Life Lessons

Sometimes when I try to explain something to my kids, especially when they’ve made a mistake, they really don’t want to hear it. In all honesty, they just want to get as far away from me as they can. Or they just want me to shut up. As my son says at these times, “Dad, I don’t need a life lesson.” I remember the first time he said that to me. I was shocked, I was surprised, I was hurt. Yes, I was hurt.

Part of my job as a father is to help my kids not make the same stupid mistakes I did. Isn’t that what all Dads (and Moms) want for their kids, to live a better life than they did? And to not learn things the hard way. Because of this, there are times we just want to explain a little bit and make sure they make the connection between what they did or did not do and what came out of it. As my kids have gotten older I’ve learned that they’re actually very insightful. They already see the connection that I’m trying to show them, to explain to them. I’ve come to understand why they don’t want another life lesson. Not that it always stops me – sometimes you just need to say what you need to say. Just sayin’.

I remember one of the first times my dad gave me one of those true life lessons. I was probably about 12 years old and told one of my friends who had totally aggravated me to screw. No, that’s not a nice substitute for the F-Bomb; it’s really what I said. Now that may seem tame by today’s standards, but telling someone to screw, and a friend at that, in those days was pretty strong. When I turned to go into my house my Dad was standing there, not looking very happy. Apparently, he had seen and heard the whole situation. The first thing Dad did was make me apologize to my friend, which I thought was totally ridiculous after how he had been acting. Then came the life lesson. Three decades later, I don’t remember the exact words he used or even everything we talked about, but a couple of things have stuck with me. One thing I remember clearly was that my father didn’t yell at me once during the conversation. The other is that he reversed the situation and it was me being told to screw, and he asked me how I’d feel in that situation. I totally got what he was saying: you treat people as you’d like to be treated. It’s the “Golden Rule”.

I know there were plenty of other life lessons from my parents, some so important that I still remember them today. But here are some other things I also learned from my family:

·     Never let someone convince you that something will taste as good as something else, when you know that their having to convince you means something is wrong. Nine kids from my family can tell you that powdered milk does not taste just like regular milk, liver does not taste just like steak (even with ketchup) and carrots mashed up do not taste just like squash.

·     Always check the toilet paper roll before you sit down. Once you’ve done your duty, it’s too late. You’ll be at the mercy of others who may not have your best interests at heart.

·     If your older brothers do something to help “toughen you up” or teach you a lesson and tell you “Don’t tell Mom!”, then don’t tell Mom. Otherwise the next time will be much worse. Besides, later in life when people give you a hard time, you’ll laugh at their pitiful attempts to intimidate you.

·     If you’re a little wary of doing something but your older brothers are encouraging you to just do it, that “nothing bad is going to happen”, something bad is going to happen.

·     If your girlfriend has pet names for you, such as Snookie Wookums or Pookie Bear, never let her call you that in front of even one of your brothers and sisters. That is, unless you want to be called that by your whole family for a long time, even after she’s not your girlfriend anymore.

Your family can teach you a lot, things that will help you through life. The important thing is that you take these life lessons and pass them on. Your kids might act as though they don’t want to hear it, but some day they will thank you for sharing those gems with them. Well, maybe not, but at least when they’ve gone to college or moved out on their own they’ll check the toilet paper on the way in to the bathroom.

Found Money

I decided to do a load of laundry the other day, and as usual, I checked the pockets of the pants to make sure there was nothing in them. When I check pockets I find things like gum wrappers, miscellaneous pieces of paper, earrings, even used Q-tips. Sometimes I find some money, usually change, but once in a while I find a dollar or, hold the phone, a five dollar bill! Any money I find is mine. On this particular day, I found two quarters in one of my own pair of pants.

I know you’re probably thinking something like, “Big deal, 50 cents. That can’t buy you anything these days.” Well, maybe if you’re a glass-is-half-empty person, you’d be thinking like that. But if you’re a glass-is-half-full person, you might be thinking something like, “Bonus! I got something for nothing!” That’s kind of how I felt, even if it was my own pants. That was money I didn’t know I had. And you just never know when you’re going to need a little change. Here in Massachusetts if you buy something for $5.00, the tax on it will be $.31, and you’ll be glad you have those two quarters. Who wants a pocket full of change when you can use the few coins you have and only get a couple more back? Who wants to sound like the school janitor with his 57 keys jangling on his ring as he walks around the hallways? Not me.

When I was a kid, we walked to school from first grade up through eighth grade and we’d occasionally find some money while going to and from school. I don’t know why, luck I guess, but we usually found money on the way home. Sometimes it was nickel or a dime, and sometimes we’d find a quarter. Before you start thinking, “So what?” let me tell you what a quarter used to be like. A quarter back in the early 1970’s was a gold mine for a kid. How? A measly 25 cents would buy you not just a candy bar, but a can of soda as well. That’s right, 25 cents would buy you a Snickers Bar and a Pepsi; or a bag of M&M’s and a Mountain Dew; or a Snickers Bar and a bag of M&M’s with a nickel left over. That’s what one quarter would get you, so imagine what two quarters got you, or what the Holy Grail of found money, a whole dollar, would get you! If you found a dollar, everyone around you was suddenly your best friend.

When we found money we’d go to Walt’s Sunoco, a local gas station/car repair shop, because there were candy and soda machines inside. The owner also raced cars and had a hot rod there sometimes, which we could look at and look into, but not touch. We thought he was just about the coolest guy! When we went in to get our food and drink, he’d ask us how we were doing in school and tell us to keep studying. If he was in an especially good mood, he’d give us some stickers for our notebooks, usually STP or Raybestos. We didn’t know what those were, but they sure were cool stickers – and no one else at school had them. So out we’d go, candy bar in one hand and soda in the other, feeling like we were on top of the world. 

We’d take our time going home, laughing and talking about what we’d do with our next big score, all the while scouring the ground for more cash. Anything that was round, shiny or both was pounced on, examined and then pocketed or tossed away. Nickels, dimes, quarters, it didn’t take much to make a young guy happy. Not when you were sharing candy and soda with your brother and best friends. Who says a quarter isn’t worth much?

The Joy of Sledding

This past week, we got our second blizzard in the last couple of weeks, about a foot of snow. We haven’t got this much snow this quickly in a long time. As I was outside cleaning off the cars and clearing the driveway with the snow blower, it reminded me of when I was a kid. It just seems like we got more snow back in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. Maybe its just selective memory, but I remember us having more snow back then.

We loved when it snowed when we were kids. After helping shovel the driveway and the walkway, we could do whatever we wanted. We’d make little snow forts and have snowball fights, sometimes just in our yard and sometimes with our friend across the street. I don’t ever remember anyone getting hurt, but I do remember people, including me, taking a snowball right to the face. After shaking off the realization that I was stupid enough to stick my head up at just the right (or in this case, wrong) time, I’d wipe my face off and make a couple of tightly packed snowballs to get my revenge. By tightly packed, I mean hard. And if someone was cackling a little too loud about their strike, I’d make a couple, take off the gloves and rub them up a little to make ice balls. You get hit with one of them and you’re gonna know you got hit!

Then my son came out (no, he wasn’t helping this time, but he did help last storm) and asked if he could go sledding with some friends. Sledding, that was something we did all winter and right in my backyard most of the time. We had a hill in my backyard that we thought was as big as Mount Everest; it was actually more of a molehill than a mountain. However, that didn’t stop us from having the time of our lives out there. We’d be out there for hours, taking our 15 – 20 second runs down our “hill”. That is not a typo; it took about 15 seconds to go from top to bottom. We usually used plastic saucers or these plastic sheets that rolled up with handles to hold onto. I have no idea what they were called, but you probably couldn’t buy them today due to liability concerns. We did use sleds sometimes, but the other devices made the hill packed, smooth and fast. Toboggans were too big for this hill.

We had our course mapped out and named after us and our friends. At the top, you had Steve’s Start, named after my younger brother. Steve’s Start led into Smitty’s Straightaway, which was just a part that went, you got it, straight. Then the course went either to the left or the right. If you went over to the left, you went into Carl’s corner, which we built up with snow to keep you from going into some thorns and bushes, and then went down into our back yard. If you went over to the right, you went off Joe’s Jump into Kevin’s Canyon then down into the backyard. Joe’s Jump was just a part that dropped about a foot, but we’d build up a small snow ramp right before it so that when you went over it, you felt like you were flying! When the snow got packed and hard there were quite a few sore rumps from hitting Kevin’s Canyon on those plastic devices.

After spending hours outside in the cold and the snow and being chilled to the bone, we’d go in and have some hot chocolate. Before there was Swiss Miss, Mom made it on the stove with milk and cocoa in a pan. If we were lucky, they’d even be a fire in the fireplace to dry us out and warm us up even more. I don’t know which was better, the hot chocolate or the fire. Ah, those were the days.  

Outdoor Hockey

I’m a life-long hockey fan so on New Year’s Day I watched the NHL Winter Classic. For those of you who don’t know what the Winter Classic is, it is a professional hockey game played outdoors, either in a football or baseball stadium. The games have been played in Buffalo, Chicago, Boston and this year’s game was in Pittsburgh. There’s been snow (in Buffalo, of course), cold (Chicago and Boston) and now rain. Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the teams involved, but in my opinion this year’s game was the least entertaining of the four.

I usually don’t watch the pregame shows for sporting events as I find them a little a boring, but I have watched the pregame show for the Winter Classic in previous years. If nothing else, they always run a time lapse video of getting the rink ready to play. In a geeky way, I find it very interesting. They also interview players from each team about playing outside and most of them look back to their childhood, reminiscing about simpler times when it was still just a game. Their thoughts and memories brought back a lot of memories for me, too.

Growing up in Massachusetts in the late 60’s and 70’s, spurred on by Bobby Orr and the Big, Bad Bruins, the men in my family were huge hockey fans. We watched hockey, talked about hockey and played hockey. As soon as the ponds froze over, we were there playing hockey. During the week, a group of us would run home from school, grab our skates, sticks, gloves and a puck, and hustle to the closest pond to get in an hour or so of hockey before darkness set in and we reluctantly went home. As far as we were concerned, the game was on and the homework could wait.

The only thing better was the weekends. Me and my brothers had chores to do before we could go out on Saturdays (mine was to wash the kitchen or dining room floor), but then it was off to the ponds. We’d get there by 9:30 or 10:00, skate until about 1:00, go home for a short lunch and then skate until it was too dark to see a foot in front of you. Then, and only then, we’d begrudgingly trudge home, tired and hungry (again). We might have had a few bumps, bruises or nicks, and we were usually numb from the cold, but we were a happy bunch of kids! If we were lucky, the Bruins were on TV that night and we’d watch the game, imagining ourselves out there on the Garden ice.

One of my all-time, favorite memories of those times was when my friend Bruce decided to go to the pond with us. Now Bruce played street hockey with us, but he wasn’t much of an ice hockey player. So Bruce showed up with his stick with a plastic street hockey blade (using a baseball metaphor, Strike One) and since he didn’t have hockey skates yet, put on his figure skates (Strike Two) and went out on the pond. I think it was one of my older brothers who, noticing the plastic street hockey blade, told Bruce that his stick was going to break because it was so cold. Bruce, however, would hear nothing of it. We started the game and the first time someone passed the puck to Bruce, you guessed it, the plastic blade snapped right off his stick (Strike Three, yer out)! After a few minutes of uproarious laughter and some I-told-you-so’s, the game went on, with Bruce borrowing someone’s spare stick.

That was about the biggest problem we faced back then, broken sticks or dull blades. I can see why the pros had that little twinkle in their eyes when they talked about it. I probably have that twinkle right now, too.  

Happy New Year

The year 2010 is behind us, with 2011 stretched out before us, its actions and decisions as yet unwritten and memories not yet made. What will 2011 bring for me and for us? I have no clue, I’m not psychic. However, I do know this: someone I know will have a baby in 2011 and someone I know will die in 2011; someone I know will overcome a major issue in their life in 2011 and someone I know will have a major issue in their life in 2011; I will hurt someone I know in some way in 2011 and someone I know will hurt me in some way in 2011. You don’t need to be clairvoyant to know stuff like that will happen in any given year.

My 2010, like most of yours, had its ups and downs. However, as I look back over the year I feel the good far outweighs the bad. Sure, there were challenges, but I can honestly say that those challenges helped me to grow in some way. One area that I think I really grew in this year was in being more grateful and thankful. For everything and everybody in my life. So as 2010 ends and 2011 begins, I just want to say, “Thank you.”

To my wife, my daughter and my son, thank you for loving me just as I am and for encouraging me to write and to start this blog, which has brought back many good memories of growing up. A special thanks to my son, who created the picture and logo for the blog.

To my family, thanks for your support and encouragement regarding “8 of Nine”. I hope that some of the things I wrote about brought back pleasant memories for you, too.

To my friends, thank you for reading at least one of my postings and even becoming an actual follower. That is truly encouraging to me.

I’m not big on making New Year’s resolutions, even joking when I was younger that my resolution was to not make any New Year’s resolutions. If nothing else, I kept my resolution longer than two days. But how about this: we all just try to get along better with less arguing and fighting, we listen better so we can understand each other more and we treat others as we’d like to be treated. As Elvis Costello used to sing, “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?”

So, Happy New Year! Let’s make 2011 a great year. Thanks.