Happy 2012

It’s hard to believe that 2011 is almost over. It seems that just yesterday we were ringing in the New Year and here we are about to do the same for 2012. As I recently mentioned, it seems that time is going faster and faster each year. You blink your eyes and a day is gone; take a little snooze and a week is gone; go about your business and a month is gone; pause for a moment and look at where you are and the year is over. Sometimes I feel like, stop this merry-go-round of life, I want to get off. Not for good, just for a quick breather so that I can enjoy things a little longer and a little more.

I’m really not big on New Year’s resolutions, but an area I definitely want to change in 2012 is just enjoying things more than I do now. I can get caught up in what needs to be done, all the little details and preparation, and not enjoy an event as much as I could. Sometimes I have a hard time just sitting and doing nothing with the people I love and instead feel like I should be doing something. Only after I miss out on a great time do I realize that something that “just had to be done” most certainly could have waited.

In 2012 I want to spend more time with more people, be they family or friends, and just enjoy that time together, whether we’re having dinner, playing games, watching a game, just hanging out and talking, or even doing nothing together. During that time I want to forget the stuff that doesn’t need to be done right then and things that don’t need my attention, and just enjoy the time and the company. Maybe then it won’t seem that the merry-go-round is spinning so fast.

                                                                                                          

As 2011 slips away, I hope that you can say that it was a good year for you. I know it was for me and my family in many ways. Whatever your goals, dreams or resolutions, let’s make 2012 a great year, even better than 2011. Happy New Year!

Oh Christmas Tree

Do something well once and suddenly it becomes your job. That’s what has happened to me when it comes to picking out our Christmas tree. We had a fake tree for years, and although it looked quite real, my wife wanted to get a real tree. She had grown up with real trees and the fake one just wasn’t doing it for her. I grew up with a fake tree and thought the one we had was just fine, especially when compared to the one we had when I was a kid in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Even with assorted balls, bulbs, lights, tinsel and whatever other decorations we could find, you could still tell it wasn’t a real tree. Most people thought our 2000’s fake tree was real until they got real close to it and saw that the trunk was just a green circular piece of wood.  

So a few years ago we started getting a real tree. Last year, armed with instructions from my wife, I went to pick out the tree by myself. I just looked for one that wasn’t too big or too small, that didn’t have any glaring bald spots, that didn’t drop all its needles if I banged it on the ground, and that was actually green (not all of them were). Everyone thought we had a great tree! I was happy that I picked out such a great tree, proud even, but little did I know the trouble I caused for myself.

When it came time to get a tree this year, I mentioned to my wife that we should go out and get one – together. “Why do you need me?” she asked. “You did such a great job last year!” I protested that I didn’t want to do it myself, that last year was a fluke, beginner’s luck. “You picked out a great tree last year” she responded, “You can do it without me.” So now it was on me to get a tree, something that everyone who came to our house until sometime after New Year’s was going to see, something that was going to set the tone for all the other Christmas decorations in my home. The pressure was on and I wasn’t liking it. I should have come home with a Charlie Brown tree last year and it would never have been my job again!

I put the pressure aside and went out – by myself – to get a tree. I took my time, checked out all the trees that were there and made mental notations as to which ones I liked the best to narrow it down to three or four. I then went back and checked them out again. Now I was feeling the pressure again. What if I went home with a clunker? What if it didn’t look so great in the light of my house? What if there was a critter hiding in the branches like in the Griswold’s tree in Christmas Vacation? I chased these thoughts from my mind and chose what I thought was the best tree and brought it home. Much to my happiness, my wife loved the tree when she saw it!

As we have been doing for many years, we decorated the tree as a family. I don’t know if the kids enjoy it as much as my wife and I do, but it was a lot of fun. We have some ornaments from before the kids were born, some that they made in pre-school or elementary school, some that are just a couple of years old and one little felt Santa Claus I made in third or fourth grade that holds special memories for me. We laughed when we saw the ones the kids made, especially the ones with their school picture on them; we “Aaaaawwww”-ed when we saw the ones that hold special memories, like the one for my daughter’s first Christmas, which is now eighteen years old; we shook our heads at the what-were-they-thinking-when-they-made-this ones, like the red, white and blue eagle ornament that we got at SeaWorld in Orlando. When we fit on as many of the ornaments as we could, we stepped back and took in the scene: a beautiful Christmas tree that lit up the room, warmed our hearts and made us all smile.

Yeah, I guess that picking out the Christmas tree will be my job every year. Merry Christmas!

Childproof No More

This past weekend we had some of my wife’s family over to our house to do a gift swap with our kids since we can’t get together on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Their kids ranged in age from about 18 months to 12 years old. My daughter, who is in her first year of college, wasn’t home but my 15 year old son was. Because my kids are older we are not used to having small children in our house. Our house is no longer “childproof” so we had to watch the little ones all the time. However, being seasoned veterans of child rearing, we know that is pretty much impossible, so every so often some of us would check on what was going on.

At one point all the adults were sitting in the kitchen, talking and eating, and we weren’t really paying as much attention to the smallest kids as we should have been. My brother-in-law and I went into our family room to find that some of the kids had got into a few of our games that we thought were put away in a safe place. There on the floor were the games Life and Apples to Apples. All the money and little pieces for Life were mixed in with the 500 or so cards from Apples to Apples. They weren’t just in neat little piles, separated by game. No, as only small children can do, they were mixed together all over the place, along with about 50 Matchbox cars. When I say all over the place, I mean all over the place; the cards for Apples to Apples were under the couches and under the coffee table. It took a long time to find all the cards, put them all the same way so they fit into the slots in the game box and put them away. And yet, it only took a few minutes to make the mess! Even with our diligence we later found Scrabble tiles in different places.

The smallest child still wears a diaper and of course at some point it needed to be changed. I find it funny that people will pick up their child and smell their behind, cringe and with watery eyes say, “Oh, that’s a bad one!” Really? The rest of us knew it was a bad one without having to cause brain damage by taking a whiff. So then it was on to the changing. Like I said earlier, we’re not used to having small children in the house, especially my son. He was eating in the room off of the kitchen when the dirty deed was done. In about 2.5 seconds he was out in the kitchen with his shirt up over his nose to block the smell. To say he was having a hard time with the smell would be a huge understatement. There was about a 50/50 chance he was going to lose his lunch. He then went outside to get some fresh air and away from the smell, his face slightly pale.  

I found the whole incident amusing. I remember those days when I was younger and my older brothers or sisters were changing the diapers on my nieces and nephews. I couldn’t get far enough away! In my mind, I thought I’d never be changing a poopy diaper because I was going to let my wife do it. Then I got married and had kids and realized that would never fly. I think that’s about where my son is now. Just the thought of changing a nasty, poopy diaper is enough to make him physically ill. Someday he’ll be changing them like a pro.

I changed my share of diapers and even gagged on a few of them, but for the most part you get used to the odor. But now that it has been so many years of poopy diaper-less living, I have to admit that I wasn’t quite ready for the onslaught to my nose. I wasn’t gagging, but I was happy when my son went outside for a minute and left the door open. It helped clear the air so I could actually enjoy my food again and so we could get back to our normal conversation instead of discussing poopy diapers.

Later, after everyone was gone, I sat down on the couch and just reveled in the quiet in my family room. I have forgotten how loud small children can be when there is a group of them in a house. The silence was almost deafening. I got up to put away the last couple of Matchbox cars left on the floor and discovered a few more Scrabble tiles that had been missed. Some day we’re going to play Scrabble and find that the Q, the X, or the Z is missing when one of us has an incredible word with Triple Word Score potential. Then we will fully realize that, although we are seasoned veterans of child rearing, our house is most definitely not childproof anymore. 

Open Your Eyes

I recently had to have my pupils dilated for a test with the eye doctor. It is a relatively simple process; they put some drops in your eyes, you wait 20 – 30 minutes and then your pupils are dilated enough that they can take snapshots of the back of your eyes so they can see all the blood vessels and veins and such. While it doesn’t hurt, it was a little uncomfortable for me because…well, your pupils aren’t supposed to let in that much light.

While this was going on it got the wheels turning in my brain and I was thinking about how cool it would be if there were some drops you could put in your eyes and you would see things more clearly. Not just more light would be let in, but everything would be seen like it was in HD. Imagine the possibilities:

·     If you misplaced something, you’d be able to see it quicker. No more lost keys, cell phones, or kids.

·     When you went shopping and tried on that outfit you “just have to get”, you would see that although it looks great on other people, it just doesn’t look so good on you.

·     When your kids came to ask for something, you’d know right away if they were up to something. You’d see it in their eyes.

·     When you asked your kids a question about a test at school, or if they had any homework, they wouldn’t be able to lie. Again, you’d see it in their eyes.

·     When you got lost driving and didn’t have a GPS, you’d clearly see the way you needed to go to get back on track.

·     Before you put any junk food into your mouth, you’d see what it was going to do to you – both now and in the future.

·     You would be able to see what is important in life.

That would be awesome, wouldn’t it? Or would it? I started thinking some more and realized that in addition to seeing all those things, you’d see a lot of other things, too, because those drops would allow you to see much clearer than you do now, such as:

·     When you asked someone how they’re doing and they said they were doing fine, you’d see that they’re actually not doing very well and maybe even in a lot of pain.

·     You would also see that many people that have a big smile on their face are actually crying on the inside.

·     You would see that some people that seem to have it all together are hiding something that would tear their world apart if it ever got out.

·     You wouldn’t be able to fool yourself any more and you’d see that maybe your own life wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.

·     You would be able to see that some of the things you thought were so important in life really aren’t important at all.

I like to think that I have good insight into people, but I definitely don’t pick up on a lot of things. I’m not sure I’d really, truly like to see everybody exactly as they are and everything exactly as it is – the good, the bad and the ugly. I wouldn’t mind the good, but I’m not sure I’d want to see the bad and the ugly, especially in myself. As with the amount of light being let in by my pupils in the dilation test, I don’t think I could handle that much.

I Can't Wait Until...

Quite often I hear people say something like, “I can’t wait until…”, where the “until” is somewhere in the future, sometimes many months or even years. I hear people say at Thanksgiving that they can’t wait until Christmas (like I did last week) because it’s the most wonderful time of the year. I hear people say at Christmas that they can’t wait until New Year’s because with the new year is a new start, resolutions and all. I hear people say in January and February that they can’t wait until spring when it starts getting warmer, and the trees and flowers come back to life. I hear people say in April and May that they can’t wait until summer when the weather gets really nice and they can take a vacation. I hear people say in August that they can’t wait until the fall when it’s a little cooler, the kids go back to school and the leaves on the trees turn amazing colors. I hear people say in October that they can’t wait for Thanksgiving because… On and on it goes.

What’s the matter with right now? It seems that we as humans are always looking to the future, looking forward to something further on down the line, something that isn’t… now. Whatever it is, it can never come too fast and it always takes too long to get to that point. Too many times, the things we’re so looking forward to finally come and they disappoint us because they don’t live up to what we built up in our minds. What then? Well, we already have the next thing to look forward to.

I remember growing up and looking ahead to many things and feeling like it was taking so long to get there. As I’ve mentioned before, I always looked forward to the day I could beat my older brothers at something, or at least be as good at something as them. When I finally got there, it didn’t matter because they had moved forward just as I had. Around 4^th grade I started looking ahead to the day I’d leave elementary school and go to junior high school (what’s now middle school) in 7^th grade. While it was nice to leave the “little kids” behind, I quickly found out how much I missed, and never appreciated, recess. When I was in junior high I looked forward to the day I’d go to high school because that meant I wasn’t a kid anymore. But when you’re a freshman and the low man on the totem pole, you’re still a kid to all the upper classmen and you’re treated as such.

When I was first in high school I couldn’t wait until I got my license and could drive, then I would have true freedom! However, there was often not a car available and when it was, most times there was an errand that had to be run as part of being able to use the car. So before I could go out with my friends I had to run to the store and get some milk or bread or something. Oh, yeah, don’t forget to put some gas in the tank, too. I guess I learned that with freedom comes responsibility – and expenses. When I was in my junior year of high school I couldn’t wait until senior year when we would be top dogs of the school. Then senior year went by so quick that we never really got to savor our lofty position and it was on to college.

After two years of college I couldn’t wait until college was done. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, I truly did. I loved the schedule, the way you didn’t have to go to class, the way the professors treated you like an intelligent young adult, not a kid. But I was tired of the homework, the studying and trying to get everything done while working 30 hours or more a week. Two years later, my last final finally arrived and I whipped through it feeling elated as I passed it in to my professor, thinking that I’d never have to do this again. A few of us finished at the same time and talked in the hallway as we went to our cars. One person was going to grad school, another person already had a job and the rest were going to start looking for a job. However, I had never thought that far ahead; I just wanted to be finished with college. I got to my car and just sat there thinking the same thought for ten or fifteen minutes, “Oh my gosh. I’m done with college and I HAVE TO GET A REAL JOB!” I felt like that was it, my carefree, young adult days were over and now I had to get a full-time job and be an (gulp) adult. I turned the key, took one last look around and started driving home. That ride home was the longest, most depressing ride I had ever been on. In a short amount of time, maybe half an hour, I had gone from the highest elation to the lowest depression, all because “I couldn’t wait until…”

Now that I’ve hit the half century mark I have a bit of a different attitude, or maybe perspective. I feel like the passing of time is going faster and faster every year, not staying the same and definitely not slowing down. If there were a Father Time, I’d find out where he lives and tell him to knock it off, to stop speeding up time for me. I’d tell him I want time to pass as slow as it did when I was in elementary school, when it seemed like the school year took forever; like it did when my brothers were always bigger, stronger and better at sports than me; like it did when eighteen seemed like it was so far away that I’d never get there. I’d tell him to ease back on the throttle a bit; that it’s OK, because I CAN wait until Christmas and New Year’s and spring. I like right now and want to enjoy it a little longer before it’s gone.

Thanks

It’s hard to believe that it is already the one year anniversary of 8 of Nine. When I started my blog a year ago, I didn’t know if I would post every week or just post a few and then quit. While I didn’t do 52 posts, I did do 40-something posts, which I think is pretty good. I also didn’t know if anyone would even read the posts, but apparently some people have stuck with me through the year. I just wanted to say “Thank You” to everybody who has visited 8 of Nine over the last year.

Whether you’ve read one post, all the posts or somewhere in between, thank you for taking the time to read all that you did. There are a lot of blogs out there, but you came to mine. I’d like to think that I offer more for your entertainment dollar than others do. For those who have posted comments, sent me emails about a post or went old-school and said something to me in person, thank you for your encouragement. Just knowing that a post made you laugh or brought back happy memories for you makes me feel that my long hours in front of the keyboard are well worth it. For those of you who have become a follower of 8 of Nine, thank you for daring to be associated with me and being willing to put yourself out there for me. It would be a huge blow to my ego if I had zero followers after one year of writing. So to all of you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

I’m very grateful that the blog anniversary coincides with Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving has always been one of my most favorite holidays. The turkey and all the trimmings, the pies, the football games – I loved all of them and still do. On top of that, people pause and take some time to be thankful, or more thankful, myself included. I am truly thankful for my wife, my kids, my parents, my brothers, my sisters and my friends, without whom I wouldn’t have a blog. Thanks for inspiring me and encouraging me to do something I truly love – writing.

You may be thinking, “Hey, Joe. What are you going to do to keep us amused over the next year?” Well, I have a few ideas:

·     I think it is time for a new look, so I’m going to pick a new template and change things up a bit.

·     I’ve thought of doing a series on famous family sayings that were heard around my house when I was growing up. My brothers and sisters shared some of these with me recently and I will probably write about them occasionally, here and there, as a change of pace.

·     I found a few old writings from when I was a kid and may use them as part of some posts. One is an assignment written in 1973 about what it would be like in 1999, another is a story I wrote when I was about 11 years old. There’s some funny stuff in those two items.

·     Hopefully people around me will continue to do and say things that trigger memories that are filed away in the archives of my brain. And hopefully, I’ll be able to extract those memories and write about them before they go the way of my youthful good looks, my athletic ability and my energy level.

At least that’s my plan for now, but you just never know what’s going to happen, so I guess you’ll have to keep coming back and see for yourself.

In the meantime, Happy Anniversary to 8 of Nine, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and thank you for visiting my blog. I am truly grateful.

Beards Everywhere

I found out last year that November is now called Movember in some circles. According to their website (http://us.movember.com/about/), Movember is a movement where men grow mustaches in order to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men. Mustaches are OK, I even had one for a while when I was in college, but I always thought beards were better. When I was kid, you could even say that I was obsessed with facial hair, especially beards. I used to draw pictures of a hippie with long hair, dark sunglasses, a peace sign shirt and a full mustache and beard, which I just happen to have a picture of:

Hey, it was the early 1970’s; a lot of people looked like that. This picture is from a 1973 school assignment about what we thought life in 1999 would be like. This was my representation of a “typical” man in 1973. As far as typical goes, I can tell you that my Dad did NOT look like that! My Mom saved the paper for me (by the way, I received an “A” on it), and between the two of us it has been around for almost 40 years.   

I used to think about growing a beard when I got older and actually had some facial hair. That I would have to shave for a while before being able to grow a beard never crossed my mind. In addition to my hippie pictures, I would draw beards on the faces of people in pictures in the newspaper and in magazines. Man or woman, it didn’t matter. Richard Nixon gave a speech? Our paper showed how he would have looked giving the speech with a beard. The Queen of England visited the U.S.? Our Ladies’ Home Journal showed how she would have looked in her hat and pearls with a beard. It’s too bad Mom didn’t save some of those pictures; we could have had a Rogues Gallery of Bearded Famous People. For some reason, I found it amusing to draw beards, mustaches and sunglasses on woman and very clean-cut men. Maybe there’s a psychologist out there who can tell me what that means!

If you think I’m exaggerating about my facial hair obsession, let me give you another example of my artistic talents. The Red Sox were in the 1967 World Series, I was six years old, and I drew a mustache and sunglasses on one player, and a full beard on another. How do I know I did that? I still have the paper:

Bob Gibson with a mustache and sunglasses – how cool is that? Clean-cut Jose Santiago with a full beard? Nice. You see players like that today, but not back in 1967. Maybe Brian Wilson of the San Francisco Giants got his look from my guy.

You can also ask my sister who is a year older than me about my facial hair obsession. She had a doll called Little Lost Baby, a doll that had three faces that you could rotate; sleeping, happy and sad. One day I got the bright idea (probably motivated by my older brothers!) to draw a beard with black magic marker on one of the faces. I’m not totally sure which face I did it on, but I vaguely recall it being the happy face. After doing my art work I rotated the face so it wasn’t visible and went about my day. Later that day, I heard a scream and a yell for Mom, and I knew she had seen my workmanship. I think Mom tried to wash it off, but it was done with a permanent magic marker and didn’t come off. I’m pretty sure my poor sister needed therapy after that incident! A number of my sister’s Barbie dolls also decided to grow beards and mustaches, but I cannot take credit for most of those. The guilty shall remain nameless. I really do feel bad for her though, having to deal with us knuckleheads for all those years.

I continued to draw mustaches, beards and sunglasses on pictures for a while but, alas, I did not have much artistic ability. I also grew a beard in the winter for a number of years, starting in college, and I did have long hair, too, but not as long as my 1970’s hippie. No, I was never quite that cool. And while I think Movember is a great idea, I’m haunted by the idea that there’s a Little Lost Baby at the bottom of some landfill, still not decomposed and still with a black beard on her small, smiling face.

Did It Really Happen?

A couple people have asked me if some of the things I write about really happened or was it really like that growing up. And another person asked me how the heck I remember all this stuff. OK, you got me. I’m really an only child from a wealthy family and every story is made up. I don’t really have six brothers and two sisters, and there were never card games and board games; I didn’t have to learn to get along with others, or how to share things, or how to wait for things; I got everything and anything I wanted, especially at Christmas; my yard was not the football field or the wiffle ball field where we played for hours; I went on luxurious vacations every year; I didn’t have to count out M&M’s in a Dixie Cup. Well, maybe in some parallel universe or imaginary world that is true, but not here in the real world. All I can say is, I write things as I remember them. Does that mean that everything I write is exactly how it happened? Probably not, but what I write is how I remember things and so far no one has come forward and said, “That never happened.”, or “This is what really happened.”, or “This is how that really happened.”.

I know I have a pretty good memory because there are times I bring up situations and someone doesn’t remember it, but as I fill in the details they’ll say, “Oh, yeah. I remember that!” Then we’ll talk about it for fifteen or twenty minutes and laugh about things that happened. Oftentimes it will lead to the retelling of other situations that happened, some even funnier than the original one we talked about. I don’t know why I have such clear memories of occurrences from decades ago – but can’t remember where I left my cell phone ten minutes ago – but maybe it’s because those were some great times and I drank in all the details.

I try not to make it sound like everything was wonderful when I was a kid, because it wasn’t. We weren’t The Brady Bunch or the Huxtables on The Cosby Show. My family went through some hard times, especially trying to feed, clothe and provide for nine kids. I could focus on the struggles I had as a kid, or that we had as a family, but as I look back on my childhood I don’t see the tough times as much as I see how those times taught me something about life, myself or family. In many instances, those tough times taught me what was really important as opposed to what just seemed to be important. That doesn’t mean I always made the right decisions, I made enough bad ones in my life to last ten lifetimes, but I’d like to think that I learned from my mistakes and grew and changed because of them.

My parents and family were by no means perfect. However, my parents raised nine kids, all who are reasonably successful adults. Not one of us is a criminal or a derelict. Trust me when I say that there were other families we knew that had as many, or almost as many, kids as we did and that cannot be said about them. I’m not bragging or trying to put anyone down, but it would have been easy for any of us to turn to a different lifestyle than we did in order to get the “things” many of our friends had. That we didn’t is a testament to our parents and how they taught us to live.

So did this stuff really happen and was it really like I say it was? As far as I remember, yes and yes. I remember it from my perspective and through the lenses of 30 – 40 year old glasses. Things may be a little fuzzy around the edges, but the main part is very clear. I had parents who loved me, and brothers and sisters that I loved (well most of the time anyway). As my Dad used to frequently say, we always had “a roof over our heads, food on the table and clothes on our backs”, despite some fairly hard times. It’s not all flowers and rainbows today either, but I often think that if my parents got through challenges with nine kids, I can do it with two.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Trick or Treat

Halloween is just not as fun as it used to be. There was a time when my wife and I were the young couple in the neighborhood and our kids were the little ones. We’d take them around the neighborhood and everyone would say how cute they were – my son in his Sponge Bob, Woody and Vampire (way before Twilight ushered in the vampire phenomena) costumes, and my daughter in her Pocahontas, Dorothy and Minnie Mouse costumes. Now we’re the “old” couple with the older kids and we marvel at how cute all the little kids are. It’s kind of sad, one kid in college and another in high school and we’re relegated to the over-the-hill gang.

In the neighborhood we live in now, all the kids grew up at once. We used to have tons of kids walking around the streets and coming to our house, now we get about 15 or 20 kids. And half of them aren’t even from our neighborhood. But the little kids are still so cute! Especially when the kids do what kids do and not what the parents want them to do. One mother was trying to do the polite thing and get her little girl to say thank you. “Do you have something to say?” asked the mother. After no response, the mother asked again, “Don’t you want to say something?” The girl, starting to walk away, turned around and gave one of those irresistibly cute little kid smiles and said, “See you later!” Totally innocent and totally cute.

We had a great neighborhood for trick-or-treating when I was growing up. Nobody had a huge yard so the houses were kind of tightly packed together, which was great when we were little because we could do both sides of half the street in a relatively short amount of time and have enough candy to last for weeks. Well, that is, if we could have kept all our candy. When we got home we were allowed to keep some of the candy and the rest went into a big bowl that Mom was in charge of. I don’t remember how much we could keep for ourselves, but it was somewhere between not enough and too little. Nevertheless, we’d choose what we wanted for our private stash and Mom would either approve it or make us put more into the community bowl. You would have thought we were hoarding gold instead of Snickers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and M&M’s. I always knew exactly how many of each type I had, just in case someone tried to steal one of my prizes. I don’t think that ever happened, but I just didn’t trust my older brothers. Sorry guys. 

When we got older and were able to go out on our own, we did our street and the next street over. Whoa baby, did we get a lot of candy! We got a little smarter as we got older, too. We ate some of the best stuff before we went home and had to give up most of the good stuff. We even got creative a couple of years and would go around once, mix and match our costumes, and go around again. Of course, most of the neighbors knew what we were doing and would give us the “Haven’t I already seen you tonight?” speech and not give us more. Back then, everybody knew everybody in the neighborhood, so even with costumes they knew who we were. However, there were a few neighbors who gave us more anyway and we added to our loot.

I vaguely remember what our costumes were like back then. I remember wearing a Casper the Ghost costume for a couple of years, which was a cheap pullover with one of those plastic masks that made your face sweat even if it was 30 degrees that night. I think I went out as a baseball player one year, which meant putting on my team jersey and hat and carrying my glove. Low cost or no cost costumes were the rule. I also remember going out as a girl when I was about 10 years old, borrowing my sister’s skirt, tights and shirt, and using the smaller end of L’eggs eggs for a chest. I wore a wig, too, but I have no idea where that came from. I never did that again because a couple of my friends were looking at me in an extremely creepy way all night. It kind of made my skin crawl.

Back in the present, the trick-or-treaters stopped coming fairly early and we were left with half of the candy we bought, even after we were giving out multiples to everybody and me and my son had a couple of pieces ourselves. The fun was over before it began. Sure, there were a couple of cute kids that came by, but there was just something missing. A terribly scary thought has just crossed my mind and I can’t believe I’m even thinking about it, but maybe when we have grandkids Halloween will be fun again. Until then I’ll just have to reminisce about how incredibly cute my own kids were on Halloween. Even as I marvel at how they've grown into pretty incredible young adults.

New Kind of Family

My wife and I were talking to some friends the other night about the content of TV shows for kids today and about how family is portrayed in general on TV. These days, family is mostly portrayed in a negative way and usually as dysfunctional. Family members don’t even try to get along with each other, they talk rudely to each other and they are totally disrespectful to one another. There is also disrespect toward the parents and between the parents. What’s a parent to do? Unless you want your kids to hate you, you can’t just ban TV.

Well, there is a cable channel called ABC Family, so they must have family shows scheduled, right? Not so much. ABC Family is nothing close to a family station. Here’s the titles of some of the shows you can see on ABC Family: Pretty Little Liars, The Lying Game, The Secret Life of the American Teenager and 10 Things I Hate About You. When you read what the shows are about it is plain to see that not one family is even semi-normal, and I wonder if any character on any of the shows are well-adjusted. Yeah, it’s “A new kind of family” alright. I’ll stick to the old kind.

I’m not even going to try and convince you that my family always got along with each other. There were nine kids in a fairly small house, including seven boys. Even if I just think about the times I remember most, when the three older ones were married and there were just six of us, there was conflict. However, when there were arguments or fights (not a fist fight, but a war of words) the expectation was that we would work it out. If we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, work it out and get along with each other, Mom had her last alternative – sitting on the couch and facing each other until we were ready to get along. Talking rudely to each other was not allowed – at least not in the presence of Mom or Dad. Disrespect toward our parents? Ah, no, that would not have been tolerated.

We did stuff together, like playing games or playing cards, so we had lots of fun times. But Friday night was a special night in my house when I was growing up. We sat together as a family (maybe after arguing slightly over who got what seat) and watched The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family. These were two good shows about families where people truly cared about each other and yes, even loved each other. They had their fights and arguments and didn’t always agree with each other, just like in real families. But by the end of the show, they had resolved the conflict, made up and moved on. Is it any wonder that people still love the Brady Bunch today?

While we watched the shows, we were munching on M&M’s. We must have gone through a ton of M&M’s! Each of us got a Dixie cup and Mom would count out a specific amount of Plain M&M’s and a specific amount of Peanut M&M’s. It may seem silly to count them out, but it was the only way to make sure that we all got our share. I say specific amount because I’m not really sure how many we got. It may have been 15 plain and 10 peanut, or 20 of each; we’ve talked about it at family parties and there is some disagreement as to the quantities. I don’t remember if the older guys got more than the younger guys, or the same amount. However, we all still remember eating our M&M’s while watching the Brady Bunch.

The hard part was making them last as long as we could. I divided mine up by colors and ate the color that had the most first. I’d eat them one or two at a time and I didn’t chew them, but would let them melt in my mouth (not in my hand!). I have to admit that I had a habit that most people would think is pretty disgusting. When I ate the Peanut M&M’s I would let all the chocolate melt off, then I would put the naked peanuts back into my Dixie cup to be eaten after I had finished all the M&M’s. Pretty gross, I know, but I never had to worry about anyone eating any of the peanuts!

Today, M&M’s are a necessity for any family party or gathering. Of course, there are more than just Plain and Peanut these days, but those are the staples, along with Pretzel. Mom doesn’t count them out for us anymore, but anyone who is taking more than their fair share gets some good-natured ribbing. Nothing disrespectful or rude, just a little reminder that there’s a bunch more of us who want some, too.

It may seem corny or old-fashioned that we sat around together on a Friday night and watched a TV show together, and the Brady Bunch at that, but we all have fond memories of those times. We weren’t the Brady Bunch where everything always turned out just right, but we actually liked each other and being together. We got along with each other for the most part, and when we didn’t we worked it out. I’ll take the “old kind of family” over the “new kind of family” any day.

Senior Moments

I don’t know if I’m having more “senior moments” as I get older or if I’m just more aware of them when they happen, but it sure seems like they are increasing rapidly. There are times I can’t remember the name of an every day item, like remote control, so I sit there sputtering, trying to explain to my son what I’m looking for. It goes something like this:

Me: Have you seen the…thing.

Him: Um, what thing?

Me: (Pausing to think) You know…the thing…for the TV…to change the channels.

Him: (Laughing) The remote?

Me: (Laughing, but feeling a little stupid and slightly angry that I couldn’t remember the name of it) Yeah, the remote.

Him: (Pointing at the object right next to me) It’s right there. Wow!

This is just one example. I forget the names of people I’ve known for years, the names of bands I’ve listened to for years and the words to songs of bands I’ve listened to for years. I forget what things are called, common phrases and well known clichés. I want to say something, but I can’t remember a specific word. It’s right there, just out of reach, taunting me. So far, I haven’t forgotten the names of my wife and kids, or my own name. That would not be good.

I know that I forgot stuff a lot when I was younger, but I think I just didn’t focus on it as much. When you’re a teenager and forget something, even something important, it’s usually casually dismissed. “What do you expect, he’s a teenager. Who knows what’s going on in that head?” Ah, but forget something not the least bit important when you’re in your 40’s or 50’s and you get the having-a-senior-moment treatment, where you get laughed at and told what something is, or who someone is, in a condescending manner (that’s called a telephone, you dial someone’s phone number and you can talk to them). It is kind of funny…when it’s not you. No, actually, even when it is me I laugh most of the time.

I had a good laugh this week at my own expense. I not only had a senior moment, I had a senior morning. I usually drink some kefir in the morning (if you don’t know what that is, click here), but when I got to work I remembered that I hadn’t had any that morning. OK, not a big deal, I don’t have to take it. A little while later, I went to take my daily multi-vitamin and it wasn’t in the container I carry it in. Neither were my other supplement and medication I take. Not taking my vitamin, supplement and medication for one day is not a life-threatening situation, but I definitely feel better taking them every day. Besides, I can just take them when I get home. So I texted my wife and told her all the things I forgot and wondered what I else I forgot that morning. She quickly texted me back and reassured me that it was OK and that we all have our days. And then this at the end, “You have your underwear on, right?” Now that would be a huge senior moment, going commando, because I forgot to put on my underwear. Or even worse than that, wearing them on the outside of my pants.

We had some good laughs at my Mom’s expense growing up. We were always doing stuff, mostly good but some not so good. Mom must have sensed something was going on at times because she would suddenly and unexpectedly show up (she did tell us when we were older that when it was too quiet she figured we were up to no good). When we got caught doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing, she would say our name to get our attention. Or should I say that she tried to say our name. With seven boys she sometimes didn’t get the name right the first time…or the second…or the third. So if she caught me, she’d say, “Billy…Harold…Stephen…you know who you are!” By then, everybody around was laughing, including Mom. Now obviously, these were not situations where anyone’s life was in danger or where we were doing something illegal, we were just doing the stupid things kids sometimes do. It probably would have been easier for her to just call us “You there” or “Hey you” because as soon as she said that we would have stopped whatever we were doing and she wouldn’t have had to go through the list of names. Maybe her plan the whole time was to defuse the situation with laughter. If that’s true, then it was a brilliant plan in my opinion.

Laughing is good for you. Some people even say that laughter is the best medicine. Whatever happens, I’m going to laugh at myself and others like there’s no tomorrow. I just hope I don’t suddenly stop mid-laugh, look around at the other people around me and, wondering what the heck we’re all laughing about, blurt out “Who are you people?”

Puddling

My son and I went to our local D’Angelo’s sandwich shop recently, as it is one of his favorite places to eat. Since I drink a lot of water, I had to go to the men’s room, as usual. As I was washing my hands I noticed one of those “Employees MUST wash their hands” signs. Ya think? There’s probably some state law that says that all restaurants have to put one of those signs in the restrooms, but do we really need a law to tell food handling employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom? Shouldn’t everybody be washing their hands before they leave the bathroom? That is something I was taught as a child and have now taught my kids to do.

As a matter of fact, when I was a kid, washing my hands after using the bathroom might turn into an extended play time. I’d bring some of my little army men and my GI Joe action figure (boys didn’t play with dolls even then) into the bathroom with me, fill up the sink with water and make up all kinds of scenarios. Sometimes they were all just having fun, going swimming in some lake. I’d line them up around the sides of the sink and each one would take a turn jumping in. The more daring men would jump off the cup holder or the soap dish, sometimes doing amazing dives with five or six flips before they hit the water. Sometimes the little army men were the bad guys and GI Joe would come and wipe them all out, throwing them into the water with loud screams and splashes. Sometimes GI Joe was the evil giant and all the good little army men would fight him until he plummeted to his death in the cold water below, but not before a few of the good guys met their demise there, too.

I would also take some of my Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars in with me and play with them in the sink. Sometimes one of the drivers would take a turn too fast, skid around the corner and then drop from the cliff into the ocean below, screaming until the car hit the water. Sometimes the sink was just a big car wash and nobody got hurt or died! Of course, those episodes were not as fun or exciting as the others. And of course I had to do the sound effects. The conversations of the participants, the shots being fired, the tires screeching and the men screaming until they hit the water, mostly done out loud but sometimes only in my head. When the water got too dirty or started getting too cold, I’d put all the guys in the sink, open the drain plug and they’d all fight for their lives as all but one or two got sucked to their death in the whirlpool.

Then I’d refill the sink with water and…usually Mom would come to the bathroom door and ask, “Are you puddling?” That’s what she called our playing in the bathroom sink, puddling. She’d let us puddle for a while and have some fun, but not with multiple sinks full of water. You see, we had only one bathroom for all eleven of us, so someone would want to use the bathroom at some point. And if not, Mom wasn’t going to let us waste that much water. She must have noticed me go in there, heard the toilet flush and the water running in the sink and me not coming out. So when I ran the water the second time – which could have been five minutes or fifty minutes, I was totally lost in the moment and really don’t know how long it was – that was enough time and water for her.  

Most likely Mom wasn’t too mad, though. I probably had the cleanest hands, army men, GI Joe and toy cars in the neighborhood. Something a Mom could be proud of. Unfortunately, we, as a family, almost certainly had the highest water bill in the neighborhood. I guess you take the good with the bad. These days I don’t have any little green army men and my GI Joe action figure is long gone, but every so often while I’m washing my hands I’ll let the soap or the toothpaste take a dive into the lake below. And they’ll be screaming all the way down until they hit the water with a final splash!

Football

Football is back! The games are on television and I’ve seen quite a few people either playing football or just tossing a football around. Around here, this time of the year is perfect for being outside and doing something. It’s not too hot and it’s not too cold. You can work up a bit of a sweat, but not have your shirt soaked through. If you’re not much of a doer, there’s nothing like watching football on a Sunday afternoon, hanging out with friends or family and eating some good food.

Football was big in my neighborhood growing up. When we only had a few guys we played out in the street, two-hand touch, from telephone pole to telephone pole, and the defense had to count to 5-Mississippi before they could rush the quarterback. You would think that counting to 5-Mississippi would be simple, but not much was with those guys. There were the guys who made up their own language when they counted (1missippi2missippi3missippi4missippi5missippi). I still haven’t found Missippi on a map. There were guys who rushed the quarterback when they got to the five in 5-Mississippi instead of after saying the full Mississippi. There were the guys who counted silently when you were supposed to count out loud, yelled “5-MISSISSIPPI!” after about 2.5 seconds and then rushed the quarterback.

Sometimes we made up first down markers, like you had to get past the tree in the front yard of our house or past the front walkway of the neighbor’s house across the street. Once you got past that mark, we chose another. Or sometimes we played that if you completed a pass, the down stayed the same. You could theoretically drive the length of the field, going 2 feet at a time, all the while being on first down. The shorter the pass, the better chance of actually catching it, so sometimes people would try to sneak in a pass that was behind the line of scrimmage, but the rule was that the receiver had to be over it to be considered a complete pass.

Of course there were always the arguments over whether the guy got you with one hand or two. There were some kids who would swear on their mother’s grave that you didn’t tag them with both hands and sometimes it just wasn’t worth the argument. But just to make sure they didn’t do it again, they just might get tagged a little extra roughly the next time he caught the ball. There were some kids who would lie or cheat in order to win so there were always arguments, ranging from the 5-Mississippi rule, to whether a pass was complete or not, to whether you tagged them with both hands. Amazingly, I don’t remember any games breaking out into actual fights. You argued your side, made your point and then we moved on for the good of the game.

When we had a larger number of kids to play, we went to a field at the beginning of the cemetery at the end of our street and played tackle football. No, we didn’t play amongst the graves. The front part of the cemetery was actually very nice. It had the field we played football on, some nice trees, a couple of ponds we played hockey on in the winter and people fished in during the other months, and a small hill that kids went sledding on in the winter. The graves started beyond the ponds and never bothered any of us – except at night, when we weren’t supposed to be in the cemetery at all. So we’d have our big game and we all got dirty, some of us got slightly hurt and a few of us lost our shirts. I remember a few of my friends going home and getting yelled at for the condition of their clothes and themselves, but hey, this is football, not badminton!

A highlight of the games, whether two-hand touch in the street or tackle in the cemetery, was after playing for a few hours we’d pool our money, go to the Sunoco station and buy sodas for everybody. If we had enough money, we shared some candy bars, too. Isn’t it funny how you could be beating each other up, getting into heated arguments and swearing you would never play with that kid again, and then you’d get a Mountain Dew or a Pepsi and all was forgotten? Now that I think about it, there were times we didn’t have enough money for each of us to have a soda so we shared those, too. Without straws. And none of us died.

If you want to get out of the house this weekend and not have to do yard work, go play some football. A little three-on-three, two-hand touch is great exercise. Us older guys aren’t as quick as we used to be, or as limber, so take it easy on us. But please, don’t be that guy who always says you only got him with one hand. You just may get unexpectedly jacked up!

Here's Looking at You Kid

My wife and I had dinner with some friends the other night that we hadn’t seen in a long time. Before dinner we were sitting in the living room and talking when my wife asked about a portrait that was hanging on the wall. I had been looking at that painting, which was of a young woman, since I got there because of her eyes. I might be a little strange, but sometimes I see a picture or a painting of someone and I can’t forget their eyes. This picture was like that.

A person’s eyes can tell us so much. There are times when a person is smiling in a picture but their eyes tell a different story. You can see the hurt, the pain or the sorrow despite what the mouth is telling you. Sometimes the eyes are just vacant, like there’s no life behind the face. Other times there’s just something about a person’s eyes that says that this person is fun, interesting or maybe a little crazy. It’s like they’re sitting all serious for the moment, but at any second they’re just going to burst out laughing uncontrollably. Again, this may seem a little strange, but sometimes a person’s eyes in a picture or a painting just seem to follow you wherever you go in the room. This picture was like that.

It turns out that the painting was of our friend Lesley’s great grandmother when she was younger and was from the 1850’s. When I first got to Tony and Lesley’s house, I was standing straight across from the painting and noticed it and how the eyes seemed to be looking right at me. Later, I was off to the right of it and noticed how the eyes seemed to still be looking right at me. Standing up so the painting was below eye level or sitting down so it was above eye level made no difference; the eyes were still looking right at me. I figured I was imagining it. So when my wife asked about the painting I started to say something about the eyes, but Lesley finished my sentence about how the eyes follow you. So maybe I wasn’t imagining it after all.

When I was in high school and my first year of college, we lived in a big, old house with a semi-creepy basement. My older brothers had a fairly realistic (for the time) ugly old man mask and one year around Halloween they found some old pants, an old boy scout shirt and some old boots, and stuffed them with leaves to make a body for the mask. They stuck an empty beer bottle in one “hand” and a pool stick in the other hand, and Bill was born. To add the finishing touch, they drew eyes on pieces of white paper and taped them in the eye sockets. Bill was placed in the corner of the basement and became our constant companion down there, hanging out with us as we played pool and ping pong, listened to music and did the stuff teenagers do. Here’s the really weird part: No matter where you were in the basement, Bill’s eyes were looking right at you! Two people on two different sides of the basement would swear on their lives that Bill was looking directly at them. Quite a few people thought Bill was alive and some were afraid to go near him. There were a few times me and my friends could have sworn we saw Bill move.  

I have always liked to read and one year I decided to read The Amityville Horror. Because the house was usually noisy, I decided to read it in the quietest place in the house – in the basement. I’ve already mentioned that it was kind of creepy in the basement and I did have a vivid imagination, but there were times I put the book down and just stared at Bill for a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t getting closer. I’d pretend I was reading but was actually looking at Bill out of the corner of my eye because I was sure he was moving. I really didn’t want to get hit over the head with a pool stick or a beer bottle, so I wasn’t going to let Bill sneak up on me! I actually even started thinking that maybe my house was haunted, too, due to the Amityville effect. It got to the point that I didn’t want to go into the basement myself, whether it was the middle of the day or the middle of the night. I’m pretty sure that I finished reading the book in my room, noise and all. The amusing part was that when I saw the movie, I actually laughed because it was so mild compared to the things I envisioned in my head, especially while I was reading down in the basement with Bill watching every move I made and plotting how he was going to get me.

I don’t know when Bill was finally laid to rest, but I do know that imagination can be much scarier than movies and reality. Bill is a testament to that. Sometimes imagination can also be more interesting than reality. I had already created multiple scenarios in my head about the girl in the painting when Lesley told us who she was, all more involved than her being her great grandmother who lived a normal life. Because in the end, those eyes that followed me told me there was something more to the picture. I just haven’t figured out what.

With Autumn Closing In

Many people see Labor Day as the end of summer. In many ways, it is the unofficial end of summer, even if there are a few weeks left until the official date. Kids usually go back to school either just before or just after Labor Day. Adults are usually finished with vacations by Labor Day, although if you’re like me, you save at least a few days for the day after Thanksgiving and the week between Christmas and New Year. My son went back to school this year on the Wednesday before Labor Day, while last year he went back to school the Wednesday after Labor Day. Why the difference? Other than because the last day of school was June 26^th last year due to snow days, who knows? Also, my daughter starts college this year and we moved her into her college dorm on Saturday, Labor Day weekend, with her classes starting the next Thursday.

With the kids back to school related issues and our non-summer schedule back, one thing I’ve noticed is how much earlier it is getting dark. Gone are the days when it was light past 8:30, the light lingering long enough that we didn’t need the indoor lights until it was almost time to go to bed – well, at least for me; the older I get the earlier I get tired. Now it is dark by 7:30 and we’re losing daylight minutes every day. It’s funny how the earlier sunset just kind of creeps up on you. Even though we’re losing daylight minutes every day from the Summer Solstice, we don’t really notice it. Then we get to the end of August/beginning of September and one day it hits us, it’s 7:30 and it’s almost dark! We act like it’s totally unexpected or it’s never happened to us before in our life, even though it’s an annual occurrence.

When I was a kid in elementary school and junior high, I hated seeing the “Back to School” advertisements, whether on television or in the paper. To me, it meant that summer, and all the fun that went with it, was over. No more long days of wiffle ball, baseball and the other games we played; no more swimming in the pool and eating lunch outside in the back yard; no more coming and going as we pleased and just hanging out in my front yard. It meant that it was time to go back to school and the associated long days of classrooms, homework and general boredom. When I got to high school I dreaded hearing the song “Night Moves” by Bob Seger, because of the line “With autumn closing in.” Those words told me that hanging out with my friends and the freedom from responsibility were gone. I guess I still kind of hate hearing that song in late summer because of the reminder that fewer hours of daylight are coming, fewer days of warmth are coming and less time with family is coming.

Still, it wasn’t all doom and gloom back then. I had one neighborhood friend who was away at camp for the month of August and he usually came home just before Labor Day weekend. I had another friend who was away at their summer home for the whole summer and he always came home after dinner on Labor Day. It was fun to hear all about their adventures while they were away, exaggerated or not, and tell them what had gone on while they were gone. Since we always went back to school on the Wednesday after Labor Day, we’d plot our Tuesday together so that we’d get as much fun packed into the day as was humanly possible. For one last day, autumn was held back as we laughed, played and basked in the glory of the late-summer sun. Those were good times.

So, the kids are back at school, it’s time to close the pool for the season and it’s time to break out a sweatshirt or two. Some leaves here and there are already starting to change color or fall from the trees, the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting cooler. The baseball season is winding down and the football season is starting up. Unofficially, summer is over and change is in the air. But we know that there will still be some beautiful, sunny days where we can be outside, doing whatever, without wilting in the hot, humid summer air. And for at least one more day, autumn will be held back and we’ll laugh, play and bask in the glory of the later-summer sun. Because officially, there’s still a few weeks of summer left.

Categories

“What do you do?”

I’m asked this question a lot, mostly by other guys and mostly by other guys who don’t know me. As I’m thinking about it, I don’t remember a woman ever asking me that question. I know a lot of times it is just small talk, but I really hate this question because I feel like many, if not most, people categorize you based on your answer. What type of education you have, what kind of person you are and the all-important (to some) how much money you make are all gathered from your answer. All the assumptions are based on the stereotypes the questioner subscribes to, not necessarily fact. I don’t like to be categorized and never have.

When I was in high school I was one of those guys that didn’t really fit in with any specific group. Believe it or not, I was pretty smart so I was in honors-level classes. I also played sports, partly because I love sports and partly because I knew it would keep me out of trouble by giving me something to do after school. On top of those things, I was a bit of a partier on the weekends (sports was only Monday – Friday). The smart kids, despite my good grades, never accepted me as one of them because I played sports and there were quite a few “jocks” that gave the “geeks” a hard time in school; the sports kids, despite overcoming my lack of natural ability with hard work, never accepted me as one of them because I partied on the weekends and “jocks” didn’t hang out with “burnouts”; the party kids, despite being at all the so called big parties with some of the same kids they hung out with, never accepted me as one of them because of the double whammy of being a “geek” and a “jock”, and the only thing a “burnout” hated more than a “jock” was a “geek”.

When I use the terms geek, jock and burnout, I’m not trying to make fun of people (or categorize them) but I’m using them as other people did. I didn’t really subscribe to the whole categorization thing even back then. I had acquaintances from all the different groups and some were actually friends, others like me who didn’t really buy into the whole clique thing, but who nonetheless hung out with a specific group. Still, for the most part I had a couple of close friends that I usually hung out with, my best friend being Tony, the New York Yankee loving, Dallas Cowboy adoring fan I mentioned in this post. He didn’t really fit in either, for some of the same reasons as me, but also for a different reason, too. No matter. We were the 2 Musketeers until our friend Jeff moved to town and then we were the 3 Musketeers. The funny thing is we were our own small diversity group: a somewhat poor white kid from a big Catholic family of nine, a moderately poor black kid from a small Catholic family of three, and a reasonably well off white kid from a small Jewish family of two. I guess we did actually see and understand the differences between us, but we didn’t really care about them or about what anyone else thought about us. The three of us can thank our parents for that.

Why should someone who doesn’t know me care about what I do for work? I don’t really care what anyone I don’t know does for work, unless I just happen to be looking for a crocodile wrangler to remove the crocodile from my back yard. So it looks like I’m going to have to come up with some new answers to the “What do you do?” question to change things up a bit, try some of them out and figure out which ones trip up people the most. Things like:

·     I take the trash out on Monday.

·     I listen to music really loud when I drive.

·     I occasionally take the long way instead of the shortcut.

·     I root for the underdog, unless they’re playing “my team”.

·     I observe people so I can use their quirky habits in the stories I write.

·     I laugh out loud at nothing sometimes.

·     I’m a bit klutzy so I randomly trip over stuff.

·     I take the last brownie.

·     When someone says “Don’t even think about it!” I think about it.

·     I forget stuff a lot... Who are you?

·     I tell my wife and kids I love them everyday. Multiple times.

These are all things I do and there is a bunch more that are more of who I am than the job I do, even if they’re not the kind of things someone is looking to hear, small talk or not. How someone chooses to categorize me after hearing any of those lines is up to them.

Taller and Thinner

I’ve seen a couple of really crazy TV commercials for men lately. Well, at least I think they’re crazy. I understand that a lot of advertising plays on people’s insecurities, but are there really so many insecure men out there these days? We’ve seen the commercials and infomercials for men who are losing their hair for years, and today there are multiple companies telling us why they are the best at restoring our confidence. For those who aren’t losing their hair but maybe having it turning gray on them as they get older, there are multiple companies who can help you out. You can change the gray just a little or all the way back to your original color in just a few minutes – while a pretty young woman just happens to be outside your apartment door, waiting to borrow a cup of sugar, or milk, or something. Only when you feel secure enough with your hair color should you open that door. However, there are two I’ve seen lately that just make me shake my head in disbelief.

The first one was for men who have put on a little weight over the last, I don’t know, ten or twenty years. It’s not for a new diet plan, it’s not for a new weight loss miracle pill and it’s not for a new exercise machine. No, this is for undershirts that make you look slimmer. Not that they make you any slimmer than you are now, they just make you look 1 – 3 inches slimmer. So guys, we can eat everything and anything that we want, however unhealthy it may be, and we can look skinnier. Exercise? We don’t need no stinking exercise! We can be seven-days-a-week couch potatoes and put on one of the InstaSlim shirts and voila – that spare tire has been fixed!

The other ad was for all of us short guys. You know, us pitiful little guys who don’t get noticed by the women and get passed over for jobs and promotions because we’re wee, little men. But us hapless men now have a way to change that by just using these inserts in our shoes. It’s kind of like your teenage years all over again – you can grow up to three inches overnight! Put the MaxTall inserts in your shoes and all of a sudden the boss recognizes your talents and makes you his right-hand man. Sneak the maximum number of these into your shoes and suddenly the girl of your dreams gazes lovingly into your eyes and we have a love connection! Oh, I forgot to mention that the ad talks about short guys as being “only” 5’9”. I know plenty of guys my height who don’t think 5’9” is short at all. Heck, for some of us that would make us feel NBA-sized compared to where we are now.

Here’s the thing that confuses me about using these products. What happens if you do actually attract someone because you look thinner? You just look so good that she won’t be able to keep her hands off of you…oh, except that you can’t let her touch you because then she’ll feel your physique aid. Let’s be real, it’s just a girdle for guys. It kind of reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George’s father and Kramer come up with the Manzier (or Bro if you prefer). As for the other commercial, what happens if you attract someone because you’re suddenly taller? Sooner or later you’re going to have to take off your shoes with the inserts and then she’ll unexpectedly be looking down at you. And probably looking down on you, too. Adios, au revoir, auf wiedersehen, goodnight!

My parents always taught us to find people who like you and accept you for who you are, not for what you are or do, and to accept others for who they are. In other words, don’t hang around with someone just because they’re captain of the football team or drive a nice car or have a lot of money, but because they’re nice people and are fun to spend time with. They never said that looks didn’t matter at all, but that shouldn’t be the major factor in liking someone. They taught us that character counts, both other people’s and our own. I had a couple of close friends growing up that I knew would always be there if I needed them and would always have my back. That gave me confidence to just be myself and not feel like I had to impress anybody. I’ve been married for 22 years to a beautiful, smart, talented, caring and loving woman who has always loved me for me who I am, even as I’ve gained weight, lost some hair and had a lot of it turn grey. Now that’s security.

To Tell the Truth

When I was a kid my parents always told me to tell the truth. If you do something wrong and get caught, just tell the truth. Don’t try to cover it up, don’t try to deny it and never try to blame it on someone else. Those are all good guidelines and I tried to follow them, but I didn’t always tell the truth. One of the first times that I can remember where I realized I could lie and actually get away with it, was in third grade. Not that I never lied before that, but I remember this one like it was yesterday!

It occurred just after recess on a fine spring morning. Two lucky people got to bring balls out to recess but they had to return them to the closet at the back of the room afterward. On this particular day my good friend Smitty got one of the balls, and as we were hanging up our coats he went into the closet to return it. I thought it would be funny to close the door and leave him in the dark, so after taking a quick look around, I shut the door. Just as I was pulling it shut, he turned around and saw what was happening. He started running toward the door, terror in his eyes, but he was too slow to react. The door closed in his face and I quickly went back to my seat, chuckling to myself that I put one over on my buddy. I figured he’d just open the door, try to get me back and then go to his desk. However, there was one small detail I didn’t know about that closet door; it didn’t open from the inside. Smitty found out pretty quick and started banging on the door.

My teacher, Mrs. O’Reilly, went and opened the door. She was a no-nonsense, old-school teacher and asked Smitty why he was disturbing her class. Five seconds later, I was asked to join the two of them at the back of the class. Mrs. O’Reilly pointed at Smitty, who had tears in his eyes, and asked me if I had shut the door on him. If I said yes, I’d be in trouble; if I said no, I’d still be in trouble if she didn’t believe me. I looked at Smitty, my friend who lived on the next street over from mine, begging me to tell the truth to get him out of trouble. I looked at Mrs. O’Reilly, my teacher wanting to know what the heck was going on, and… I lied through my teeth. I denied closing the door on Smitty, all the while looking straight into her eyes. And she believed me!

Looking back on this time got me thinking, what if we all had to tell the truth? Imagine some of the interactions that would take place.

Your boss: What were you thinking?

You: I wasn’t!

Old acquaintance: Hey, we should get together and hang out.

You: Sorry, I have better things to do than relive the 90’s.

Co-worker: Have you seen the new Vampire show on the WB?

You: I’d rather poke my eyes out with a dirty screwdriver.

The person who tripped, fell and spilled their meal all over the floor: You think that’s funny?

You: Yes. Yes, I do.

Your teenage son: Why can’t you drive me to Johnny’s house?

You: Because that would mean I have to get up off the couch, get dressed and leave the house.

Your wife: Does this outfit make me look fat?

That’s where the corollary to the always-tell-the-truth rule comes in. My parents taught us that sometimes you shouldn’t say anything at all, if you don’t have anything nice to say. That’s another good guideline to follow. No cover up, no denial, no blame. And no lie.