, Kato.

A Lump in my Throat

Today we were driving over to my in-law's house to celebrate Mother’s Day with Pam’s family. The drive always takes me by the house I spent my formative years in from roughly 1968-1981. Every time we come out of the trees on the downhill stretch of road just before you reach Winn’s Baptist Church in Elmont, Virginia I always glance to my left at this old house...

Lots has changed over the years. When we lived there, there were no sidewalks, and that white addition at the far end was a screened in porch. What caught my eye today staggered me a bit, so much so that as soon as we arrived at Russ and Vi’s place I told Pam that I needed to go back and take a picture. I still don’t know why I was so compelled, but there I was, walking around in the yard I had not set foot on in close to 40 years.

When I was a boy there was a beautiful maple tree in the front yard, along with two dogwood trees on either side of the drive way, one pink, and the other white. Both are gone now. Several years ago, the power company committed a crime against humanity the day they, in their infinite wisdom, decided to string their power lines directly through the center of that magnificent tree, the one whose leaves came alive every fall in a burst of radiant yellow...

The results were about as horrific as it gets, but I took comfort every time I drove by that at least it was still alive and growing. I spent a lot of time underneath its branches to escape the heat of the sun when I was cutting grass or working in my Dad’s garden. But, yesterday, my heart sunk when I saw this out of the corner of my eye...

Maybe it was from the wind, or a lightening strike. But her days are numbered now. One day soon I will drive by and she will be gone.

I continued my walk around the yard. Nobody lives there anymore. It’s owned by the church right across the street. I think a Sunday school class or two meets in there. Everything looked different. The trees that were tiny saplings back when I was a kid were now huge and flourishing. One of the few things I recognized from the old days was our pitiful little grape vine which amazingly still persists...

But then I made the mistake of walking around to the back yard. That’s when I saw the back door that led into the old basement. It looked like a set of a horror movie, the door that the stupid blond girl never fails to enter even though everyone in the theatre is saying, No!! Not that door, you idiot!

It’s hard to describe what came over me when I saw this door with the overgrown bushes and the chipped paint. It was something very much like grief, a temporary yet overwhelming sadness. It was in this clammy basement where every summer when it got unbearably hot upstairs, Mom and Dad would allow me to set up a temporary bedroom. An old single bed, a desk and a single light bulb overhead. There was a small window only about three feet wide and six inches high which was open right above the ground right over my bed. At night I would prop up my old aqua colored transistor radio in that window and marvel at the play by play from big league baseball I could pull in from all over the place. On clear nights I could pick up Cleveland Indians games and even occasionally the St. Louis Cardinals. But it was so cool down there. Some nights I even had to get under the covers. I was 12 years old, maybe 13 and I felt safe there. I didn’t know a thing about the world, had no idea what was ahead of me. But in the morning I could hear Mom wake up and walk down the hall above my head from her bedroom to the kitchen. The old floorboards would groan and every now and again dust would drift down on my pillow. As I stood at the forlorn sight in front of me all of these memories came to life as if they had only happened yesterday.

Thomas Wolfe said, You can never go home again, and I think he’s right. Not because it isn’t there, but because what made it home no longer exists. Now, its just a broken down old house, but once a long time ago it was a broken down old house that was my safe refuge from a dangerous world. It was the place where I shared a bunk bed with my brother. It was a place where all six of us somehow had Christmas in that shoe box of a living room. It was the place where two adults and four kids shared one shower, where my mother cooked meal after meal for six people in that tiny Un-air conditioned kitchen. But now, the dogwoods are gone and the maple tree with the power lines going through its middle has just crumbled wide open and will soon be put out of its misery.

After taking these pictures, I walked back to my car, backed out of the driveway and drove away with a lump in my throat.

This Woman

I spent most of this morning searching for a picture of Mom and me taken years ago at one of our beach vacations. This picture has been on my mind since I woke up. It’s Mother’s Day and I miss her...

It’s a bit grainy. I don’t remember the year or much of anything else about the circumstances. Mostly I just remember her, the way she loved singing ancient hymns. She knew all the words. She would just start singing one and I would have to figure out what key she was singing in and catch up. Sometimes I would have to stop her and plead, “Wait, stop, Ma. I’m not gonna play “Showers of Blessings” in A flat. How about G?!” I would start it again and her alto would pick up right where I had left off, a step lower.

It’s been nine years since I’ve heard her voice, nine years since I listened to one of her speeches, nine years without arguing with her sometimes tortured logic about one thing or another. What I miss the most though is nine years without being hugged. When you got hugged by my mother, you were good and hugged, the kind that lingers on for hours, the kind that reassured you that you were loved no matter what you did. And I did plenty. When I was a kid Mom told me things about myself that nobody else knew...even me. It was Mom that warned me about the dangers of riches, because she knew that I was going to be successful in business before I even knew what business was. That was her way, her uncanny second sight, a sometimes creepy intuition about the future. 

Mom was the kind of person that I wanted everyone to meet, a rarity I suspect among most people who would rather endure a root canal with no anesthesia than have to introduce their mother to a group of their friends. But with Mom it was always, “You think that’s weird? You should meet my Mom!” Or, “There’s nobody else in the world like Mom.” Sure, there were times when her ideas or idiosyncrasies would embarrass me a little, but mostly I thought she was an amazing woman whose mind was alive with a thousand thoughts, and whose heart was filled with a deep and abiding love for all sorts of people, even strangers. This, the fruit of a Christian faith as deep as the ocean and and as free flowing as a river.

So, I miss my mother today, a bit more than usual. 

Mother’s Day

One disadvantage to having an eleven year old, 2400+ post blog is that there aren’t very many subjects that you haven’t already written about, sometimes more than once. Such is the case with regards to Mother’s Day. I’ve written a lot about my own mother, my mother-in-law and my wife. Of course the advantage of having such a prolific blog is that it offered me the chance to write about great women on their special day. Looking back over all of them, what follows was at the head of the class when I first wrote it and remains there to this day. I’m not sure I could add anything to it that would be an improvement, something I can say about very little of what I have written in this space since 2010. So, on Mother’s Day Eve, I offer this...

Making the Trains Run on Time

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Ever since my Mom passed away, it’s been the occasion of many fond memories, but also a bit of sadness. I suppose that this is a natural thing and as it should be and will be for the remainder of my life. At present there are but two mothers in my life, my mother-in-law and my wife. My mother-in-law’s claim to fame will forever be bringing my wife into this world and raising her so well. My wife, on the other hand, has been and continues to be a legendary mother. A few examples...

To say that the two of us had different parenting styles would be a world class understatement. But, it’s one of the things I believe helped produce two pretty amazing kids. We had different jobs. While their mother was busy demonstrating the cardinal virtues in word and deed in front of our children, I was busy teaching them how to field grounders and break up a double play. While Pam labored to instill a love of books and reading in them, I was upstairs giving them their baths and teaching them how to execute a proper armpit fart. Pam spent countless hours cultivating an appreciation of the arts in our kids, teaching them about what it is to love and cherish fine things. I spent countless hours perfecting the tickle-monster bedtime routine, complete with ethnic diversity twists like the dreaded Chinese tickle-monster....don’t ask. But, it’s not like I taught them nothing of lasting value...the wrestling skills they retain to this day? All me!

But, in our house it was always Mom who made the trains run on time. She’s the one who packed their lunches every day for 12 years, never failing to include a hand written note of encouragement, or an occasional corny joke. It was Mom who always filled out the endless paperwork of childhood, the bureaucratic paper trail of American adolescence. It was Mom who made sure their teeth were straight, their clothes were clean and that everything matched. Mom was the one who scheduled their doctor’s appointments, made sure they showed up everywhere on time. It was Mom who always was there when they returned from school, with a snack, demanding a full report on the day’s adventures. It was Mom who would not tolerate a bad attitude or an uncharitable remark. It was Mom who taught them the crucial importance of manners, an old school term which essentially means...respect. And it was always Mom who did all the worrying. While I always reminded her that...the kids will be fine...she put in a lifetime of 18 hour days making sure they would be. 

Watching my wife with our kids all these years has convinced me that motherhood is more art than science. There is nothing accidental about it. Being a mother, it seems to me, is an eternal commitment to the hard details of life. It is a relentless pursuit, a tireless advocacy campaign, whereby anything or anyone who gets between your children and their best interests is in for an existential fight to the finish. If you were dumb enough to pose a threat to our kids, there would be hell to pay. But, having said all of this, what made Pam so incredible as a mother was the fact that she steadfastly resisted the urge to hover over them. She wasn’t one of those insufferable helicopter moms who think it their job to insure that junior never skins a knee. Pam made sure our kids were prepared for everything, but success or failure was their job. Pam was willing to allow them to fail. 

I had my moments as a dad. Even though I was responsible for financing my family’s adventures, I never became one of those guys who was always too busy making money to show up at the game or the concert. My kids always knew that Dad would be there..at everything. But it is not a case of false modesty to say that in our house there was always only one indispensable person...Mom. The kids knew it. I knew it. Even Mom knew it, and she never buckled under the weight of the job.

What a woman...

                           

   

Best Bad Dad Jokes Ever?

It’s Friday, people. We have made it through another week. What better way to celebrate and kick off the weekend than a collection of some of the absolute worst Dad Jokes ever assembled in this space?

The wife left me because I have a fetish for touching pasta

Now I’m feeling cannelloni...

I finally got over my addiction to chocolate, marshmallows and nuts.

I’m not gonna lie, it was a rocky road...

What do you call Batman that skips church?

Christian Bale.....

My local barber was arrested for dealing drugs in my neighborhood.

I've gone to him for 5 years and I never knew he was a barber.

And now, as a bonus for all of my teacher friends out there, especially my daughter Kaitlin, who labors day after day filling young skulls full of mush with English grammar...

My wife: You need to do more chores around the house.

Me: Can we change the subject?

My wife: Okay. More chores around the house need to be done by you.

What’s the difference between a cat and a comma?

A cat has claws at the end of its paws, and a comma’s a pause at the end of a clause.

Immigration and...Wong’s Tacos

Every time Cinco de Mayo rolls around I get all sentimental about immigration, a subject that seldom provokes sentimentality any other time of the year. Most of the time I prefer not to think very much about immigration at all. It’s been a mess for years, yet another touchstone of raging argument in my embattled and contentious country. One of the reasons I don’t spend a lot of time on the subject is because my thinking is all over the map, and I generally don’t enjoy the angst of inconsistent ideas. I mean, I’ve got enough problems trying to remember where I left the car keys, let alone trying to figure out immigration policy.

The basic tension revolves around the word illegal. Where once it seemed perfectly understandable and defensible to prefer legal over illegal immigration, now even using the word illegal suggests malice and earns you condescending lectures from the woke crowd. No human being is illegal, they scream! Like I said...its a mess.

But then Cinco de Mayo comes. My wife has this thing about celebrating with food. Every St. Patrick’s Day its green stuff with soda bread, cabbage and corn beef. She loves themed meals. So naturally, last night she was all in on homemade tacos with some new recipe she had found. She gave me marinated chicken to cook on the grill along with corn on the cob which she transformed into this super yummy Mexican street corn dish. Then there was this special cheesy/spicy sauce she had made from scratch to season everything with. For drinks she served up lime margaritas—with or without alcohol. My sister Paula came over for dinner. It was fabulous.

Then I started thinking about what an amazing place America is. Here we all are in this giant place where literally nobody is from here. Even the so-called Native Americans aren’t from here, if the Anthropologists are to be believed. They stumbled across an ice bridge from like Mongolia or someplace thousands of years ago. As for everyone else? We are all from away, as my friends in Maine would say. My wife’s people came here from Ireland by way of Nova Scotia. My family’s story is a bit more complicated. It’s all a bit murky, but depending on which family historian you talk to we got here from either England, Ireland, or Germany. The more fabulous versions of the tale have my mother’s ancestors arriving via the Mayflower!! But, you get the point, everyone here today arrived on a boat.

For all of our history, the majority of those who have settled here have been from some sort of European extraction, although that majority status is less than it used to be. Still, from the beginning, we have always welcomed people from all over the world. When I say “welcomed” I’m not trying to suggest that we stood at the dock cheering. Far from it...we have welcomed immigrants grudgingly, largely because that is the way of human beings. We are always wary of “outsiders”, even if we ourselves were outsiders ten minutes ago. In the previous century, Irishmen and Italians took turns being the dreaded other. Now, its Mexicans, Hondurans and Guatemalans.

 

But here’s the thing...I think we are such a better country because of the Irish, Italians, Germans, Chinese, Koreans, Mexicans, etc who have chosen to make this country their home. Just think about all the delicious foods they brought here, not to mention the art, color, athleticism and brain power. Now, thanks to fusion cuisine, our favorite restaurant is a place called...get this...Wong’s Tacos. To me there is nothing more American than a joint called Wong’s Tacos! How awesome is that?

Yes, I know, it’s not as simple as this. Assimilation isn’t easy. Multiple languages, unskilled labor are all significant problems. But, looking at the big picture of our history, immigration has been a net plus...and it’s not even close.

The Gates Divorce

Yesterday the news broke that Bill and Melinda Gates were filing for divorce after 27 years of marriage. All of my news feeds were awash in photographs of the couple in happier times. I must admit that before yesterday I couldn’t have picked Mrs. Gates out of a police lineup. After being introduced to her by hundreds of photographs I can’t get her face out of my head along with the nagging suspicion that she might be somehow related to Caitlin Jenner. 

Be that as it may, the Gates divorce, on the heels of the 38 billion dollar Jeff Bezos settlement serves as further proof that money does in fact not buy happiness, not to mention the fact that two of the smartest men in the world sure could have used a pre-nup.

Of course, its easy to pile on the rich and famous when their personal lives start to unravel, especially here in America where we are so celebrity-obsessed. Sometimes the piling on can go too far as we forget that Bill and Melinda Gates are  human beings just like the rest of us. Human beings, whose money if stacked in $100 dollar bills would stretch 8,800 miles into space. Nevertheless, I intend to comply with their request to honor their privacy during this difficult time in exactly the same way that Microsoft applications honor my privacy on a daily basis.

Last night my son and I did something that was inevitable given the fact that he is my son and I am his father. I started it with this simple observation:

Me: Without Bill...Melinda will be just an...ionaire.

It didn’t take Patrick long to respond...

Patrick: Bill and Melinda are splitting up because Bill realized that marriage is a ....union

Then, we were off and running!

Me: Yeah, apparently Bill and Melinda couldn’t excel together so, bamm, the BSoD (blue screen of divorce)

Patrick:  

I hear they didn’t have enough nice...Words...for each other anymore, and reclaiming their separate identity was a PowerPoint

Me: Melinda wasn’t happy with Bill being at the Office365 days a year either.

Patrick: MacKenzie Scott settles her divorce with Jeff Bezos for 38 billion. Melinda Gates says,”Hold my beer.”

Me: Seeing Bill and Melinda Gates not excel at their marriage has me like “Word?” Here’s hoping their future has a better...Outlook.

But that’s it. No more piling on. I wish them both the best.