Broken Dreams

I’ve recently been watching the “When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions” TV series that was originally on Discovery Channel. The series goes through NASA’s quest to put a man into space and ultimately to get a man to the moon after President Kennedy’s 1961 speech in which he said that the United States should land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. When I was a mere eight years old, I was allowed to stay up late that July night to watch Neil Armstrong be the first man to walk on the moon. Luckily for all of us, it was summer so Mom let us watch history being made.

Many moments of the different missions stand out to me, but one thing that really touched me was when the Apollo 13 Commander, Jim Lovell, spoke about the moment he realized that his dream of walking on the moon was never going to happen. Even though he had been looking forward to being one of the few men to actually walk on the moon for years, he had to let that dream go. He was disappointed but couldn’t dwell on it because he had to focus on getting back home alive.

I never had to make a decision between living and following a dream in my life, but I have had to let some dreams go over the years. After all the hoopla over the moon landings, there was a time I wanted to be an astronaut. My first watch was even a glow-in-the-dark astronaut watch, where the second hand was an astronaut floating around in space, similar to the one below:

How cool is that? However, I realized I could never be an astronaut because just spinning around in circles in my front yard practically made me sick. I mean, if doing the washing machine spin cycle in the front yard makes me puke, I don’t think I’m going to make it into space.

When I was younger, I thought it would be cool to be an actor. Then in fifth grade I decided to be part of a play and I had two small parts. One was the narrator at the beginning of the first and second scenes, and the other was a small part where I was on stage in a group where I didn’t have any lines. The narration part was easy, I just came out and said the name of the play, who it was written by and set the first scene. We did it in front of the younger grades for practice, so I came out, gave the name of the play and who wrote it and then started setting the scene and…went blank. I stood there, repeating “The setting is…” multiple times, while the little kids started laughing. From off to the side, my teacher gave me my line and I finished with a very red face. I realized then that if I couldn’t recite a few lines in front of a few little kids, I could never get up in front of a large group of people and deliver a bunch of lines.

I used to love to sing, too. I was in the Glee Club (yes, it really was called that) and really liked it. Then my voice started changing and I got really self-conscious about how I sounded and that was the end of my singing career. It was over before it even started. Remember Peter Brady when his voice was changing? I could relate. There was also the whole thing about getting up in front of a group of people and performing…with all of them looking at me.

Being on the small side, I used to dream about being tall when I got older – especially if I ended up being taller than all my brothers. When I was in about 6^th grade and was starting to get better in baseball, I imagined myself being like 6’4”. When I was in 9^th grade and most of my friends were growing way more than I was, I imagined myself being 6 feet tall. By the time I was finishing high school, I would have been happy to be 5’9.  Seeing as both my parents were short, 4’11” and 5’5”, I never really had a chance to make 6 feet tall.

Even though I wasn’t very tall, I dreamed of being a professional baseball player from the time I first put on a baseball glove. Up through 10^th grade, I truly believed I had a chance to make it to the major leagues. Then I started thinking about how I was one kid, in one small town, in one small state, and I realized I was pretty good, but not that good. That was probably the only dream that hurt to let go of. 

Not all my dreams were crushed. I have an incredible wife, two awesome kids, a good job and I live a decent life. Those are all dreams that came true. Oh yeah, I may not be writing books, but I am a writer with this blog! And I didn’t even have to choose between a dream and life.

Back From Vacation

I was on vacation last week with some of my wife’s family and they have younger children in the 6 – 9 years old range. It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with kids that age, as my kids are now 17 and 20. It didn’t take me long to realize there are some major differences between my kids and the others.

The first difference was being woken up by kids at 6:00 in the morning. At that early hour, they are up and ready to go. You’re still sleeping? Not for long! They tried to stay quiet, but after about ten minutes of progressively louder whispering they started talking in their regular, middle-of-the-day voices. They obviously didn’t get the memo that it is alright to sleep past the normal time they get up for school. I usually get up at 6:00 AM for work, but I’d be very content to sleep past that time for a week or two. So I lose a few hours of the day by sleeping in, but who cares? I mean, it’s VACATION! My son could sleep until 10:00 or 11:00 (maybe even noon) and not feel bad about it. Of course, he’s not going to bed at 8:00 – 9:00 PM either, so I guess there is a tradeoff there.

The next difference is that younger kids go in and out of the house about a thousand times a day. And they slam the door every time! Not long after eating breakfast they are out to ride their bikes (slam!). After a few minutes one of them needs a drink of water, so he or she comes back in (slam!). Guzzle down that water and it’s time to get back outside like there’s a 30-second time limit on the break (slam!). Then someone realizes that someone else just went in for water, so they come in to get a drink, too (slam!). Repeat this process for every kid (slam!) multiple times (slam, slam, slam!) and…well, you get the picture. My kids either stay in the house, or when they go out there’s a quiet click as the door closes and we don’t see them or hear them for two or three hours. When they come back they quietly close the door. Ah, that’s nice.

The last difference is that younger kids get bored during the day. What? Bored? Did I mention that it’s VACATION? I guess that having fun for hours at a time gets old pretty quick for younger kids. You can only ride your bike, play games, watch movies, go to the beach and goof around for so long, and then it gets monotonous. Throw in breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between, and it seems like a pretty good day to me. I have a remedy for the boredom: sleep later and there won’t be as many hours to fill! That would take care of a couple of issues at the same time. We’d all be able to sleep later and the kids wouldn’t be so bored.

Now I don’t want it to sound like it was all bad or negative, because it wasn’t. It was actually a really great week. I had fun with the kids at the beach and I love to listen to them as they tell me about things from their perspective.  I got to spend some time with both my own kids, which doesn’t happen as much as I’d like these days. I got to spend some time with my in-laws, both of whom are kind, generous and entertaining. Last, but not least important, my wife and I got to spend a lot of time together, without the usual stuff that gets in the way at home, like work and schedules. You can’t beat that.

The week flew by and it wasn’t long before I was back to the real world. It’s at times like those that I sometimes wish I was still a kid, where vacation is not just a week or two, but the whole summer, and where I’d have so much time in the day to do whatever I wanted that I’d get bored. I’d just have to remember to close the door quietly on my way out.

Haircuts

I hate having to go get a haircut. I rate it right up there with shopping. I don’t like to do either of them, but I do it because I have to. I know there are some people who will say that I should be happy that I still have hair to cut, but I still hate doing it. I go to the same place every time and I usually have one of two people that I’ve come to trust cut it each time. However, this last time I went, neither of my usual people were there and I actually got a double whammy.

First, I’ve never seen this person in the shop before so I’m assuming she is new. Second, she looked really young, like maybe she just got out of hairdressers school, or beauty school, or whatever they call it. Or worse, I’m thinking that she’s never even had any training. Perhaps, like my daughter, she started out cutting her Barbies' hair (my wife can attest to the fact that it was not a pretty sight). Maybe this young woman went from Barbies to her little brother – we’ve all seen the horrors of sibling induced hairdos on America’s Funniest Videos or the like. I almost turned around and left, but I really needed to get it cut. If my 12-year-old self could have seen me now, he would have been horrified that I even thought that it was necessary to get my hair cut. Times, and styles, change.

When I was young, I had no say in my hair style. When my friends were starting to grow their hair out, I still had a wiffle (or a buzz cut to some people). When my friends’ hair was over their ears, I was lucky that I still didn’t have a wiffle and could actually grow it out a little. In my family, we had an in-house barber and his name was Dad. He didn’t do fancy haircuts, nor did Dad do the latest styles. He had his own set of electric clippers, he put on the attachment for the length, and then it was zip, zip, zip – all your hair gone (just look at the family picture I use for this blog!). When I saw him setting up the stool in the middle of the dining room on a Saturday morning, even as a little guy I knew what was coming.

Apparently, so did one of my older brothers because he would take off to avoid Dad the Barber. This did not seem to bother Dad in the least. He'd say, “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be back.” After all, Dad wasn’t stupid. He knew that a teenage boy would have to come home to eat at some point. He’d be patient and bide his time, clippers at the ready. Now, I don’t know if this is my imagination or if it really happened, but it seems to me that you had to sit there and watch the other guys getting their hair cut while you waited your turn. Not that it took that much time. He didn’t let our hair get too long and, as I mentioned before, it was just a quick zip, zip, zip – all your hair gone. The older ones had some say, but us younger ones had no hope of letting the hair stay a bit longer.

I don’t remember when, but at some point Dad stopped being the family barber. I don’t remember where we went after that, either, but I do know that for as long as I can remember, I’ve not liked getting a haircut. Today, I still get shivers down my spine when I hear the buzz of the clippers near my ears, even if they’re not giving me a wiffle. I do my best to stay motionless so that there’s not one of those “Oops, I think I went too short” moments.

This story ends well, though. The new, young woman, cutting my hair for the first time, did a great job. I didn’t look like Moe from The Three Stooges, my hair didn’t look like it did in the blog picture, and when I got home my wife told me it looked great. Hey, if she likes it, then I have nothing to complain about. Overall, a good experience. And yes, I am happy that I still have hair to cut – even if there’s less of it each year and what’s left is getting grayer each year.

A Parable

Once upon a time there was a nice man who started a blog and liked to write posts that revolved around his family growing up and his own wife and kids. These posts made him happy because it reminded him of all the wacky, weird, funny and nice things that happened to him when he was a kid, and they helped him to see how blessed he was to have such an awesome family now. Although this man didn’t have much in the way of material possessions growing up, he had something that many kids didn’t. He knew he was loved by parents who did their best to teach him what was important in life, and by his brothers and sisters, even if they occasionally got into arguments or fights.

The man did his best to put aside some time each week to write his post, to edit it, and to make it just right in the hope that someone would read it and smile, maybe even laugh, or say “Hey, I remember that!” Hopefully there would be only good memories, because in his mind the good had far outweighed the bad. Not that everything was perfect growing up, far from it, but isn’t it easier to recall the good and the positive than it is to scrounge around the depths of your brain and relive the bad and the negative? Posting to his blog pleased the man, for he loved to write and to share with others the things he had done and been through as the eighth of nine kids. He wanted others to know that family was and always would be one of the most important things in his life.

Then something terrible happened to him. It was a project at work, or more importantly, a project deadline. His usual writing time was taken over by work related activities because this project “just had to be out the door” by a certain date. He was okay with this for a short time, but then the deadline got moved out by a couple of weeks. Being the hard worker his parents had taught him to be, he kept up the crazy schedule in order to make the new deadline. Much to his despair, the deadline was moved out a couple more weeks with the expectation that it would take the same effort to meet the newest deadline. Weekends became more time to work instead of spending time with his family.

Not wanting to leave gaps in his blog, the nice man hastily threw together a few posts and put them up for everyone to see, knowing in his heart they weren’t his best. “I guess it’s better to have a mediocre post than no post at all.” he thought. This comforted him and helped him to make it through the long days spent at his work laptop, doing what he had to in order to keep a steady paycheck. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he could somehow make some time to work on his blog. There just had to be a way.

However, when he sat down to write something for his blog, there was nothing but an empty screen staring back at him. It seemed that his blog posting days were over, gone like the long summer days that he missed out on because he was working to meet a project deadline. This made the man sad, for it took away the pleasure of writing and the happiness of recalling fun times with friends and family. “It’s over.” he thought. “I’ve lost my creative drive. I’ve got nothing to write about.”

The moral of this story: All work and no play makes “8 of Nine” a dull blog.

In the Blink of an Eye

It’s hard to believe that Labor Day has come and gone once again. Summer is over, at least unofficially. It seems that this year was really dragging, feeling like it was almost standing still, and then suddenly it whipped forward in a blur of activity. The months of January through June were so slow it felt like there were 40 days in each month. May and June were especially slow. They were like those cartoon dreams where you’re trying to run away from something and you realize you have cement blocks on your feet and you’re running in molasses. It seemed like the 4^th of July, and my vacation time, were somehow not getting any closer.

Finally, June turned to July. I took my usual vacation during the week of July 4^th and felt like summer was mercifully here. I relaxed, went down to the Vineyard and enjoyed some time with my wife. Then I made a huge mistake. I blinked and it was the end of August. That’s all it took, a quick blink of the eyes and 8 weeks were gone. Scientists say that time is constant, that there’s 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and 7 days in a week. I either just proved them wrong or I’m living in some kind of time warp, because 8 weeks just went by in the blink of an eye.

I know that I didn’t pull a Rip Van Winkle and snooze through the whole summer because I remember things happening and being part of them. My wife and I did go down to the Vineyard while the kids were away in San Antonio at a conference, and we had a very relaxing time with my in-laws, my wife’s sister and her husband and their two awesome kids. We also went up to Vermont for a weekend in late July to attend a family reunion for my wife’s family. We hung out and talked with people we hadn’t seen in four years, we went tubing down the Battenkill River, and we ate a lot of good food. My brother who lives in Canada came down for a week or so and we got to see him and his wife at a cookout with my family. We went to a couple of parties down the Cape with friends and there were so many people in their back yard there was almost no room for my chair. We had some friends visit from Texas and spent a great afternoon reminiscing with them. We spent time with some of our good friends and counted our blessings that we have such awesome kids. My wife and I celebrated our 23^rd Anniversary in August. Looking back now, I guess we really did enjoy the summer.

So summer is almost gone and fall is just around the corner, like it or not. As I mentioned last year, I’m going to enjoy any summer-like days that happen to come along over the fall. There are still a lot of nice days to enjoy and it’s not like it will suddenly be freezing outside. Who knows, maybe we’ll have another mild winter like we did last year and we’ll be outside all the way to spring. Let’s just hope the next few months don’t go by as quickly as the last two. I’m still recovering from the whiplash.