Out There

Let there be music

2012-02-09T04:43:00.000-08:00

Music has always been a big part of our lives, though we kind of got there from distinctly different directions. She grew up in what always seemed to me to be more of a highbrow environment, with a piano-playing mother and a dad who knew his way around a variety of genres, including symphony, jazz and the more intellectual varieties of folk music. Some of her best childhood memories include trips to hear the Chicago Symphony and the Fine Arts Quartet, while the city's classical music station, WFMT, was blaring in the kitchen most of the time, day or night.
We loved music in my house, too, though our tastes and experiences ran more towards "Sing Along with Mitch," and whatever was on the radio at the time, plus the show tunes and folk music my sister and brother brought home from college.
I'm pretty sure we shared our love of music with our own kids, and we're doing our best to give our youngest grandsons as much exposure to different kinds, as well. Most of the time, that means the songs we sing together, which range from the old Beatles tunes and folk songs that make up a big part of my repertoire, and the kids' songs we listen to in the car, like "Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom" and "Really Rosie."
But as a extra-conscientious grandma, she's always looking for ways to broaden the horizons of the little guys, feeling that it's never too early to get a firm foundation in the classics and other grown-up musical styles.
Like the North Carolina Symphony's Holiday Pops concert we attended in early December, before we headed to Illinois for the holidays. I thought it was kind of a pricy performance for a five- and three-year-old, but she assured me that it would be well worth the double-digit ticket price.
"It's something they'll never forget," she proclaimed.
Thinking a little proximity would enhance the experience, I led us down to the third row, where we were lucky enough to find front-and-center seats with a great view of the orchestra and its flamboyant, European-trained conductor.
"This ought to get their attention," I said.
It did.
For a minute.
Tops.
I guess I should have been glad young Cyrus and John didn't wiggle and giggle their way through the performance. Instead, they simultaneously fell into a deep and enduring sleep that lasted from the middle of the first song until the very end of the two-hour performance.
"I think they just found it relaxing," said grandma.
"Kind of an expensive nap," I grumbled.
We gave it another shot once we arrived in Illinois, when the Kewanee Klassics presented their annual Christmas concert at the First United Methodist Church in Kewanee. The little boys were well-rested and bright-eyed, and the price of the performance--a free-will offering--was more to my liking, so I figured we were all in for a holiday treat at the hands of the talented trio.
"They ought to like this," I said.
They did.
For a minute.
Tops.
Again, they slipped into a profound slumber, dozing through the entire concert. Heck, they were even sound asleep when frontman Brock Tumbleson presented them with a prize for being the youngest fans in attendance.
All the kids and grandkids returned to their respective homes after the holidays, but we stuck around for all of January and into February, all the while enjoying the wide variety of live performances that make our area a pretty nifty little music venue, if a somewhat unknown one. We were knocked out by the Jansson Five, the featured act at the January Galva Arts Council Coffeehouse, who blasted their way through a hot rockabilly set that compared favorably with the acts we enjoyed in the Nashville club scene last fall. We were treated to an evening with the incomparable Mike Baum, a Galesburg-based musician buddy, who warmed the hearts of friends and fans alike. I was disappointed to be out of town for the Kewanee High School production of “Guys and Dolls," but heard they did a fine job. And we were both glad to hear we'd be able to make it to the News Room Bistro in Toulon for an annual performance by Knox-Galesburg Symphony maestro Bruce Polay and some of his musicians. The Bistro concert is one of her favorites, featuring small-group performances of some pieces that are familiar to her and her culturally-rich childhood. Though not as well-versed or refined, I find the classics as performed by Polay and company pretty darned engaging, as well, plus there are always cookies on hand to ensure my good behavior.
The music was excellent.
But something was missing.
"I wish John and Cyrus were here," she whispered. "They would really enjoy this."
I looked at her to see if she was kidding.
I wondered if she was talking about the cookies.
Then I realized she was right.
What with school and soccer and all the other things those little guys are involved in,
they can always use a good nap.

What's all that stuff in the box, dad?

2012-02-02T06:27:00.000-08:00

In last week's column, I wrote about the fact that we'll be leaving soon for our beachfront digs in North Carolina. It's an idea that seems increasingly attractive as we receive a steady stream of photos from out there showing folks strolling and shelling, dolphins leaping and splashing, and--wait for it--a really rare sighting of an actual harbor seal basking himself on a nearby beach and looking a lot like me in a similar situation and position.
The move southward will happen soon, though the balmy Illinois weather we've been experiencing almost matches the current Carolina conditions, minus the waves and swells of the Atlantic Ocean and, of course, that seal.
Meanwhile, we've progressed with some of the things that needed to be done before we could depart in all good conscience, though in all honesty, we'll probably never be completely finished with the housekeeping tasks that always linger in the backs of our minds.
Like the everlasting bone of contention we call the basement, an area of concern I also mentioned last week as it was just picking up speed.
"We can't just leave all this stuff for our kids to deal with some day," she said in the sweet, stubborn tone that has always made me want to give her a big hug before pushing her into a mud puddle.
Some of the things almost 40 years of marriage have taught me are that certain chores can't be avoided, some arguments are wholly futile, and that if I ever did push her into a mud puddle, she'd just push me back.
But I just want to let you know that the boxes, bins, bags and baskets down there are slowly--very slowly--receding.
Slowly, in case you didn't notice, is truly the operative word.
I'd like to blame my forebearers, and hers, too, for the piles and piles (and piles and piles) of pictures, letters and documents that must be sorted and anguished over in the arduous pitch-and-save process we suffer through from time to time.
Especially the pictures.
Some historians will tell you that it was photography, not moveable type or the internal combustion engine or even peanut butter, that was the most important invention of the past couple of centuries.
Our ancestors apparently agreed, as they took pictures of just about everyone and everything in sight. They apparently didn't feel, however, that the art of writing was nearly as important, as virtually none of the photos we sifted through had a name, date, place or any other identifying indicator.
But I can't just blame them. I, too, was a fairly ardent amateur photographer back in the day, with a pretty nifty 35mm camera outfit that included bunches of extra lenses and filters and other photo-geek accouterments. Heck, I even had my own darkroom once upon a time, where I churned out an endless stream of pics depicting trees, dogs, cars, lakes, mountains and virtually every move, cute or otherwise, that our two sons made before the age of three. Add to that the towering mound of report cards, hand-made Mother's Day cards, crayoned refrigerator art, school essays and other invaluable treasures awaiting us, and you begin to get the picture.
But we dug and dreamed and sorted and mournfully pitched in an aggressive distillation process that reduced our holdings by about two-thirds, with even greater reductions ahead as we distribute as much as humanly possible to our hapless children and other unsuspecting family members.
Finally, we were done.
For now.
She vows that she will continue the process of examining, discarding and distributing each and every treasure trove. I'm hoping I'll get lucky and slip into a coma before I have to look at one more dusty document or fuzzy photo. I don't think we've uncovered anything of any interest to Antiques Roadshow, Pawn Stars or even the American Pickers yet, though the pickers are hereby invited to come down and take a look.
Meanwhile, we are beginning to share the wealth.
Last weekend, we made a quick run to son Colin's house in northwestern Minnesota, near the Red River of the North and the great plains that stretch westward from Fargo.
We came bearing gifts.
We brought Kitchen Cooked potato chips, bread from the Bishop HIll bakery and even a snowblower to help fight the blizzards that haven't arrived up there, either.
Oh, and one more thing.
A large plastic tub, filled to the brim with the first installment of his inheritance, so to speak.
"So, what's all that stuff in the box, dad?" he asked.
I just smiled.
Tag, you're it.

Home in our hearts

2012-01-26T05:49:00.000-08:00

Nobody really questioned why we'd want to be back here in Illinois for Christmas. After all, Galva is about as close as we can get to smack-dab in the middle between one son's home on the Minnesota prairie near Fargo and the other's address in North Carolina. Our big, barn-like house is a perfect place for a crowd at Christmas. And we were lucky enough to pack them all in for the holidays.
They're all gone now, of course, and few questions and comments have begun filtering our way from friends and neighbors:
"What's the weather like in North Carolina?"
"Have you been thinking of heading back south pretty soon?"
"I thought you'd be gone by now."
"Are you crazy?"
I imagine the recent concern as to the number of bats in my personal belfry has to do with our continued presence here in the midwest during the hit-or-miss weather phenomenon known as winter. As many readers know, my spouse and I have been spending at least half our time in an alternate universe called the North Carolina beachfront for the past year. And while the NC coast is not subtropical, it is generally quite a bit balmier than even the mostly mild winter we've been experiencing in the Land of Lincoln. My youngest grandsons are wondering where their beloved grandma is, and have, surprisingly enough, even indicated some mild interest in the whereabouts of the curmudgeonly coot known simply by the ominous, not-entirely-inaccurate moniker of "grumpa." So, you can understand why I've started, as the James Taylor song says, to have "Carolina on my Mind."
Yes, it's been almost exactly a year since we embarked on the interesting experiment I call "bicoastal" living, whereby we've split time between Galva and a shoreline house on North Topsail Beach, the north end of a skinny, 26-mile barrier island off the coast of the Tarheel State. Since then, we've been either there or here, with a few sidetrips to visit our other kids and grandkids, plus stops along the way in places like Nashville, the Great Smoky Mountains, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and many other points in between.
It's been fun.
It's been interesting.
It is, I think, what we always dreamed about when we thought about the future. And while there are plenty of other ideas on our list of things we'd like to do, a chance to be a part of our young grandsons' lives is well-nigh irresistible for grandma, and even grumpa, too.
So we're going to head that way in a couple of weeks or so, but before we do, we've still got a little stuff on our respective plates. Like a few happy rounds of the sort-and-pitch process that takes place every time we have a day or two to attack the basement-bound bins, bags and boxes filled with pictures, letters, newspaper clippings and other family flotsam that haunts my wife's very being.
She: What are we ever going to do about all that stuff down there?
Me: How about we wall over the door and pretend we don't even have a basement.
We need to take one more trip to northwestern Minnesota, where we plan to deliver a snowblower to son Colin, who, surprisingly enough, hasn't really needed it yet this winter. There are taxes and other paperwork to deal with, plus the ever-changing-but-always-growing list of things we absolutely must take east with us, despite our efforts to keep things in that living space as simple as possible.
Of course, it would be easier to leave if we didn't love it here, too.
Because even when it's cold, our hearts are warmed by the familiar faces and places that abound around here. We love our friends. We love our house. We love our town.
She, apparently, loves the basement, too, while I desperately love my 1994 Isuzu Trooper.
And while "love" is a powerful word to describe Max, the recalcitrant housecat, we're even sort of glad to see him when we return to the Galva half of our back-and-forth schedule.
But we gotta go.
We want to go.
Grandkids await, as do long walks on the beach and oceanside sunsets. The Blue Heron who fishes out back has been wondering where I am. The pelicans who patrol our beachfront need me to watch them as they dip and dive and glide. We're happy and excited to be returning to people we love and a place we consider our second home.
We've missed them. We've missed it.
But we'll miss you, too.
We always do.

One hundred years from now

2012-01-19T05:34:00.000-08:00

I don't know where--or how--my brother finds all this stuff. Though I consider myself a fairly apt searcher and discoverer of fascinating and unique facts and material on the world wide web, he tops me fairly consistently, posting links to a veritable plethora of good and interesting stuff.
Recently, a note via his Facebook page led me to a 1900 Ladies' Home Journal article entitled, "What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years."
The article was written by one John Elfreth Watkins, an engineer, novelist and journalist who, based on his predictions, became known as "the seer of the century."
The beginning of the 20th century was an exciting time, with the world teetering on the brink of technological advances that almost make some of our own big ideas seem a little silly in comparison.
Some of what was new in 1900 included phonographs, light bulbs, typewriters, skyscrapers, diesel fuel, aspirin and the first overseas telephone call. In 1900, a train could cover the same distance in six days that a covered wagon traveled in six months, and the idea of the automobile was just beginning to catch on. Though they traveled twice as fast as horses, only 8,000 cars and about 10 miles of paved roads existed in America in 1900. The 1900 Paris Exposition displayed amazing things like moving sidewalks, a wireless telegraph, powerful telescopes, and the first escalator. And back in the U.S.A., two brothers named Wright made their first trip to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to begin manned glider experiments.
Given the tone of the times, it's easy to understand how Watkins and his collaborators would come up with some of the ideas listed in the article.
Though some of the technical details differ, he was spot-on in predicting technologies very similar to modern-day television, cell phones and digital photography, but missed the boat a tad by promising "peas the size of beets" and strawberries as large as apples. He got it right when he predicted electricity would be used to provide light and heat to speed up the food growing process, and also accurately called for central heating and air conditioning systems, though he thought the hot and cool air would enter homes via "spigots" connected to a centralized HVAC plant. He was a little overcautious when he speculated that the average lifespan would increase to 50 years, but wholly overestimated the energy of folks of the future when he said "everybody will walk 10 miles" daily as part of a lifetime program of exercise and fitness. Water power was his suggested mode for a electricity generating system that would completely replace coal, while automobiles would be cheaper than horses, and "airships" mostly limited to military use.
Watkins also declared an end to flies, mosquitoes, mice and rats by the year 2000, while also predicting near extinction for horses and virtually every sort of wild animal, except those in zoos. And while he might have been wrong about bugs and beasts, he came much closer when he guessed at our dependance on take-out meals, refrigeration and hermetically sealed foods.
But perhaps most interesting to me was his prophecy that spelled an eventual end to the letters C, A and Q.
"They will be abandoned because unnecessary," he stated. "Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas."
Gosh, sounds an awful lot like texting to me.
But here's the thing.
What would you say if you were asked to predict the future? What do you think will be going on a hundred years from now?
Some say we'll travel to Mars, and it seems almost certain that there will be increasing climate changes here on earth. Other predictions deemed likely by some sources and/or experts include ocean farming for both fish and algae, communication through thought transmission (synthetic telepathy, yikes!), immortality technology (whatever that means), control over the weather and brains wired to computers for faster, more efficient thinking.
Well, good enough, I guess.
But I'd like to think we will have used those computer-aided brains for a few other reasons, as well.
Like a solution for worldwide hunger and an end to unending war. For universal healthcare, with real breakthroughs in medicine that are available to all. For clean air and water and sustainable, non-polluting forms of energy. And, most of all, for a world society that finally has the good sense to get along.
Seems like maybe that was the plan, all along.
Maybe, in a hundred years or so, we'll get it right.

Something about January

2012-01-15T16:17:00.000-08:00

The Roadtripper: from Western Illinois Family Magazine

++++++++++

There's something about January.
Christmas is over.
Carefully, regretfully, we take down the holiday decorations that have brightened our homes and pack them away for another year. The house seems bare. The house seems quiet again.
Outside, the north wind blows and it snows and snows.
There is no sign of spring, no chance of it for weeks and weeks, for even a January thaw is merely a brief respite between winter blasts.
But in the midst of the cold, dark January days and nights comes little blessings.
Hot coffee. Warm socks. A car that starts in the morning.
The landscape takes on a shining grey-white sheen that is stark and surreal and splendid all at once.
Children pull on Christmas skates and whirl and fall and laugh and scream on bumpy circles of ice, while grownups toughen to the cold and walk in the frigid air, laughing and talking and remembering snow days and yesterday's sledding thrills down breakneck hills.
Slowly, we awaken to the possibilities.
Places to go, people to see, things to do.
But there's no rush, no holiday deadlines. You are, once again, able to move at a pace more to your liking and do what you want to do.
And if you really do want to do more than gaze out the window and sip hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire, here are a few ideas...
• Build a igloo with the neighborhood kids, making blocks by packing snow into a medium-sized box.
• Help your kids set up a hot cocoa stand on your corner.
• Read the book you got for Christmas.
• Shovel your neighbor's sidewalk.
• Set up a "Birds' Christmas Tree" in your backyard by decorating your discarded tree with strung popcorn and berries, and any stale leftover breads, cakes and cookies from the holidays.
• Make a reasonable New Year's resolution and actually stick to it.
• Organize an all-day "film festival" with friends and family, with each person sharing their favorite movie on DVD.
• Make homemade soup, bake bread, or do both, just for the wonderful way it makes your house smell.
• Invite friends over to share it.
If you're looking for things to do beyond your own hearth and home, it's Children's Month at the Galesburg Civic Art Center, with opportunities for kids to create and display their work. Other Galesburg-area activities for January include a performance by the world-famous Luther College Nordic Choir, a Magic Tea Party and a Toy Story party, the Galesburg Symphony Society's Tenth annual Casino Night Gala & Silent Auction, International Fest at Knox College, and a January Luau at Sandburg Mall. The Galva Arts Council's second-Saturday coffeehouse provides a warm circle of light, music and laughter every month.
Some say January is the longest, coldest month of all. I say, it can only be that way if you let it.

The new view review

2012-01-12T05:54:00.000-08:00

When you leave town for a couple of months, you expect a few things to change while you're gone. Seasons turn, so fields, trees, gardens and lawns appear to be a little different. Maybe there's a house down the street with a new paint job, or a neighbor with a new car. You look at your friends, and maybe someone's got a different haircut or a new pair of glasses.
And usually, that's about it.
After all, two months is really a pretty short span of time in the whole scheme of things.
So even though I knew it was coming, I wasn't really prepared for what's happened to the landscape between and around Galva, Bishop Hill and points west.
I refer, of course, to the fast-growing field of wind turbines that is sprouting throughout the countryside hereabouts.
Now, let me start right off by stating that I'm pro-windpower.
I believe in alternative energy ideas.
I believe in energy sources that will make us less dependent on those who have less than our best interests at heart.
I believe, too, in energy producers that don't pollute the air or water, or threaten to blow us off the map.
And I even kind of like the way the giant windmills look, with their awe-inspiring height and graceful, slow-turning rotors. Admittedly, I might feel differently if I had one in my backyard, and I understand how some Bishop Hill residents might be a trifle concerned about the contrast between the ultra-modern structures and the 19th-century image of the historic village. But even if I wasn't crazy about the new look to the landscape, I'd surely prefer it to some of those other energy producing alternatives, like coal mines, oil wells and nukes. Moreover, Invenergy, the alt-energy company that's building the new wind farms, has recently dropped a cool half-million-dollar "investment" on its home base of Bishop Hill, with the money to be split between the village and groups like the Bishop Hill Heritage Association and Arts Council. Add that to the three million dollars in property taxes the company will pay this year, which will help support important entities like schools and libraries, plus the two-and-a-half million landowners will receive for the land leased for the towers, and you're looking at a much-needed, just-in-time kick in our economic pants.
And, of course, there are the jobs and related activities that have provided a welcome boost to stores, gas stations, hotels and restaurants, with a nice roster of good-paying, full-time jobs on the horizon for the future.
Change is probably inevitable, no matter what. And innovative ideas are often what drive that change, whether we like it or not. But just in case you feel like wind power is a little too new-fangled for your taste, consider a comment made by a well-known Illinois politician when he was running for office.
“Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power … Take any given space of the earth’s surface, for instance, Illinois, and all the power exerted by all the men, beasts, running water and steam over and upon it shall not equal the 100th part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same place. And yet it has not, so far in the world’s history, become properly valued as motive power. It is applied extensively and advantageously to sail vessels in navigation. Add to this a few windmills and pumps and you have about all. As yet the wind is an untamed, unharnessed force, and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made will be the taming and harnessing of it.”
Who said it? You might have heard of him. He was running for president back in 1860, and delivered a lecture titled "Discoveries and Inventions" while on the campaign trail.
His name was Abraham Lincoln.

Happy New Year's Resolution

2012-01-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

It's a brand-new year, which, for some, means a brand-new set of rules and resolutions to try and live up to.
I guess the whole concept of a clean slate every January first is pretty darn irresistible to a lot of folks. I confess, though, that I don't often participate in the first-of-the-year race towards personal perfection, but I know that many do. Yes, all around us, people are determinedly dieting, carefully cleaning out dresser drawers and lovingly lacing up the new running shoes they got for Christmas. And that's a good thing, because every little bit helps, even if the selfsame folks find themselves back to eating Snickers for breakfast, vainly searching for socks, and driving two blocks to the post office by the Ides of March.
Oops. Did that sound cynical?
I guess so, but only to the extent that I think that if you truly feel you need to get skinny, organized or in shape, you should just quietly get down to it when the spirit moves you, instead of waiting to make a public pronouncement of your intentions as the ball drops in Times Square. But just in case you really are looking at January first as a starting point for something new and different, here are a few ideas I think we all might pay attention to this year and every year.
•Learn to play well with others
For some reason, we seem to have entered a period when simple civility is entirely passé. My personal theory is that the many remote styles of communications in use--like texting, email and social media sites--have fostered an artificially interactive culture where people seem to feel free to say things that they'd never dream of saying face to face. The many icky examples set on TV and in the political arena just enhance the mean-spirited trend. So, how about taking some advice from a leading American philosopher of the 1940s, Thumper, the Rabbit:
"If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all"
•Bake more bread, make more soup.
Or, in other words, slow down and keep it simple. It's so easy to get caught up in our gadgets and overwhelmed by all the sensory input that surrounds us. So here's an idea: Unplug for a day. Go outside for awhile. Look at the sky. Count the stars. Read a book. Write a letter. Have some soup.
•Have a little faith.
Not to proselytize in the pages of your morning paper, but has it occurred to you that there might just really be a power greater than you out there? A power greater than your Ipod and your Blackberry, even? While it's possible to think that sunsets, snowflakes, babies, wildflowers, music and chocolate chip cookies all came about as a result of some evolutionary accident, it's even more fulfilling to believe that they're all a part of a heavenly master plan put into motion by someone who loves us.
Works for me.
Happy New Year.

Welcome to Holiday Inn

2011-12-29T05:30:00.000-08:00

It was a couple of nights before Christmas, and we had just settled down for a long winter's nap.
Though we were both pretty beat from the shopping, cooking, decorating and cleaning folderol that always goes on in the days right before the holiday, we had flipped on the TV that sits across the bedroom on top of a high cabinet. It's an old, tiny, 13-incher, with a picture so small that I really can't see much of what's going on. But it provides sound and semi-seeable pictures to doze by on nights when we're not quite ready to drop off, plus a chance to hear some local news and weather in the morning while we're getting ready for the day.
I kind of missed out on the roster of December TV specials this year, so I was glad to hear the opening strains of one of my favorite Christmastime classics.
"Holiday Inn" is a 1942 Irving Berlin musical featuring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire that introduced the song, "White Christmas."
For those who have somehow dodged the chance to view this festive standard, it goes something like this:
An unlucky-in-love crooner, Crosby, leaves show business with a plan to move to a farm in Connecticut. After discovering that farmwork is a little more than he bargained for, he decides to turn the place into an entertainment venue that's only open on holidays, called Holiday Inn.
"Hey, that's me." I said.
"No, that's us," she muttered sleepily before drifting into the deep, righteous sleep of a woman who has spent an entire day baking and decorating Christmas cookies with a sugar-charged band of grandkids and friends.
And she was right, in a way, because it's only at major holidays that this big barn of a place on Galva's Wiley Park truly fills up to its proper capacity. The contingency this year included the Fargo crew, with a pair of adults, two teenagers and a girlfriend, who probably wondered why the heck she agreed to leave the relative quiet of the great white North for our own special brand of noise and confusion. The North Carolinians were mom and dad, plus five and three year olds, whose major focus has been the proper communication with and cultivation of a certain chubby gentleman from above the Arctic Circle. Also present were one lively visiting dog and Max, the surly, homeboy cat who hated both him for being here, and us for allowing it.
Of course, it's just what we want, and something we look forward to all year. And if it means a little extra effort from time to time to make it all come together, it's easily balanced by the memorable moments that occur the whole time its going on.
Like the first Sunday we were back in town, a week before Christmas. As word was out that we were present and available for duty, we were both enlisted for some last-minute assistance at church. She would be the lector that morning, while I was to provide the music for Mass. We were also in charge of the youngest grandsons while their parents were in Peoria for the aftermath of a joyful wedding reception we had all attended earlier.
I conveniently forgot that fact and left for the church early to prepare the music, while she dealt with the old/new task of getting a pair of lively boys scrubbed and ready for pubic viewing. Things were about ready to roll at 10 a.m. Mass, with the always-prompt Father John Burns poised for action, when grandma rushed in with her charges.
"Whew," I thought. "She made it."
Meanwhile, in the distance, I heard a sudden clamor.
beep-beep-beep-beep
I knew that noise.
It was a car alarm.
And it sounded familiar.
A fellow parishioner hustled up to me and whispered in my ear, just as I was about to play the first few notes of the processional.
FP: Hey, Megan's car is going nuts out there. I think she hit the wrong button.
Me: Help. Please. Quick.
He leapt to the task, grabbing the keys and quelling the din just in time. We're used to being lead characters in our own sort of "I Love Lucy" episodes, so we deal humorously, if not gracefully, with situations that might be embarrassing to others.
Me: Nice entrance, Lucy.
She: Right-o, Ricky.
We had a great time with everyone home, despite a total lack of winter weather that had my younger grandsons and I calling heavy frost, "snow" just to keep our spirits bright. There have been abundant meals and wonderful visits with many of our hometown friends and family members, with a plethora of activities ranging from heavily hectic to really relaxing.
Most of all, It was fun.
But things turned serious for at least two of us as the big day finally approached.
Despite son Patrick's efforts to keep the real reason for the season uppermost in his young sons' minds, there comes an inevitable time when Santa Claus, reindeer and presents under a tree overwhelm any other thoughts and beliefs.
It was finally Christmas Eve.
He was finally coming.
A couple of days before, I had introduced the boys to the NORAD Santa Tracker, an online service provided by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (!) that lets interested watchers know how the Jolly One is progressing on his yearly trip around the world. On December 23rd, they were mildly interested and amused. By the time we had been to Christmas Eve Mass and they had picked at a couple of meatballs, they were staring at the computer screen as ardently as if they were watching for an enemy invasion, rather than a friendly visit from St. Nick.
"He's in Nova Scotia," exclaimed five-year-old Cyrus. "He's almost here!"
A good grandfather would have rightfully explained that the Maritime Provinces are actually quite a ways off, but I chose to capitalize on his sudden angst by reminding him that Santa only comes when little boys are in bed. Problem is, he had just heard the same admonishment from every adult in the house, plus even the cat, I think.
Suddenly, he had a mission.
Get to sleep. Quick.
But before the little ones were trundled off to bed, Paddy gave it one more try. As we all sat in our darkened living room in front of a flickering fire, he read the Christmas Story, the real one, to all of us.
The boys seemed engrossed, absorbing the beautiful tale and its meaning.
"Play the Mary song," whispered grandma to me. And I did, launching into a rendition of "Mary, Did You Know?" a contemporary Christmas song with great meaning and considerable beauty.
All was calm. All was quiet.
It was a magic moment, filled with the faith and love that truly defines the Christmas season.
Well, kind of.
Little John Patrick gave me a look that seemed to say, "Who does grandpa think he is, Andy Williams?"
"I'm going to bed," fumed Cyrus, who had finally endured all the delaying tactics he could take.
But we weren't through tormenting the young lads with our unconscionable ways.
They were still snug in their beds when we, along with older son, Colin and his wife, arose at five in the morning for our annual trip to Julotta, the traditional Swedish worship service held in the Old Colony Church at Bishop Hill.
The youngest boys sleep in the sitting room just off our bedroom, so Cyrus, who was, no doubt dozing with one ear cocked for the sound of sleigh bells, was awakened when grandma made her way through in search of coffee.
"Where are you going?" he exclaimed in horror. He had been firmly warned that Santa needed the entire night to do his work, and knew that little boys--or grandmas--who got up before dawn were in danger of spoiling everything.
She patiently explained that we always go to early church and that Santa always understood.
He mulled it over until she returned.
"What were you doing down there?" he said, obviously fearing the worst.
It was O.K., she explained. Santa would still come.
And he did.
They're all gone now, on their respective ways to Fargo and North Carolina. The house--and we--are slowly recovering from the kind of happy onslaught we are truly made for. Another family Christmas is something we'll remember, as we hope to see it happen again and again.
Happy New Year.

A love story

2011-12-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

She was going to be married.
Things were probably going along as they generally do in the weeks and months before a wedding. She was a little nervous. Her mother was probably excited. Maybe her father was wondering just how he would pay for everything.
Then something happened.
Something kind of strange.
Something kind of confusing.
She didn't know what to think at first.
Then she did.
And she waited.
He was a nice guy.
A hard worker. A good provider.
Everybody thought he would be a good husband, and a good father, too.
But the news she had really shook him up.
She was going to have a baby.
Not his.
He didn't know what to think.
He didn't know what to do.
But he was kind. He could have made a real fuss over what had happened, but he decided to keep quiet, even though he didn't think he could marry her anymore.
Then he had a strange dream.
And his act of kindness became an even greater act of faith.
He married her.
He would raise the child as his own.
But just before the baby was due, they had to go on a long journey together.
It was a hard trip. And once they got there, they had no place to stay, even though it was almost time for the child to come.
It seemed like nothing was going right for the young couple.
Then everything did.
Their baby boy was born.
Our baby boy was born.
Two thousand years later, here we are.
We hustle and buy and cook and clean just to celebrate his birthday.
We string lights and sing songs and give each other gifts.
And we tell the story. The love story.
And we still believe.

In search of the snowy house

2011-12-15T05:57:00.000-08:00

My North Carolina grandsons, aged five and three, have a great name for our home in Galva.
They call it "the Snowy House," based on last Christmastime, the one visit to Illinois they both remember. They have vivid memories of arriving the week before the holiday, just in time for a hearty helping of piles and abundant piles of wintertime weather, something they had only seen before in picture books and movies.
Now, Coastal Carolina does have seasons. Sort of.
It gets cold in the winter. Kind of.
And last year, it even snowed. A little.
But nothing could have prepared them for a sensational series of snow-dazzled days filled with snow balls, snow forts and snowmen, plus sledding, ice skating and more. It was like a wonderful winter carnival, just for them.
Trouble is, now there's nothing much we can say that can convince them that Galva isn't always just a slightly balmier, year-round version of the North Pole. We're heading that way (Galva, not the N.P.) this week, with a travel plan that proves, once and for all, that grandma and I are not exactly destined to be known as Christmas wise men. While Cyrus and John's mom and dad are leaving as soon as Paddy's school vacation begins, we have opted to pack up the two tykes earlier on and embark on a thousand-mile jaunt that will test whether I am still able to cajole, entreat or threaten two active boys into some semblance of reasonable behavior on a two-day car trip. Once we're back in Illinois, they're gonna expect me to produce a goodly amount of the white stuff, along with all the fun stuff that goes with it...or explain why not.
So, let's pray for snow. Please.
++++
The task of preparing our big old Galva home (you know, the Snowy House) for Christmas is one that normally begins the day after Thanksgiving, accelerates into a veritable blitzkrieg of red, green, silver and gold in the first couple of weeks of December, then settles into a steady, busy process somewhat akin to what goes on in Santa's workshop right up until about eleven o'clock on Christmas Eve.
But not this year.
Arriving home, as we are, just a week and a couple days before zero hour, something probably ought to give.
But what's it going to be?
Certainly not the ten-foot tree in the front room, though there's going to have to be some serious furniture moving before it gets placed in its normal spot. And I can't imagine we're planning on doing without the other full-sized models that normally grace our front hall and the family room out back. I suppose it wouldn't seem like Christmas without the beloved bins and boxes full of greenery, figurines, candles and other yuletide flotsam that usually adorn just about every table, counter, sill and mantle throughout the season, and I know the neighbors would be disappointed if they didn't get to watch me clinging to the front-porch pillars like a rickety middle-aged monkey as I hang some sort of outdoor decor, as well. I firmly draw the line at any thought of a cutback in Christmas-cookie production or Swedish meatball-making, and since all our kids and grandkids will be attendance, the food-fest will need to be ongoing and bountiful.
But here's the thing.
We are, once again, lucky enough to have all those kids and grandkids together for another family holiday. And that, along with the real reason for the season, is all that really matters.
So, ho, ho, ho.
I can't wait.

When you wish upon a...catalog

2011-12-08T05:39:00.000-08:00

In a recent column I wrote for Western Illinois Family, a Gatehouse-owned magazine distributed in this area, I mentioned a few of the anxious pre-Christmas activities that took place around my house when I was a kid.
There was, of course, the vital letter to Santa Claus, a supremely important missive that attempted to express, in mere words, the infinite goodness that had been my personal hallmark throughout the year. Of course, I knew full well that a man who "sees you when you're sleeping" and "knows when you're awake" was probably entirely hip to that incident involving the garage window, too. But the fifth amendment was certainly intended for such situations, so I rolled blithely along the thin line between right and wrong, hoping Santa would cast a kindly blind eye at my misdeeds.
"But where did all those toys come from?" asked my spouse the other day. She knows, as all parents do, that sometimes Santa needs a little help. Back in the day, when I was a kid and dinosaurs walked the earth, there were no shopping malls or "big box" stores or big stores at all around smaller towns like Kewanee and Galva, or even in her hometown of Chicago Heights. There were plenty of wonderful retailers of all different kinds in those days, and a few larger department-type stores if you were willing to make a longer trek. But nobody had the aisles and aisles of toys and gadgets you see today.
Nobody except the Christmas catalogs, filled with page after page of all kinds of grand and glorious stuff to warm hearts of good little boys and girls, and kids like me, too.
Sears, JC Penney, Montgomery Ward and Spiegel all sent the free books through the mail. And while we anxiously looked at each and every one of them, it was the Sears catalog that was the one we really waited for. No big surprise there, as Sears kind of invented the whole concept of catalogs, starting in 1888, when the R.W. Sears watch company began sending out flyers by mail. By the 1890s, the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog had expanded to include items like sewing machines, sporting goods, musical instruments, saddles, firearms, buggies, bicycles, baby carriages, and even eyeglasses, including a self-test for "old sight, near sight and astigmatism."
The very first Sears Christmas catalog, came out in 1933, and included the “Miss Pigtails” doll, a battery powered toy automobile, a Mickey Mouse watch, Lionel electric trains, and--wait for it--live singing canaries. Eventually, the Christmas edition became known as the "Wish Book."
All I knew was that it--and all those heavyweight books of the time--contained everything I ever wished for, plus quite a few things I never even knew I wanted until I saw them among the hundreds of pages of toys and other good stuff each catalog featured.
My brother and I (my sister was mostly above such goings-on) would wait in high anticipation for each catalog, then pounce, pouring through each page, and even marking items and turning down pages in the hopes that our mom or dad might happen upon them.
My dad: "Why, look at this, Alice. Did you know that Johnny wanted a motorcycle, a .22 rifle and a coon skin cap for Christmas?"
My mom: "Why, no, Keith. But it's not too late if you order them today."
Hope springs eternal.
I was also fascinated by the child models shown playing with the toys in each book.
Neat and well-combed and uniformly blond, blue-eyed and aryan-looking, they were like no real kids I had ever known. I wondered where they came from. I wondered how they got so clean.
I still do.
Eventually, I grew up and kind of forgot about the thrill of Christmas catalogs a little. By the time I got married and we had kids of our own, I was more accustomed to a steady barrage of Christmas ads on the tube and almost-nightly shopping trips in the days before Christmas Eve. We still got the catalogs, but my use of them was for fast-flipping comparison shopping, not the leisurely dreamfest I had enjoyed as a kid.
Catalogs, I thought, were becoming a thing of the past.
It was not until I went into my youngest son's room to tuck him in one night that that I discovered otherwise. He was an active, restless sleeper, who often dumped his covers on the floor, so I was pulling them back into place around his sleeping form. As I tucked him in, I felt a hard lump next to his pillow. I pulled it free and carried it to the lighted hallway to see what eight-year-old Patrick was stashing.
It was a well-worn 1989 Sears Christmas catalog.
Because some things never change.

All I want for Christmas

2011-12-04T05:20:00.000-08:00

From Western Illinois Family Magazine
+++++

It's been a long time since I put together a real Christmas list. Back in the day, my siblings and I would scour the Christmas catalogs and wander the aisles at the local five and dime, looking anxiously at all the great and glorious things we hoped we'd find under the tree or jammed into the beautiful handmade stockings our mother made for us. We knew that Santa Claus had a distinctly practical side, so underwear and socks were a given, but hope sprang eternal in our needy, greedy hearts as we gazed longly at the really good stuff we hoped we'd get.
My older brother and I would compare notes, judging the odds.
Me: Do you thing he'll bring me a pony?
He: Naaa. You probably haven't been good enough for something like that. But maybe if you make me a peanut butter sandwich and give me the football you got for your birthday, the elves will see you and tell Santa.
That was the ultimate catch around my house. We were, you see, true believers in the musical promise that goes like this:
"He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake."
We (or at least I) knew that Santa was keeping track of us (me) via his relentless gangs of elves that kept an eye on us (me) all year long.
I knew I was doomed.
Unless.
In a desperate attempt to even things out, the most critical part of the pre-Christmas process for me was the all-important letter that would be placed in an antique jar to be delivered, via elf-mail, to the North Pole.
I've spent my entire adult career as a writer of one kind or another, with a lot of the work I've done intended to cajole and convince in one way or another. But while I managed to promote everything from baked beans to beard trimmers to microchips to tractors in my days as an advertising agency copywriter, it was all pure drivel compared to the selling job I attempted to put over on that jolly old elf. That yearly letter-writing task was a veritable training ground for what I'd do for the rest of my life.
I would write a cheery, cordial note to St. Nick. "How are the reindeer?" I'd ask. And "how about Mrs. Claus?"
Finally, I'd get down to business.
I'd start slow, asking for the kinds of things I needed anyway, thinking Santa would admire my thrifty attitude. So I'd list the aforementioned socks and underwear. Then I'd step it up a bit, mentioning that I really could use a new baseball glove and that I had generously given my brother my new football.
Then came the pièce de résistance.
"You know, Santa, some people think that owning a pony teaches kids a lot about responsibility," I wrote. "I think I'm up to the challenge."
Now I knew the elves knew that even my goldfish was only hanging on through the daily efforts of my mother, but, hey, it couldn't hurt to try, could it?
And finally, in one last do-or-die attempt to show just how good I really was, I'd mention a few items I thought my brother would like, thinking Santa would appreciate my altruistic spirit, while keeping in mind that I'd probably end up with most of the stuff he got after he outgrew it, wore it out or got bored with it.
My sister, being a girl, and irritatingly good, to boot, was strictly on her own.
Santa, along with being jolly and generous, is, apparently a sensible sort of guy, so I never got that pony.
In fact, I don't really remember much about what he did bring me from year to year, as important as it seemed at the time. But I do remember that Christmas in my house was always filled with laughter and warmth and love.
It was a wonderful day.
I hope yours is, too.

Living through turkey time

2011-12-01T06:00:00.001-08:00

I'm always up for an adventure.
In my head, at least.
Like, I've always thought it would be cool to hike the length of the Grand Canyon with nothing but a sleeping bag and a handful of dried prunes. Or raft down the intracoastal waterway with a fish line, a lawn chair and a few good books. In other words, I like to think about interesting ways to rough it that I'll most likely never experience.
Until now.
Because we've just battled our way through a happenstance so challenging that I'm surprised we actually lived through it.
Thanksgiving in a beach house.
It's not like our North Carolina beachfront duplex isn't a lovely place to share a meal or, for that matter, any get-together. It's not gigantic, but we were only expecting son Patrick, his wife, Susan and our two youngest grandsons. The kitchen is small, but well laid-out, with enough counter space to allow us both to chop, stir, mix and measure without any excessive kitchen collisions. In other circumstances, Paddy and Susan might have hosted the meal in their "real" house in the countryside, near the town where he teaches, but her restaurant work schedule made it more sensible for them to come our way this time.
Besides, everything is more fun at the beach.
In the almost 40 years we've been married, we've only missed a couple of chances to prepare and host the annual November eat-fest, so we pretty much know the drill. She does stuffing, I do potatoes. She does dessert, I do bread. And anybody willing to get up early enough can do a turkey.
No big deal, as long as you've got all the stuff you need.
The first sign that it might be otherwise started ominously, like the distant rumbling of a far-off thunderstorm.
"Do we actually own a real potato peeler?" I muttered.
Not to be a snob, but as one of the leading purveyors of hand-mashed spuds in the whole wide world, I require something more than the dull, flimsy, faux-peeler I had just plucked from a drawer.
"No," she said. "But that one might kind of work."
Kind of?
Suddenly, my mind's eye was transported to Yankee Stadium in 1927. A stocky ballplayer wearing the number three walks to the plate, where a batboy hands him a skinny, rickety piece of balsam.
"Here, Babe. This might kind of work."
I think you get the picture.
With a big bag of tubers to peel and process, I resumed my digging through the mishmash that lined the drawer, while realizing that most of the contents were from our "camp box," a mixed and fancy collection of stuff we use when we're sleeping and cooking under the stars. It suddenly dawned on us both that we were attempting to put on a full-scale Thanksgiving dinner with the tools normally used to prepare a hearty meal of weenies and beans.
This, of course, was our own fault, as we've intentionally avoided overstocking this place with an excess of anything, whether it be furniture, decorative items, clothing or cooking accoutrements. It's in direct contrast to our long-time home in Galva, which absolutely abounds with all of the above. Normally, it works pretty well, as the meals we prepare here are generally simple and always casual.
But we suddenly realized we had no platters, no heirloom silver or china, no serving dishes other than a couple of plastic bowls, no water goblets and no holiday decor beyond a front-door fall wreath we cobbled together out of some sweet annie and bittersweet we brought from Illinois, plus a few local weeds. Our cooking vessels were limited to a single large pot, one saucepan, some muffin tins and a cookie sheet, and the cast iron skillet that we've used over campfires for years, plus an electric roaster we broke down and bought on sale for the turkey, so we'd have a little available space in our teeny-tiny beach house oven.
Martha Stewart would have died.
Not us, though.
Despite the fact that my spouse truly is an artful, hard-working hostess, who enjoys setting a lovely table in a tastefully decorated home, we managed with those aforementioned tools, plus a couple of disposable foil roasting pans and a largish plastic platter shaped and decorated like a freshly barbecued hamburger. While we intentionally kept it all pretty basic, menu-wise, son Patrick perked things up a bit with a historically accurate dish he created himself that featured both fresh venison and oysters harvested in the inlet behind our house the afternoon before.
So really, it was a good meal. It was a good day.
And while we missed having all of our family around our table, we're happy in the fact that everyone is healthy and happy. And we're happier still that we will gather them all together at Christmastime in Galva.
Because the meal most certainly is not the message.
We've got a lot to be thankful for.
And we know it.
++++
Many thanks for the prayers, thoughts and notes of encouragement that came my way before and after my eye surgery last week. They say it all went well. Recovery is underway.

The eyes have it

2011-11-23T05:31:00.001-08:00

Stop the presses.
I've made a breakthrough regarding the chronic condition called Male Pattern Blindness that affects virtually every man once he gets married. You know, it's the malady that makes most men unable to see what they're supposed to see when they're supposed to see it, whether it’s a stray piece of laundry, an item on a refrigerator shelf or, especially, a note outlining suggested activities and/or chores for the day.
Now, before you nominate me for the Nobel Prize in Medicine, you should understand this: I didn't come up with a cure.
Nope.
I've got something better.
An excuse.
It all started one day back in August when we were walking on the beach. A sudden burst of wind blew sand into my right eye. As I attempted to wipe and blink it away, I noticed something strange about the left one.
I couldn't see squat.
The vision in my left eye was blurred, with a big smudge-like area right in the middle that made it hard to see much of anything.
"Hmmm," I thought, and promptly ignored it, figuring I just had some gunk (scientific term) in my eye that would go away.
But it didn't. And it started to hurt, too, which really got my attention, especially when an irritating gritty feeling evolved into a lancing pain that brought real meaning to the expression "a sharp stick in the eye.
Hmmm, indeed.
To make a really long story a little bit shorter, I worked my way through a pair of doctors over the next few weeks. The first, a general ophthalmologist, muddled about treating me for a mysterious infection that required both twice-a-week visits and eye drops that cost an astonishing $175 for a teeny-tiny bottle. Doctor #1 finally gave up and handed me over to doctor #2, a cornea specialist, who cut right to the chase.
"You got Fuchs'"
Fuchs' Dystrophy is a rare, mostly genetic disorder that occurs when cells that normally help pump excess fluid from the cornea begin to die off. As more and more cells are lost, fluid begins to build up in the cornea, causing swelling and cloudiness. As the disease gets worse, small blisters may form, which can eventually break, causing severe eye pain. Fuchs' dystrophy can also cause the shape of the cornea to change, which results in further vision problems.
In short, it's real blurry, and it hurts, too. Actually, I've got Fuchs' in both eyes. The left one has the advanced, bumpy, blistery stage of the disease, and they tell me my "good" eye is not all that far behind.
"So, what do we do about it?" I asked, thinking an extended course of $175 eye drops would probably do the trick.
"A cornea transplant," he said.
Is that all?
On the advice of the doctor, we did some research and discovered that cornea transplants have become a fairly run-of-the-mill thing for those well-trained in the delicate art of peeling and replacing the parts of the eye. We even made up a little joke regarding the nature of the transplant donor.
Me: Maybe you should donate your cornea.
She: Why would I want to do that?
Me: Then I'd finally be able to see things your way.
Ta-dumdum.
Given the "do it or go blind" nature of the decision, it was a no-brainer to choose to go ahead with the transplant for the first eye.
In fact, we gave it a try last Friday. A donor cornea was FedEx'd in from an L.A. eye bank and I was doped up, draped and ready to go. The norm for this kind of surgery is what I like to call "the la-la land cocktail," a combination of local anesthetic and heavy sedation that makes you feel like wrestling bears, sky diving without a parachute, or going over Niagara Falls in a barrel are all within the bounds of reasonable activity, not to mention a little carving on one's eyeball.
A few minutes after being rolled into the operating room, I was happily dreaming my own little dreams when my doctor's voice cut through the clutter and burst my drug-induced bubble.
"I don't like the looks of this," he said.
Uh-oh.
Those aren't words you want to hear from a doctor with a scalpel in his hand and your eye in his sights.
I dragged myself a few more light years towards consciousness in order to inquire as to the situation.
Happily, it wasn't me that was the problem, but the donor cornea, which wasn't up to my doc's exacting standards.
"I gave it the family test," he said. "I wouldn't put it into my brother, so I'm not putting it into you."
A good thing.
So we're going to try it all over again on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.
Recovery consists of 24 hours staring at the ceiling, followed by a few days of light duty and Ray Charles sunglasses. Advanced transplant methods mean I might be able to measure improvement in weeks instead of months, at which time we'll start talking about doing the other eye one of these days.
I suppose I could think of other ways to spend the Thanksgiving weekend. The good news is that I'll miss Black Friday entirely. The bad news is that I'll have to curtail my own personal eat-fest at midnight on Thanksgiving to prepare for surgery in the morning.
But all in all, I know I'm lucky. Because unlike Macular Degeneration and some other progressive eye diseases, this one has a cure, with a high rate of success. And I know that thanks to a good doctor, a generous donor and modern medicine, I'm going to have something to be truly thankful for.
Here's looking at you.

Bracing for a long, long year

2011-11-17T04:00:00.000-08:00

Raise your hand if you absolutely dread facing the next 12 months and the upcoming presidential election cycle.
I suppose some folks find it interesting or exciting, even. But for me, the process of electing our leaders has become entirely distasteful as, more and more, ideological passion is overwhelmed by pure partisanship, and ideas and ideals are replaced by mean-spirited innuendo and all-out negativism.
What's worse is the fact that we will be forced to endure the cat-fighting, backbiting and out-and-out untruths that drive the public process we call politics nowadays in the form of the campaign commercials that will flood the airways from now until then.
So, what are we gonna do?
A couple of months ago, I wrote a column that, in part, addressed my belief that this country is quietly dominated by a "moderate majority" of folks who would like to see things change when it comes to our political process.
As I said then, I think there is a majority of citizens who share a more moderate view of things; who see both sides of an issue and believe there is room for compromise, and who don't claim to know everything about everything.
I continue to believe that there is a moderate majority, whose political and personal views are based on what's right and fair, instead of what serves special interests or a party line.
I was a little surprised at how many people agreed with what I had to say, not because I feel I'm at all wise or insightful, but because the negative, over-partisan approach seems to work so well in the political arena.
But here we are.
Waiting.
Waiting for something better.
I think we're good and smart enough to make our decisions without being subjected to an endless barrage of misleading information from people who often seem more interested in bullying us or frightening us into voting their way rather than telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I think it's time for a new era of civility and frank discussion. I think there's got to be a better way to find out what our candidates and their parties truly believe in, instead of only hearing about what they're against.
So here's the beginnings of my plan. Phase one of the Sloan Simplified Selection System would allow no paid political advertising. Instead, it would require each and every candidate to spend his or her time, talent and financial resources producing a clear, comprehensive standardized document stating their beliefs, goals and solutions to the problems they see. Each candidate's platform document would be required to honestly address specific issues determined by a bipartisan panel. Candidates failing to address those issues would be barred from discussing them in speeches or face-to-face debates, nor could they criticize or otherwise comment on their opponents' stance on those issues. That document would then be made available online, in libraries and free of charge to any registered voter or school requesting one. Visitors to the online site could also choose to click and compare the different viewpoints on any given issue.
I'd like to see the media saddled with the same responsibilities. And, in fact, I'm pretty sure that's the way it's supposed to be. But just think, just this first phase would, if nothing else, clear the airwaves and allow us to go back to watching reality TV shows, old movies, and "Leave it to Beaver" reruns, as is our God-given right.
And it would give us the right--and clear ability--to think for ourselves.

A world of inventions

2011-11-10T04:32:00.000-08:00

I don't generally get too excited about so-called technological advances, though I imagine I'd get pretty fired up if someone came up with something truly useful, like an automatic potato peeler, a portable hot fudge machine or some kind of miraculous device that would keep my socks matched, even in the dryer.
But this one had me downright enthused. So much so, that I made a pronouncement on Facebook that was, for me, at least, pretty darn gleeful.
"Got a mobile broadband hotspot today!"
Now, I didn't expect anyone to get all worked up over the news. After all, it wasn't like I was announcing something truly important, like the birth of a baby or a great new recipe for chocolate chip cookies. But I was pretty excited given that the new gadget would, if it worked as advertised, allow me to wirelessly connect to the internet via my cell phone network just by carrying a little phone-sized devise along with me. In more practical terms, it meant I could get online anywhere a cell phone signal could reach, which is pretty heady stuff for a self-proclaimed road warrior like me. No more searching for the golden arches and the free WiFi they provide along with Big Macs and Happy Meals. No more skulking through prosperous-looking neighborhoods cyber-searching for a stray signal to latch onto.
"I'm free!" I proclaimed, while noting that the service most certainly isn't.
Later on, a friend made a comment regarding my jubilant post that kind of put it all into a new/old perspective for me.
"Mobile, broadband, hotspot. Try to imagine those three words used together 10 years ago."
Heck, how about 10 months ago? Or for a technodinosaur like me, 10 days, even?
I know I've written before about the plethora of new stuff that both benefits and besieges us all the time. But the extraordinary changes in the way we communicate ideas and information ranging from mathematical theorems to pictures of new puppies to the really important stuff, like chocolate cookie recipes, got me thinking about the innovative trends of the past compared to what seems to be important today. Some of them seem almost generationally themed, as in my paternal grandfather's day, when the big thing seemed to be transportation, or better, faster, safer ways to get from point A to point B to better enable stealing land from the Native Americans. He was born in 1866, so that meant he lived in a world that saw the advent of transcontinental railroad travel and the invention of both the automobile and the airplane. He was, apparently, an early adopter of that technology, as noted in "Homeburg Memories," an early-20th century novel based on my hometown of Galva that was written by native son and nationally known humorist George Fitch.
“Our oculist was our pioneer automobile owner. He bought a home-made machine and a mule at the same time, and by judiciously combining the two, he got a great deal of mileage out of both. He would work all morning getting the auto down-town and all afternoon getting the mule to haul it back.”
For my dad, who was born in 1904, it was energy, and the ways it made life safer, more comfortable and more efficient that seemed to really change things on a daily basis. A 1910 publication entitled, "The Electrical World" included a recounting of a meeting of the Galva Commercial Club, where the introduction of electric power was discussed. According to the article, a New Yorker named Glenn Marston gave an address on the advisability of securing adequate electric power for industrial purposes.
Mr. Marston noted that "public improvements and public utilities mark the progressiveness of any city. No community can succeed without the best of both. Electric power means more industries, better pay, shorter hours and more money in circulation."
We know what happened next. Along with gas-fired furnaces, which meant no more coal to shovel or clinkers to dig out and dispose of, electricity helped make life brighter, safer and easier for everyone, which was a pretty good deal, I think.
But those are just a couple of examples of ways ideas have changed lives over the years. Some developments have been incredibly important. Others, not so much. But what, I wondered, are the most important inventions ever, uh, invented?
So I did a quick bit of research, just to see what people were thinking nowadays.
One online poll listed the telephone, computers, television, the automobile, the cotton gin, the camera, the steam engine, the sewing machine, the light bulb and penicillin as their top ten modern inventions, while a British poll conducted last year included this eclectic mix: the wheel, airplanes, the light bulb, the internet, personal computers, the telephone, penicillin, the iPhone, flush toilets and the internal combustion engine.
The telephone faired well on most lists, despite a more recent trend that now seems to place it lower down the list of preferred communications tools as indicated in a recent episode of "The Big Bang Theory,"
Sheldon: Sorry. I’m a little distracted. I can’t seem to get in touch with Amy. I tried e-mail, video chat, tweeting her, posting on her Facebook wall, texting her, nothing.
Leonard: Did you try calling her on the telephone?
Sheldon: The telephone. You know, Leonard, in your own simple way, you may be the wisest of us all.
One article I read said the camera was the greatest invention ever, and I've gotta admit that a device that's recorded images of everything from Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address to a man walking on the moon to my youngest grandson less than a minute after birth is pretty darn close. I was a little surprised that the internet didn't grab the top spot on more of the lists I encountered, but it was number one in plenty of minds and places, with lots of time to continue in an evolution that affects--in one way or another--virtually ever facet of modern life.
But an invention that continues to top many lists--and my personal choice for number one--is the one developed way back in the 1400s by Johannes Gutenberg. His moveable-type printing press fostered a veritable knowledge revolution in the sciences, arts and religion by making it possible for books and other printed information to be shared by more than the The Church and the very wealthy. His amazing printing method quickly replaced most of the handwritten manuscript methods of book production and spread literacy throughout the world to people of all classes and backgrounds.
Arguably, it's thanks to Gutenberg that you're doing what you're doing right now.
Reading.
Now, that's what I call an invention.

Memories to be thankful for

2011-11-07T15:31:00.000-08:00

Roadtripper (from Western Illinois Family Magazine)

Here comes November.
Fall is on the wane, with many of the beautiful colors and Indian Summer days of October starting to be replaced by bare trees, grey skies and the first warning signs of wintertime. It's both a beginning and an end, as we say goodbye to a season and a year, and look forward to the beginnings of the Christmas season, with all its joys, grace and blessings.
But before you start shopping, wrapping and watching for signs of Santa's elves, you've got something to do.
Thanksgiving.
It's one of my favorite holidays, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think.
It's not the day-long football-fest on TV, nor even the half-true stories of pilgrims and Indians I regale my grandchildren with.
It's certainly not the big box pre- and post-Thanksgiving weekend Christmas sales that start bombarding us on the airwaves sometime around the end of July.
It's not even the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and other tasty delights that entirely make my day, though I'm honest enough to admit that the eating is a big part of it.
Yes, I'm thankful for all the above, but for me, the biggest, best thing about Thanksgiving is getting ready for it.
What'd he say?
It sounds crazy, I know, but I think the very best times are those spent together with family and friends preparing for the big meal and the big day. Of course, if you're imagining it's all a kind of living Norman Rockwell scene around my house, think again. My memories of our shared culinary triumphs, trials and downright disasters are, for the most part, a little more, uh, interesting than the average "over the river and through the woods" trip to grandmother's house or anything you'd see on the Food Network.
Like the year I thought it was time to treat the family and our friends to something new. As an avid National Public Radio listener, I had heard commentator Susan Stamberg wax poetic about her mother-in-law's cranberry relish for years. She has, in fact, shared the recipe with listeners every year on the Friday before Thanksgiving ever since 1972.
I'm not saying Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish ever really sounded particularly good to me. After all, the recipe calls for an unlikely mixture of raw cranberries, chopped onion, both a dollop of sour cream and a healthy dose of sugar, and--wait for it--a potent portion of horseradish. But I was so smitten with Ms. Stamberg's warm delivery and intelligent viewpoints that I wanted to give it a try, just to please her, I guess. Besides, I kind of figured anything that came from public radio was apt to make us all a little smarter, too.
Or not.
Actually, most of our dinner guests that year showed an immense amount of good sense when they politely declined even a tiny taste of the light-pink Pepto Bismo-looking stuff I ended up with. A good choice, as it tasted almost exactly like how you'd expect combined cranberries and horseradish to taste.
Enough said.
Our son Colin, who has worked for years as a sous chef and other in-kitchen positions, owns his own page in our family memory book based on a phone call he made home the first year he was in college. This was way before his career path took a turn through the kitchen door, though he was, apparently, already developing an interest in cooking for a crowd.
I answered the phone that night, and Colin explained that he and a number of his friends were planning an early Thanksgiving feast of their own before returning to their own homes and families for the actual holiday.
"We're bringing the turkey," he said proudly. "So I was wondering, when should we start defrosting it?"
"When is the dinner?" I asked cautiously.
"Tomorrow!"
Uh oh.
For years, I had been told that a slow, cold defrosting process was an absolute must, lest bacteria grow in the too-warm turkey. Dire newspaper headlines filled my mind's eye.
"Galva kid poisons college chums. Dad held for giving bad advice."
But other than suggesting a trip back in time with Sherman and Mr. Peabody in the wayback machine, I had no choice but to instruct him in the best, safest ways I could think of to quick-defrost a frozen fowl. Luckily, either the college kids he shared it with had hardened intestinal systems from their cold pizza and warm beer diets or he just got lucky, because they all lived to talk about it.
But perhaps the most, uh, explosive Thanksgiving faux pas came at the hands of yours truly. With a big crowd expected for dinner, I was in charge of peeling twenty pounds of spuds for the spectacular sour cream mashed potato recipe I learned from our friend, Lynda. I disrobed the entire bagful, while blithely jamming the peels down our in-sink disposal without taking time to grind and wash them down periodically throughout the long process.
All fine and good until, with the job done, I attempted to run the disposal with the entire pile of peelings jamming the works.
Yes, jamming. Thanks to me, our kitchen sink was as clogged as, well, a drain jam-packed with lots and lots of potato peels.
I tried every amateur drainpipe-unplugging trick in the book, plunging, snaking and adding water to the stopped-up sink with no result, until finally, in a flash of inspiration, I made my way to the basement. Just above where the drain pipe entered the floor was a plug that looked like it could be unscrewed.
"Aha," I thought. "This'll do it."
Well, I guess it did. In spectacular fashion.
Actually, nothing happened at first, so I called upstairs to my wife, who was standing by the sink, waiting for a miracle.
"Try the plunger again," I called.
It worked.
And how.
The highly compressed water-and-potato-peel mixture shot out of the pipe with a force very similar to one of those water cannons cops in certain parts of the world use to break up crowds of rioters and political dissenters.
The high-charged mess hit the floor and ceiling. It sprayed the furnace, the hot water heater and even the cat, who had followed me down to supervise my efforts. But mostly it blasted me, soaking me from head to toe with the unpleasing mixture.
"You did it, honey," called my wife. "You're a genius."
"Yeah," I thought as I began to pick peelings out of my hair. "That's just what I was thinking."

A change of seasons, a change in days

2011-11-03T04:46:00.000-07:00

Do they have seasons here?
That's one of the first things I asked a coastal Carolina native when we were first considering a part-time move to the region. Because as much as I like sunny beachbound days, I knew I would miss the changes that occur with the passing of the year.
"Of course," was the reply. "We have summer and fall and spring and winter. It even snowed once last year."
Once. Wow.
We've now seen those seasons change, one by one, since starting our back-and-forth treks between Illinois and North Carolina last January, when it actually did spit a little snow a couple of times. It's pretty darn subtle, but we are now seeing October roll into November and the sure signs of autumn are beginning to appear.
Some of the leaves have finally begun a slow, gradual transformation from dark green to a sort of soft rusty tone that falls way short of the rich red-gold hues we know at home in Illinois. But those colors have a certain prettiness all their own that we like and watch for as they gently appear. The temperatures have begun to drop, too, with the moist, balmy breezes of summer now replaced by a cooler offshore version that creates a persistent daily chop and and a sudden unaccustomed chill to the water.
Autumn in Carolina.
Instead of farmers gathering golden grain at the end of a midwest growing season, we now see fishermen, shrimpers and oystermen pursuing the rich harvest that both the deep sea and marshy backwaters have to offer as cooler water generates new, livelier life in ocean and inlet.
But, no matter what time of year it is, the place that seems able to change every day is the beachfront. We're regulars along the shore, with very few days passing without a long walk, sandcastles and shelling with our grandsons, or just few minutes with a book and a chair.
"I wonder what kind of day it will be?" is her question almost every time we make our way across the walkway that bridges the fragile dunes that divide our front yard from the shoreline.
The answer is almost always a surprise, because that's how it goes when you live next door to an active ecosystem that's likely to toss any number of treasures your way on a daily basis.
There are "shell days," when the waves deposit unusual numbers of different kinds and colors, ranging from perfectly patterned oyster and scallop shells to the ones that are tougher to find, like Whelks, Olives, Scotch Bonnets and Sand Dollars. We call some days "crab days," not because of my sulky mood or behavior, but because the beach is littered with the bodies of blue crabs and other larger crustaceans who have washed ashore, or busy with the darting of sand-burrowing ghost crabs, who scuttle at lightning speed from hole to water and back and forth. We're now experiencing what we call "jelly days," with both mushroom-shaped bell jellyfish and round, transparent "moon jellies" lining our path along the surf line. And, of course, we always hope for "Dolphin days," when offshore pods jump and dive and splash in a watery ballet.
The shorebirds, who come and go with the weather and food sources, now crowd the beach. Strutting, overstuffed gulls that resemble 19th century Tammany Hall politicians compete for space with quick, darting sanderlings and sandpipers, while daring terns and pelicans swoop, soar and dive recklessly into the fishy seas.
All in all, it's a pretty scene, no matter what kind of "day" it is.
I was wrapping this column up the other morning when my wife and youngest grandson, John, announced they were heading to the beach for a walk. I'm always willing to put things off, so I rushed to join them, even thinking I'd be able to put a label on the day as a sort of concluding statement for my essay.
The morning's scenic selection varied, with a spectacular mess of glistening jellyfish, a long scoop of daredevil pelicans and the shattered remains of some shells that would have been pretty spectacular if they had survived the trip through the surf in one piece. The sun was high, turning what had been a cool, windy day into something nearly perfect as we headed towards the fishing pier that lies a mile south.
"So what kind of day is it, anyway?" I wondered to myself.
I got my answer from a solitary fisherman we ran into along the way.
"You doing any good?" I asked.
He looked up and smiled.
"Can't help but do good on a day like this," he said.
I smiled back. He was right.
Because whether its a shell day or a crab day or a jelly day or a bird day or even a dolphin day, it's always a good day, too.

Kaboodles

2011-10-27T05:39:00.000-07:00

I was looking out at the ocean the other day, watching one of my favorite things, when I heard a voice behind me.
"Nice scoop, eh?"
I turned to see her smiling at both me and the seascape in front of me, not just because she knows how much I love the single-file, follow-the-leader flight pattern of pelicans, but because she's also aware of how much I like the word used to describe a group of them:
A scoop. A scoop of pelicans.
Since making the Carolina coast our part-time home, I've also learned that groups of dolphins and whales are called pods, while shrimps gather in a troupe, sharks swim in a shiver and the term for a bunch of jellyfish is a smack. And just so you don't think everything here is more idyllic than I deserve, I've also gotten hip to the phrase "scourge of mosquitoes," as well.
The way American English has evolved to describe groups of things is an inconsistent combination of clever, inventive, funny and dumb ways to say "a bunch of." Called collective nouns, these words have been the playthings of writers and linguists for centuries, starting in about the 1400's, when upper-crust gents used their own special terms to describe the animals they hunted and saw, just to show how smart and well-educated they were. There are books, articles and entire websites galore dedicated to the lists of collective nouns used to describe everything from a cluster of antelopes to a cohort of zebras, with group descriptors available for just about everything including animals, people, fish, bugs and reptiles. Some of them, like "deck of cards," "den of thieves," "stand of trees" and "school of fish" are well-accepted parts of our language that we all use from time to time, while others, like a "flink of cows" and a "rhumba of rattlesnakes" haven't quite caught on yet.
Interestingly, the words used to describe groups can even refer to their specific condition, too, as with ducks, who fly in a flock, float in a paddling or raft, and sometimes meet their end as a brace, when two more more have a run-in with a hunter and his shotgun.
Ditto geese, who fly in a flock, skein or wedge, but hang out on land as the oft-mentioned gaggle.
"Who makes this stuff up?" she asked after I showed off some of my new-found knowledge I learned on a visit to a website on the subject.
Who indeed?
Well, how about me?
I find the whole thing pretty interesting and since I'm probably not as busy as I could or should be, I've decided to try my hand at the name game, too. I mean, really, who says I can't be one of those writers who comes up with those descriptive collective nouns that become a part of our language? Of course, I'm a little late to the dance, I know, as better minds than mine have been toiling at the task for a long, long time. But I'm nothing if not overoptimistic when it comes to my own abilities, so here are a few of my word-creations, just waiting for someone to use them.

A crank of crabs
A galaxy of starfish
A squirt of squid
A stumble of stairs
A cuddle of kittens
A pant of puppies
A shriek of spiders
A treasure of stars
A slither of snakes
A scamper of mice
A scold of squirrels
A lumber of bears
A pest of flies
A clash of neckties

OK, so maybe they won't be holding up the next printing of Webster's Dictionary for my contributions quite yet. And maybe you'd like to join in this effort by sharing your own ideas with me.
No rush.
We've got kaboodles of time.

A town lost in time

2011-10-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

Like many of us, I possess special gifts and talents. Some are fairly mundane.
"Gee, grampa. You sure can snore loud."
or
"Wow, that guy really can put away the fried chicken."
But there is one ability in my repertoire that really is pretty darn exceptional, if I do say so myself.
I can make it rain.
Now, I'm not sure what tools and techniques other rainmakers use to coax precipitation from the sky, but for me, it's pretty simple.
I pitch a tent.
Actually, it doesn't always rain when we go camping, but it happens often enough in certain parts of the country to make us think we're somehow shifting the odds in those spots.
Like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Like last week.
Our Illinois-to-North-Carolina-via-Nashville journey featured a couple of campground stops. We got lucky at beautiful Kentucky Lake, where clear skies and a site overlooking the water made for a near-perfect experience, with only a few acorns rattling down to startle us overnight. And Nashville featured the kind of stunningly beautiful weather that tourism bureaus pray for. It was not until we packed up and headed for our next stop that things began to change.
Me: Uh oh, it's starting to cloud up.
She: Of course it is, we're heading for the Smokies.
We've been trying to enjoy camping in those beautiful mountains for over 30 years, but we've never been able to avoid some kind of wet weather, ranging from persistent cold drizzles to sudden gullywasher showers to frightening peak-rattling thunderstorms.
It looked like nothing had changed.
As in many national parks and other major camping venues, the campground office at the vast Elkmont section of the park displays a wipe-off board that provides information on things like sunrise and sunset times and any special events taking place. Oh, and the weather, too.
"70% chance of showers," read the board.
"Hey, that means there's a 30% chance it won't rain," I remarked brightly.
Dream on, tent-boy.
As we pitched the tent and rolled out our sleeping bags, we heard the distinct noise of rushing water not far away. It wasn't raining just yet, so we headed for the source of the sound, which turned out to be a river running through the heart of the campground. Determined to enjoy at least a little scenery before the called-for rain drove us into our tent, we hiked along its banks. We left the campground behind, but soon saw the roof of a large building just across the stream. I figured it was just a pavilion or picnic shelter, but we were curious enough to press on until we came to a small bridge. Once we crossed, we were greeted by the sight of a largish falling-down structure and a sign.
The Elkmont Historic District.
It's hard to describe what's there now, just as it's hard to imagine what was there back in the day. But the upshot is this: Back in the early 20th century, a couple of social clubs, a hotel and around 74 rustic cottages sprang up in a densely wooded region of the Smoky Mountains near the logging town of Elkmont. The area was served by logging railroad and, later on, by narrow roads carved out on the railroad beds after the logging work ended and the trains and tracks left.
We, of course, knew none of this when we discovered the site. We looked around in amazement and slowly walked down a narrow dirt road lined with deserted vacation cottages.
"It's like a resort ghost town," she said.
The architecture of the crumbling cottages is varied and astonishing, with strong influences from Frank Lloyd Wright and other period designers. But even more compelling to me was the way the Elkmont district felt.
Silent and even a little eerie, it is like a place that had been suddenly deserted for some unknown reason and left untouched ever since. I half expected to hear distant music from a wind-up victrola or the laughter of children playing in the woods.
It was a trip back in time, with rambling rows and clumps of cottages winding all the way up by Jake's Creek Trail towards the south and the remains of the old Wonderland Hotel to the North.
"My parents stayed here," she exclaimed.
Built in 1911, the Wonderland Hotel featured a wrap around porch that provided a view of Blanket Mountain and was lined with swings and rocking chairs. Her folks especially enjoyed the fact that the Wonderland provided no phones, radios or TV in the guest rooms, so most visitors chose to spend their evenings relaxing either on the porch or in the lobby, with much of the evening's excitement revolving around the raccoons that came up on the porch at night to beg for food from the guests.
A fire spelled the end of the Wonderland after it closed when its lease wasn't renewed by the park service in the early 1990s. In fact, all the structures in the Elkmont District were eventually forced to close or be deserted, leaving the structures abandoned to a plan called "demolition by neglect."
But happily, it wasn't quite that easy.
Elkmont was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 and was awarded Save America's Treasures status in the late 1990s. In 2004, the Tennessee Preservation Trust listed Elkmont on its annual list of endangered historic places, Ten in Tennessee. Later that summer, the National Trust followed suit and named Elkmont to its annual list of America's Most Endangered Historic Places.
In 2009, the National Park Service announced plans to restore the Appalachian Clubhouse and 18 cottages and outbuildings in the Appalachian Club area.
Good sense, at least in part, had prevailed.
But it's still a little frustrating to realize that this and other national treasures face an uncertain fate due to lack of funds in a day and time when we, as a nation, have spent (as of Tuesday) nearly 800 billion dollars in Iraq and over 465 billion on the war in Afghanistan. And since unemployment remains a serious problem, maybe it's a good idea to consider a government-funded civilian work force to help develop, preserve and improve our infrastructure, both natural and man-made. Sort of like the Civilian Conservation Corps, which, during the great depression of the 1930s, planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide and upgraded most state parks, updated forest fire fighting methods, and built a network of service buildings and public roadways in remote areas.
I think there's a lot to love about this land of ours. Much of it is a beautiful place, from sea to shining sea.
We do a good job in this country, I truly believe.
But maybe, just maybe, we can do a little better.

Nashville Cats

2011-10-13T21:37:00.000-07:00

It seems like there's always a theme song running through my head, no matter what we do or where we go. That, in itself, is not too surprising, as music has always been an important part of me, whether I'm playing it, writing it or just sitting back and listening.
So there's almost always a song of some sort providing a subtle soundtrack.
Recently, one of them went like this:

"Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed;
A poor mountaineer, hardly kept his family fed."

That's right, it was the theme from "The Beverly Hillbillies" that echoed through my brain as we prepared to hit the road last week. Not just because we were headed for the hills and mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina, but because of the overcrowded, junked-out condition of our car. Usually, I consider myself a pretty canny packer, efficiently using the space in the back of our 3-row vehicle to put the things we'll need--like clothes and camping gear--within easy reach, while even leaving room for a passenger or two.
But not this time.
"About all you need is a rocking chair with granny sitting on the roof," noted one witty pal after seeing our overloaded state on the morning we left.
It was true. But I've got an excuse.
First off, we were heading back for an extended stay on the North Carolina shore. The seasons will change while we're there this time, with the distinct possibility that my t-shirt-and-shorts-only wardrobe will need to transition to something more substantial, though equally unfancy, like sweatshirts and jeans. Moreover, our load included boxes of stuff bound for both son Patrick's house and the son of some Galva friends who now lives in eastern Carolina. Of course, there was all the camping stuff we'd need for a couple of woodsy stops along the way.
And then there was the middle part of the trip...a 3-day "Big Chill" weekend in Nashville with my wife's lively high school class that would require all the clothes and accouterments needed for a couple of group dinners and excursions to both the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, not to mention some determined, middle-aged forays up and down the music club district of downtown Nashville. This year, one of her classmates, a guy named Lon Helton, who is a well-known country music radio personality and music industry mover and shaker had a weak moment and agreed to host the self-inflicted invasion of his city and his home.
I don't know what he was thinking, but it was nice of him and his saintly wife, Anne, all the same.
I didn't really know what to expect in Nashville. But, It turns out that for us, at least, it was equal parts of entertainment, education and flat-out fun. It was kind of inspiring, even, for a well-worn music veteran like me.
Soon after we hit the streets for the first time, bits of yet another song began to filter into my brain.

"Nashville Cats, play clean as country water
Nashville Cats, play wild as mountain dew
Nashville Cats, been playin' since they's babies
Nashville Cats, get work before they're two"

John Sebastian knew what he was talking about when he wrote those words.
And like the old Lovin' Spoonful song says, there really are at least "thirteen hundred and fifty two guitar pickers in Nashville."
But unlike many cities where most musicians also work as waiters, bartenders and cabbies while waiting for a break and a chance to play in public, the Nashville music scene seems to be able to offer enough work for a big chunk of them in its zillions of clubs, bars, restaurants, parks and downtown street corners.
The music is live. The music is loud. And the music goes on all day and well into the evening and early morning hours. We listened, danced and laughed and sang to the tunes of old-time twangers, new-country bangers and even a few traditional pickers, all hustling like mad to keep up with a crazy work-pace that sees the busiest among them moving from band to band and club to club as the long day and night progresses. Like one guy, with an uncanny resemblance to a younger Jim Cary, who, in one afternoon-into-evening stretch, showed up as part of four different bands in four different joints, including back-to-back gigs that must have had him zig-zagging his upright bass through the crowded sidewalks like an anxious hubby hustling his wife to the maternity ward. I was impressed and amused, too, by one young commuting crooner, who hopped off a bus, guitar case and amp in hand, before rushing to work in his own town's version of an uptown Manhattan exec with a briefcase and Armani suit.
We saw the other end of the spectrum at The Grand Ole Opry one night, when country-pop stars Rascal Flats were inducted as full-fledged Opry members. It was a study in contrast and a great example of the ages and styles the country genre spans, as one of the presenters was 90-year-old Little Jimmy Dickens, a member of the Opry for over 60 years.
"I never heard anybody say anything bad about you boys," said Dickens, whose age, 4-11 stature, sequin-studded suit and easy way with a one-liner made me a wannabe from the get-go.
And while his remarks to the band might have sounded like faint praise, 'nothing bad' in a tough field like the music business is probably pretty darn good.
But the best experience of all came when we toured the hall of fame museum and got a chance to attend a workshop where a pair of singer-songwriters shared some of their tunes and fielded questions from the audience. One was a nice-looking, good-sounding younger fellow who said he knew back in high school that he wanted to make music his life's work. So, just as soon as he graduated, he packed up his guitar and headed for Nashville where he's already making a living and living his dream.
The other speaker was a little older, a guy named Tim Buppert who's had a long career that's featured stops in clubs all the way from Florida to Tennessee. Along the way, he's put together a nice book of original songs that even includes a couple of hits. He's got a great voice, plus a sweet way with a love song that contrasts just a bit with the twinkle in his eye.
Probably his best-known tune is called "She's sure Taking it Well," a bittersweet love song recorded by Kevin Sharp that made it all the way to number three on the charts in 1997.
I bought a CD from Tim that included that hit song, along with another dozen or so tunes. Listening to his words, music and voice, it was hard to imagine a life spent working the clubs by night, pitching songs by day and waiting for a break and the fame and fortune we all imagine every singer-songwriter hopes for. Then we heard the last cut on the album, a quirky little piece that told about a day when he played his hit for a young lady and she revealed that it had once been her favorite song.

"That was my one Elvis moment,
My day in the sun.
I was so much more cooler than anyone
...If I could relive just one day in my life
It'd be that one Elvis moment of mine."

I listened and heard the tongue-in-cheek words. And underneath it all, I heard the longing and the special moments his life has provided from time to time.
I knew I had met one true Nashville cat.

I'm why they invented pie

2011-10-06T04:36:00.001-07:00

I like pie.
I come by that trait honestly enough. My dad, who was an aficionado of the first rank, used to wax poetic about his childhood, when, according to his oft-repeated remembrance, his mother used to bake one every day. The backyard of the house where I grew up was filled with apple and cherry trees, so my own mom used to do her best to keep up with that tradition when the fresh fruit was in season. My sister didn't fall far from the fruit pie tree, either. She and her hubby freeze and store Door County cherries almost every year, dating the fruit-filled tubs much in the way wine fanciers maintain cellars filled with various admired vintages. You only have to look like you'd enjoy a piece of pie in their house and there is, almost immediately, a flaky, fresh-baked concoction coming out of the oven.
So it's in my genes, I guess. Because I do like pie.
Good thing, too, as the past week saw more pies coming my way than Rupert Murdoch, though I was lucky enough to eat, not wear, them.
It all started the weekend after we arrived back in the midwest, when we were delighted to be a part of the wedding of a neighbor's daughter. In an interesting bit of menu-switching, the bride-to-be declared a preference for pie over the traditional wedding dessert. So, instead of a teetering, multi-layered cake with a tiny bride and groom on the top, no fewer than 38 lovely pies graced the serving tables.
Enough for everyone. Enough for me.
Imagine Ferdinand the Bull in a field filled with flowers. Imagine Norm from Cheers in a bar full of beer.
O.K., or just imagine me in a banquet hall bursting with pies.
I figured proper wedding etiquette demanded I show my appreciation for the celebratory feast by sampling as many members of the pie family as possible.
As you know, I am nothing if not polite. So, I did my best.
The next morning, my spouse wondered if I was a little hung over.
Now, I don't drink, so that wasn't it. She was just afraid I had overdone it on the pie front.
"Nope," I said. "As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind another piece of that strawberry-rhubarb.
Good thing, too.
That night, we got a call from the bride's mom and dad.
"Hey, come on over," they said. "We've got pie."
Somehow, a few crumbs had managed to slip under my radar the night before, so we rushed over to help set things right.
"This is it," I said as I waddled home. "This is really it. No more pie for awhile."
I'm pretty sure 24 hours qualifies as "awhile." I hope so, because I got another visit from the pie fairy the next night, when my wife hosted a meeting of a women's organization she belongs to. Max the cat and I skulked around in the back room, watching Monday Night Football, until the ladies finally cleared out. Once I was sure the coast was clear, I crept into the kitchen to see if they had left behind any of the sweet treats that are a hallmark of their meetings.
On the counter rested a white bakery box. With high anticipation, I lifted the lid to find the remains of an ooey-gooey apple pie. A little more investigation showed an almost full carton of vanilla ice cream in the freezer.
"Well, if I have to," I sighed.
Max agreed. I had to.
The next day was my birthday.
"What kind of cake do you want?" queried my spouse.
I was just explaining that I thought I had better pass on any more sweets when there was a knock at the door.
It was my neighbor, the father of the bride.
"You liked that pie so much, we thought you'd better have one for your birthday," he said.
I had to agree.
Later that evening, we cajoled them into coming over to share in my latest bounty, but there was still plenty left over for the next day, when I figured if I had some for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a midnight snack, I'd finally finish with the pie-fest.
Or not.
Another knock at the door the next morning revealed yet another neighbor.
"Sorry I missed your birthday," she said. "I brought you this."
In her hands was a familiar-looking white box.
Inside was the piece de resistance, an absolutely magnificent coconut cream creation still warm from my favorite bakery.
When it rains, it pours.
I was reminded of the O. Henry short story, "Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen," where a homeless man named Stuffy Pete eats to the point of bursting and collapses on the sidewalk after being overfed by a kind benefactor.
I really thought I might die if I ate another piece of pie. So, just to be on the safe side, I had two.
By this point, I was so pie-bound, I thought I might need a new, larger wardrobe to fit the new me.
But as you know, I am nothing if not persistent. I ate pie with a determination only equaled by Sísyphus, the king in Greek mythology who was punished by being made to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity.
Well, it wasn't quite as dramatic as all that, but you get the picture.
Finally, the pie was all gone.
After an absolute orgy of gastronomic overindulgence, my customary late-night kitchen wanderings uncovered only this sad sight--an empty pie plate, washed and ready to return.
It was finally over.
Or not.
You see, we're headed for a cookout tonight with a small group of friends we try to get together with at least once a week when we're in town.
Linda and John are grilling the main course, while we're supplying salad and some bread.
"And what about Kate and Bernie?" I asked cautiously. "What about them?"
"Oh," smiled my wife. "They're bringing the pie."
Life is good.

The Library Rules

2011-09-29T07:13:00.001-07:00

Yes, we're back in the midwest, but really just passing through this time. It's a quickie but a goodie that's given us a chance to meet and greet some of our hometown friends, do a few things around the house and enjoy some fall weather. Soon, we'll be heading back to North Carolina, where our son and daughter-in-law's busy schedules have us in high demand as grandson-sitters, dog walkers and taxi drivers. Meanwhile, it's been fun, with a wedding to attend and play music for and an upcoming opportunity to speak at a library conference in Springfield later this week. Now, I'm no expert on libraries or really much of anything else, either, but my background as an advertising/marketing guy and the notoriety I've somehow gained from writing this column were just enough, I guess, for the organizers to send an invitation my way. I'm going to do a presentation on "Selling your library," which is an interesting enough topic given the fact that some people probably think libraries are a thing of the past. After all, the worldwide web has given many, many folks access to oodles of information, entertainment and other material without ever needing to walk into a library building.
I have some serious doubts about that concept, many of which stem from the concerns I have about the rolling mass of unregulated, hit-or-miss content passing itself off as fact on the internet. And besides, most libraries have adopted and adapted the web and other advanced technologies in ways that make their own package of services more useful and attractive than ever.
But for me, the biggest selling point is much simpler.
I love the library.
The affair between me and those buildings full of books started back when I was a kid. Things were different then, at least in my house. My thrifty father wasn’t sure television would really catch on, so it was a while before we bothered to get a set of our own. And even after we did, my book-loving mother felt there were better things for a kid to do when he wasn't playing baseball, mowing the lawn or breaking the garage window for the millionth time. Like go to the library.
So I was a kid who went there early and often.
In those days, the Galva library was run by a strict, iron-willed local legend who ruled the place like Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the gates of hell in Greek mythology.
”Let me see your hands,” she’d bark as I entered her temple. Like as not, she’d send me to the bathroom to scrub and dry my dirty little paws like a pint-sized doctor preparing for brain surgery.
The rules were tough, but simple. No talking. No gum chewing. No talking. No eating or drinking. No talking. Wash your hands. No talking. A three-book limit. And, uh, no talking.
Now you might think her boot camp approach to books would have caused me to abandon "serious" reading for the comic books at my father's drug store, and there is no doubt that I appreciated the adventures of Superman, the Flash and the Fantastic Four. But I was used to a world where adults bossed kids around all the time, and it was well worth it to get my hands on the now-classic fare that filled my reading menu. Authors like John R. Tunis, Charles Spain Verral and Colonel Red Reeder were important figures in my world as I read and re-read every book they wrote, while waiting impatiently for the next in line. A while back, my sister unearthed a copy of Reeder's "West Point Plebe," and I read it yet again with much the same engrossed enthusiasm I had when I was eleven.
I guess I've changed a little since then. I know the library has.
As a grandparent, I'm now just about as likely to be looking for story hour and the children's department, where we hope to share the love of reading with our grandsons.
Meanwhile, people actually talk out loud at the library. And laugh, even.
There's more stuff, too. Like computers and movies and CDs.
And that's kind of what it's all about, because, over time, libraries have grown and changed and evolved right with us, while not moving so fast as to leave anyone behind. So someone like me can still find a book by John R. Tunis while someone like my youngest grandson hears a story by Dr. Seuss while someone like my daughter-in-law searches the internet while someone like the Star Courier's Carol Gerrond, as noted in her column last week, can even learn to use a Kindle.
All that, and more, at the library.
I'll meet you there sometime.
Right after I wash my hands.

Say hello to the Moderate Majority

2011-09-22T07:52:00.000-07:00

I've got to admit, I was a little surprised.
When I wrote last week's column about the tenth anniversary of September eleventh, I figured I was sort of hanging it out in the breeze when I confessed that there was a lot about that world crisis and the events that have followed it that I just don't understand. And I figured suggesting that maybe it was time for a little forgiveness would really fall flat.
But I was wrong.
While I'm sure there are some readers out there who don't agree, I received a gratifying number of notes and calls from people who were in tune with at least some of what I had to say.
It made me think.
Because whether the topic is politics or religion or even the weather, it always seem to be the strident, "my way or the highway" voices that get airtime. As a result, it's easy to think that our nation is mostly made up of two entirely polarized camps--one being ultra-conservative and the other ultra-liberal.
I don't believe it.
Instead, I think there is a majority of citizens who share a more moderate view of things.
People who see both sides of an issue and believe there is room for compromise.
Folks who don't claim to know everything about everything.
A moderate majority, whose political and personal views are based on what's right and fair, instead of what serves special interests or a party line.
Unlike the “silent majority” of the Nixon/Agnew era and the so-called “moral majority” of the 80’s, I think the moderate majority is real and ready to listen to and support some reasonable, progressive, non-partisan thinking.
Is anybody listening out there?
++++++++++
Packing light.
We were on the road earlier this week, heading home for a short visit, a wedding and some business before returning to eastern Carolina for a continuation of our babysitter/beachcomber lifestyle. We do a fair amount of traveling, so you might think we’d be pretty good at a challenge that’s been faced by voyagers from Christopher Columbus to Neal Armstrong.
Packing light.
There are certain items, like the two tubs containing our camping gear and the smaller container that holds essentials like passports and checkbooks, that go with us whenever we set out on a journey of any significance.
But while the inclusion of those items is a no-brainer, it apparently takes a bigger brain than mine to figure out what clothes to pack, especially when traveling from one latitude to another during a change of seasons. I clearly remembered needing to buy long pants last year when an October trip to Vermont found me in shorts and goosebumps, so I was sure to pack extra fall-weather togs that included pants, sweaters and socks to supplement the beachesque shorts, sandals and t-shirts I’ve been sporting since March. I assumed she was dealing with the same situation, so I was a little chagrined when she handed me her luggage to load in the car.
“Here you go,” she said, handing me a smallish bag that made me, with my overstuffed duffel, look like a fashionista heading for a long weekend in Cannes.
“Is that it?’ I asked.
“Yep, except for my carry-in.”
A carry-in, in our terminology, is a small bag containing just enough stuff for an overnight stay, like something to sleep in, a change of clothes for the next day and toiletries. We learned a long time ago that it’s a lot easier than lugging a bulky valise in and out of the car, whether we’re camping or stopping for the night in a hotel.
Sure enough, on my next trip inside, she handed me the backpack she usually uses for overnight stops, leading me to believe she was packed and ready to roll.
Or not.
Soon, another small bag appeared. Then another.
Me: What’s this?
She: Oh, that’s my OTHER carry-in.
Me: But I...
She: And my shoe bag/carry-in.
Dutifully, I loaded and re-loaded the car, piling her litter of carry=in bags on top, while giving mine a hearty shove to make it fit in the now-overloaded space.
As she got in the car, she cast a kind, but inquiring eye over my packing job and my bulging duffle bag. She didn't say a thing, but I swear I could hear what she was thinking.
"Honey, you've just got to learn how to pack light."
++++++++++
More time for turtles
We didn't expect it to be anything too out of the ordinary. Two sea turtle nests near our place had hatched a couple of nights before and it was time to "analyze" what was left. An analysis is the process of digging out the emptied nest to see how many eggs actually hatched and if there were any unfertilized eggs, deceased baby turtles or live babies left behind. We had missed the hatch, but took our grandsons along to watch what came next, thinking both they--and we--might learn something from the whole process.
But there was a surprise in store.
Earlier in the week, my sharp-eyed, turtle-watching spouse had discovered and reported a nest invaded by a marauding fox. A rescue effort discovered several "pipped" eggs, with the young turtles just beginning to emerge. The babies had been taken to a safe place to complete the hatching process until they were ready to release.
The boys were thrilled to see a bucket full of teeny-tiny turtles close up, but that was nothing compared to what came next.
"Do you two boys want to help?" queried the turtle wrangler in charge.
Of course they did, so five-year-old Cyrus and three-year-old John each carefully carried a baby to its new life in the sea.
"It's kind of like they just got the first bell of Christmas," whispered my proud, thrilled spouse.
"Too bad you didn't bring a camera," said a nearby friend.
Yeah, but I don't think it's a picture we're ever going to forget.

Ten Years After

2011-09-15T04:58:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should talk about September eleventh.
It's not that I have anything new, startling or original, even, to say.
You have already read some fine contributions from some other Star Courier columnists. But every time I start to write my way down another path this week, my mind returns to what happened ten years ago.
I'm one of the people who thinks it feels like a long time ago when our safe, secure world went topsy-turvy. Like most of you, I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news about what was going on. I remember driving from an early morning appointment in Galesburg and mulling over the fact that the Knox College football team's orthopedist had just recommended a second surgery on my son's knee.
At some point, I must have flipped on the radio.
"Oh, it must be the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing," I thought as my subconscious began to process the information it was hearing.
Soon, I realized I wasn't listening to a documentary, but a realtime tragedy.
I wondered if I should continue into work in Peoria or just go home.
I decided to head to work. No one was home, and I needed people.
When I got there, the folks in my division were jammed into the conference room, watching TV.
Some were crying. Some were angry. Some were simply stunned.
Some worried about family members and friends in New York and other big cities.
In the background, our boss worried we weren't getting enough work done.
I wasn't sure if he really understood what was going on that day. Looking back, I still wonder. But everyone pretty much ignored him anyway; watching, talking quietly and watching some more until it was time to go home.
Several weeks later, I needed to go to New York City. Some new job responsibilities were going to require me to spend significant time in the northeastern United States every month. I had already traveled to Boston, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. This would be my first time in Manhattan, except for a couple of visits years before as a tourist.
I remember arguing with my cabbie about whether my hotel was actually open for business. I knew it was, because I had just talked to them. He wasn't so sure.
"It's pretty close, you know. Pretty close."
He didn't have to say what it was my hotel was pretty close to.
The Holiday Inn Soho is, in fact, almost exactly one mile away from Ground Zero.
Now, I'm no voyeur.
I'm no rubbernecker.
I try really hard to look away from life's most awful moments.
But I had to look at this one, feeling I'd never really understand what had happened unless I saw it for myself. It was a cool, crisp, sunny morning. The kind of beautiful day that makes you think that, yes, you could live in a big city and just walk and walk and walk from home to work and from place to place.
Nothing could have made me understand the sheer immensity of the place where those two buildings stood. No one could have prepared me for the sights, sounds and smells that still lingered.
The fires were out by then, but the search for the bodies of the victims continued.
It seemed endless.
In a way, it has been.
Those deaths became the reason behind two wars and a major change in attitude towards civil liberties and human rights in America and around the world. Faux-patriotic chest-thumping has become the norm for some politicians, while genuine soul-searching still remains a challenge for most.
I remember asking myself, "Why did this happen?"
I didn't know then.
I don't know now.
I do know that I, for one, have grown weary of the crazy cry for vengeance. Partly because it serves no real purpose. And partly because I'm not sure we really know who we're mad at.
We have, in fact, demonized millions of peaceful Muslims without any real regard for who they are and what they believe in. We have put thousands of young American lives in harm's way as we have chased the shadows of terrorism without really knowing exactly who we're chasing or why we have been their targets.
And I just don't understand.
Ten years after, on Sunday, September eleventh, we went to church. I kind of expected a little flag waving, as the Infant of Prague parish serves over 40,000 U.S. Marines and their families. As always, we prayed for those young warriors and the ones they love. But the theme of the day was not one of vengeance or war or victory or retribution.
It was forgiveness.
It's not easy. And they say it's truly divine.
But I pray it's something we can all learn to understand.

The 60s and the South

2011-09-08T05:21:00.000-07:00

We've been married 39 years as of a week ago last Saturday.
We had planned to attend an outdoor concert to celebrate, but it was canceled, so we didn't have any big ideas, though we thought maybe we'd have dinner and see a movie. But as it turned out, we had a trio of unexpected guests. Two were welcome, because they are our grandsons. But the third, not so much.
Her name was Irene.
With our son and daughter-in-law riding out the hurricane with friends, we asked to take the grandsons with us, thinking a brick hotel building might offer both a little more room and a lot more safety as the storm roared through. And for the most part, we enjoyed our 30-hour anniversary celebration with Cyrus and John, though I couldn't help thinking that someone like Norma Blewitt, who once edited a society page for the Star Courier, would have written it this way.
"Activities for the anniversary celebration included a number of unnecessary baths for the fun of playing in the tub, and several trips up and down the four-story stairway to burn up excess energy. At the lavish anniversary meal, guests were served Chef Boyardee ABC's & 123's and toasted cheese sandwiches, while the happy couple shared a frozen microwavable pasta dish obtained from the hotel convenience store that was of unknown origin and age. The evening concluded with the screening of a dramatic children's movie borrowed from the hotel's video library that caused the grandsons to shout in alarm at all the scary parts, the grandmother to cry at all the sad parts, and the grandfather to doze intermittently through all the parts."
I figured I still owed her one after that, so I offered to take her to the movie of her choice after we returned home to the beach. I knew in advance what we'd be seeing, as the book that preceded the film was one she enjoyed and shared with several of her friends.
"The Help" is a book about a book, telling the story of a young southern white woman who wants to be a writer. She decides to tell the "inside" story of black housemaids in early-1960's Mississippi, a process that would put both her and the ladies who helped her at great risk at times. According to my spouse, the film follows the book pretty closely, which would, I guess, make it a movie about a book about a book. I was expecting sort of a chick flick, but quickly found myself engrossed in the tale of the unlikely friendship that develops between the writer and the women she interviews. The film has some truly funny moments. But it was the description of the insidious kinds of prejudice that existed at the time, along with the horrifying outbursts of violence that marked that period in American history, that hit me right between the eyes. It was a disturbing, unwelcome memory of a time when segregation still ruled in the south and murder was a not-uncommon means to a cruel end.
We were, I know, both rather stunned by the memories and didn't have a lot to say as we walked out of the darkened theater.
As we started to leave the building, my wife discovered she had a voicemail message on her phone, so she stepped to a quiet corner to listen to it and return the call. Knowing it would be a few minutes, I took a seat on a bench near the exit and settled in to wait. Seated on the same bench was an African-American man about my age and a young boy of 10 or 12 or so, who looked to be his grandson. It soon became obvious they had just seen the same movie as me, as the grandson began asking questions.
"Who was Medgar Evers?" he asked, referring to the activist leader whose 1963 murder occurred in Jackson, Mississippi, the setting for the movie and a part of the storyline.
The grandfather and I exchanged the first of several glances that seemed both knowing and a bit uncomfortable.
I imagine it's like that sometimes in the south.
There's a lot of history.
Not all of it is something to be proud of.
While son Patrick notes that the high school kids he teaches and coaches nowadays seem quite unconscious of race, it was not long ago that skin color was the absolute defining factor in the lives people led and the opportunities they received. Surely, that grandfather lived through a time when Jim Crow ruled the south, and schools, restaurants, and other so-called public places were separate and far from equal.
I listened as the grandfather began to recall some of the horrific events surrounding the civil rights movement of the early 60s. Part of me wanted to join in; to tell the man and boy that It wasn't my family or friends who held slaves and made rules and laws that kept a whole race of people subjugated for generations.
"No, It wasn't me," I wanted to say. "Not me."
But I didn't say anything.
It wasn't my conversation.
They weren't my memories.
Finally, the boy asked the essential question.
"How could people do that?" he asked. "Why did they act like that?"
The grandfather glanced my way again.
"There was just a lot of hate back then," he answered.
Again, I wanted to speak up. But I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded, mostly to myself. It wasn't until we were in the car and on our way home that I remembered the best thing about his conversation with his grandson telling about the prejudice and hate there was back then.
At least he said "was."

Just another day in paradise

2011-09-01T05:29:00.001-07:00

When it comes to hurricanes, there's both good news and bad news.
The good news is that, unlike some unfortunate forces of nature--like tornadoes and earthquakes--you get plenty of warning when one is headed your way, with what seems like ample time to prepare.
The bad news? You've got plenty of time to worry about it, too, with absolutely no guarantee that any of those preparations will do any good.
In last week's column, I wrote about the beginnings of the worrisome wait that started when the local weather guys got wind of the tropical cyclone named Irene. Now, while I'm probably about as well versed as any midwestern weather-watcher when it comes to tornadoes, thunderstorms, blizzards and ice storms, I was a total tyro when it came to the water-based biggies called hurricanes. We anxiously accepted advice and information from virtually everyone we met. With our stretch of island just five feet above sea level, the danger of flooding was paramount, not to mention the havoc that might be wreaked by 100+ mph winds and double-digit rainfall.
Forecasts varied during the week, and for awhile, it looked like the storm might miss us to the seaward side. But as Irene moved closer, she took a westward jog that, once again, put us right in her path. A mandatory evacuation beginning Friday morning was announced, and we hustled around, doing a bevy of pre-storm chores that included sticking giant X-shaped swaths of duct tape on each and every window to eliminate--as much as possible--shattering glass when the winds hit. We taped cabinets and drawers shut, too, and packed and secured in closets those valuables that we couldn't take with us. We took pictures off the wall, items off shelves and counters, and moved the deck furniture and our gas grill indoors. In preparation for the expected tsunami-like storm surge, I packed, hung and tied down every item in our ground-level garage to prevent them from being swept away by the raging torrent that neighbors told me might sweep through that space.
Assuming a power failure was imminent, we emptied our refrigerator and freezer, pulled the main electrical breaker and turned off the water supply to the house, as well.
Then, finally, we skedaddled, just as one of the first heavy bands of rain and wind began sweeping across our coast.
I felt kind of empty--even guilty--inside, feeling like we were deserting a home that we've come to love in the few short months we've been coming here. But there was nothing we could do.
Unlike the many evacuees who were forced to take shelter in high school gyms and church halls, we were lucky enough, with the help of my hotel-executive niece, to have secured a hotel room in Greenville, North Carolina, just over 100 miles away. That seemed like plenty to me. After all, when you're 100 miles away from a tornado or a snowstorm, you're just as likely to experience a sunny day with no bad weather in sight. I figured it might still be kind of windy and rainy, but not nearly enough to prevent us from visiting friends in the area, and maybe seeing a movie or going out for dinner.
Wrong-o.
A major hurricane like Irene casts a broad shadow that stretches far beyond its main path. While Greenville is miles inland, it was still buffeted by hours and hours of incredibly heavy, unrelenting rain and swirling, dangerous winds that uprooted trees and damaged homes in every direction. We spent most of Friday night and Saturday monitoring television and online reports, hoping for some word as to the conditions on North Topsail Beach. But no one knew, as the island was deserted all through that stormy night and day.
30 hours later, the sun came out.
A news release from the government of North Topsail Beach said, "The Town is reporting minimal structural damage from the storm."
In a happy bit of circumstance, Irene's power diminished just a little before reaching our shores. Instead of the super-destructive, maelstrom she could easily have been, Irene had fizzled just enough to limit damage to shingles, siding, decks and other relatively minor occurrences.
A friend called Patrick. He had been on the island. Our house was still there. It looked OK.
And really, it was. One window had been pushed outward in its frame by an odd, powerful combination of wind and suction. The entire railing of our top-floor deck tore free, and we sustained some ceiling damage from leaking roof seams. The garage shows signs of a bit of a flood, with traces of sand and other flotsam indicating where a stream of mixed sea and rain water made its way through the front door and out the back.
But there's nothing that can't be fixed, and we are already anxious for things to be back to normal.
We discovered, too, that duct tape residue on window glass is one of the most stubborn materials known to man, resisting all efforts to remove it until someone clued us into the judicious use of the wonder-substance known as WD-40. It will probably take some time before we remember just where we stowed and stored all of our possessions in our haste to protect them in the hours before the storm hit. In fact, one such last-minute storage solution could have produced the weekend's most memorable story.
We had errands to run and friends to see, so Patrick and Susan beat us back to the beach by a few hours on Sunday. He called, shared a preliminary damage report, and noted that he had been to the supermarket to partially replenish our larder, and was planning on fixing some dinner.
A few minutes passed.
She: Quick, call him back.
Me: Whaaa?
She: Tell him not to turn on the oven until he looks inside!
Oh yeah.
One of the last things I did before leaving the house was to disconnect the wireless router that provides our home WiFi. With all of the drawers and cabinets already taped shut, there was just one secure place left.
The oven.
I suppose I could have a returned a piece of parbroiled electronics to our internet provider with some sort of plausible explanation.
But I'm glad I didn't have to.

Goodnight, Irene

2011-08-25T04:51:00.001-07:00

Summer's kind of winding down, I guess, though here in coastal North Carolina, there's little sign of it. I thought, in fact, that the weather last Friday night--when our son Patrick's High School football team played their first game of the season--was more suited to a steamy twi-night baseball doubleheader or a professional mosquito rodeo than a head-knocking matchup between the Richland Wildcats and the West Carteret Patriots. We're in the south, though, so we know it's going to be hot for a good while longer. And really, this Carolina season has not been much different from the sweltering summertime days of Illinois we're accustomed to, with the special bonus of steady breezes to keep things delightful on the beach most days.
One difference, though.
One big difference.
Back home, when the temperatures climb and the humidity goes sky-high, it's not all that unusual when weather guys like Terry Swails or the ever-cheerful Andy McCray burst onto the screen right in the middle of primetime to tell viewers that it might be a good idea to duck and cover, because conditions are about right for a tornado.
Most of the time, they're just being cautious, and the storm never materializes to its fullest extent. But I'm from Galva, so I know that sometimes it does.
And so it goes.
Here on Topsail Island, my no-TV existence might have kept me temporarily, but blissfully unaware of what could be in store for us in the next couple of days, had I not been forced into a visit to civilization in the form of a doctor's waiting room on Monday afternoon.
Up on the wall was a large, flat-screen TV tuned to The Weather Channel. On the screen was my favorite weather wrangler, Jim Cantore, who was busily gesticulating at a large map filled with yellow, orange and red whorls and arrows.
It was Hurricane Irene.
As he spoke into the camera, the picture behind him zoomed in to reveal the southeastern United States, then North Carolina, then the very stretch of barrier island coastline where we live. I strained to hear what he was saying as the beach shot incredibly grew to include a closeup of yours truly looking worriedly towards the sea.
"Self-proclaimed Illinois storm expert John Sloan will probably get a taste of some real weather this weekend," intoned Cantore. "We'll see if that homeboy has what it takes."
Well, not exactly. But you get the idea.
If I was back home in Illinois, an iffy bad-weather prediction would probably prompt me to grab a flashlight, gather a couple of candles and fill a jug with ice water in preparation for the possibility that we might have to hunker down in the basement for an hour or two.
But, if a tornado is a bad-weather event, a hurricane is an full-out festival of funky forecasts, as meteorologists spend days attempting to predict the unpredictable turns and twists the storm will take...a task not unlike trying to figure out in advance which teacups a bull set loose in a china shop will break.
The last time this island was struck hard, it was a whopper, with both Bertha and Fran making landfall in the summer and fall of 1996. The resulting maelstrom virtually swept our end of the island clean of roads, power poles, trees, sand dunes and houses, too. Needless to say, the locals are a bit edgy with the prospect of seeing it happen again.
We are, too.
Our local friends and neighbors, along with just about everyone I've run into in the supermarket, the hardware store and the fish market, have already started sharing useful bits of advice, which always end with this one:
IF IT COMES HERE, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.
So we will, if need be. If it really does hit close, we'll have no choice, as a forced evacuation would be likely. And even if they don't make us go, I probably will, if things get rough, after hearing a friend of mine, the late Rick Appell, share his hair-raising account of riding a hurricane out in the closet of his Florida home.
But before we do, we'll need to prepare our four-floor duplex for what might happen whether we're here or not. That means, at the very least, clearing the decks and other outside areas of any furniture or other items. It means covering windows or at least opening them a bit to try and prevent them from being blown out in 100+ mph winds. And it means disposing of refrigerated perishables in the likely event of a power failure and taking all the things we truly value with us if we have to leave. There are no basements here, but most places, like ours, have a garage on the ground floor to elevate the rest of the home above flood stage. Local wisdom says I should leave the roll-up door in the front open approximately a foot, while leaving the back door of the structure wide open to allow any rushing waters to flow through freely, without damaging the structural integrity of the building. If nothing else, this seems like a dramatic way to clean out a garage, but I will do what they tell me to do, as any inexperienced rookie resident should.
So we'll wait. And wonder. And even pray a little, though I think God already knows we'd rather skip the whole thing if it's all the same to Him.
If it does strike here, we'll leave, then wait and worry about what will be waiting for us when we return.
In the meantime, stay tuned.
Goodnight, Irene.

Some Summer Squirbs

2011-08-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

Note: A squirb is, if you’ll recall, a combination of a squib and a blurb, according to Mrs. Sloan’s Revised Standard Dictionary.
Is that a Shrimp Costume or am I just standing here with my fingers crossed?
You can have the bright lights of New York City, the history and culture of London and the style and sophistication of Paris. And, I no longer envy those who have visited New Orleans for Mardi Gras, Carnivale in Rio de Janeiro or the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.
You see, I've been to the Sneads Ferry Shrimp Festival.
Sneads Ferry is an unincorporated fishing village located on the New River near its inlet into the sea, not far from our North Topsail Island digs. Its historic claim to fame has to do with the fact that it was--beginning in 1728--the site of an important ferry crossing that connected the vital Post Road (the road used to carry the mail) from Suffolk, Virginia to Charleston, South Carolina. The reason for the name "Snead" is kind of elusive, as some accounts identify Robert Snead as the owner/operator of the north shore ferry, while others state he was an attorney best known for shooting a political opponent and beating the rap after he was convicted of murder, with a pardon signed by the governor. A former slave with the rather misleading name of Caroline Pearson was the last ferryman to hand-propel the ferry, which was discontinued when a bridge was built in 1939. Celebrating a yearly shrimp festival is more than appropriate, as the village annually catches over 385 tons of shrimp, 25 tons of flounder, and approximately 493 tons of other seafood like clams, scallops, oysters, mullet, spot, grouper, soft shell and hard shell crabs, sea bass, and more.
We had been seeing the posters and billboards since our return to the area and figured we ought to go and see what there was to see (and eat what there was to eat.) We were a running a little late, so we had to kind of hustle to catch the beginning of the annual parade, which was our main goal for the day. As we approached the parade route, we could hear some absolutely splendid-sounding march music in the distance.
She: That's quite a high school band.
Me: No kidding. I wonder where they're from?
In fact it was no high school band at all, but the President's Own, a detachment of the United States Marine Corps band, doing what they do best. We were quickly reminded that Camp Lejeune, home of over 40,000 Marines and their families, is right across the aforementioned bridge. The parade continued with a beauteous, bountiful bevy of shrimp queens and princesses, along with "Mr. Shrimp," a teenaged guy who may well rue the day he accepted the title if he ever leaves home and shares that bit of personal information with others.
"You were captain of the hockey team? So what? I was Mr. Shrimp."
There were troops of Shriner clowns and squadrons of other Shriners buzzing around in little trucks and cars. There were military vehicles, fire trucks, cop cars and a full compliment of smiling, candy-tossing politicians and celebrities, like the aptly named Rookie Davis, a local high school baseball phenom who was recently drafted by the New York Yankees.
There was shrimp, shrimp and more shrimp.
And finally, just as I had almost given up hope, there was a guy strutting proudly down the street in a giant shrimp costume.
Life is good.
=====
Thome is my homie.
Jim Thome did it.
The East Peoria native hit his 600th home run Monday night, reaching that amazing career milestone in the second fewest at-bats ever, behind only Babe Ruth. It would seem to make him a virtual shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, which is a good thing. A very good thing.
You see, besides being a prodigious hitter who slugged his way through the steroid era without taking performance-enhancing drugs himself, Thome seems, by all accounts, to be a truly good guy.
He’s won the Clemente Award. He’s won the Gehrig Award. He has been voted the nicest guy in baseball.
And while a pleasing personality shouldn't have to be a requirement for entry into the hall, it's nice when it works out that way.
Well done, number 25.
======
Home, home on the beach.
There was an extra-special sighting on Topsail Beach last week. It was, in my opinion, better than whales, better than dolphins and even better than turtles, if that can be believed.
It was Sloans.
Son and daughter-in-law Colin and Geri, along with our granddaughter Setira, made the jaunt from their home near Fargo, North Dakota, a drive of some 1600 miles, but light years apart in terms of weather and scenery.
It was Setira's first glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean, a wondrous thing for a water-loving 13-year-old. Add the real-life turtle hatching she and her grandma witnessed, and it was near-nirvana for both of them. It was the first time, too, that we had the majority of the family--kids and grandkids alike--under the same roof since Christmas.
We cooked and ate and laughed and talked and played and spent time enjoying the sheer nearness of each other.
The grandma-lady and I know that the distances involved make it a tough thing for us all to get together very often. We know it's not easy in a world filled with busy lives and four dollar gasoline. So, we appreciate the fact that, one more time, it happened.
A family.
Together.
More than priceless.
Magic.

Welcome to Possum Dance

2011-08-11T06:03:00.001-07:00

Approximately 216 miles after we started, we had our fill of the Federal Interstate HIghway System. Now, this in itself is no surprise, nor any kind of a record. As many readers know, I'd just as soon skip the big roads altogether, unless I'm evacuating after a nuclear attack or moving troops to defend against an invading foreign army. Those were, after all, the original reasons for the cross-country road system designed back in the days of the Eisenhower administration.
The only reason we were heading east on I-74 in the first place was that we were in a bit of a hurry to get back to our part-time home in North Carolina. Son Colin and his crew were heading that way from Minnesota, so we were anxious to get there and spend as much time as possible with both of our sons and their families. I had talked my spouse/co-pilot/commander-in-chief into letting me take the slightly longer "southern route," which travels down through Kentucky and Tennessee before crossing the Appalachians near the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but that minor concession to sightseeing was it.
"I want to get there," she said.
And so did I.
216 miles later, though, we realized a mid-day start was apt to cause us to hit Indianapolis during rush hour, which is no real picnic anytime, and even worst during the annual summertime construction season.
"Let's cut south sooner," she said, after a long, hard look at a map.
I, of course, was quick to agree with a plan--and route--that might take me closer to the downtown squares, small-town parks and mom-and-pop hotdog stands that make off-the-beaten-track travel so rewarding. And while I didn't get an onion-coated chili dog out of the deal, I did enjoy that portion of the ride.
Especially the names.
The tradition of town names in America is a mixed and fancy one. Many--especially out east, I think--are named after historical events or famous people. "Washington," in fact, remains the number one town name in the U.S. But, as you get further into the midsection of the country, those names seem to take on a slightly more quirky, more localized kind of tone.
"Who do you think names these places," I said, right after we had driven past the town of Raccoon, which is just a few miles west of the delightfully named Roachdale.
Now, before it sounds like I'm making fun of these colorful monickers, let me remind you that I hail from Galva, a town that first thanked and honored the nearby Bishop Hill Swedes by letting them name the place, then promptly dissed them by immediately refusing to spell or pronounce it correctly (the original name, Gavle, is pronounced "ya-vlay.") Kewanee is, according to legend, named after a wild chicken, while Lafayette (my favorite) was reputedly named after a guy named Lafe Dunbar, not the French-born Revolutionary War hero.
Our journey continued through Brick Chapel, which has one, and Carp, where there is nary a lake, pond or fish-bearing river in sight. We didn't see Cataract, though we came close, and I was forcefully prevented from detouring through Hindustan (yes, Hindustan, Indiana) a name which continues to haunt and mystify me, though I can find no online information on it other than its spot on the map.
"Really," I said. "How do they come up with these names?"
Just then, we came to a slightly wider spot in the road, where an oncoming Chevy pickup and a couple of extra houses prompted me to slow down a bit.
Just ahead, an opossum waddled out from the underbrush. The unlovely little critter must have been a more highly evolved member of his breed, because instead of simply standing still and waiting to be squished, he jittered his way into a little back-and-forth jig that neatly avoided the tires of the oncoming truck.
More than anything, it looked like young Mr. Possum was dancing the cha-cha, a sight that we both appreciated as I slowed to a stop to let him pass.
"That's how," she said. "Welcome. Welcome to Possum Dance."

Hot Times

2011-08-04T06:48:00.001-07:00

"As he stepped outside, he realized the town was completely silent except for the distant hum of air conditioners."
It's been like that lately.
It's been a hot, dry Illinois July, where even a drive in the country in search of a cooling breeze provides little more that a keening, whistling, whispering combination of hot air, the mid-summer sound of locusts and the soft, papery rustle of the corn.
It's hot. Darn hot.
And as I am an American male between the ages of three and 114, I am required by some unwritten law to talk about it.
But it's more than talk around here, where the weather is an essential part of the risky business our farmers live through and endure year after year.
"Did you get enough rain last night?"
The rains have been hard to come by in a month where the right amounts at the right time are absolutely vital to a good crop and a good year. Happily, we got just enough the other night. Just enough for now.
But it's hot. Real hot.
"I don't even want to go outside anymore," said one sun-loving neighbor. "It's just too hot."
It has been hot enough to make me think of the stories my mother used to tell me about the summer of 1936. A summer when the daytime temps reached 112 degrees and topped triple digits for 12 days in a row in parts of Illinois. A summer before air conditioning or even large-sized window fans. A summer when she would see families gather in the evening in the shady park across the street from the house where I live now to spread sheets and spend the night away from stifling homes and bedrooms that had become impossible to endure.
No, it's not that hot. But it's hot. Very hot.
The rains that gave temporary respite to the crops did little to revive lawns that have all but given up in the sunny spots. I finally gave in to a misplaced sense of homeowner responsibility and mowed the other evening for the first time in a couple of weeks, mostly because I thought I'd better knock down some of the weeds that, in their infinite toughness, have begun to overtake the heat-dormant grass. I felt the crunch-crunch-crunch of the growing patches of light brown stuff that now threaten to cover the front yard where the now-missing big tree on the corner used to provide shelter and shade.
The heat wave that has troubled us has made its presence known further north as well. On our recent camping trip up into Wisconsin and the northernmost parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, 90-degree days followed us into an area where summertime high temperatures in the low 70s are the norm and nighttime lows in the 50s are not uncommon. It's a part of the country where central air conditioning is often considered an unnecessary luxury; where the hot, humid conditions we consider normal, if not entirely welcome, are almost too much to bear for the folks who live there year round.
"It's dat hew-midity," they said, over and over in the rich Upper Peninsula accent known as the Yooper dialect. "Dats what makes it so hot, eh?"
We met one woman, a state park gift shop volunteer, who had a solution, however. She was a nice, soft-spoken lady of a certain age, who might have been home baking cookies for a bunch of loving grandchildren if she had not been donating her time selling postcards and mosquito repellant and ice to a bunch of sweaty tourist. As we chatted with her, the topic, naturally, turned to the weather, which had, by turns, been sultry and stuffy and stormy. I mentioned how many complaints we had heard along the way.
"Do you know what I say?" she said sweetly. We both leaned in a bit, not wanting to miss the pearls of wisdom about to be shared.
"JUST SUCK IT UP. THAT'S WHAT I TELL 'EM," she barked. "JUST SUCK IT UP."
We reeled back a bit, realizing that this was one person who had had her fill with complaints about a condition that couldn't be changed anyway. I tried gamely to lighten the mood a bit and mentioned some of our North Carolina friends who panic at the sight of a few flakes of snow, thinking a resident of a land that sees, on average, just about 12 feet of the white stuff every season, might find it a little humorous.
"THEY JUST NEED TO SUCK IT UP," she bellowed. "JUST SUCK IT UP."
We saw, clearly, that weather was a topic to be avoided, so we quickly made our purchases and shuffled back to the car with our postcards and ice.
The hot, humid conditions were waiting for us when we returned. I realized just how hot and humid when I heard my spouse talking on the phone with an out-of-state friend the other day.
"How hot is it?" she said. "It's so hot, John even turned on The Big Scamp in the front room.
The Big Scamp is an ancient, hulking 220-volt air conditioning unit mounted more or less permanently in a transom over a side door in our front room. Living, as we do, in an old house with an equally-ancient steam heating system, central air has never been an easy option. So we've depended on The Big Scamp and other, smaller window units to cool our living areas when high ceilings and ceiling fans don't do the trick. I usually hesitate to do so unless we're pretty desperate, because I think it's probably pretty expensive to run it very often. When turned on, it makes a loud humming noise, roughly equivalent to a squadron of P-38 fighters approaching an aircraft carrier over the South Pacific. When in action, it drowns out conversations, drips buckets of water from its outside grillwork and makes the windows in our front room rattle and buzz.
But boy can that sucker cool things down.
It's been there since we bought the house in the mid-80s, and I've always dreaded the day when I'd have to deal with its demise. Quite frankly, I just hoped it would outlive me.
No such luck.
Last week, just as we were preparing for our usual Thursday night gathering of some friends, it quit with a sudden rattle and a ominous buzzing noise.
I tried a few handyman tricks, including resting it, turning it on and off, resetting the breaker and swatting it firmly on the side.
No dice.
She: Can we get someone to fix it?
Me: Not unless Alley Oop is making service calls.
The thing really is ancient, you see. In fact, a little research showed that Sears hasn't even sold the Coldspot brand since the mid-70s, and I doubt if it was new then. I've always been amazed that it still ran. Now I'm absolutely devastated to find that it doesn't anymore.
We're planning on departing again for grandkid-land this week, so I probably won't deal with it until we return.
But I will have to do something, as its absence leaves much of our downstairs as hot and humid as a haymow on an August afternoon.
Maybe it can be fixed, but I'm not overly optimistic. And really, it doesn't owe me a thing, so I've got no complaints. Replacing it will be a hard, moderately dangerous, up-on-a-tall-ladder process that will probably force me into my least-favorite form of exercise--writing a largish check.
But one way or another, I guess I've just got to follow some advice I received from a woman who knew what she was talking about.
Just suck it up.

Miles from Nowhere

2011-07-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

We first visited the Keweenaw Peninsula when we were near-newlyweds, almost 39 years ago, and we always said we'd go back again someday. But we were foiled by time and circumstance and by the knowledge that it is a place that is absolutely on the way to nowhere. It is a wilderness of water and deep woods that pokes straight upwards into Lake Superior on the western end of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. You can get there from here, but you can't get anywhere else once you've arrived. You can only turn around and head home again.
And while its existential beauty and magnificent ruggedness made it a place we've yearned to see and experience again, its sheer remoteness has always made it a tough call in a life filled with other responsibilities, desires and opportunities.
In the past couple of years, though, we've started making a little more effort to revisit some of those special places and people we've known in the past. It's not exactly a "bucket list," because we are re-experiencing rather than trying something new. I guess I like to think of it more as a reunion tour, where we, like a pair of "experienced" rock-and-rollers, go and revisit our greatest hits of the past.
But anyway...
We found ourselves with a little time on our hands last week. It was too hot to do some of the outdoor chores that have been tweaking my conscience, especially those involving tall ladders, brushes and oil-based exterior paint. We had been wanting to visit my sister and her family, who live further east and south along the Superior shore, so we packed the little red tent and the small mountain of gear that accompanies it and hit the road north.
Our first camping stop was at the south edge of the Keweenaw, in the aptly named Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, a 60,000-acre old-growth forest that includes endless stands of ancient trees, rivers, hidden lakes and waterfalls, plus a bevy of wild critters like moose, deer, porcupines (naturally), beaver, coyotes, foxes and wolves. Oh yeah, and lots and lots of black bears.
"VISITORS MUST TAKE PRECAUTIONS TO PROTECT FOOD AND EQUIPMENT FROM THIS CURIOUS AND POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS ANIMAL," read one sign. "NEVER FEED OR APPROACH BEARS."
"Rats," I thought. "I was going to invite them over for s'mores."
We didn't encounter any big furry mammals first-hand, but were lucky enough to do the next best thing.
We met Ranger Bob.
Ranger Bob is a big, good-natured, bear-loving naturalist who took a bunch of us campers on a "bear hike" through a rough-cut wooded trail that featured an actual winter den and some visible bear tracks.
"Go ahead, stick yer head in dere," said Ranger Bob in his hearty north country accent. "Dat's his tracks."
These bits of information sort of alarmed me, as it was starting to get a little dark and we were, after all, in what Mr. Bear might well have considered his living room. But Ranger Bob seemed confident that all was well, so I stayed calm and bear-free. While we were all taken with his knowledge regarding the local bruins and their activities, we were even more impressed by Ranger Bob's ability to ignore the clouds of mosquitoes and biting flies that attacked the rest of us as soon as we entered the woods.
Me: Say, (slap) Ranger Bob, don't these (bzzzz) bugs kinda (ouch) get to you after awhile?
Later on, my nephew Jamie, who has spent considerable time in the deep woods himself, shared the secret.
"Most of those guys have some kind of special bug dope going for them," he explained. "And it helps not to bathe too much."...which goes a long ways towards explaining Ranger Bob's mostly solitary life in the deep woods.
After a glorious Lake Superior sunset, we fixed a quick campfire meal and set about getting ready for bed.
The heat wave that was broiling central Illinois had wandered into the north woods, too, so I wasn't anxious to mount the rain-resistant fly on the top of the tent, preferring to sleep under the open air mesh that forms the domed roof.
She: Do you think it will rain?
Me: Naaa, look at that sky.
She: Do you need to put that pole thing in the rain fly, just in case?
Me: Naaa, that thing just gets in the way.
The first rumble of thunder woke me up at about 3 a.m.
Cursing softly as the rain began to hit the mesh, I crawled out of the tent and searched around for the rain fly. The aforementioned "pole thing" was nowhere to be found, so I slipped the fly over the tent, crawled back inside and drifted off to sleep.
The tent started leaking in earnest at about 4 a.m.
In a humorous bit of circumstance that I totally failed to appreciate at the time, it was only dripping on my side. This was only fair, as it was the lack of "that pole thing" that was allowing the water to pool up on top of the tent before dripping in on me. Cursing a little louder, I scooched her way in an effort to stay at least partly dry until morning.
"Did it rain last night?" she said in the cheery-dreamy tones of one who has enjoyed a dry, comfortable night's sleep.
"Not so YOU'D know it," I muttered, as I headed to the bath house for my second shower of the new day.
After exploring some more of the trails and upland hills of the mountain forest, we packed up and headed further north into the actual peninsula--the region known as the "Copper Country," so named because the area was the world's greatest producer of copper from its heyday beginning in the 1840s well into the 20th century. Despite its remote location and hard, lengthy winters, the area boomed, becoming one of the first western destinations for easterners looking for work, fortune and a new life.
Eventually, most of the copper petered out, and the northern extremes of the region became a thinly populated area again, where the highest man-made structures are the old stone chimneys from the steam engines that powered the mines and the Keweenaw Snow-mometer that helps to measure an annual snowfall that can easily average over 250 inches.
"You live here, you're making a real commitment," she said as we traveled the winding, wooded highway.
We camped again. It rained again; this time with a ferocity that had us huddling in our car until it settled into a long night of wind and rain that finally broke the unnatural heat and humidity for good. We stayed dry that night, and in the morning we explored the army post established way back when copper was king and an army presence was thought to be needed to keep the peace between the miners, the settlers and the Native Americans who lived there first.
We drove a little further north along U.S. 41, a historic north-south route that goes all the way to Miami and has always been one of my favorites to drive.
Then it ended.
The highway just stops in the middle of the woods, with a simple turnaround and sign that announces the fact that you've come to the end (or beginning) of a 2000 mile stretch of highway.
There's just a woods road path leading to the big lake at the tip of the land.
"I guess we're here," she said.
And we were.
Miles from nowhere.
But it felt like home.

Smarter than a smartphone

2011-07-21T19:56:00.001-07:00

Make no mistake about it, there are plenty of technological advances that I've embraced completely and enthusiastically over the years. I've been computer literate--and pretty darn savvy when it comes to the internet--for quite awhile now. Even more impressively, I once successfully programmed my VCR, plus I remain the only person in the entire universe who can set the clocks in both our cars and our microwave oven without having to refer to an instruction manual or ask a teenager for help.
But this whole phone thing kind of zipped past me when I wasn't looking.
Bear in mind, I grew up in a generation where a single phone was enough for a household, while using it--especially to make a LONG DISTANCE CALL--was almost a kind of a ceremony.
But somehow, attitudes changed. So did phones.
Suddenly, it seems like every woman, man, boy, girl and cocker spaniel on the planet has his or her or its own phone, many of them so-called "smartphones" that allow the user to surf the internet, play music and games, send and receive emails and take advantage of a whole gunnysack full of applications that range from kinda handy to sorta quirky to flat-out dumb. There's even a rumor going around that they can make and receive calls, but I'm not sure they're often put to such mundane use.
That last function--talking to others--is about all the old geezer of a phone that I sometimes remember to carry can manage. That's generally fine with me, though I have to admit I was pretty impressed when a friend I was talking to recently used his to both find the best gasoline prices in the area and look up the beginning and end points of the upcoming Ragbrai bicycle ride across Iowa.
My spouse, however, has been a trifle more adventurous than me, starting with the bright red model she used her upgrade on last year that featured a pull-out QWERTY keyboard, which kind of made me wonder if she was planning on exchanging texts regarding the hunky quarterback in third period study hall. Despite its glamorous color and modern features, though, that phone turned out to be a bright-red lemon. She missed more calls than she received as the messed-up phone often sucked up its own battery reserves and died over and over and over again. I figured I was about due for a free upgrade of my own this year, so I invited her to try again, thinking this time she'd choose something dull and dependable like me, er, my phone. So I was a little surprised when she turned up her nose at a bare-bones flip phone like mine and went the bells-and-whistles route again. I guess it's not quite a full-fledged smartphone, but it has a touch screen and quite a few extra features and functions that she seems to be learning as needed or desired. I felt a little left out, in fact, as she, once again, leapt boldly into the 21st century, while I glumly lagged behind in a technological funk.
It was not until she encountered her first real problem with the phone that I was able to recover some self-esteem.
She: I can barely hear on this new phone when someone calls me.
Me: (wisely) Hmmmm.
She: I've tried turning up the volume on the earpiece, but that doesn't help.
Me: (wiser still) Hmmmm. Well, let me take a look. Maybe I can fix it.
Disgusted, she gave me the phone and stalked out of the room. I handled the thing gingerly and sort of clumsily, too, sort of like a chimpanzee who's been handed a six shooter. I was pretty sure that my usual methods for fixing things, which generally involve copious amounts of duct tape or a sharp rap with a ball-peen hammer, weren't quite what was called for.
Then, something caught my eye.
The little plastic sheet that is supposed to protect the touch screen from scratches and smudges had slid a little bit out of place. It had, in fact, slid right over the tiny ear hole on the listening end of the phone.
I slipped the sheet back into its proper position went to find her.
Me: Here, try this. I'll call you. See if it's better.
(ring)
She: Why, that's MUCH better. What did you do? How did you fix it?
Me: Ah, just adjusted the transmogrifier. Brought 'er up to spec. Let me know if you need more help.
Quickly, I made my way out of the room before she could ask for any additional demonstrations of my new-found technical abilities.
I guess someday I'll have to give up and upgrade to something newer, fancier and more up-to-date myself.
And eventually, I guess I'll have to be smart enough for a smartphone.
But for now, I'm just glad I was smart enough--just this once--to fix one.

And what a week it was

2011-07-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest reasons we said goodbye to our youngest grandsons and our beautiful North Carolina beachfront to come back to the midwest for awhile was the chance to celebrate--as we always have--the Fourth of July with our friends and neighbors in Galva. It's a great day in my hometown, chocked full with events ranging from the early morning 5K race and pancake breakfast (most people don't run and eat at the same time) in the park across from our house, and continuing with highlights that conclude with Galva's amazing fireworks display, but also include the Arts Council's Art Jam and photo show, an antique tractor show and a favorite among many of our big-city friends--cow chip bingo. It's usually a big day for us, with our wraparound front porch and yard a good spot for viewing the lavish Freedom Fest parade and visiting with the many friends who find the time to stop by and say hello.
I'm usually pretty involved with the goings-on that day, with my main responsibilities being the parade, for which I have been the emcee for a number of years, and the talent show, where I've helped with announcing the contestants and setting up and running the sound system.
But this year was different.
We had discussed the fact that it might be just about time for me to back off a bit and let someone new try their hand at those duties. It's a long, pretty physical day, with equipment to move and lengthy periods spent standing in the hot July sun. My combination of creaky knees and chronic anemia relating to the cancer treatments I've undergone leave me pretty done in at the end of it, plus I've pretty much proved that I'm a washout when it comes to identifying the vintage tractors that make up a good part of the parade, and the jokes I tell between acts at the talent show have gotten sort of stale. But I didn't get around to discussing my feelings with the members of the festival committee, so I wasn't surprised when a message from parade organizer Lynda Anderson was waiting for me when we got back to Illinois.
"It's too late to bail out now," I said to my spouse. "One more year."
I called Lynda, and got some surprising news.
"We'd like you to do a different job this year," she said. "We'd like you to be Grand Marshall of the parade."
Now, according to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, a Grand Marshall is "a ceremonial, military, or political office of very high rank."
Who, me?
It was pretty humbling. There are any number of smart, giving, hard-working members of the Galva community who deserve that kind of honor. But having served on a few committees myself, I knew I would be doing no favors for the Freedom Fest folks if I insisted they scurry to find another honoree at the last minute.
So there I was. The Grand Marshall.
"Hello, Marshall," became a frequent greeting as the big day approached and the announcement of my upcoming honor appeared in an ultra-flattering article in The Galva News.
My spouse/fashion advisor picked out a red, white and blue plaid shirt that made me look, well, bright, and I even found some online advice on the proper way to greet the crowds along the parade route from an online source: "The Queen Wave: A hand gesture made consisting of a brief twist in the wrist, whilst the hands are neatly cupped."
It was not until the pre-Fourth pork chop supper put on by the Lutheran Church that I was reminded of the most important thing.
"Candy," said one doting grandparent friend. "My grandson wants lots of candy."
Yes, like many politicians and other self-important, so-called celebrities, I had forgotten that it's not enough to smile, wave and look like you know something.
You gotta give with the goods.
So I stocked up with a giant bagful, though I was leery of my ability to smile, wave and accurately toss bon-bons at the same time. Luckily, Jim Anderson's spiffy 1930 Model A convertible came with a valuable accessory--a trio of young ladies that included his daughter and the daughter of Star Courier editor Mike Landis. They quickly agreed to take charge of distribution from the rumble seat, while I settled into the shotgun position.
We proceeded up the Third Avenue parade route, around the park and through downtown Galva.
The girls did the important stuff.
I smiled. I waved.
Hopefully, I did it right.
Thanks, Galva.

Speaking of celebrations, we attended another gathering last week that marked an important milestone.
My cousin, Helen, turned 101.
She's my dad's first cousin, in fact, as their mothers were among the children of a Bishop Hill girl named Sophia Peterson, daughter of one of the first Swedes to reach America and the colony. Helen is the last of my dad's generation still around in my family and has always been a wonderful friend and a valuable source of family information, tales and trivia.
I got to thinking about all she's seen and lived through after we spent a little time with her the other evening.
Imagine.
She's lived through both world wars (and every war that's followed) and the Great Depression, witnessed the early days of cars, airplanes, radio and TV, and saw the introduction of a myriad of modern inventions, including pyrex, the zipper, the toaster, computers and the yo-yo. Chances are, she knew someone who actually heard Abraham Lincoln speak. For sure, she knew men who fought in the American Civil War.
Imagine.
"Be sure to drink the water at her place," said son Patrick when he heard we were going for a visit. "Maybe that's the secret."
But I think not.
Born in 1910, she just missed the Chicago Cubs' last World Series victory in 1908.
She's a big fan.
And I think she's been waiting ever since.
Happy birthday, Helen.

Speaking of grownups (I think Helen qualifies), we pursued some downright adult activities last week, as we attended not one, but two theatrical performances.
Now, while I heartily support all the arts in their various forms, I would be less than honest if I didn't admit that I think most live theatre could be improved vastly if they'd let you take in popcorn and ju-ju beans, like at the movies. So hitting two shows in a week is a tribute to both my growing maturity and the persuasive powers of my spouse.
First off was the Festival 56 production of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew."
Festival 56 (named after the nearby I-80 mile marker and exit) is a professional theatre festival located in Princeton that "assembles from across the country a team of the most creative and talented artists living and working in professional theatre today." They fill the bill with seven summertime shows that include classic and world premier performances, plus free Shakespeare in the Park on Sunday and Wednesday evenings. I shocked my wife by suggesting that we attend, and we went, lawn chairs and snacks in hand, where we were treated to a fine, funny reprise of the first real live theatre production i ever attended many years ago.
it's free. It's fun.
You should go.
Next up on our whirlwind theatrical tour was the KHS production of "Annie Get Your Gun," the 1946 Irving Berlin musical that featured soon-to-be hit songs like "There's No Business Like Show Business" and "Anything You Can Do."
Now, high school theatre--especially musicals--can sometimes be a little painful, marked by inaudible, off-key singing, flubbed lines and rickety shop-class sets presented to crowds mostly limited to camera-toting grandparents, anxious moms and dozing dads. But the Kewanee kids and the adults who supported them did themselves proud, with a sharp, spirited production that featured some excellent song-and-dance numbers; elaborate, well-designed sets and an audience who really appreciated the hard work and dedication they gave to their craft.
And it, too, was free. And fun.
If you didn't go, you should have. Don't miss the next one.

Bo Came Home

2011-07-07T05:30:00.000-07:00

I guess memories are what the Fourth of July is all about in a way. After all, the holiday both commemorates the birth of our nation and celebrates those who have worked and fought to make it free.
But that's not all.
For me, the day resonates with a whole range of childhood remembrances, starting with family picnics and fireworks-watching when I was young, and progressing through those days when I, like all adolescent boys, was determined to blow some portion of my anatomy into smithereens via the injudicious use of death-dealing mini-munitions like cherry bombs and M80s.
Happily, I got past that period in my life with all ten toes and fingers intact, though like many reformed criminals, I have become an annoying nag when it comes to the use of fireworks, both legal and otherwise, by others. Even my spouse, who is generally pretty darn safety minded has fallen afoul of my uber-chicken concerns.
She: Here kids, these sparklers are pretty. Just be careful.
Me: HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND? WHY DON'T YOU JUST GIVE THOSE INNOCENT CHILDREN WHITE-HOT WELDING RODS INSTEAD?
...and so on.
Our family Fourth of July celebrations have produced a lot of memories over the years, and a lot of great stories, too. But I was reminded of one extra-special tale just this past weekend when chatting with some old friends and neighbors who had dropped by our front-porch festivities on the Fourth.
It's a story about a dog. A dog named Bo.
Bo was one of those dogs who was simply made for the movies. A little white-and-black terrier of some sort, he was cute, frisky and a friend to every adult, kid and neighborhood dog he met. He had one black-ringed eye that gave him a kind of rakish look, plus an eternal dog-smile that he apparently used to work his way into the hearts of every female dog in a 10-block area, as evidenced by a plentiful group of two-toned puppy-progenies in the southwest part of town where we we used to live and our friends still reside.
The amazing story of Bo's disappearance and return began one snowy January day at least 20 years ago, when he accompanied Dick, his owner and best buddy, outside to shovel the sidewalks. Dick figured Bo had gotten tired of the cold and had simply barked his way back into the house, so it was full dark when the walks were done and the awful truth was discovered.
Bo was missing.
A full-scale dog-hunt ensued, but no dice. No dog.
Dick was heartbroken.
Weeks and months passed.
After a while, we encouraged him to get another dog. After all, there were plenty of Bo's offspring available for adoption in the neighborhood. But Dick would have none of it.
"I don't want another dog," he said. "I want Bo."
And we couldn't blame him, for Bo was truly a remarkable little friend.
A few more months passed until Megan, our young sons and I were invited to an Independence Day party in Peoria, where I worked at the time. It was a cookout on the Illinois River, and we didn't head towards home until well after dark. We were driving through the small town of Laura, just under the railroad underpass on the south end of town, when, suddenly, we saw something.
It was a small, mostly white dog, running along the highway. As we passed him, he turned to look at us, displaying a familiar-looking black-ringed eye and a broad doggy smile.
She: THAT'S BO!
Me: Whaaa?
She: THAT'S BO, THAT'S BO, THAT'S BO!!!
ME: That's crazy. We've gotta be 25 miles from Galva. And Bo has been missing since January.
Any experienced husband would easily recognize the loaded silence that greeted my reply. It spoke of hurt feelings, wounded pride and sure reprisal. I recognized it right off, and just before we reach the north end of town, I relented.
Me: O.K. Let's go see.
She: I KNOW IT'S BO. HE WAS LOOKING RIGHT AT ME. THAT'S BO, THAT'S BO, THAT'S BO!!!
I pulled a u-turn, and we drove the short distance back to the middle of town, where the little dog was still galloping along for all he was worth.
SHE: SEE? HE'S HEADED FOR GALVA. THAT'S BO, THAT'S BO, THAT'S BO!!!
I stopped the car. She opened the door and called his name, and I'll be darned if the little dog didn't hop in and nestle between our sleeping sons, who had, so far, dozed through the entire search and rescue drama.
We turned around again and headed towards home. We were quiet for awhile, both lost in our thoughts over what had just transpired, when she broke the silence.
She: What if it's not Bo?
Me: WHADDAYA MEAN "WHAT IF IT'S NOT BO?"
She: Well, if he's not, you could just drop him off on your way to work tomorrow. Kinda like one of those alien abduction things.
I glanced back at the little cur, who was happily panting and smiling, pausing only to wriggle a little closer to the now-awakening boys.
"Is that Bo?" said one of them.
I looked again, and I swear the little bugger winked at me.
Turns out, it was Bo. We brought him home, where his dog-pals Claude and Whitey knew him right off. Then came the critical moment. Though it was now after eleven o'clock, we couldn't bear to wait until morning to reunite Bo with his family.
We called first.
"We think we've got a surprise for you," said my spouse, which must have made our friends wonder if we had been standing too close to the fireworks that night. "We'll be right over."
We pulled into their drive, opened the door, and Bo hopped out and ran onto the porch as if he had just been out for ice cream instead of on an epic, seven-month journey.
Dog saw man. Man saw dog.
It was Bo.
We never did figure out how Bo ended up in Laura. I kinda figured someone passing through Galva saw him wandering alone in the snow, picked him up and took him home.
But who knows?
But I do know what happened on that July night those many years ago.
I know how Bo came home.

The Difference is the Details

2011-06-30T09:54:00.001-07:00

We're home.
In Galva.
It's kinda different.
Not that it has changed much, but the contrast between life at our long-time home in Galva and our part-time place on the North Carolina shore became obvious to me almost as soon as we hit town early last Wednesday evening, when a immediate change in activity level hit me right between the eyes. Our Carolina existence is pretty laid back, with most of the going and doing directed towards grandkid stuff, like story hour at the library and tee-ball games at the big park in nearby Jacksonville. Otherwise, it's pretty much the bucolic beach bum lifestyle for me, and her, even, which has been a bit of a surprise to me. As you might guess, I've always been pretty good at doing nothing, but she usually tends to get a little restless if she's not constantly doing something, learning something, cleaning something or otherwise on the fly. So it's been nice to see her dozing on the beach chair next to me once in awhile.
But then it all changed.
I was taking my own sweet time unpacking the car that night when I noticed a not-unfamiliar look in her eye as she tried to hurry me along.
Me (kidding, I thought): Do you have somewhere you need to be?
She (not kidding at all): Actually, I've got a meeting in fifteen minutes.
Me: Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas, er, North Carolina anymore.
The sudden shift in direction and pace got me thinking of all the ways our lives differ from one place to another.
Like the homes we live in.
Our house in Galva is old (built in the 1860s), big (try painting it someday) and filled to the brim with the kind of furniture, memories and general bric-a-brac that can easily collect when you're the fourth generation of family of packrats who have lived in the same town for over 100 years. It's a lot of fun, and we love living here, but it's a big difference from our beach place, which was built after the last time a hurricane swept the island in 1998. It's barely furnished (thrift shop chic) and is almost totally devoid of clutter (for now, at least.)
The views outside are a little different, too.
Our North Carolina windows look out over the Atlantic Ocean and the intercoastal waterway, which is pretty heady stuff for a midwestern muddy-lake guy like me. The Galva house, on the other hand, has a pretty nice vista of its own, with busy, beautiful Wiley Park and a backyard filled with the wildflowers and perennials we've gathered and nurtured over the years. And while a dry, dry Carolina spring and early summer has resulted in a rash of wildfires that have produced some smokey, somewhat scary conditions at times, the rainy season in Illinois has, once again, made me wish my grass crop was a cash crop as well.
And then there are the oh-so-beloved pets that love and harass me wherever I go.
Nashville, the precocious pit bull, who is my Carolina grand-dog, loves to lie in my lap (all 75 pounds of him) and peacefully gnaw on my arm in the not-always-as-gentle-as-I'd-like manner of his big-mouthed breed. Meanwhile, the irascible cat Max greeted my return to Illinois with his standard sharp-toothed nip on the back of my leg, letting me know he expects quick service and an ample helping of Little Friskies Smelly Fish Fillets whenever he's in the mood and I'm in reach.
We don't have a television in North Carolina, thinking it's a shame to dilute the ocean views and the sounds of the water and wildlife with reality shows and the Chicago Cubs, so, I thought I'd enjoy some time with the tube once we got back to Galva. But I quickly discovered that I haven't missed much...and the Cubs are mostly losing.
Yes, things are different. But I know I'll adjust as soon as I get used to mowing the lawn, wearing something besides a swim suit and having my own car again (the Trooper started on the first try.)
And while the differences between places might seem big at times, the love and laughter we share with family and friends wherever we go always stays the same
And the rest...is just details.

The Fathers' Day Festival of Fun

2011-06-23T05:18:00.000-07:00

It's an eternal question, asked year after year as a certain day approaches.
"What do you want to do?"
In 99.9 percent of cases, the answer is exactly the same:
"Nothing."
Of course, that's the kind of answer that's totally unacceptable to the one asking, and so the challenge continues:
What are you gonna do with dad?
Ahhh, Father's Day.
I know I've accused the card, flower and candy companies of inventing some of the holidays we celebrate, but I'm not sure who came up with Fathers' Day, as dads seldom receive either roses or Fanny May chocolates. What's more, the selection of flowery Dad's Day greeting cards is much smaller than the glorious assortment that's rightfully available for moms, as well.
Even my own dad, who was the ultimate good sport about most of the loving trifles inflicted on him by his children, seemed kind of lukewarm about a holiday that required him to give up his only day off so he could fete, feed and otherwise entertain us in a celebration of his own fatherhood and the bright, wonderful children he had sired.
Or at least that's how we saw it.
"Don't take the chicken," he'd mutter while watching us gleefully cherrypick our way through an overpriced buffet meal. "Eat the roast beef," he'd add, while mentally comparing the price of poultry versus that of prime beef.
Like dad, my own requests for a peaceful Fathers' Day have been blithely ignored most years. Back when our sons were young, my own spouse was a ringleader, er, organizer of a jolly group celebration that included an early morning golf outing for the dads, followed by a largish, multi-family picnic at the Lake Calhoun pool.
This all sounds pretty wholesome and innocent I suppose, until you consider the danger that lurked in those waters--Our children, sitting poolside like a troop of evil water-monkeys, waiting for their dear old dads.
I've observed over the years that a child who is normally perfectly well behaved, will have no compunction about wielding a crowbar, for instance, when playing with his dad in a swimming pool. My own sons devised a them-versus-me game called "Enemy Skin Diver" that might as well been named "Let's beat dad to death before we drown him" that they still reminisce about from time to time.
I used to wonder what a team of medical examiners would have made of my sodden corpse after a day of Fathers' Day fun.
ME 1: "Multiple bruising and contusions over the head and entire body."
ME 2: "Stomach contents include fried chicken and at least 12 pounds of potato salad."
ME 1: "Are those bite marks?"
It was all in good fun, though, plus I've now had the pleasure of seeing Colin and Patrick both subjected to the same kind of water-based abuse at the hands of their own kids, while grandpa remains untouchable due to perceived old age and decrepitude.
My wife and I agreed long ago that I am not her father, nor is she my mother, so we've mostly left those holidays alone since we became empty nesters. But since we were living near son Patrick and family when dads' day hit this year, I was plunged headlong into a whirling vortex of father-directed fun.
"It's gonna be a veritable Fathers' Day Festival," laughed my spouse in answer to my cautious inquiries.
And it was, kind of, starting with Friday night, when our desperate search for fun took us to "Alligator Alley," a miniature golf and ice cream joint not far from our place.
Now, normally, I avoid miniature golf courses, go-kart tracks, video arcades and other money pits like the plague, but grandson Cyrus had spotted it when it first opened for the season and had received my assurance that we would go someday. I realized we were in the right kind of place when we were cheerily greeted by a pair of Carolina ladies when we walked in.
"Y'all here for ice cream or golf?" asked one.
Golf first, then ice cream, was my replay.
"You'll need to step outside and go to the window by the course," said the blonde lady on the left. "They'll be happy to take care of you there."
I waved my family outside, then followed while fumbling for my wallet (some things haven't changed since my dad's day...I was paying.) I walked to the window, where I was greeted by the same smiling blonde lady.
I looked. She laughed.
"I think I met your sister inside," I finally said.
"A lot of people say that," she replied.
We had fun playing the homemade 18-hole layout, and did some serious damage in the ice cream parlor afterwards.
"Is this it?" I said to my wife.
"Is this what?"
"Are we done celebrating Fathers' Day?"
"Heck no," she dimpled. "It's gonna be an entire weekend of Fathers' Day fun."
And it was.
Saturday included a morning kayak trip with the grandsons, followed by an afternoon on the beach and steaks on the grill, while Sunday's highlights included church, more beach time and a daring kids-included visit to the fancy-schmancy Italian restaurant where daughter-in-law Susan works.
But for me, the celebration peaked early on Fathers' Day morning.
I was working my way through my first cup of coffee when our three-year-old grandson, John, came padding downstairs.
"Hey buddy," I said. "You ready for some breakfast?"
No.
I upped the offer to include juice, a story and a quick walk to the beach.
No. No. No.
"So, what do you want to do?" I asked.
"Feed the birds," was his reply.
Both young grandsons have learned to enjoy our almost-daily tradition of sharing stale and leftover bread and other edibles with our neighboring birds and wildlife. For the boys, part of the fun has been seeing how far they can chuck each dried-out bread crust off the deck overlooking the intercoastal inlet that creeps to the edge of our backyard. A quick survey of the bread drawer revealed no bird-worthy stale loaves, so I snuck a few fresh saltines, figuring that neither the birds nor John would tell.
He threw the crackers as I sat and admired each mighty toss.
And as I did, I thought these things:
Happy Fathers' Day to my dad and every dad I know.
Happy Fathers' Day to me.

Of Homes and Hearts and Lucky Ducks

2011-06-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

When are you coming home?
It seems like every time I write about what we're doing--and where we're doing it--someone says it:
"That sounds great/fun/exciting/relaxing/adventurous/cool.
So, when are you coming home?"
Our North Carolina grandsons, five-year-old Cyrus and three-year-old John, put the same question in their own way, using the term they came up with for our home in Galva after a Christmastime visit that was indelibly marked in their southern-child memories by mounds and piles of snowflakes, snowballs and other wintertime fun.
"When are you going back to the snowy house?"
The answer is both simple and a little complicated, I guess.
Here it is:
Sooner. Later. Always.
We're lucky that way.
Young John, put it best when he turned to his grandmother one day and asked,
"Why do you and grandpa have two houses, the snowy house and the beach house?"
"Because we're lucky ducks," said grandma. "We get to be at the snowy house with our friends there, and we get to be here with you, too."
John took some time to digest this piece of information, then replied with an answer that will ensure him a place in our hearts and probably just about anything else he ever wants or needs.
"No," he said. "I'm the lucky duck."
I really do think that home is where the heart is, as the old saying goes. Yes, because it's a nice, poetic thing to say. And because it's true, too.
But home, for me at least, is not limited to a snowy house in Galva and a beachfront bungalow on the Carolina coast.
I am drawn, too, by the shores of Lake Superior, where we spent our first winter together in a log cabin so cold and drafty that even the mice couldn't take it. My heart will take me to the lakes and plains of northern Minnesota, where our other children and grandchildren live and love and generously share their lives with us. Home, for us, can be found in a little tent on the piney edge of a Wisconsin lake, apple picking in an upstate New York orchard and even on the vast southwest plains of Texas. Because our hearts reside in those places, too, along with an entire country filled with places we've never been and others that we've seen and want to see again some day.
But as much as we enjoy the chance to go and see the people and places we love, it's hard sometimes, too.
Because there's no doubt that we miss all the places where we're not.
And the faces, too.
We're heading back to Illinois soon, a prospect that pleases us, as we've missed our friends, our house and even the cat named Max. We were enjoying a bit of breakfast and birdwatching with John and Cyrus on the deck overlooking the marshy inlet we call our backyard the other day, when I saw my wife's face suddenly sadden.
"What?" I said, though I knew what was on her mind.
"I'm missing them already," she quivered.
I know.
But I also know we'll be thrilled to get back to Galva; to greet friends, catch up on everything we've missed and plunge back into the life and chores and activities we left behind behind for awhile. We'll make our way to visit the Minnesota crew. And we'll plan and think and dream about the next time we hit the road.
Because before you know it, we'll be back this way again.
For now, we will continue to call both places home. We will continue to let home be wherever it seems best to be.
We will follow our hearts.
Because we are, after all, lucky ducks.

Living on Turtle Time

2011-06-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

It's sort of like one of those sad, sad stories that you'd hear in a country song.
Because every morning when I wake up, she's long gone from our bed and our house, leaving me to wonder just where I went wrong.
I'd like to write that song someday. But the problem is, there aren't a whole lot of words that rhyme with 'turtle.'
That's right.
She's left me for a turtle. A bunch of them in fact.
Now, I've always kinda liked turtles myself, starting back when my mother used to have to conduct a veritable head-to-toe body search anytime we'd visit the old Kresge store in Kewanee, where the overflowing bowl of tiny terrapins on sale begged to be kidnapped (turtlenapped?) and taken home to live a life of ease in my underwear drawer. The ban on the tiny critters due to the danger of salmonella poisoning saved me from a life of crime, and small shelled reptiles were pretty much off my radar until my sons discovered Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and the rest of the Teenage Mutant Ninjas.
But these Carolina turtles are something altogether different.
The sea turtles that inhabit the waters near here are magnificent, graceful creatures that spend virtually all of their time in the water. The exception is nesting season...an instinct-driven process that returns them to the beaches where they were born for a cumbersome nighttime crawl from the water and onto the beach by the flippered mama, who digs a hole, deposits often over 100 ping pong ball-shaped eggs, then covers them before beginning the arduous trip back to the sea.
We had heard all about the turtles found around Topsail on previous trips to the island, but were looking forward to seeing them and their nests for ourselves. Last year, we even visited the renowned Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, where we saw the great work the hospital's staff and volunteers do to help the ones who are sick or injured.
We got mixed messages on the chances that we'd actually see a nest, with some folks stating that they rarely occurred on our end of the island, while others claimed that our nearby beaches could be as crowded with egg-laying she-turtles as a pork chop line on the first morning of Hog Days. It was not until later that we came to understand that the trained and dedicated turtle watchers who have the task of finding and protecting nests that sometime number over 100 would just as soon crowds wouldn't gather, especially until they've been officially marked and protected from curious tourists and egg-eating predators with stakes, tape and wire mesh.
Things really got rolling one morning when Megan headed out for an early morning walk and returned with exciting news. A large loggerhead turtle had made her way through the sand, leaving a wide u-shaped trail that showed where she had crawled up to a nesting spot, then back to the water. Unfortunately, it was what is called a 'false crawl,' not unlike false labor, and no eggs were to be found. It was our first connection with the "real" turtle watchers that work the beach, and we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses. A good thing, too, because the next morning, Megan found another turtle trail that led to an actual egg-filled nest--the first one discovered on the island this season.
The resulting turtle tizzy earned Megan a brevet promotion to the Topsail Island Sea Turtle Patrol, a well-deserved honor that included the official T-shirt and a quick series of substitute beach walking assignments. They gave me a shirt, too, despite a still-hinky knee that keeps me from the kind of long-distance hikes the patrol requires. I do, however, hope to act as a nest watcher in a couple of months, a less taxing task that requires my kind of equipment and activity level: a beach chair, a flashlight and a willingness to sit around and wait for something to happen as the nests come alive and the hatchlings make their way to the sea that will be their home for the rest of their lives.
With both of us "on the team," so to speak, we were invited to attend and assist with a big event--the annual turtle release, where the hospital returns rehabbed patients to the wide open ocean.
The notification email we received regarding the big day asked that we "not tell everyone we know," as the organizers indicated that they wanted to avoid over-large crowds. We were, therefore, a bit surprised to see the streets leading to the release site jammed with cars, school busses and traffic cops.
Me: I think word got out.
She: Is this going to make us late?
Me: Don't worry, they're turtles. They've gotta be slow.
We walked the last couple of blocks to the wide area of beach designated for the release of 25 loggerheads, greens and kemp ridleys, where we were assigned crowd and vehicle control duties in keeping with our fancy T-shirts. Soon, the guests of honor made their appearance. Each was carried to the water by groups of hospital volunteers, while school children from classrooms that had adopted some of them led the way with signs telling each turtle's name and species.
"I know a class from Irving School that adopted a turtle from this hospital," said Megan. "I wish they could see this."
"Turtles, turtles, turtles, turtles," chanted the huge crowd of kids and adults that lined the pathway they'd take to the sea.
It was at that point that something that had at first seemed just kind of nice turned into something kind of beautiful for me. Because as each animal was carried towards the ocean, a downright beatific look came over their faces. Their necks stretched towards the waiting sea, and slowly and gracefully, their long flippers began to move as if they were swimming free already.
"They smell it," said an onlooker right next to me. "They know they're going home."
One of the volunteers in a truck behind me turned to a friend.
"After all the bad stuff people do to them, I'm glad we got to do something good," she said.
The kids cheered some more as each of the 25 were carried into the waves. With a final movement that seemed more akin to flying than actual swimming, the turtles disappeared into the life that was intended for them.
It was, indeed, kind of beautiful.

Memorable

2011-06-02T17:41:00.000-07:00

It was a good day.
A good Memorial Day weekend, in fact, with our place packed and happy with a steady stream of guests who shared some beautiful beachday weather, along with the amazing selection of fresh seafood the area has to offer. I've always liked this particular holiday weekend a lot, starting with those days when Memorial Day meant the end of the school year and the beginning of the sweet, sweet days of summer vacation. Of course, as with almost anything good that happened to me in those days, I tended to over-anticipate things, hectoring my poor mother with a never-ending stream of questions and demands.
"What time are we going to the lake?"
"Are we having chicken?"
"Where's my fishing pole?"
"Can I take Shorty (my beloved dog, who specialized in running away and car sickness)?"
"WHERE'S FARFEL?" (my equally beloved inflatable fake dog/swim ring, named after the puppet who pitched Nestle's chocolate on TV in the 50s)
...and so on.
My mom, who probably should have also been known as Saint Alice, would gamely fend me off with a combination of vague promises and mostly empty threats.
"When your father is ready."
"Not if you don't leave me alone so I can cook it."
"Where you left it."
"No."
"Around your waist."
...and so on.
Eventually, I grew up. A little, at least.
And I learned there was more to Memorial Day than picnics, the start of summer and the first icy plunge into a muddy swimming hole.
For my mom and dad, it was the beginning of the season-long tradition of placing fresh flowers on family graves in an act of love and remembrance.
It was a day to offer respect and fly flags for those heroes who fought and died to give us sunny days, summer vacations and chicken dinners. A day to listen and learn and reflect and pray, as we visited the graves of those who went before us.
A day to remember.
I missed being home in Galva this year and visiting the city cemetery, where the majesty of the Avenue of Flags sets the stage for the speeches and salutes that mark the real reason for the holiday. But being where we are gave me yet another perspective on the day and its meaning for many.
Camp Lejeune is a massive, 246-square-mile Marine Corps base that includes 14 miles of beachfront just north of us. I've talked before about the frequent chatter of helicopters and thump of munitions that add a real reminder of the serious business these young warriors are preparing for. But it's only after you've lived here for awhile that you really realize how serious it is.
You see, most of those Marines are getting ready to go somewhere dangerous. And many, many families who live around here are waiting for someone to come home.
A week seldom goes by when the local paper doesn't tell of somebody who didn't. The Memorial Day edition of the Jacksonville Daily News included a front-page feature profiling three young widows who are spending their first Memorial Day holiday without their slain husbands.
"Last year, I thought, 'Oh, it's a day off,'" one said. "But now that I've lost my husband, I can appreciate the real meaning of it. Now, it's so much more personal."
But as heartbreaking as those stories were, there was joy this weekend, too, as 500 Marines from the first Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment came home from Afghanistan.
There's always an air of excitement when troops return to Lejeune. The exact day and time is never precisely revealed for security reasons, but you can tell something good is about to happen when you start seeing the signs appear on the fences near the gates of the camp.
Some are quite professionally done, while others are no more than spray paint on a bedsheet.
But the messages are always clear.
"Welcome home, son"
"We love you, daddy"
"I've missed you, honey"
And my favorite...
"Welcome back, Bobby. Hope you got plenty of sleep on the plane."
Our duplex shares a common wall with a vacation rental, which means our next door neighbors change every week. Many are vacationers who are here to enjoy the sunny beaches and a shot at some ocean fishing. But a couple of times, we've gotten to know families who have come to wait and greet their own returning heroes.
"Do you mind if I tap into your WiFi?" asked one mom. "We want to know the minute he gets here."
It was hard not to share in their excitement as they neared the end of a year filled with the mixture of pride and anxiety only a soldier's parents can feel.
It was easy to share in their joy when we got our first look at their Marine son on the morning of the holiday.
"James, come over here," said the mom. "Our neighbors want to meet you."
She turned to us.
"Isn't he pretty?" she beamed.
Megan and I shook hands with James, a tall, blond boy who looked more like he should have been getting ready for the senior prom than directing artillery fire in the middle of a war zone.
"Welcome home," we said. "Welcome home."
James' dad had a question.
"Where's a good restaurant?" he asked.
I piped up with the locations of a couple of my favorite seafood joints.
The dad smiled.
"That sounds good, but what James has really been dreaming about is a steak dinner," he laughed.
We offered our best guess and they roared away in the aged van they had brought along for the trip so that their entire family could be together as much as possible.
Megan turned to me.
"Now that's a Memorial Day," she said. "A memorable Memorial Day."

Daytripper

2011-05-26T04:43:00.000-07:00

All you have to do is look out the window and you've gotta wonder,
"Why would we want to leave this spot?"
It's true, the view from the house where we stay when we're in North Carolina is something special. Look out the front and you'll see the crashing Atlantic Ocean and the inviting near-deserted stretch of beach that lures us daily for walks, rests and dips. The back-of-the-house vista features the river-like backwater that twists its way from the intercoastal waterway to the edge of our yard. Either way, it's easy to get caught up in the surroundings here and want to stay put day after day.
Or not.
"We've gotta start doing some daytrips," I said a few weeks ago.
She smiled, knowing that my absolute favorite kind of travel is the type that involves an early departure, a long, leisurely drive and something--or a whole list of things--to look at and learn about along the way. Sometimes the objective is a little hazy, with the journey itself the real thing, while other times, there really is a plan of sorts and a real destination in mind.
These trips have been a part of our lives for as long as we've been together, starting back when a long drive to see and experience something new and different was just about all we could afford as entertainment and a break from a week's worth of work. Later, those trips became a virtual lifesaver for me, as I struggled with cancer that often left me mentally exhausted, physically devastated and entirely discouraged.
Megan did a lot to keep me kicking in those days, whether it was by convincing both me and my doctors to press ahead with some of the more unpleasant, aggressive treatments that would eventually save my life, or via a few simple acts of love and kindness that would make that life seem worth staying around for.
"Let's hit the road," she'd say, usually on a sunny Sunday morning after church.
And so, we would.
She would drive, while I would navigate and doze by turns in the passenger's seat. She was still working as a classroom teacher in those days, and Sundays were her chance to catch up on a little work around the house, attack some take-home schoolwork, and even, perhaps, relax a bit. But she would, instead, sacrifice her plans for the day to spend time doing something she knew I would enjoy and remember as I slowly regained strength and a renewed zest for living.
We've continued our daytripping ways, but had gotten a little complacent about them since our arrival at a spot that most folks would probably consider an ultimate destination anyway.
"Where should we go?" she asked.
We had both spent time reading and researching about the coastal Carolina area we've landed in.
There were places we wanted to go. There were things we wanted to see.
Some are astonishingly beautiful, while some are historic and cultural.
And some, of course, are a little quirky.
Like the "Missiles and More" museum located just ten miles or so down the island we inhabit. The museum celebrates the fact that besides its history as a pirate hideout and a "by-boat-only" fishing haven, Topsail Island was once an important missile testing ground.
At the end of World War II, the US Navy began a joint venture with Johns Hopkins University with the tongue-in-cheek name "Operation Bumblebee" to develop and test ramjet missiles. Named after an insect, which, although aerodynamically unable to fly, does not know it and flies anyway, this venture led to the development of supersonic aircraft and shipboard missiles in the mid-20th century. The missiles were assembled in the building where the museum is now housed, then hauled to a concrete launching pad (now the patio for a popular motel and fishing pier) and test-fired up the coastline, which was (and still is) dotted with a series of concrete observation towers, where reckless souls would track the flight of the high-powered projectiles. Given the total lack of any sophisticated guidance controls and the rustic nature of the wooden launching devices, those towers seem more like targets than viewing spots to my admittedly untrained eye, but, apparently, the scientists and engineers knew what they were doing or were blessed with a good bit of luck. After the military abandoned the site a few years later, the bridge they left behind gave easier access to the island and began the gradual growth of the the long strip of sand as both a permanent place to live and a vacation spot.
Other places of interest that we've seen on the island include a Sea Turtle hospital and the coastlines, backwaters and inlets that combine to make up the fragile, beautiful ecology of the area. By going a little farther afield, we've visited the lovely, historic city of Wilmington and Fort Fisher, the civil war fortress that protected the vital trading routes of the Wilmington port until its capture by the Union in 1865, an action that essentially cut the Confederacy off from the goods and supplies they needed and spelled the ultimate end of the war. A lengthy northbound Mothers' Day Trek to Ocracoke Island, a pearl of a place just off the Outer Banks, probably convinced our son and his family that we are, indeed, out of our minds, as the way there includes a two-hour drive coupled with another two hours on a ferry across the Pamlico Sound, making for a longish day that's just our style, but probably a bit much for those with jobs, school and children to attend to the next morning.
There's plenty more to do and see as we enjoy this springtime segment of our Illinois/Carolina living scheme, but here's the thing.
It doesn't matter if we really see anything spectacular. And it's no big deal if we don't learn anything important or do anything special at all.
The trick--and the blessing--is to be ready and willing to go and do and see anytime anybody says, "Let's hit the road."

Animal Stories

2011-05-19T05:33:00.000-07:00

I've been led to understand that there are a few of you out there who figure I'm absolutely pining away in coastal Carolina, separated, as I am, from the affections of my semi-wild stripy cat Max, who is, with the help of his personal trainer/cat wrangler, Shannon, keeping an eye on things back in Galva. It's true, there are mornings when I desperately miss the scent of Little Friskies Dead Carp Souffle and the nips, scratches and small puncture wounds inflicted on my ankles and calves as I struggle to open the can fast enough for the impatient little prince.
But fear not. I am not without animal companionship.
Starting with Nashville.
Now, I'm betting you'd figure this out on your own quick enough, but let me cut to the chase and explain that this Nashville is a dog, not the capital of Tennessee. He belongs to our son Patrick and his wife, Susan, who have discovered that he can be quite a handful. Not that he's not a good dog. But he's big. And strong. And lively.
Oh, yeah. And he's misunderstood, too.
You see, Nashville is a Pit Bull.
American Pit Bull Terriers, who officially go by the name American Staffordshire Terrier, are one of those unfortunate breeds who have been misused and abused by some, and maligned by others. Brought to the U.S. from England in the early 20th century, American Staffordshire Terriers gained in popularity in the 1920s with “Pete the Pup's” appearances in the Our Gang (The Little Rascals) comedies, contributing to the spread of the breed. Buster Brown's dog, "Tige" was an AmStaff, and Images of the breed were also used to represent the U.S. during the 1900s as a symbol of strength and dignity. Paddy chose Nashville as a family pet because of his experience with Roscoe, our own family dog for many years, who was also a pit bull. Roscoe was the best dog ever...an incredibly loving, gentle and loyal friend and family member. His only real troubling quirk had to do with a desperate desire to jump through windows, both open and closed, during onsets of high winds. Even this was understandable, as he developed the phobia after being home alone during the 1996 Galva tornado.
Nashville is a younger, more energetic version of his uncle Roscoe, who had already passed through puppyhood and adolescence when my sons insisted we rescue him from the pound. We have a little more time for the long walks Nashville needs, plus good dog-friendly space--including three outdoor porches--where he can doze and watch the world go by. As a result, he's been spending more and more time with us, kinda like a four-legged grandchild.
But he can be a bit of a free spirit, with a constant, fervent desire to meet and greet every person, dog, cat and ghost crab he sees.
While he didn't have any wings to clip, we decided another sort of surgery might help to slow him down just a touch. I, like any male animal, sort of resent the use of the word "fixed" as a term for castration. But I also feel that all pets should be neutered and spayed until we've found homes for all the puppies and kittens who currently languish in shelters. So I was assigned to get the deed done. When Nashville and I trotted into the vet's office on the morning of the procedure, I felt a little guilty at first, as I think he thought we were just dropping by for a cup of coffee and a biscuit. But any feelings of guilt soon slipped away as man (that's me) met dog (that's him) in a cage match worthy of the WWE. Nashville was delighted to greet the staff and the other dogs and cats he ran into. The one thing he DIDN'T want to do was go into one of those cages they use to hold the animals waiting for treatment. The vet tech didn't seem to want to get up close and personal with an unfamiliar dog, though I'd swear that was what they were supposed to do. Instead, he turned to me, "Do you mind putting him in the cage?"
I grabbed Nashville by the collar and pulled and shoved at the same time, finally getting his well-muscled, 65-pound body into the cage. I was just about to snap the door shut when the tech added, "Can you take off his collar, too?"
Take. Off. His. Collar.
I opened the door again and met his surging body with my shoulder.
He shoved, desperately wanting to get out. I shoved back, knowing that once out, he'd be even tougher to get back in. I quickly discovered that the only effective way of keeping him confined while pursuing the two-hands-needed job of taking off his collar was to climb in myself and block the opening with my body. Just as I did, one of the ladies from the front desk came back to see what was taking me so long, as she had paperwork for me to sign.
Her rich, lovely Carolina accent filled the room as she surveyed the tableau in front of her.
"Whay-uh is thay-at may-un who went back heah?" she asked.
Then she spotted me, locked in mortal combat with a struggling pit bull.
"Mah goodness," she said. "Why is tha-yut ma-yun in tha-yut cage wid tha-yut dawg?"
"Why, indeed?" I wondered.
I finally got Nashville locked down and staggered out to the front desk. I was breathing hard, my shirt was torn and I smelled exactly like someone who had been wresting with an anxious bulldog.
"Ah yew goin' to work now, sugah?" she said.
I explained that I wasn't.
"Tha-yut's good," she said. "You maht wanna rist up. He'll be riddy for y'all at three."
++++
Alligators all around.
My spouse, who has often expressed her disinclination to share water with things that might slither, bump or bite, got some news the other day that gave her pause. She had already been a bit unnerved by the fact that a nearby wide spot in the intercoastal waterway that borders our backyard bears the picturesque name of "Alligator Bay."
She: Do you think there are really alligators in there?
Me: (hopefully) It's probably just something a realtor made up trying to add a little local color.
Or not.
A nearby neighbor reported seeing a couple of the stone age reptiles the other day, and quickly warned Patrick and Susan about letting the grandkids and grand-dog get too close to the water's edge without supervision. Scarier still was the fact that we had just enjoyed a visit from a traveling Galva friend who brought along her two small dogs, who we walked along the waterline on several occasions.
"Maybe they heard about those tiny little puppies," said Susan, who accurately figured that gators probably view Shih Tzus as tasty bite-size snacks.
"Maybe it was the Cheez-its," said my wife, who has been feeding the nesting momma-birds the remains of the bright-orange crackers our grandsons love.
Whatever it was, Patches and Quincy have made it home safe to their own back yard and their beloved Galva Library, where they are recognized and rewarded as dog heroes for having chased out a bird one day.
And the gators have, apparently, moved on.
I think.
I hope.

Another stop along the Bucket List

2011-05-12T05:48:00.000-07:00

I think we all have bucket lists.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a bucket list--named after the 2007 movie of the same name--contains all the things we'd like to do before we die--"kick the bucket," so to speak.
Some are pretty wild and fanciful, like skydiving, playing with the New York Philharmonic or doing both at the same time. Others are simpler things that are just waiting to happen if time, opportunity and circumstance allow. Even among my ever-practical cohorts in the Star Courier newsroom, I know there are dreams that include hoped-for happenings like a round of golf at Augusta National, a published and well-received novel, owning a roomful of vintage guitars, a chance to drive a NASCAR racer, taking an award-winning photograph and a life where pancakes are served across the street every single day.
My own dream--or at least one of them--was somewhat simpler.
You see, I've always wanted to drive one of those little electric carts that sit near the front door at Walmart and many other big-box stores.
I got my wish.
It all started with a bike ride on the beach.
We had been wondering if the matched pair of bicycles we bought for cheap at a nearby thrift store would work on sand. They're not the fat-tired beach bikes that have become so popular, but just middleweight road cruisers with enough life left--we hoped--to let us pedal up and down the road that runs between our house and the ocean. But one beautiful low-tide morning, conditions seemed just right for us to give it a try. A storm the night before had left the beach hard-packed between the water line and the high tide mark, the wind had moderated and temperatures were perfect for a little exercise. We trundled the bikes through the soft sand at the edge of the dune and off we went, rolling swiftly across smooth hard sand. We rode for a couple of miles, under the fishing pier that's a mile south of our beachfront and almost to the southern end of the stretch of sand that makes up the northernmost portion of North Topsail Beach. It was after we turned around and headed back towards our own section of beach that I began to feel a little discomfort in my right knee.
Now, this is nothing new, as that's the knee I ruined way back in the days when I played high school football. I had surgery back then and have struggled ever since with a joint that clicks, buckles, locks and swells up when I push it a little too hard. An orthopedic surgeon I've seen a few times in more recent years tells me it's pretty much shot, and I considered knee replacement surgery until my bout with cancer a few years ago made it seem a little too much like putting new tires on a beat-up jalopy with a bad engine. Usually, a little rest and some ice packs and heat treatments are enough to reduce the swelling and soreness until I hurt it again, and life goes on.
But not this time.
The knee swelled to the size of a grapefruit, then a small pumpkin, and refused to bear much weight as I struggled to hobble along. It hurt, too, despite a steady diet of over-the-counter pain meds and repeated icings and hot packs. One night, I decided to try sitting in a hot bath, hoping a long soak would give me some relief. All went well until the water began to cool and I decided it was time to get out. As I levered myself out, the knee buckled and my hand slipped, resulting in a hard fall against the unyielding edge of the tub. The resulting thud sounded mostly like a bag of cement dropped on a dry branch.
"Thump-crack."
Lacking one of those "I've fallen and I can't get up" gadgets, I struggled to catch my breath as an altogether new sensation radiated through my side. My spouse, who had heard the mighty thud all the way downstairs, dashed upstairs, helped me to my feet and into bed, where I wondered what broken ribs felt like.
Sure enough.
I held out for a couple of days, but finally agreed to see a doctor, who x-rayed and examined my painful parts.
"You broke a rib," she said, and gave me a prescription for some pills that would bring renewed meaning to the term "la-la land."
"It's gonna hurt for awhile, but there's nothing you can do but wait for it to heal," she added.
And what about the confounded knee that caused all the problems in the first place?
"Rest it," she said. "No walking."
"What about strolls on the beach and walking the dog and running errands and playing with my grandsons?" I countered.
"No," she said.
I finally did get her permission to hobble to my beach chair and to the car, but that was it.
"Rest," she said. "Be lazy."
Anyone who knows me well knows I'm really good at the whole lazy thing, but it got old pretty darn fast. My spouse, who often doubles as my primary physician, was adamant about the "no walking" dictate, so I was surprised when she let me get out of the car when we had to make a stop at the local Walmart a couple of days later.
Then I understood.
"You've always wanted to drive one of those things," she smiled, pointing to the row of scooter-like vehicles parked by the front entrance. "So drive."
Like many of the things I think I want to do, this one was harder than it looked. I nearly ran her and several other innocent bystanders over while trying to get the hang of the speed control. I clipped a couple of end caps and almost fell out of the thing while trying to reach a gallon of milk. I must look fairly able-bodied, because I felt I was getting quizzical looks from store employees and shoppers who, apparently, wondered if I was just messing around or too lazy to make my own way through the store.
"Really," I wanted to shout. "My doctor told me not to walk."
She was right, too.
My enforced laziness plan has finally seen my knee shrink back to the size of a grapefruit again, with hopes that it will get as normal as it ever does soon. The broken rib will take awhile longer, but thanks to those special pills, I'll manage as long as I can avoid coughing, sneezing, rolling over in my sleep and boxing matches against up-and-coming heavyweight contenders.
And I've crossed another adventure off my list--my bucket list.
I have new-found respect for those who are truly disabled and have to rely on equipment like electric carts, wheelchairs and canes and crutches to do the simplest things that we all take for granted. For a little while longer, I'll be one of them until I can move onto the next thing on my list.
You see, what I really want to do is ride my bike on the beach.

Tales of Monarchs and Mollusks

2011-05-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

It all started just over five months ago, when Prince William of Great Britain and the comely Kate Middleton made the long-awaited announcement of their engagement.
"Let the royal hoopla begin," said my spouse, who is often quicker than me to spot and predict the kind of trendy folderol that will likely capture the attention of both the media and viewing public.
I've gotta admit that I was glad that our North Carolina TV-free status left me mostly shielded from the goings-on in these last couple of weeks before the actual nuptials. I saw enough of the so-called "news" shows excitedly discussing the style of Ms. Middleton's dress, state of her hair and all the other trappings of a royal wedding.
Now that we're back on the southeastern coast, where our only electronic media connection is via the internet and the television in the bedroom occupied by my wife's brother, I blithely ignored the whole thing, and so did she, until the big morning arrived.
"Matthew (her brother) just reminded me," she said excitedly. "Today's the wedding."
She disappeared, morning coffee in hand, to sit in rapt wonder in front of the cable-connected set he kindly provided. I got a few updates when she returned to refill her cup and grab a piece of toast.
Kate's dress was simple and beautiful. Her hair was worn down and elegant. He wore a military uniform of red, with a sky blue cap.
"Big deal," I thought, smugly as I remained engaged in my book and the ocean views in front of me.
She had just gone down to watch some more when she trudged back upstairs to our sitting room and plopped down beside me.
"I missed the kiss," she said.
"Oh, here," I said, puckering up.
"Not you and me," she replied. "William and Kate."
"Oh, I can probably find that on the internet for you," I said.
"No, I already saw the instant replay," she smiled. "I just wanted to see the real thing."
Now, my wife is easily one of the most sensible people I know; a person who clearly knows that a wedding between a handsome king-to-be and a pretty girl doesn't really mean much in a world that is bombarded daily by so much important, often unhappy news. Turns out, that's just why she cared enough to watch.
"A wedding is peaceful. It's happy," she said. "In this crazy world, we need a few more peaceful, happy things to pay attention to."
Fair enough.
Meeting the mighty mollusk.
I've occasionally wondered what convinced people to eat oysters in the first place. It's not that they're especially attractive. Their shells, unlike the smooth pretty ones that wash up on coastal beaches, mostly resemble bumpy, sharp-edged rocks. And the actual mollusk, once revealed after the shell is pried open, is nothing more than a grey, slimy-looking lump. But a little research showed that people have, in fact, been eating oysters since prehistoric times and have been cultivating them for at least 2,000 years.
But not me.
Oh, I like oyster stew well enough, but I always figured it was the other ingredients that made the little suckers palatable. Fried oysters are kind of tasty, too, but again, just about anything goes down pretty easy with enough batter, oil, salt, pepper and other seasonings. I had even sampled the raw variety in the past, a beer-fueled rite of manly passage that included enough flavor-masking sauce to float a battleship and a quick gulp that was more like a fraternity initiation than a tasty mouthful to savor.
The little backwater inlet behind our beach house feeds out of the intercoastal waterway, a long, brackish river that is connected to the open sea in several spots. The waterway is, in fact, what makes our barrier island an island, separating it and many other coastal strips from the mainland. Our shallow inlet rises and falls with the ocean tides and is alive with waterbirds and small fish that fly out of the shallow water in a silvery panic when larger predators come a-calling, as well as when we ply those waters in our kayaks.
It was while on a bottom-scraping, low-tide kayak trip that I spotted what looked like piles and clumps of small rocky shapes along the banks and poking out of the murky water.
"Oysters," said an experienced friend. "You're in luck."
I mentioned this apparent abundance to son Patrick and his coastal Carolina born-and-bred wife, Susan, who promised to initiate me in the harvesting and proper preparation of the unseemly little bivalves. They showed up with a large bucket and a pair of what are locally called "Sneads Ferry Sneakers," the white pull-on rubber boots worn by area oystermen when working the mud-and-sand banks of the nearby fishing village of the same name.
Before I could say "cheeseburger, please," the pair of intrepid hunter-gatherers had paddled out into the inlet and began prying and knocking the shells loose and into their bucket. They hauled their bounty up to the kitchen, where they washed and steamed the shells, then opened them to display the just-cooked contents.
"Yummy," I thought, as I tried vainly to come up with a suddenly remembered allergy or religious reason why I shouldn't sample one of the slug-like creatures.
I am nothing if not adventurous, though, especially if others are watching, so I gamely popped one into my mouth, fully expecting the too-strong fishy flavor and rubbery texture I remembered from previous experiences when I accidently chewed before swallowing.
But no.
It was good.
It was delicious, in fact.
It was, as is the case with all seafood, a clear illustration of the difference between something just pulled from the water and something caught, processed and shipped to a land-locked midwestern supermarket or restaurant. Their catch was bountiful, so we tried them steamed, fried, grilled and even included in an astonishing fried cornbread recipe handed down to Susan from her grandmother.
Yummy, indeed.
Once again, our Illinois/North Carolina living experiment has taught me something.
And while oysters are but a small example, the real lesson is clear.
Try something new.
You might even like it.

The Car My Dad Bought

2011-04-28T10:46:00.001-07:00

There are a lot of theories going around as to the reason for the rising price of gasoline. You can take your pick from a whole list that includes the ever-increasing price of crude oil, a weak dollar, unrest in the mideast and even good old-fashioned price fixing.
There is, however, a small but vocal group that is laying the blame squarely where it belongs.
On me.
It's a hypothesis based on the indisputable fact that gas prices go up every time I want to go somewhere.
So I wasn't surprised when the price per gallon pushed the four buck mark as we prepared for our latest 1000-mile jaunt back to the North Carolina beach place where we spend part of our time.
It's been enough to make us talk about making a switch from our three-row grandma-mobile to something more fuel-efficient, though the Ford Freestyle we currently drive gets remarkably good mileage for a 7-passenger vehicle, even when it carries our kayaks on the roof. It's probably not all that likely that we'll ever give up on owning a car that can carry grandchildren and other essential cargo, but it's possible--if fuel costs keep climbing--that we might consider a second car that would serve as a cost-effective, she-and-me cruiser for trips when it's just the two of us.
It's not a bad idea.
It's happened before.
Like when my dad, who drove a 1951 Packard with a giant, straight-eight engine and a back seat big enough to raise a family of four and a litter of puppies, supplemented his fleet with the first-ever Volkswagen Beetle ever owned and operated in Galva. His 1959 bug--which cost all of about $1600 brand new--had a rear-mounted 36-horsepower engine that was absolutely miniscule for that day and age. It had no radio, no radiator (it was air cooled), no meaningful heating system and, of course, no air conditioning. It featured a single electric-powered windshield wiper and, in an interesting bit of stripped-down economizing, no gas gauge. That last little detail was dealt with by the addition of a reserve tank that was accessed by kicking over a floor-mounted lever when the main tank ran dry and the engine started sputtering. This ingenious little devise failed once in awhile when it was accidently moved to the down position before the main tank emptied, or if it wasn't levered back to upright when the tank was filled. Dad and I paid for these missteps a few times with long walks down country roads with the gas can he learned to stow in the under-the-hood storage area. But despite all its little quirks, he--and we--loved the little car. It had a large canvas sun roof that slid back on a track and made the VW downright sporty as we chattered down the road. With mom and dad in the front and my older sister and brother occupying the rear, there was just enough room in the luggage space behind the back seat for yours truly, the shrimpy little brother, who sat and waved jubilantly at the kids who were unlucky enough to be riding in more commonplace vehicles, like Fords and Chevys. Volkswagens were rare in those days, so much so that we would gaily exchange horn honks when we met another one along the way. While it hardly ever needed gas, I doubt fuel economy was dad's only motive back in those 30-cent-a-gallon days. Instead, I think it was just a desire to do something a little different and have a little fun.
Eventually, dad gave the car to my sister to drive after she graduated from college and got her first teaching job. Engine problems brought it home again for a rebuild and a fresh paint job, whereupon it was presented to my brother as his first post-college car. An unexpected skid on a gravel road resulted in a rollover accident that left my brother lucky to be uninjured and the car dented and leaking profusely through the sun roof. By this time, dad was done investing any real money in the car, so it sat.
Waiting.
For me.
And I didn't even have to wait to graduate from college.
I landed my first "real" job in the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. Us baby boomers had schools bursting at the seams all over America, so Jim Murray, who owned the "trailer factory" north of town, was busy manufacturing temporary trailer/classrooms that would be built and shipped to overcrowded schools throughout the country.
The Raymur Corporation was so busy, in fact, that there was even a job for me, whose carpentry skills were pretty much limited to the rickety little bird houses I hammered together in Cub Scouts.
I proudly announced the news of my new career at supper one night. Looking back, I suppose dad was a little sorry to be losing the services of the unpaid (but fully fed, clothed, nurtured and educated) pharmacy clerk, janitor and jack-of-all-trades that I had become, but I think he was also sort of proud that I had gone out and found a job of my own.
After supper, he tossed me the keys to the Volkswagen.
"You'd better take the car," he said.
As a rite of passage and a thrilling entry into adulthood, this was absolute gangbusters.
I had never had, nor ever really needed a car of my own. Everything in Galva was pretty close by. And I had enough buddies with cars for those adventurous girl-watching forays into exotic lands like Kewanee, Toulon and LaFayette.
The old Volkswagen was the perfect self-governing way to let me test my vehicular wings. Its aging engine and all-bald tires made it reasonably likely that an unauthorized out-of-town girl-hunting excursion would result in big trouble and a return to my brother's Schwinn as my personal mode of transportation. And even I, who knew absolutely nothing about those girls and their preferences, was able to figure out that a leaky roof and the mixed aroma of mildew and exhaust fumes would do nothing to attract the cheerleaders and other glamorous creatures who regularly haunted my dreams.
I was, of course, a teenage boy, so I tried anyway. And somehow we all--me, the car and the cheerleaders--survived without incident.
When I went to college, the car stayed behind. There was no question about taking it along, as it still leaked, sputtered and smelled bad. When I'd come home, I'd start it up and drive it around a little, but for the most part, it sat.
Until one weekend when I came home and dad gave me the news.
"I sold the car," he said. "A guy said he could use the parts, and I figured it was time."
It was like hearing that Old Yeller had died.
But I understood.
I knew my dad pretty well, even then. I knew he couldn't really bring himself to say he was sorry about something as unimportant as an old car. But I knew he was.
Life went on.
I've owned a lot of cars since that beat-up old bug. Now we're thinking--kind of--about the possibility of owning something new.
She's thinking about hybrids and other fuel-efficient models, while I'm wondering if a two-seater convertible might combine the right amount of driving economy and flat-out fun. But to be honest, there's no real hurry or need to make a decision. We'll look and talk and look some more.
And maybe, just maybe, we'll see something perfect. Something that's affordable, efficient and a little bit of fun.
Just like the car my dad bought.

Another Kind of Time Machine

2011-04-21T11:44:00.001-07:00

It seems just like the other day when I wrote about the four-wheel time machine we drive from place to place, experiencing the changes of season as we go traveling.
Heck, it really was just the other day--last week, in fact.
As often happens though, a certain sense of serendipity occurs that makes me rethink and revisit what I've just said. While I was satisfied enough to describe a car as a method of time travel, another, more interesting thought escaped me entirely:
We are time machines, each and every one of us.
We, with our memories and remembrances, are able to transport others to times and places that might otherwise be lost forever.
It all became clear when I visited with a friend.
She's someone I've known for as long as I can remember, because she was a good friend of my mother. Mom would be 100 years old this September, a fact that remains quite surprising to me despite the fact that both she and my dad died over 30 years ago. There are still plenty of people around Galva who remember my folks well. Dad was the local pharmacist, and touched many lives with his hard work and quiet good humor. And mom was, well, a perfect people person, who especially enjoyed the friendships she made with "the younger gals" through Women's Club, bridge and church work.
My visitor was one of those young friends, now a grandmother and great-grandmother herself. She had some things to show me; some things to tell me, she said. Not just about my mom, but regarding my grandmother Mamie--my dad's mother and a person I never met.
I wanted to see. I wanted to hear.
"I don't really have that much," she said.
But actually, it was a lot.
One of the things she shared with me was a black-and-white photograph of my mom and the young lady who would become her sister-in-law, my Aunt Mary. They were standing in front of what I recognized as the old North School in Galva, which burned down long ago. A little boy stood with them in the photo.
"That's my brother," said my visitor. "They were his teachers."
Now, I own a lot of pictures of mom, and even a few of Aunt Mary, but this particular place and time was something more than just a snapshot, because I knew that life would change quickly for the two smiling schoolteachers in the photo. Soon, Miss Garrigan would become Mrs. Arntson, as Aunt Mary would join my Uncle Paul in Washington DC, where he had gone to work and go to law school at night. My mother, who was already engaged to my dad at the time, had to wait awhile longer, as the income she earned as an elementary school teacher was a main means of support for her parents, who had lost the family business and home due to the depression. Grade school teachers had to be unmarried in those days, so she would remain Miss Arntson until her mother and father were able to find work. But even that happy eventuality would turn tragic, as my grandmother died after being injured at the Illinois Asylum for the Incurable Insane in Bartonville, where she and my grandfather had found employment.
Looking at her young, pretty face, I was filled with the bittersweet knowledge of the love and marriage and children just around the corner, but also of the tragedy yet to come in her young life.
And while that precious picture would have been enough to make the visit meaningful to me, there was more.
You see, not only did my visitor know my mom well, she knew my other grandmother, my dad's mother, as well.
I always envied my friends who had grandparents growing up. By the time I was born, when dad was 46 and my mom nearly 40, there was only one left. After the unexpected death of my maternal grandmother, my gramps moved back to the city in Wisconsin where he and she had grown up and were first married. We saw him once in awhile, but it was never enough. And I always felt like I was missing something when my friends would talk about the wonderful times they spent with their grandmothers.
My grandmother Sloan lived in the house where I grew up in the southwest part of town, just down the street from where my friend lived as a little girl.
"Mrs. Sloan lived in the third house down from us," she said. "A neighbor girl and I used to visit her often."
I was anxious to hear. "What was she like?" "What did you talk about?"
My friend remembered the things a third grader remembers.
"She made good cookies," she smiled. "And she gave me this."
She showed me a picture of a little purse--made in the shape of a Santa Claus and meant to be hung on a Christmas tree.
"I still hang it on my tree every year," she said.
Cookies and gifts are little things, I know. But knowing about them helped me imagine the simple warmth and generosity of a woman--my grandmother--who was widowed at a young age and struggled to raise two sons alone. A woman who still had time to visit with a couple of little girls from the neighborhood.
We talked awhile longer, trading memories of people and places we both knew, until it seemed we had shared enough.
But there was one more thing.
"Oh, and your grandmother used to let us grind her coffee beans," she said.
Quick as a wink, my wife rushed to the kitchen and came back with an old wooden coffee grinder that I've owned since it was passed down to me long ago.
"Is this it?" she asked.
My friend smiled.
"Yes, I believe it is," she replied.
As I sat and looked at her as she held that long-kept antique on her lap, I couldn't help thinking about why I love living in a small town so much. Because we know each other and we often know the most precious parts of each other's lives. And so, we talk, we share...and we remember.
Because we are, each and every one of us, a time machine.

The Adventures of a Short-Hop Time Traveler

2011-04-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

I know I've mentioned before that the idea of time travel has some appeal for me. And while it would probably be more exciting to make the kind of quantum leap from century to century that's been celebrated by authors like Jules Vern and Jack Finney, settling for short hops through the time/space continuum can be interesting, too.
Like a few weeks ago, when we traveled from our beach digs in North Carolina to northern Florida, then back up to Illinois. That down-and-up journey offered an on-the-fly look at just about every phase of spring, as we watched the just-blooming Carolina season transform into the full-out balmy breath of Florida springtime, then undid it all by heading straight north. It seemed to us that Illinois spring was about a month behind the Carolina seasonal change, so we watched things get gradually greener and prettier until we turned back the calendar again with a jarring northbound trek to son Colin's home in Moorhead, Minnesota, just across the Red River from Fargo. The season quickly rolled backwards , as springtide colors faded fast, replaced by snow-filled ditches and crunchy-slushy icecaps on what seemed like just about every one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. In the Fargo-Moorhead region, the first robins of spring are overshadowed by the area's own sign of the season--the raging Red pouring over its banks and threatening the man-made earthen dykes and sandbag piles with its icy torrent. We walked the downtown riverfront, where streets, sidewalks and stairways mysteriously disappeared into the cresting deluge like some kind of a watery sight gag.
"This is how we know it's spring," said Colin as a helicopter whirred overhead. "Sandbags and the National Guard."
We put the season back into fast forward as we headed south on Monday. Again, we saw the first dabs of color start to appear, with forsythia, daffodils and early tulips in evidence along the way until we arrived back home, where a warm weekend had pushed the magnolias into bloom and the grass had begun the shift from the soft hue of the early season to the rich, growing green of full-blown spring.
By my best reckoning, we've now seen spring appear--and re-appear--no less than five times this season, with every viewing a wonderful affirmation of this glorious season of hope and renewal. Soon, we'll be heading back to North Carolina, where I hope our four-door time machine will introduce us to yet another season.
It's called summer.
++++++++++
Speaking of spring things, my spouse was rushing out the door the other morning, a bit late for a meeting. She had only been gone a minute or two when the phone rang.
"Your squirrel is looking for you," she said.
Yes, Salty, the self-tamed squirrel, who was one of the first Galva residents to greet me when we returned, had tried to tackle her on her way out the door and was now waiting impatiently for yours truly.
It must have been a tough winter in Wiley Park, as his intake has been nothing short of spectacular. It took a handful of potato chips, a slice of bread and a bright red apple to satisfy him before he let me go back to my work. The thing is, this whole man-squirrel symbiotic relationship has been all his idea. But now that it's established, I'm a little concerned about what the bushy-tailed little eating machine will do without me when we're in the North Carolina phase of our bi-coastal living scheme. Maybe he'll have to learn to forage and gather like the rest of the squirrels. Or perhaps Shannon, our neighborhood cat whisperer, will agree to toss Salty a snack when she comes by to offer bad-cat Max a bit of food and companionship.
Or maybe I'll just leave him a few bucks so he can go downtown and buy his own.
++++++++++
Speaking of the things I think about when I'm gone, there were, I admit, a few things on my mind the first time we stayed away from home for a couple of months. I fretted about the very infrastructure of our home, wondering if the boiler was still boiling and the hot water heater heating.
I worried about the left-behind cat, despite that fact that he was getting a full measure of company and food every day.
And then there was my beloved 1994 Isuzu Trooper.
I figure it's not that crazy to have an up-close-and-personal relationship with a vehicle that has safely carted you around for nearly a quarter of a million miles. There are friends, co-workers and family members, even, who seem to think I should move up to something a little spiffier. Something a little more fuel-efficient. And something with doors that actually work.
I've written before about the daily encounters I've had with the driver's side door of the rusty, trusty Trooper. I've told you all about the precise slamming techniques and the well-engineered application of bungee cords required to prevent me--the driver--from being hurled out of that unpredictable portal and into the path of oncoming traffic.
Well, it's gotten worst.
It happened during the Christmas holidays while both of our sons and their families were home for a visit. They were on their way downtown for dinner and a spot of holiday revelry with a few friends. Knowing that snow was forecast for later that evening, I made a request.
"Can you guys pull my car into the driveway when you get home?" I asked, wanting to get it out of the way if the plows came through before morning.
"No problem, dad," they said in the same "we-hear-you-but-we're-not-really-listening" tone that used to occasionally make me want to send them to military school or one of those scared straight boot camps in their younger days.
I'm not sure how I really feel about the whole "nature versus nurture" debate, but I do think there are some things that should be understood intuitively by our children, as part of the inherited bloodline.
Not so much.
Instead of applying just the right amount of patient leverage, gentle force and engineering genius needed to open and close the door, they jerked it open and slammed it shut with a total disregard for the delicate balance that my careful ministrations had kept intact over the past couple of years.
Wham-o.
Sproing-o.
The door hasn't been the same since.
I've tried new techniques and even more bungee cords and straps, but nothing seems to make the door want to do even the basics, like stay shut and keep a reasonable amount of wind and water at bay. I've even gone so far as to consider buying a new (old) one, searching out replacements via a series of websites connected to the vast network of junkyards in this great nation of ours.
I was running through a list of candidates, paying the most attention to price and shipping charges.
"Do you think the color of the door matters that much?" I asked my spouse.
Now, I think it's a blessing to be able to make people happy, but I confess that her peals of laughter began to get on my nerves a bit after the first ten minutes or so. I haven't really been able to wash the rusty, trusty, dusty vehicle in several years on account of that pesky leaking door problem, so color--or appearance of any kind--has, I guess, become immaterial.
I never did get around to taking the plunge and buying that new (old) door, and we're heading south soon, so I'll just do my best to clamp it shut with a renewed combination of cords, nylon rope and, perhaps, a little duct tape for good measure.
I know both the car and its interesting engineering challenges will be waiting for me when I return.
In the meantime, if you should happen upon a driver's-side door for a 1994 Isuzu Trooper, feel free to drop it by.
Any color will do.

From Here to There from Then 'til Now

2011-04-07T05:57:00.001-07:00

I was kind of hoping we were done with what my wife calls "home archeology." Put simply, it is the process of rediscovering, sorting, pitching and, in some cases, re-saving the piles and piles of pictures, documents, memorabilia, letters and other timeless flotsam that has attached itself to us as a result of the years and years that my family has lived in Galva. This time, her mission was a full-out frontal attack on a couple of antique catch-alls--A rolltop desk that once belonged to my grandfather and a giant cabinet called "the Bishop Hill desk," that was, according to family legend, built by one of my colony forbearers. Both are loaded with drawers, niches and even secret compartments that are perfect hiding places for a mixed-and-fancy plethora of items like the 1895 lease on my grandfather's optometry office, my dad's 1948 fishing license, and even our own 1974 tax returns.
I've gotta admit that if it was left up to me, I'd probably leave well enough alone and let the next poor suckers along the family tree worry about the whole sort-and-pitch process someday. But she is a kinder soul, plus she knows that if sons Colin and Patrick were given the job, they'd probably react in an understandable way.
Colin: "I always knew they were crazy."
Paddy: "I'm pretty sure this whole place would burn if we just used enough gasoline."
So we started digging.
Over the years, I've become a little more cold-blooded when it comes to keep-or-throw decisions, as I have finally come to the realization that it's not practical to keep every unidentifiable photo, every indecipherable scrap of paper and every aged-out document that ever came into my possession. I'm not quite desperate enough to want to sell my family's effects on Ebay, so I've been destroying the discards a pile at a time.
Of course, that still leaves the other mountain of stuff I want to hang onto.
Like the 1927 "Right Road Service" sheet her digging uncovered.
"Right Road Sheets" were a giveaway item that provided some info about local businesses on one side and driving directions on the other. The sheet in my possession was courtesy of the Hotel Best in Galva, a lodging and dining hotspot that existed from the late 1800s until it was finally torn down in 1997. Located at the south end of Exchange Street, it existed under various names, but probably enjoyed its heyday during the "Best" era starting in 1914. Among the patrons it served were the many salesmen who came here via the CB&Q and Rock Island trains that once made passenger stops in Galva. But by 1927, the automobile had also become a key means of travel.
But it wasn't always easy--or clear--just how to get from here to there.
The advertising on the back of the sheet indicated that the Parkside Hotel in Kewanee was a good place to stay, with rooms (strictly modern) starting at a buck and a half. The Route Number 7 Cafe in Sheffield claimed to be "a darn good place to eat," while Humprhey's Garage in Wyoming was an agent for Buick, Reo and Star cars that offered "first class mechanics" and a "towing outfit."
A few years earlier, both Galva and Kewanee were served by "The Cannonball Route," a Chicago-to-Hannibal, Missouri road that was marked with black cannonballs on poles, according to a Kansas City mapmaker that also proudly proclaimed, "We log and map roads that go somewhere."
By 1927, the state of Illinois had gotten involved in naming highways, with the federal government just behind. An online look at a 1927 Illinois roadmap showed road numbers like 28, 7, 2 and 30 in our area, along with a myriad of unmarked secondary paths, which could make the process of getting from point A to point B a little dicey.
That's where the "Right Road Service" sheets came in. Instead of a map, they provided written step-by-step directions from, in this case, the Hotel Best in Galva, to a variety of other towns, including Kewanee, Chicago and St, Louis, and many of the smaller burgs in between.
""Ask no questions," exclaimed the sheet, which would seem to indicate that, even then, drivers of the male persuasion preferred bumbling on to stopping and asking directions.
It also said, "We wish you good luck on your way," which kind of hinted that no amount of careful directions would fully guarantee an absolute trouble-free trip.
Some of the instructions are pretty simple, like the Galva to Kewanee route, which merely required hopping on Route 28. But going a little further afield could get a little more complex, especially after a hard rain. For instance the route from Galva to Bradford required the driver to leave the Route 28 "hard road" at about the spot where route 93 cuts that way now.
"Continue straight ahead east on dirt road to end of road. Turn right and go until you come to a church, then turn left and follow main traveled angling road through Elmira and on to Bradford."
Now, those of us who drive the backroads can probably guess just about where that route still goes, but the combination of dirt roads and terms like "main traveled road," which probably refers to the cowpath with the deepest set of wheel tracks, would have made the 26-mile jaunt from Galva to Bradford a bit of adventure in the wrong conditions. Ditto a journey like the one from Galva to Moline, which included a "short-cut when roads are good" that would save 20 miles for a daring driver, but add nothing but trouble for an unlucky one. As I read the description of each route, it was easy to figure that some of the lengthier passages described--like the 246-mile trip to St. Louis--would have been long, lonely and potentially harrowing.
But maybe not.
Long, yes, because none of those routes--even the "hard roads"--were built for speed. And it was probably easy to stray off those "main traveled roads" from time to time, but that even happens nowadays on the most modern byways, like the last time I challenged the Dan Ryan Expressway after dark.
But keep in mind that many of those 1927 travelers had experienced other, earlier modes of transportation in their lifetimes, as well. Compared to a slow, bumpy ride in the back of a horse-drawn wagon, even the roughest, most challenging auto trip was pretty slick, indeed. I'm betting many of those 1927 travelers were simply inspired by the newfound freedom car travel offered them. They went places. They expected an adventure. And often, that's what they got.
So, here's the plan.
I'm thinking a copy of that sheet might be a nice addition to the stack of maps and gazetteers I keep handy when I hit the road. I'd like to give some of those routes a try. It ought to be fun, though I suspect some of the churches and many of the country schools, corn cribs and barns they used as landmarks have vanished into history.
But hey, if I do get a little turned around and end up in, say, Sheffield some day when I'm really headed for Victoria, I'll just take a break and look up the Route No. 7 Cafe.
Word has it, they've got darn good eats.

The Gift

2011-03-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

Monday started early.
She was awakened by a hungry cat, who figured 5 a.m. was a good time for the first meal of the day, while I was, soon after, disturbed by an overwhelming essence of cat-food breath when the same striped beast felt a nose-to-nose post-breakfast nap on my chest was in order.
"Since we're up so early, why don't we do something?" I said. "Like maybe head for Chicago and go to the Art Institute."
Acting quickly, I snapped off the back of my cell phone, fiddled with the wiring and converted the simple communications devise into a powerful portable defibrillator to restart her heart.
Well, not exactly, but she really was pretty startled by my suggestion.
"Who are you and what have you done to my husband?" she said in amused amazement.
It's not that I don't like to go places and do things, but my usual day-trip ideas are generally somewhat less sophisticated than what I was proposing. Usually, I'm more apt to suggest something like a look at the world's largest statue of a jackrabbit.
Or a pie-eating contest.
Or both.
But before you start thinking that a visit by the two of us to the big-time world of art would somehow resemble an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies where Jed and Miss Hathaway visit the Louvre, let me just say this:
I belong.
Now, I realize that for those of you who know me, discovering that I'm an actual member of the Art Institute of Chicago might be kind of like finding out that Bozo the Clown just joined your Mensa group. Even my pals at the Galva Arts Council tend to bypass me when the topic turns from folk music and coffeehouse snacks to the visual arts.
But really.
It's true.
I am, indeed, a card-carrying member of one of the best-respected art museums in the world.
Before you start wondering if pigs are about to take to the air or if the temperatures in hell are dipping below 32 degrees, let me explain.
It all started one Christmas morning, when my late mother-in-law gave me an unexpected gift. Other than our shared interest in her daughter and her grandsons, we didn't have a lot in common. She was a highly educated Phi Beta Kappa, with advanced degrees in foreign language, and keen interests in politics, classical music and fine art. I, on the other hand, made the Galva High School honor role a total of one time, spoke only Pig Latin, never knew who I should vote for, and listed John Lennon as my favorite composer and Charles Shulz as tops among American artists.
So, I was surprised that she gave me a membership to the museum.
"What's up with this?" I wondered. "Is she trying to smarten me up?"
But while that might have been a good idea on her part, that wasn't it.
I was, at the time, making almost weekly trips to Northwestern Memorial Hospital on the north side of Chicago, where the good doctors in the oncology department were trying to figure out a baffling set of symptoms and conditions related to the ongoing cancer I was battling. I didn't feel good enough to make the drive every week, and I was going far too often for it to be possible for my wife or sons to take me, so I got into the habit of riding the train to Chicago, then hopping a bus to the hospital. It all worked out pretty well, except I didn't have a place where I could hang out, rest and wait before and after appointments.
So that's what she gave me.
For awhile, I didn't go far beyond the cafeteria and members' lounge, but eventually, I began to wander the halls and galleries that contain some of the most revered art in the world. And while any schmuck (like me) knows names like Picasso and Van Gogh, I soon added others to my list of "gota-see" faves. The place is, indeed, timeless, not only because of the years and years worth of astonishing work displayed, but also because it is so far away from the fast-paced world just outside its doors.
Barb passed away several years ago, but I've continued to renew my membership. Partly because it gives us a reason to go once in awhile, and partly just as a way to remember her.
Because, here's the thing: when you're dealing with cancer or any serious disease or condition, a lot of people say, "Let me know what I can do."
But in most cases, there isn't much, other than encouragement, prayers and the occasional favor or errand.
But she thought of something.
She gave me a place to rest. A place to think about something other than my own sorry situation. And a place to wonder and look and learn and enjoy a little bit of life that was far, far away from doctors and hospitals and tests and the not-so-succesful surgeries and scary prognoses that were darkening my days at the time.
So, here we were, taking a break in the museum lounge on Monday afternoon. We had just finished traipsing through the new modern wing and were anticipating a quick visit to a new exhibit and some old favorites before we headed for home.
I thought about all the things we'd seen and the great day it had been.
And I thought, as I always do when I'm there, of my mother-in-law and the priceless gift she gave me.

The Thing about Spring

2011-03-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

I got a cell phone picture from my North Carolina daughter-in-law Tuesday morning that gave me pause. It showed grandsons John and Cyrus sitting bare-chested, bathed in summer-like sunshine, enjoying an outdoor lunch at their backyard picnic table.
"80 degrees," read the caption.
"What am I doing here?" I grumbled.
Why, indeed, did we leave North Carolina just as a warm, lush, wonderful spring was truly springing once and for all? Why would we give up what just might be some of the finest beachcombing weather of the year, just to return home for the hit-and-miss season that is March in Illinois?
Well, because we're crazy, I guess.
Because we like it.
We like the first glimpses of new life and springtime hope, as tiny shoots of pale-bright green work their way through a winter's worth of blown-down leaves and dried-up grasses.
We like the change in light, in color, and in temperature, as the first balmy breezes of a new season battle against the last cold blasts of stubborn wintertime.
We view the oh-so-subtle changes in the rolling fields around us.
We ooh and aah as buds and blooms begin to sprout; as the tulips begin to awake from a long winter's sleep and bluebells, violets and scilla dot yards and garden plots with the season's first bits of dainty color.
We listen and ask questions of our farmer friends as they prepare for another year spent feeding the world.
We watch the children in the park next door as they shout and run and play and play some more in a warm new world of fun and sunshine.
We even like the work we do, as we rake and pile and haul and burn last year's leftovers, making way for the bright new days to come.
"This is like my first spring," she said, and I knew what she meant, for it is the first year we can remember that we've both had a chance to really enjoy time together spent chipping away at outdoor chores on a weekday morning, instead of frantically turning our backyard into a forced labor camp on every available weekend afternoon.
There are no guarantees, we know, as an early spring can disappear quickly when winter decides it's not quite done with us.
But we know, in the end, it's gotta come.
Gotta come soon.
++++++++++
A Period of Adjustment.
Early spring weather wasn't the only change waiting for us as we made our way home.
After a couple of months of idyllic beach-bumming, we were, almost immediately, plunged back into the veritable vortex of work, fun, commitments and all-out craziness that is often our life in Galva.
She, of course, hit the ground running, and hardly missed a beat.
But I confess that I've struggled a bit with the new-to-me notion that folks might rightfully expect me to keep up with commitments, make it to appointments and even (gulp) work a bit. I had, in fact, a bright-and-early eight o'clock errand this past Monday morning that I blew by waking up fifteen minutes before I was to make my grand entrance.
She: Did you forget to set your alarm clock?
Me: What's an alarm clock?
But slowly, ever so slowly, I'm catching on again.
A rhythm, of sorts, is re-establishing itself as we greet friends and do the things we've always done in our home town.
Instead of story hour at the library with grandson John, grandkid sleepovers and aimless strolls up and down the beach, it's been time spent with coaches and kids, long drives through the changing countryside and determined walks around Wiley Park and the Johnson-Sauk Trail. I have even begun to re-assert my alpha-male status in the clan of the evil cat Max, and Salty the self-tamed squirrel has rediscovered me, hitting me up for the first crackers of spring just this morning.
But before you know it, we'll start the cycle all over again, as we head south to the "other life" we've chosen to pursue in this back-and-forth year.
And as we face that eventuality, we often think how nice it could be if we could combine both of those lives, all of the time.
But we can't.
So we'll do the best we can.

A few stops along the way

2011-03-17T06:06:00.001-07:00

Home.
It's nice to be back here in Illinois again after months in the Carolinas and days on the road. True to our best instincts, we, of course, took the long way, heading from North Carolina to illinois via Florida in a roundabout journey that saw spring warm to near-summer before shifting back to something colder and whiter as we moved closer to home.
I suppose we might have put off our return a little longer, as spring has really just arrived in the southeast. We hope, however, that we will manage to drag some sunny days this way, just as winter followed us when we moved down last January.
But while the weather attracted my attention, dictated my mood and affected my wardrobe as we went down the coast and back up through the heartland, there were other stops and sites along the way worth remembering.
As usual, we didn't have a real plan or timetable.
Nor did we include any interstate highways in our route.
So, like always, we found a few off-the-beaten-track places that I'm glad we saw.
Like Pawleys Island, a tiny South Carolina barrier island that has been a laid-back vacation and resort community since the 1700s (yes, 1700s!), when nearby plantation owners and farmers moved their families away from the mosquitoes and malaria that infested their riverside rice plantations and onto the breezy coastal isle. The historic district is still there, complete with narrow, sandy streets and authentic antebellum beach bungalows that even include, in a couple of cases, slave quarters.
We discovered another middle-of-nowhere treasure in the South Carolina countryside called the Hampton Plantation, a colonial settlement that is tucked away deep in the woods, displaying a well-preserved Georgian mansion that was a both a hiding place for Francis Marion, "the Swamp Fox," and hosted General George Washington during the American Revolution.
We traveled through and over the marshes, rivers and rice fields of the South Carolina low country, then spent an evening and a morning in beautiful
Charleston, where only Ash Wednesday and the beginning of lent prevented us from eating our way through the South in a self-indulgent campaign more dramatic than Sherman's march to the sea.
Then Florida.
Forsythia and azaleas bloomed and burst forth with the resonating blaze of springtime in the deep south, as we visited family and walked the banks of the St. John's River.
We could have stayed forever in that splendid springtime.
But it was time.
Time to go home.
A lazy drive through Georgia found us near the Tennessee border Sunday night, and a longer, harder day on the road got us close to Illinois by late Monday afternoon. All the while, radio reports on the tragic, dangerous events in Japan haunted our thoughts and kept us thinking and praying. It was getting colder now, both out of doors and in our hearts, as well, as the news continued to get worst and worst.
We crossed a flooded Ohio River into our home state and started the last, long stretch.
"That's snow out there," she exclaimed as we spied some suspicious-looking stuff on the grass near the banks of the flooded Kaskaskia River as we drove through southeast Illinois.
Late that night, we finally got there.
The cat was waiting, impatiently, as if we had just stepped out and were finally coming home for dinnertime.
His, that is.
"We're home, Max. Did you miss us?"
He didn't say, though I think he did.
But it was good, anyway.
Good to be home.

The Bug

2011-03-10T05:37:00.000-08:00

In last week's column, I promised you tales of our latest travels, as we had intended to take off on our Galva-by-way-of-Florida homecoming journey bright and early Monday morning. But a whole series of events got in the way of our planned departure, resulting in a Tuesday column-writing session in Carolina instead of somewhere on the road.
It all started on Friday, the day we probably would have spent cleaning house, doing laundry and starting to pack the car in anticipation of a Monday departure. Instead, five-year-old grandson Cyrus, who attends St. Anne's Day School, wanted us, along with his mom and brother, John, to go with him on a field trip to see a fellow named Charles Pettee, who was presenting a community wide pre-K music concert called "Catch the Bluegrass Bug."
Now, that in itself would seem like my kind of thing, as I've performed in front of young crowds myself from time to time and certainly share the "bug" when it comes to bluegrass and other folk music. I expected maybe a few dozen carefully chaperoned kids sitting on a gym floor in front of an earnest, engaging banjo picker, so was surprised when we walked into a packed auditorium containing no less than 500 crazed urchins, with only about three adults who were actually paying attention to them and what they were doing. From past experience, I can tell you that the average pre-K student has both the attention span and energy level of a sand flea, so I wondered if old Chuck would be up to the task.
Not so much.
Instead of immediately involving the little ones in a happy sing-along or some such interactive activity, he proceeded to sit and sing. Now, he wasn't a bad picker, or singer, either, but nothing he could do matched the bubbling intensity of the little-kid frenzy that faced him.
Or rather, didn't face him, as most of the 500 kids (except poor Cyrus and John, who were stuck with us and had to stay in their seats) ran wild through the hall in a veritable mosh pit of pushing, shoving, laughing, crying, dancing, hopping, screaming and other activities near and dear to the heart of the average two, three and four-year-old.
We all have our roles in life. Mine, as far as kids and grandkids are concerned, has sometimes been as the tough guy who demands certain behaviors in certain situations and isn't above making those demands known. In fact, grandson John calls me "grumpa" in an unintentional, but spot-on portrayal of the difficult old man I sometimes am.
I wasn't going to let the wild crowd of kids get to me, though, feeling that as long as our kids were well behaved, all was good. It was a little more difficult for my partner in crime, who recently retired from a long career that included large groups of unruly children seeking firm direction.
I could hear the enamel flaking off her gritting teeth as a three-year-old bully clotheslined a running younger buddy and dragged him back into the fray by the hood of his sweatshirt.
She: Did you see that?
Me: Easy, killer.
Her hands clenched as child after child ran up and down the aisle, playing a never-ending game of "let's see how soon somebody can get hurt" in full view of their parents and teachers.
She: Grrrr.
Me: Steady, girl.
She was stunned when one young lad began to probe the insides of an electrical outlet as his mom happily videotaped it all.
She: That's shocking.
Me: That's for sure.
She was speechless and I was just glad we had gotten through the ordeal without physical or mental harm as we made our escape at the end of the performance.
Saturday was an even bigger day, as we celebrated the third birthday of young John with a pirate-themed party at our house and beach. It was about then that we realized that putting on a big birthday bash would again leave little time for the chores and errands required to leave town for an extended period, meaning we'd probably need to stay an extra day.
So our Monday ETD became Tuesday.
It was a sensational birthday party, with grandma's cooking and mom and dad's innovative party games making it fun and memorable for both Johnny and his beachful of playmates.
All was on schedule, with Sunday earmarked for cleaning up from the party and generally winding down, while Monday would include packing the car and doing some of those last-minute things that every journey requires.
Then, I stepped out into the street in front of an oncoming Mack Truck.
Or at least that's what it felt like.
Chills, fever. coughs and congestion, along with a distinct touch of nausea and other intestinal delights, plus the kind of body aches that come after, say, a fall down an elevator shaft.
I had the flu.
After the fact, I heard that it's been making the rounds in the area, especially in the elementary schools, with both kids and adults alike being felled by a couple of different strains that seem to take either an intestinal or upper respiratory direction.
I managed to get both.
For awhile, I thought I was going to die.
Then I was afraid I wouldn't.
I'm feeling better now, so we're probably going to make it our of here on Wednesday morning, which is fine, since we seldom adhere to a schedule anyway.
But, where did it come from? What was the source of this virulent virus that felled North Carolina's grumpiest old man? Then I remembered.
500 running, panting, sweating kids in a closed auditorium. And me.
Remember the "Bluegrass Bug?"
The bug got me.

The Long Way Home

2011-03-03T05:25:00.001-08:00

The first phase of our bi-coastal living experiment is coming to a close, as we prepare to leave the shores of the Atlantic Ocean for awhile, hoping to catch the beginnings of spring along the banks of the Edwards River and other Galva-centric waterways for awhile, before doing it all over again later on this spring. Looking for warm March weather in the midwest is an iffy proposition, we know, but we're hoping to drag some balmy temps that way, just as the snow followed us to North Carolina on our way out.
We've loved our experience here, though not without some longing for what we left behind. I was thinking about what I miss--and don't miss--about home the other day and came up with few thoughts.
Things I've missed:
Friends, neighbors and colleagues at the Star Courier, kids and coaches, my own bed, Kitchen Cooked potato chips and Max, the cat.
Things I haven't missed:
February weather, late-night drives from far-off basketball games and last-minute basketball deadlines, my snowblower...and Max, the cat.
You'll probably note that Max made both lists, which just fits the love/hate emotions his surly personality inspires in me.
We're not, of course, planning a direct route home. Instead, we'll take the long way and wander down the Atlantic coast, with stops planned in Charleston, Savannah and Hilton Head before spending a couple of days visiting family in North Florida. After a last bit of warm sea air, we'll head north, zig-zagging our way home. Our not-so-direct traveling strategy is one we plan to continue as we go back and forth between both our homes for the next year and beyond, wishing to see as much as we can see for as long as we can see it. Next week's column will be written from the road with, I hope, something interesting to tell.
+++++
Riding the whale.
"We're keeping it simple," she said, as we considered what to bring and/or buy as we worked to make our unfurnished beach abode habitable.
So we did.
I've already recounted the thrift-shop purchases we made to provide ourselves with places to sit, and I think I mentioned our decision to go with blow-up mattresses instead of hauling or investing in standard mattress-and-box-spring beds. We've had an inflatable unit as part of our tent camping gear for several years and it's been comfortable and durable, so we thought, "why not?"
Why not enjoy the luxury and comfort of sleeping on air?
More importantly, why not avoid the expense of buying a "real" bedroom set and the extreme effort of dragging it to the top floor of a 4-story beach duplex?
Why not?
Here's why.
The bed we purchased for our own use is (was) an elevated queen size with a built-in electric pump. Like any air bed (and even the air mattresses folks use to bob around in the pool on hot summer days) it is (was) made up of a series of heat-welded chambers that keep the surface of the bed relatively flat and stable.
Now, before I tell you about my own middle-of-the-night experience, let me share some advice I unfortunately found after the fact.
"One of the things you should do to keep the life of your double air bed longer is to never overinflate it. Yes, some people like to have a bed that is a little firmer, but overinflation can stretch the materials and burst the seams, no matter how thick the material is or how good the seams are welded."
Yep.
On the night in question, I had, indeed, added a little air to the mattress, bringing it to a level of firmness that was pleasing to a back made sore by bending over to pick up seashells and other arduous tasks. She was sleeping soundly, of course, enjoying the much-deserved rest of a giving grandmother who has done her all to make every day special for her beloved grandsons. I, on the other hand, was a little restless, wondering, perhaps, if the greedy little buggers had beat me to the last of the chocolate chip cookies again.
Suddenly I heard something I had never heard before.
Now, the combination of crashing surf from our ocean-side windows combined with the hunt-or-be-hunted squawks and splashes from waterfowl and other night critters who live in and around the inlet in the back has made for a new kind of nightsound that is new noise for someone who grew up listening to the endless WOOT-WOOT-WOOOOOOOT of the stream of freight trains that barrel through Galva.
But that wasn't it.
The sound coming from the bed was not unlike the muffled explosion heard after a naval destroyer launches a couple of depth charges to try and sink a U-boat lurking beneath the waves.
"KA-THWAP," rumbled the bed from deep within its air-filled chamber. "KA-THWAP."
I think I can say without getting too personal or boastful, that the earth truly has moved once or twice over the years while sharing a bed with my spouse, but what happened next was exceedingly different. The surface of my half of the bed suddenly expanded, creating a giant bulge that literally rolled me onto the floor. I battled back, dragging myself back on top of the yet-to-be-seen protuberance and hung on for dear life to the sheet and blanket.
It reminded me of trying to take a ride on the back of a humpbacked whale. I was pretty sure that wasn't exactly what was happening, but something was most definitely wrong.
My desperate scrambling finally disturbed my slumbering bedmate, who has, over the years, likened sleeping with me to sharing a bed with a restless raccoon.
"What are you doing?" she said, somewhat tersely.
"Well," I said. "I think there's something wrong with the bed."
"Why don't you turn on the light?" she said sensibly.
"Uh, I didn't want to wake you up, but I guess I did," I muttered, as I flipped the switch.
Revealed by lamplight, the swollen half of the bed was easily three times its normal dimensions.
"IT'S A TUMAH!" she cried in her best possible impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Kindergarten Cop. "IT'S A TUMAH!" she laughed.
Come to think of it, she's still laughing.
And now you know why I miss my own bed.
++++++
Starstruck.
Things are pretty quiet on the north end of New River Inlet Road. It's the off-season now, so the area has yet to become besieged by bevies of beach lovers. But even when the real summer weather hits, this end of the island is less busy than the rest, as there's not much in the way of restaurants, go-carts or miniature golf. So we were surprised to encounter a bit of a traffic jam the other day, as a line of trucks and vans made its way up the road and into a parking lot across from a palatial beach house.
Later in the day, we drove by again and saw some of the lights and equipment I was accustomed to back when I wrote and produced television commercials and videos.
"Somebody's shooting something," I said, and wondered if the crew was there for a film, a tv show or a commercial.
"Can't be Home Makeover," she said. "That house is already about as good as it can get."
We knew who to ask.
Nothing important gets past the ladies who run the cafe at the shore end of the fishing pier down the way, and, of course, they knew the scoop.
"One Tree HIll," said one.
"Wait until this summer, they'll be here all the time," added the other.
Like many of the other soap operas and reality shows I've never seen, One Tree Hill is quite popular with many, including my daughter-in-law, who now vows she'll sneak in for a closer look once production starts in earnest.
"You may have to bail me out, but I'm going in," she said upon hearing the exciting news.
Apparently, the natural beauty and relatively slow pace of this little corner of the world has drawn some attention from the film and tv communities, as both Dawson's Creek (never seen it) and Nights in Rodanthe (slept through it) also shot segments nearby.
I've considered catching some online reruns of both tv shows, just so I'll know what's going on.
Or maybe not.
Why change now.

Remember the Hoodarf

2011-02-24T13:37:00.000-08:00

To be truthful, I'm not entirely unhappy about the fact that our current living situation has kept us kind of out of touch, though there have been times when I feel a little sheepish about all the things I don't know about.
We don't have a TV here on the beach, nor do we receive a regular daily newspaper. We listen to a lot of radio, especially the in-depth reporting on National Public Radio, but not, perhaps, very intently, since I'm often too distracted by the wild, wonderful things going on outside my window to listen as closely as I might otherwise. There's not much breaking news in the Island histories I've been reading, nor in the stacks of other novels and biographies I've been trying to plow through. I use the internet to peruse www.starcourier.com every day, but my main interest is in the "back home" news and sports it provides, rather than world and national reports. And when we do pick up one of the weekly newspapers published in the nearby beach towns, the stories tend to revolve around locally interesting stuff like the fact that the mullets (the fish, not the haircut) are running, tide tables, good deals at the ice cream place, and whether the weather will turn warm enough to attract a few new tourist dollars soon.
I guess our rather benign approach to what's going on in the rest of the world has been a little embarrassing to me because I am supposed to be a journalist of sorts. We were at least a couple of days late learning about the wide-spread unrest in the Middle East, and the demonstrations over the unconscionable decisions made by the governor of Wisconsin were well underway before I was clued up to what was happening.
But it gets even worse, because, heck, I almost missed the hoodarf.
For those of you who are uniformed (many of you, I'd wager) or uninterested (most of you, I bet), the hoodarf is a combination hood and scarf, and one of the hottest new accessories featured at New York Fashion Week several days ago. According to the reports I read, three different top designers sent male models down the runway sporting hoodarfs, which, to my untrained eye, look like some kind of long furry creature bent on strangling and/or sucking the brains out of the rugged, moody, yet unbelievably handsome guys who wore them.
Now. anyone who has seen me dress has probably already figured out that I'm not particuarly influenced by the ideas and creations of the New York fashion community. I've been rotating through an identical-looking series of comfortable khaki pants for as long as I can remember, replacing them with an equally similar set of shorts once the weather warms up a little. My cool weather socks-and-sandals combination alternately amuses and dismays the more fashion-consious members of my tribe, with a disreputable collection of sneakers my year-round alternative when snow flies or rain falls. My shirts, t-shirts and sweaters reach retirement age only when my wife spirits them out of my closet and quietly bags them up for a trip to Goodwill, while even my wildly patterned reading glasses, which some might consider an attempt at a fashion statement, are actually dollar store refuges that I choose because they're easier to find when I set them down.
But this hoodarf thing has got me thinking. Thinking that, once again, I missed the boat and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be rich and famous.
You see, ingenious, combination-style, cold-weather wear is nothing new for us Sloans.
When son Colin was a young lad, nothing we could do would convince him to remember and wear a pair of gloves, except for extreme activities like hockey and snowball-making. Instead, he would simply pull the sleeves of his baggy, oversized sweatshirts over his hands, giving birth to what we called--and still call-- "sloves."
That's right, sloves, a combination of sleeves and gloves, that were warm, versatile and never left behind in the school lost-and-found box. Had we found the resources and determination to fully develop and market this handy (pun intended) garment, we might now own North Topsail Beach, instead of being precarious renters in our semi-shabby beach digs. Instead, we were, as our family saying goes, "too cheap to be rich," a malady that has never seemed to befall the likes of Thomas Edison, Ron Popeil or any of those New York fashion mavens.
Now, another big-time opportunity has appeared on our horizon.
It happened one coolish morning, when one of us was wearing a new pair of those flannel pajama pants that look so warm and inviting, especially when encountered on a rack marked "clearance." Apparently, I wasn't wearing a pair of wildly patterned reading glasses when I chose them, and so, ended up with a size and length more appropriate for an NBA power forward than for my own shrimpy stature.
"Hey, nice slocks," she said, noting that the overlong pantlegs were neatly covering my bare feet.
Yes, slocks, a combination of slacks and socks, are the new thing for fashionistas on New River Inlet Road.
I haven't got around to wearing them in public, though I did let a pair of baggy sweatpants kind of sag around my blue-tinted feet after a chilly wading session on the beach the other day.
And now that I've let the cat out the bag, chances are, some better-financed uptown designer will probably beat me to the punch come next Fashion Week.
But remember, you heard it here first.
+++++++
Back to the news.
No big shock that things have gotten kind of dicey in places like Egypt and Libya. In fact, the only real surprise to me is that it took so long.
But the whole Wisconsin thing is a different situation altogether.
It doesn't matter, in my opinion, how you feel about today's unions. It doesn't even matter if you think it's right or wrong for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to cut retirement and healthcare for workers like teachers and nurses, and strip away nearly all of their collective bargaining rights.
But when he announced that he had alerted the National Guard to be ready for state workers to strike or protest, things got downright scary.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, the right to refuse, the right to bargain and the right to be heard are the very things that set us apart from some of those other bastions of personal freedom.
Like Lybia.
I honestly don't know what Governor Walker is thinking. But I do know it's been chilly in Wisconsin.
Perhaps his brain is cold.
Maybe he needs a hoodarf.

On Some February Days

2011-02-17T05:31:00.001-08:00

I've always liked Groundhog Day. Why I would be attracted to a holiday hosted by a sleepy, overfed rodent is a mystery, even to me. After all, there are no great Groundhog gifts, no funny Groundhog cards and no traditional groundhog feasts. It's hard to find a good Groundhog party nowadays, and my favorite bakery doesn't even offer groundhog cookies, groundhog cakes or groundhog pie
Oh my.
Some might even say that Groundhog day is a day based on false hope.
After all, who really believes that the first days of February could also mark the first moments of spring? Even coastal North Carolina, where we currently spend our time, still suffers from its cold season on February second, while the folks back home in Illinois got hit by winter in the biggest possible way on and about that particular day.
But still, there's something about this time of year that begins to give us a faint inkling of the good, glorious things that might come next.
In the Catholic Church, February second marks Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the Ritual Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, along with the real end of the Christmas season, which would, I think, naturally turn our thoughts to the yearly blessings of springtime and Easter.
The days are getting longer, too, with the sun occasionally warming enough to produce a hint of what's to come. And slowly, subtly. but surely, the wind has begun to shift, inch by inch, from a northborn blast to an insistent, southern swirl that promises new life, renewed hope and the balmy miracle of spring.
Come soon.
++++++
Early February saw a wintery blast here in Carolina, too. Or at least that's what the forecasters had in mind when they predicted a possible three to four inches of snow inland, with a chance for an inch here on the shore. The next morning offered a cold, steady rain, but nothing more. But, as is sometimes the case everywhere, some schools and businesses reacted to the forecast before waiting for the reality, with a few cancelations and several late starts among the area school districts.
But the most notable case of jumping the gun occurred at Camp Lejeune, home of over 40,000 U.S. Marines and their families. Now, I have a tremendous respect for those Marines and their supreme ruggedness and bravery in the face of great danger and the most unfriendly conditions. So I was a little startled when the USMC canceled classes at all their on-base schools, and virtually shut down shop at the base except for the most vital of operations and services.
It was enough to make me fire off a new version of their recruiting slogan that might go something like this:
Marines. The Few. The Proud. The Overly Cautious.
+++++++
Where's Max?
A friend asked that question the other day via email, wondering why I hadn't mentioned our stripey, surly semi-pet in my tales of our southward stay. We--and he, I guess--decided that he'd skip the long, wintry drive south and stay home in Illinois for this first foray, at least, safe in the care of his devoted cat-whisperer Shannon, who has trudged back and forth between her home and ours to provide him with food, company and a way in and out of the house, depending on the weather and his clearly stated moods and preferences. Even though she has assured me of his continuing good health and spirits, it took a cell phone photo from son Colin to truly reassure me. Colin came down from Fargo with his family last weekend for a visit to his wife's clan in Galesburg. They stayed in our Galva house and he sent a cell-shot captioned "proof of life," showing Max in all his irascible wintertime-plump glory, chowing down in the kitchen.
Thanks, Colin. Thanks, Shannon.
See you soon, Max.
++++++++
Another February day of note was, of course, Valentine's Day. I've been married for nearly four decades, so I really do know what should be expected of me on February 14th. But without a television-driven barrage of messages from Hallmark, Fanny May, FTD and Teleflora to remind me of what I oughta do and why I oughta do it, I clean forgot. It wasn't until she took my arm on our morning beach walk that day and called me her valentine that I remembered, with a guilty little start that cause me to look at my feet in shame and embarrassment.
There, nestled in the sand, was a half-broken shell, wind-smoothed into just the right kind of shape.
"This is all I have for you," I said, as I handed it to her.
"That's all I want," she smiled.
There are a lot of ways to say "I love you," I guess. But for me, at that place and time, giving a heart-shaped shell as a valentine and truly getting away with it, said them all.

A few answers from the Island

2011-02-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

Questions:
1. Where are you?
2. What are you doing?
3. When are you coming back?
I've heard those questions--or something like them--just about every time I check the messages on our at-home answering machine.
The answers:
1. In North Carolina
2. Hanging out with a two-year-old.
3. How's the weather back there?
The slightly longer version is that we'll be spending part of our time down here for at least this next year, so that we can finally get a chance to be close-by grandparents to our two younger grandkids, instead of the more distant "see you at Christmas" kind we were forced to be with the older ones.
I've already written a bit about the beautiful views and the beachcombing lifestyle I've been doing my darnedest to pursue, but it wasn't until I started to read and explore that I began to realize what an interesting, diverse story Topsail Island has to tell.
It's one of the long line of barrier islands that border the North Carolina shore. We first discovered it over 30 years ago when we drove along this section of coastline late one night and looked for a hotel to stay in after three weeks of beach camping, sandy sandwiches and cold-water showers. We didn't have much luck that night, because the Island has never had much in the way of hotels and resorts, partly because it's too narrow to really develop and partly because it's a little off the beaten track.
As it turns out, that's the good news.
While we were disappointed in our long-ago search for clean sheets and hot water, we're now enjoying the fact that the narrow configuration of this 26-mile spit of sand has caused it to remain comparatively underdeveloped, especially as far as giant high-rise hotels, resorts and restaurants go. The island is just wide enough to accommodate one "main" two-lane road for much of its length and only offers a couple of bridges on and off. There are three towns on the island. Smack dab in the middle is Surf City, a retro-hip 50s and 60s-looking beach town that sends Beach Boys tunes swirling through my head every time I drive through it. On the south end is Topsail Beach, an older vacation community that manages to squeeze more beach bungalows throughout a winding series of path-like streets than you'd think possilbe. The area where we live--North Topsail Beach--is a little newer and more sparsely populated; not because it's more exclusive, but because a pair of 1996 hurricanes pretty much wiped the place clean. There's one grocery store on the island, a teeny-tiny IGA that features a good selection and surprisingly reasonable prices, even on busy summer weekends; a smattering of beach-style bodegas and an amazing 1000-foot fishing pier just down the way that also offers a cafe and bait shop/convenience store.
If you want more than that, you've gotta get on one of those bridges and head for the mainland.
But if you're happy with two-way water views, the narrowness of the island means our morning vista offers ocean sunrises, while evening sees the sun setting in our backyard over the intercostal waterway that separates the Island from the rest of North Carolina.
According to some historians, that channel between the mainland and the island accounts for its unusual name. Topsail (pronounced top-sul) refers to stories of marauding pirates who hid their ships in the channel behind the island and waited for slow-moving merchant ships to pass by along the coast. Eventually, the merchantmen got wise to the hiding place and kept an eye out for the top of the pirate mainsails over the high dunes of the island--the topsails.
Whether or not that tale is true or not, it is a certainty that pirates, including Stede Bonnett and the infamous Blackbeard roamed these waters, with some claiming that pirate treasure still remains buried on the island.
So I've got a mission now. Every time I walk the beach or explore the sound-side marshes and thick maritime forests, I'll keep my eyes peeled for glimpses of gold buried in the sand. It's a good switch from shell-searching, and hey, a little treasure would come in handy.
Of course, when I see the sunlit ocean, the miles of sandy beach, and, especially, the look on my wife's face every time she greets her grandsons, I realize I've already found it.

Notes from a Conchologist

2011-02-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

Life as a conchologist can be pretty darn demanding.
It doesn't take much time walking the beach to realize what a busy place the ocean is, with most of its inhabitants requiring a big-time influx of food to keep up with a hyperactive day-to-day existence. Put simply, the sea creatures and birds that live out here spend most of their time swimming and flying...and eating those who don't swim or fly quite as fast or efficiently.
In a less idyllic setting, the resulting life and death lifestyle might mean beaches littered with an unattractive left-over abundance of fish parts and other fleshy flotsam.
But nothing edible goes unnoticed very long in and around the sea, so instead, in a pretty bit of serendipity, it's seashells--the hard exterior skeletons of the soft-bodied mollusks that are near the bottom of just about everybody's food chain--that line the surface of the sand.
And that's where my newest career path comes in.
Conchology, for the benefit of both the uninitiated and the uninterested, is the study of shells, including the thousands and thousands of seashells that wash up along my path every day.
Like most of the vocations and avocations I've chosen, like music and sportswriting, shelling is something I pursue avidly without really knowing much about what I'm doing.
I like big ones. I like little ones. I like pretty ones.
The best ones seem to roll in when the wind, water and waves are at their wildest and most powerful, making it even more amazing when a delicate shape reaches shore in one piece.
The scientifically acclaimed Sloan Shell Selection System is based on a complex set of criteria: I pick up the ones I feel like picking up, according to my mood and the condition of my lower back. The rest, I leave behind to be gathered by other shell fanciers or washed back at high tide. The equipment and skills required are extensive, consisting of a plastic grocery bag and a willingness to walk slowly in a beautiful setting.
The results have been mixed and fancy, with shelves, windowsills, jars, bottles and tabletops already jammed with the pretty and interesting things we've found. While most of them aren't necessarily unique or rare, there have been a few prizes, including a couple of nicely intact spiral-shaped whelks, an absolutely perfect sand dollar and, the best find of all, a dried-out sea horse spied by my sharp-eyed beach-walking companion.
But here's the thing...
We try to walk at least a couple of miles every day along the near-empty wintertime beaches of Topsail Island.
But it's over 25 miles long.
25 miles of beaches.
25 miles of shells.
I've still got a lot to do.

Furniture Fandango

2011-01-27T05:40:00.000-08:00

You know me.
I'm the guy with the basement and the house and the life filled with an infinite quantity of stuff.
When we planned our part-time move to the Carolina shore, we determined that most of the clutter would stay behind.
"Let's travel light," we said sagely. "If we really need it, we'll get it there."
So we did, taking just our "camping box," a large plastic tub filled with most of what you might need to pitch a tent and sleep under the stars, plus a couple of new inflatable mattresses and enough clothes for about a week.
With an unfurnished dwelling awaiting us, we envisioned a spartan, zen-like existence, freed from the bonds of our five-generation collection of chaos. Our initial exploration of our new digs--the much-smaller half of an elevated multi-story duplex--seemed to offer just that, with three floors filled with nothing but cool, stale air and last season's tracked-in sand.
After about eight seconds, though, I wondered just where I was going to sit.
Or how we were going to see where we were going to sit, since only the kitchen area has built-in lighting.
So after unloading the carful of clothes, crates, the ubiquitous blow-up beds, and the coffeemaker and bedding a couple of wise neighbors kindly insisted we take, we set off in search of a few of the things we think we'll need to survive this latest adventure.
It's been a slow, step-by-step process, as our desire to get it done battles an even stronger wish to do it on the cheap. We paid full price for a couple of new floor lamps that first day, plus dragged in our fold-up beach-and-camping chairs to serve as a living room furniture grouping. We collected a smattering of kitchen essentials to go with the few things we brought along
After that, it got kind of fun.
Our kitchen bar is now surrounded by a mix of new, thrift shop and borrowed stools, which means we can feed family and friends in a single seating, though in close, elbow-bumping proximity. The Salvation Army store yielded a small settee of indeterminate age and origin, while a resale shop called The Basement, in an eerie reminder of the one I left behind, provided a true prize, a pair of wicker basket chairs that remind me a little of the one in that famous photo of the well-armed founder of the Black Panther Party.
"We sit in those, we'll be like Huey Newton and Angela Davis," I said to my 60's-hip spouse.
"Yeah, or like Huey Lewis and Angela Landsbury," she replied more realistically.
Our search has led us to to many of the used furniture outlets in Jacksonville, North Carolina, which, as the home of a huge military installation, has more than its share. We even tried our hands at a bit of modified dumpster diving the other evening, as one of us was determined to examine a discarded beach bike in front of an opulent shoreline mansion.
Me: Get back in here, I think that's a police car.
She: Maybe he can help you load this beauty in the trunk.
The bicycle was, alas, too far gone to make the cut. And the cop was kind enough to look the other way, so we emerged from that bit of action with our police records and reputations intact.
We're about wrapped up now, with our last real need a futon or some other piece of furniture that'll double as a bed in anticipation of visits from friends and family. We bit the bullet and signed up for internet service the other day after I was unable to find a stray wifi signal to latch onto, but so far, we've resisted television in favor of breathtaking views and the books we've always been meaning to read.
Just as long as I've got a soft place to sit.
+++++++++++
KA-BOOM.
Here's the thing about living very near a 246-square-mile U.S. Marine Corps base and a couple of Marine airfields.
WHAKA-WHAKA-WHAKA-WHAKA.
They like to practice from time to time.
Distant artillery fire and steady streams of helicopters and Osprey aircraft are often a part of the sights and sounds that surround us as the 40,000+ Marines at Camp Lejeune train and prepare for deployment and defense.
Some folks probably find the added noise a little annoying. And I admit, I sort of jumped the first time I felt a large-caliber cannon rattling my world. But we're getting used to it.
And while I am opposed to all wars, I'll always support the young warriors who fight them for us.
So make all the noise you want. And come home soon.
++++++++++
Call me buzz.
Those who know me in person know I like keeping my thinning hair pretty short. I was overdue for a trim when I walked into a barber shop just up the street from the Marine base main gate the other day.
"Cut it short, please," I said, as I slipped into the chair.
"Uh, you said short, right?" said the barber after he made his first pass with the clippers.
"Yep," I said confidently.
Let me just say that Marine Corps short is a little closer-cut than my usual style.
But it'll grow, I hope, if I didn't scare it off.
++++++++++
I was thinking about whining online about another chillier-than-normal Carolina morning the other day when I noticed a picture message wailing on my cell phone. It was from son Colin who lives near Fargo, North Dakota. He took the picture on his way home from work late the night before. It was a close-up shot of the outside temperature reading from the gauge in his car.
-26.
Fifty-eight degrees below freezing.
Nearly seventy degrees colder than the temps I was complaining about.
Glad I kept my mouth shut.

Onward and Outward

2011-01-20T12:35:00.000-08:00

The day we were supposed to leave, the weather forecast scared us off. It was a week ago Monday when we planned to pull away in our packed-to-the-gills vehicle and head to our new part-time digs in coastal North Carolina. But January hit the southeast with a vengeance, producing unheard of levels of snow and ice in places where it's tough to find a snow shovel or a bag of salt, much less the fleet of snowplows and other equipment needed to address a real winter storm.
So we waited.
We knew full well that, by waiting, we were going to let yet another winter storm catch up with us; one that was predicted to sweep through the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys along the first half of our route to the south.
So we gambled.
We gambled that we would be able to beat the worst of the midwestern storm, while giving the mess in the southeast a chance to melt or at least swing up the coast and away from our path.
It was slow going at times, but it all worked out, as we made it to southernmost Indiana on the first day before a sudden blinding snowy burst just after dark drove us off the road and into a Super 8 motel. It was an odd little spot, perched on a hill overlooking the main route, but with a winding, backroad entrance that required equal amounts of navigational skill and luck to make it into their parking lot.
Day two got us to and through the mountains via the "southern crossing" from Knoxville to Asheville, North Carolina, skirting a continuing storm that had mountain regions like Johnson City, Tennessee, virtually shutting down, with schools and businesses calling it quits for the rest of the week, though it was only Wednesday. We made it across the state to Raleigh, where we decided we'd rather get our first glimpse of the new place in the daytime and settled in for a second night along the road.
It's kind of a scary-odd feeling to make a year-long commitment to a spot where we plan to spend at least half of our time based on a few emailed photos and a last minute look-over by son Paddy and daughter-in-law Susan, who declared it to be our kind of place.
We trusted their judgement, and couldn't argue with the location, which puts us within view of the ocean and the intercoastal waterway, and minutes away from kids and grandkids. But I, at least, was still haunted by a bunch of concerns that could only be assuaged by both a first glimpse and a thorough inspection.
Will we like it?
Does it leak, creak or smell funny?
Did we even really rent the place, or were we somehow hookwinked out of our deposit by some Carolina crook making his living taking advantage of unwary yankees looking for a place in the sun?
Well, yes, no and, yes, we seemed to have actually taken possession, with the key left for us fitting perfectly and the mailman already leaving bills from the water and power companies..
It is an unfancy place in a wonderful location.
It is, like us, more dedicated to great views and an uncomplicated lifestyle than to luxury and upscale living.
We felt comfortable and at home immediately.
We'll spend some time getting used to things and developing a day-to-day rhythm of sorts.
Eventually, we'll head back to Galva for awhile, which is a good thing, as we already miss many of the people and things that will always make it home. Because if there is a downside to this whole back-and-forth adventure of ours, it is that we can't have all the people and things we love, all in one place, all at one time.
Meanwhile, though, we saw dolphins jumping no more than fifty yards offshore this morning.
From our kitchen window.
I think we're gonna like it.

Indiana Jones and the Second Street Basement

2011-01-13T04:25:00.001-08:00

I always thought it would be kinda cool to be an archeologist.
It was a dream that faded a bit when I mentioned it to my high school guidance counselor. He, not unkindly, reminded me that archeology, like rocket science and brain surgery, required some talent, or a least interest, in subjects like science and math. Gently wiping tears of laughter from his eyes, he sent me toddling off to typing class and my eventual alternate career path.
But I still thought it seemed like it would be interesting and fun, even, to dig up mummies, old bones and pieces of ancient pottery.
I finally got a taste of what it would be like last week when we began taking down our Christmas decorations.
It had been awhile since we'd done a thorough "sort, discover, file & pitch" procedure in the vast, winding depths beneath our house, so one of us (guess who?) decided the time was right before we returned our holiday trappings to the room where they belong. Our basement, like the rest of the house, is old and extensive. And while we've cleaned it many times before, there's always a lot of stuff to go through. Part of it has to do with the fact that my sons are the fifth generation of Sloans to live in Galva. My mom's family came to town in the early 20th century, which just added to the accumulation of clutter, plus we inherited a plethora of papers, letters, books, photos, household items and other miscellanea after my mother-in-law passed away a few years ago. My wife and sister-in-law attacked a few tubs full of those treasures during the holidays, spurring, I think, a more comprehensive bit of exploration.
"I feel like I'm one of those American Pickers in my own basement," she said, as she waded through a pile.
I, on the other hand, felt more like I was finally getting to live my high school dream.
"These are the ruins of the Galva people," I intoned in my best professorial voice. "They were hunter-gatherers who never, ever threw anything away."
Best, though, was my sudden inspiration for a new Indiana Jones movie. I couldn't help imagining the evil Nazis pinning Indy against the hot water heater, while grasping the valiant cat Max by the scruff of his neck.
"Zo, Dr. Jones. You vill tell us ze location of ze 1928 Galva phone book, or ze little cat dies."
Yep, there was one of those, and more. Lots more.
Among my favorite finds this time were my grandfather's 1882 high school autograph book and a leather bible cover inscribed with the date of my great-grandparents' wedding day, December 27, 1864. But the real prize among the basement bins and boxes was a letter written to my wife's parents in 1950 from a World War II Army Air Corps friend who was flying in China for an airline known as the Civil Air Transport. My fellow explorer remembered hearing the name when he wrote to them in later years.
"He's a spy," said her dad when she inquired as to the identity of the letter-writer.
Megan always figured her dad was pulling her leg, but, as it turned out, the Civil Air Transport was covertly owned and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.
According to one source, "CAT maintained a civilian appearance by flying scheduled passenger flights while simultaneously using other aircraft in its fleet to fly covert missions. During the Chinese Civil War, under contract with the Chinese Nationalist government and later the Central Intelligence Agency, CAT flew supplies and ammunition into China to assist Kuomintang forces on the Chinese mainland, primarily using C-47 and C-46 aircraft. With the defeat of the Kuomintang, CAT helped to evacuate thousands of Chinese to Taiwan."
The letter tells of the friend's life in China as an expatriate pilot, and accurately predicts the political changes that were to eventually occur in the region.
Fascinating stuff. And maybe he was a spy, after all.
We've just about wrapped up this most recent foray into the dark, dank depths, with the Galva garbage and recycling guys no doubt wondering what the heck I've been up to this time. And while I won't claim that cleaning a basement is akin to a trip to Disneyland, it does have its interesting moments.
And Indy would have loved it.
+++++++
My columns from the last couple of weeks have been kind of controversial.
First, I claimed an undying love for snow. Big snow.
Then I bragged about toughing it out in a cold, cold house.
I wrote those columns with all sincerity, but with a mild sense of guilt, too.
You see, we're heading south this week.
Or at least, that's the plan.
After lengthy negotiations, planning, fretting and dreaming, we've rented a place near our beloved beaches and, more importantly, within a few minutes of our even-more-beloved youngest grandchildren. It will be an experience and an experiment in a kind of bi-coastal living, as we bounce between the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and those of the North Branch of the Edwards River. Our plan is to take advantage of both places, enjoying the best weather, activities and company both coastal North Carolina and Galva can offer. And while they've had a colder-than-usual winter season, we've been anxious to head down, set up housekeeping and--literally and figuratively--get our feet wet.
Then came Monday morning's weather report.
Big snows, ice, sleet and generally paralyzing winter weather conditions throughout the southeast.
North Topsail Beach, our destination, reported four inches of new snow, a happenstance that occurs about as often as what one-time weatherman David Letterman once called for when he predicted "hail the size of canned hams."
I guess we'll just have to deal with it. We are, after all, midwesterners who should be able to adapt to just about anything Mother Nature throws at us.
But I can't help thinking one thing after those columns I wrote lauding the joys of snow and cold.
It serves me right.

Baby, It's Cold Inside

2011-01-06T06:11:00.000-08:00

As I think I've mentioned a few gazillion times before, the big old house we live in is kind of hard to heat. We've tried over the years to make it a little more energy efficient by adding insulation and updated windows, but in the long run, high ceilings, a lot of big windows and, for that matter, a lot of square footage, means it's a challenge to stay warm without a fair amount of cold cash.
But it's not just the money.
Most of the time, it's just the two of us, so it has seemed sort of irresponsible to heat an entire house when we do most of our day-to-day living in about three or four rooms. In an effort to be more thrifty and responsible, I vowed that this would be the year we would turn the thermostat down, down, down and silence--at least some of the time--the steam boiler that rumbles, rattles and roars in our basement..
But my fear was that instead of living green and reducing the size of our carbon footprint, the dominate color would be blue--with cold--like the friend of mine who spent a recent winter rambling around his own hard-to-heat barn clothed in stocking cap, muffler, winter coat and half-gloves that allowed him to glumly turn the pages of his book while wondering if he was, indeed, seeing his breath in the frosty confines of his sitting room.
One of our main living areas is the kitchen, which has no radiator at all, based on the theory, I guess, that it would be heated by the oven as it baked the made-from-scratch goodies that we seldom get around to making. For the past fews years, it's been warmed up from freezing to just kinda cold by one of those electric radiators, which works well enough to keep the sink from freezing, though the wall-mounted microwave oven sometimes needs to be warmed and coaxed into life by briefly turning on the gas range below. We like our bedroom cold, so that's no problem, except when convincing oneself to crawl out from beneath the covers in the cold dawn light to make coffee and let in the clamoring cat. The room that really needed help is in the back of our house. It actually used to be a separate apartment, converted from a semi-attached garage by my grandfather during the great depression in an effort to make a little extra money and save the house from foreclosure; an effort, I might add, that failed, as he lost both his home and his business during those hard times. When we bought the house in the 80's, that area became an office of sorts, until I was crowded out by my sons who turned it into a kind of "no-mom's-land" where they hung out with their friends, watched TV, played video games and music, and otherwise declared a state of semi-, but not total, independence from us, their parents. Now that we're a two-person-and-one-cat family, we've settled back into the area, which features surrounding banks of windows, its own bathroom, and even a small kitchen and refrigerator.
But it's cold back there, located, as it is, at the very end of the line, heat-wise.
Or at least it was, until I purchased and installed an electric space heater. But not just any space heater. This one is modeled after a small wood stove, complete with black enamel finish and faux log and flames.
I have been delighted by the look and feel of the thing as its fake fire merrily flickers and it pushes out enough heat to turn a real-chilly room into a kinda-cozy den.
But that's just one room.
The rest of the place is still pretty chilly, requiring a mode of dress that is often somewhat, er, polar.
Warm socks and extra sweaters do the trick most of the time, but it is in morning that our true cold weather fashion statements come to life. I usually go with a layered outfit that includes pajama pants, sweatshirt, heavy socks and the kind of grizzled flannel robe usually worn by someone's grubby great-uncle who hasn't left home since 1959. She, on the other hand, has been known to sport an ensemble that can, on certain special days, feature a red fuzzy robe and a candy-striped nightgown that do an fine job of setting off her dazzling leopard-spotted slippers.
It makes for an interesting husband-wife set of dynamics when the doorbell rings and we're left to squabble over who will startle the UPS man or an unsuspecting neighbor.
Me: "I think it's your turn."
She: "In your dreams, pajama-boy."
When the Christmas holidays rolled around, I gratefully abandoned my cold-house commitment and cranked up the heat for our kids and beloved grandchildren.
For a few days, it was like Christmas in Aruba or some other warm-weather spot.
The radiators hissed and heated. I no longer had to start every day with a search for wool socks and long underwear. All was well. All was warm.
Then they left.
Driven by my own silly conscience and the promise I had made to myself, I turned the thermostat way, way, way down again.
The boiler fell silent. The radiators were, once again, cold to the touch.
"I miss them," she said on the day after the kids and grandkids left.
I do, too.
I miss the joy of family on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.
I miss late-night chats with grown-up children and early morning breakfasts with the younger set.
I miss the fun. I miss the laughter.
And I miss the warmth.
In more ways than one.

Confessions of a Snow-Man

2010-12-30T06:56:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make.
While it's nothing too serious, having nothing to do with my political attitudes, religious views or even my favorite prime-time television show, it's still something that might give you pause.
Because here's the thing:
I like snow.
Not just the light, soft, fluffy covering most folks hope for when Christmas Eve rolls around.
I like snow. Real snow. Big snow.
My sister, who lives on the shores of Lake Superior, where they, no doubt, coined the term "lake effect snow," puts it this way.
"I'd rather have snow than frozen mud."
Me, too.
For me, it's probably an attitude born in the days when a whopper snowstorm meant a day off school.
While an ordinary school day would find me literally having to be dragged out of bed to face the math test I hadn't studied for or the book report I had failed to write, the mere mention of some possible wintertime accumulation from the lips of TV weather-king Don Wooten would leave me trembling with anticipation. Ordinarily a sound sleeper, I would rise from my bed time after time during the night to peek out my window. But like a watched pot, a hoped-for snowstorm never comes, and I would, finally, sleep until I would hear my dad and mom stirring in the early morning light.
It was the critical moment.
Instead of looking outside for myself, I would stay huddled under the blankets in my mostly unheated bedroom, waiting anxiously for what would come next. If it had not snowed enough--or not at all--I would soon hear my dad call my name in the first step of a multi-phase strategy intended to get me out of bed and off to school. But if--wonders of wonders--enough snow had fallen to clog the country roads and force the cancellation of classes, they would leave me undisturbed.
I would count the seconds and minutes, knowing that every moment that passed increased the chances of the news I hoped for. Sometimes I would jump the gun, creeping downstairs in certainty that school had been called, only to be greeted with a knowing smile by my mother, who understood, and even sympathized, with my day-off dreams.
"Oh good, you're up early," she'd say. "You'll have time to shovel the walk before you go to school."
Now, my mother didn't have a mean bone in her body, but those off-hand words would chill me like an icicle plunged deep into my heart, as the combination of "up early," "shovel the walk" and "go to school" were almost more than my tender sensibilities could bear.
Suddenly, I was exhausted, wanting nothing more than to return to my bed until phase two of the getting-up process, which consisted of lying on the floor in front of the heat register in the bathroom until someone pounded on the door to drive me out and into the cold, cruel world.
But once in awhile, something wonderful would happen.
"No school," my dad would say.
My heart would leap with joy. Noschoolnoschoolnoschool!
No math test. No book report. No problems whatsoever.
Of course, the thought that my one-day reprieve might offer a good chance to actually study and do my homework never entered my mind, as I was instantly engulfed with a desperate need to get out there and play in the wonderful white stuff that had granted me my freedom. Of course, liberty had its price. The 16-mile front walk at our house really did need to be shoveled. And so did the eight zillion square miles of snow around my dad's pharmacy building in downtown Galva.
But soon enough, I was free. Free to go sledding, free to build snow forts, to throw snowballs, trudge through drifts and dig snow caves with my buddies as we played our own versions of North to Alaska and arctic explorer. Free to play all day until, with half-froze noses and toes, we would pile into the nearest mom's kitchen for hot chocolate, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.
All pretty simple stuff, I know. But if you can think of anything better, let me know.
You might think I would have outgrown my thing for snow by now.
Certainly, my 25-year commute to Peoria made me less thrilled about traveling when the winter wind blows and the drifts are high. And if that didn't do it, my current gig as a sportswriter, complete with off-the-beaten-track remote locations, late nights and the need for speed when deadlines loom, completed my disinclination to face wintery road conditions with anything less than something akin to dread.
But I still like snow. I like the way it looks as big, lazy flakes float through the pool of light cast by the streetlamp in front of my house late at night. I like the way the sun shines and finds a million tiny diamonds, and the way the long, low light of late afternoon turns the snowy landscape into something surreal. I like walking through the park after dark, with soft powder spraying from my boots in a quiet night so still that my own breathing is the loudest sound around. I love watching kids play in that same park in daytime, turning the snowplow-built hills into Matterhorn Mountains and the playground slides into dizzying downhill adventures. I even sort of like digging out, as my neighbors and I work together to rejoin our sidewalks and kind of conquer winter's grip for awhile. And while highway driving is no treat for anyone, bopping around town in the unstoppable 4-wheel Trooper still gives me a bit of a buzz.
But most of all, I like just looking. Looking and remembering those precious early-morning days when simple things like snowstorms and grilled cheese were enough to fill my heart with boundless joy. When mom would smile and dad would say the words I longed to hear.
It's no wonder.
I like snow.

The Truth About My Grandfather

2010-12-24T20:57:00.000-08:00

I truly loved my grandfather when I was very young.
But I didn't know he was a man about whom songs were sung.
One day as I was missing him while hanging tinsel on a tree
My mother sat me down and told this tale to me.

A true, true tale, A Christmas story
Told without much pomp and glory
Told to me as I tell to you
My Christmas story, totally true.

My grandfather, my mother's dad
Never did much to make her sad
Except one thing she could not believe:
He was never home on Christmas Eve.

He had a business selling clothes
Lots of these and lots of those
A business that sure kept him hopping
When people did their Christmas shopping.

So he'd stay there late on Christmas Eve.
No, he wouldn't budge and he wouldn't leave
He didn't want to let them down
When all those people came to town

To shop for gifts, both large and small
He'd stay all night to help them all.
But he wasn't home, you see
He wasn’t where she hoped he’d be.

So they'd cook and clean and dream and sing without him.
They'd go to church on a midnight clear without him.
And finally, when they came home, he'd be there with no warning.
Tired and happy. Glad to see them. Home for Christmas morning.

But he was not the only early morning Christmas guest,
While they'd been gone, someone else about the house had messed.
Hanging stockings, leaving gifts, and lighting lights on a tall, tall tree.
They'd ask him and he'd answer: "It was like this when I got here. Oh, no, it wasn't me."

One year, about a week before the Christmas holiday,
My mother was doing something that we all do to this day.
Digging deep into a closet to see what she could see
A Christmas snoop was what she was. That's what she said to me.

Just as she reached the very back, she saw an amazing sight.
A pair of black and shiny boots and a red suit trimmed in white.
A hat, a scarf, a pair of gloves and a little tiny bell.
She knew the man who wore those clothes. She knew him very well.

I truly loved my grandfather when I was very young.
But I didn't know he was a man about whom songs were sung.
One day as I was missing him while hanging tinsel on a tree
My mother sat me down and told this tale to me.

She never told the tale again and she didn't have to tell
That on every Christmas Eve she listened for that tiny bell.

So every year, on that same day, I wait until it's night
And go outside and listen to the twinkling starlight.
I listen for a tiny bell
And I think you know the cause.
I listen for him coming home.
My Grandfather, Santa Claus.

Because Christmas is for Giving

2010-12-23T07:01:00.000-08:00

Christmas comes but once a year, but some folks just can't help themselves.
They keep on giving all year long.
The ones I admire the most are those who do it quietly, generously and entirely from the heart.
Like Linda Spring and Crystal Dennis of Bishop Hill's Filling Station restaurant, a place that devotes so much time and talent for the benefit of others, that you've gotta wonder when they find a chance to do much for themselves.
We loaded up our North Carolina kids and grandkids for a trip to the historic colony Tuesday morning for the Filling Station's holiday "on the house" biscuit and gravy breakfast thanking customers for their patronage throughout the year. But the Filling Station ladies couldn't resist a chance to do something good for someone else, too, with attendees asked to consider making a free will donation to the community driven fund for little Ella Berry, who was born in September with a congenital heart defect and remains hospitalized.
The food was great.
So was the cause.
It's just the latest in a seemingly unending string of events sponsored by the restaurant that has included benefits for local cancer victims and others facing catastrophic illnesses, plus the Honor Flight Network, and a long, long list of other good causes, including next Wednesday's breakfast that will see them team up with Compton Accounting for the benefit of the local food pantry.
"I think if you have a chance to help, you ought to," said Spring. "I don't feel like we do that much. We're just a vehicle that allows people to be generous. It's amazing how much people will do."
Like you, ladies. Just like you.

+++++

One of the best things about the weather we've been having is watching our southern-born grandchildren (and daughter-in-law) as they see and experience real winter for the first time. Four-year-old Cyrus pelted me with his first-ever snowball moments after their arrival on Saturday, while young John Patrick so far prefers eating the stuff to throwing it. They've plunged right into the season, trying ice skating, sledding, snowball fights, snowman building and all the other snow-related activities us yankees take for granted. They've also experienced near-froze noses and toes, which, if not as enjoyable, are certainly part of the wintertime package, especially when countered with grandma’s hot chocolate and warm kisses.
We're anticipating the arrival of the northern Minnesota contingent, a winter-hardened bunch who will probably consider our version of the season a paltry effort, indeed. But we and the southerners look forward to luring those Minnesotans to the Carolina beaches later this year, where they'll have a chance to experience something new for them: A summer that actually lasts more than a week and a half

+++++

It’s hard to imagine something more wonderful than having children and grandchildren home for Christmas. We know that it might not always be that way, as jobs, schedules, commitments, distance and weather all play a part in making it tough for us to get our wish every year. I asked my favorite Christmas elf what she wanted for Christmas the other day, and she looked at me in surprise.
“I’m already getting the only present I want,” she said.
I know who she meant...and I know what she means.

The Ghosts of Christmas Presents

2010-12-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

My fashion and current events advisor tells me that the “ugly holiday sweater” party is the new hip thing.
Once again, I am, in my opinion, way ahead of the pack.
She initiated a sudden, violent closet cleaning spree the other day in anticipation of a Christmas visit from our kids and grandkids. I was hoping she might have forgotten the guest room closet, which is the repository for all the suits I never wear anymore and the sweaters I never wore in the first place.
But she didn’t.
Opening the door of the closet was kind of like that scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” when the Nazis pry open the Ark of the Covenant.
Ghosts of Christmas presents whirled and twisted and moaned throughout the room. There were red ones, green ones, red and green ones, and some with patterns and colors that could only be a result of the 80’s.
Most I bagged for a trip to Goodwill.
One little zig-zagged red-and-white number, that has an inexplicably dainty lace-like collar and is so heavy that it's like having an adult big horned sheep clinging to your back, already went to a friend in need of something really startling for a holiday happening.
But a couple, I snuck back into the closet.
So if you’re looking for something (or someone) truly ugly, and Christmasy, too, call me.
I’m your man.
++++++++++
Among the finest gifts of all are the memories we have about this most special holiday.
Many of the ones from my younger days have to do with my anxious attempts to BE GOOD in the weeks right before Christmas. Of course, thinking that extra-good behavior in those last few desperate days would both make up for a not-so-good eleven-and-a-half months and somehow fool a man who even “knows when you are sleeping” was kind of like studying my arithmetic for the very first time on the night before the semester test.
But I did that, too, so, getting a late start was nothing new to me.
My older brother, who was an evil genius so determined and clever that he could make you laugh in the face of his most diabolic torture, knew of my concerns. And so, he made it his mission to make things a little worst.
Our family legend was that it was Santa’s elves who crept around to check on us. Big brother, therefore, cut out a perfect silhouette of what he figured a North Pole elf would look like, including beard and pointy hat. He then taped the thing to the outside of the shade of our bedroom window and waited. After nightfall, the street lights from in front of our house backlit the cutout once the lights in the room were extinguished.
“Look, John, an elf!” he whispered from his bed.
I buried my head under the covers.
Finally, needing oxygen and hoping it was all a mirage, I peeked out.
But the elf was still there, listening and watching.
“Do you think he knows about the window?” I whispered back, referring to a yet-to-be-discovered incident involving a snowball and my dad’s garage.
“Probably,” replied my brother. “But you could probably make up for it if you went downstairs and made me a peanut butter sandwich.”
Yeah, nobody said I was smart. But apparently it worked.
Santa Claus came again that year.

The Stats tell the Story

2010-12-09T05:58:00.000-08:00

Summer will come.
And the boys of summer will play their game again.
But for Cubs fans and players, things won’t be the same, because Ron Santo died last week at age 70 from complications due to bladder cancer.
After the comments I made about non-Hall of Famer Roger Maris a few weeks ago, it seemed only right to remember a northside legend who is widely thought of as the best player who’s never made it into the hall.
A 14-year player and 20-year radio color commentator for the boys in blue, Santo’s non-induction has served as a hot topic ever since he first failed to make it in.
I can’t really say why, but if you you want opinions, they exist in countless sports pages, sports blogs and sports bars alike.
And while I’m no stats geek, his numbers (342 home runs, 1,331 RBI, 5 Gold Glove Awards and 8 All-Star teams) seemed to put him well in the hunt for induction.
But it never happened for the old Cub.
And it really doesn’t matter.
Because the man himself might be better defined by some stats that have nothing to do with baseball at all.
Imagine this: During his annual physical before leaving for his very first minor league camp, doctors found sugar in Santo’s urine. At age 18, he was diagnosed with Type 1 juvenile diabetes, the most serious and insulin-dependent form of the disease.
Here’s the stat Ron Santo heard that day: A life expectancy of 25 years.
But what was possibly even more terrifying to Santo was the possibility that the disease would prevent him from realizing his dream to play major league baseball for the Chicago Cubs.
So he kept it a secret.
It wasn’t until Wrigley Field sponsored a Ron Santo Day in late in his career in 1971 that he announced to the world that he suffered from the disease that would eventually cost him both of his legs.
Then he set about trying to make some changes.
The Ron Santo story contains countless tales of calls and visits he made to young people diagnosed with the disease with a message of unfailing encouragement and endless hope. And that story includes an undying effort to find a cure...not for himself, but for all the estimated 120 million people affected by the disease.
Here’s another stat: Dollars raised for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation by Ron Santo:
$50 million.
Good game, number ten.
++++++++++
It’s cookie time.
One way to make me happy is to bake cookies.
A way to quickly deflate my joy is to bake them for someone else.
With the St. John’s Altar and Rosary Society’s annual Cookie and Candy Walk set for this Saturday from nine to eleven, our kitchen has been transformed into a maelstrom of heated activity, flour-covered cookbooks and crisis-level decision making. I wisely and hastily made my escape to the offices of the Star Courier the other day, planning to arrive back home only after the coast was clear.
Or, at least, that’s what I hoped.
“Honey, I’m home,” I called, thinking it might be cookie sampling time.
Bang. Crash. Rattle...and a cry of frustration.
I was immediately reminded of the famous line delivered in an iconic Walt Disney film of my youth.
“Run, Bambi, into the thicket and don’t look back!”
But it was too late. She had heard me come in.
“I’ve got a big problem here,” she said. (note: no written words can quite express the emotion with which this statement was delivered.)
Somehow, the handle to our oven door had just worked itself loose on one end, leaving a dangling piece of worthless metal that wouldn’t quite open a 350 degree oven filled with just-about-ready-to-burn cookies. But, after a some frantic thought and a quick dig into my junk drawer, a long-bladed screwdriver proved adequate to lever open the door and save the day. And the cookies.
After the door (and she) cooled down a bit, a trip to Hathaway’s True Value provided me with the hardware needed to repair it once and for all (I hope) and restore peace to the land.
“You’re my hero,” she said.
Uh, yeah. But where’s my cookie?

Up on the Housetop

2010-12-02T05:09:00.000-08:00

The nice weather we experienced in the earlier days of November encouraged many folks to get outside and hang, nail, staple, wire and otherwise attach a wondrous plethora of brightly lit Christmas decorations to the exterior of their homes.
Not me, though.
It's not that I especially like climbing ladders and wrestling with tangled strings of half-dead lights and itchy, sticky pine garlands in the colder days of December. It's just that we like the look of pumpkins, fall leaves and corn shocks, and think they're more appropriate in the days leading to and through Thanksgiving. To me, a house layered with lighted candy canes and twinkling stars before you even get your first taste of stuffing and gravy is rushing a season that is already shoved into too-early existence by retail abominations like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I did kind of admire the ingenuity of a guy down the street who combined his Christmas decor with a giant inflated turkey, but, for the most part, I'd rather wait.
But now, Thanksgiving is over.
I'm out of excuses.
Say what you will about owning a big house. It's hard (and expensive) to heat in the winter, and even pretty tricky to keep cool in summertime, once its high-ceilinged rooms really fill up with hot, humid air.
But it's a great place for Christmas.
Those same high ceilings, a fireplace and mantle, an open staircase and bannister, and a large, pillared porch all beckon, waiting for red and green (and white and gold and silver) finery to celebrate the coming of the season. As in many of the things we do, one of us is management, while the other is labor. As the blue-collar member of our team, it is generally my job to climb the ladders and mount the porch railings with coat pockets bulging with stapler and hammer, to bring her mind's-eye holiday vision to life.
"A little higher on the right," she said, as I clung to a porch pillar like a rickety, middle-aged monkey. "Maybe you should come down and look at it."
Come down? Look at it?
Feeling--as I did--like a tree-trapped kitten waiting for the fire department, and afflicted--as I am--with male pattern blindness, I hastened to assure her, as I always do, that whatever she thought looked right was way fine with me.
Large as our house is, you might think it would be hard to decorate the entire thing, but we have an entire room in the basement--called the "holiday room"--dedicated to the trappings of each season, plus specific holidays like Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and, especially, Christmas. The room currently contains no less than six full-sized artificial trees and a whole herd of miniature models, which are the unnatural descendants of years and years worth of the "fresh' trees that we used to carefully stalk, choose, cut and drag home. The last of those was a 10-foot beauty now known in family lore as the "Chernobyl Tree," because it slowly, quietly and inexplicably turned brown and dropped each and every one of its 17 gazillion needles the week before Christmas over a decade ago.
We made a panicky buy of our first fake fir that year, and have prowled the after-Christmas sales ever since, looking for new members of the brigade of balsams that now bedeck our abode. They don't all make the cut every year, but on those glorious occasions when we are expecting kids and grandchildren for the holidays, it's apt to be a tree in just about every room.
And the trees are just the beginning in a decorating scheme that includes all manner of wreaths, garlands, candles, angels, Santa Claus figures and--most importantly, the Nativity that marks the real reason for the season.
Both of our sons and their families are, indeed, coming for Christmas this year, if weather and circumstances allow, so I suspect we're gonna be going all out to transform our dwelling into a child-friendly forest of light and color. We took advantage of a kinda-balmy Sunday to put lights and garlands on the outside and are now working on the inside, but I'm not sure I'm really finished with the exterior display. So if you drive by and see a life-size figure of Santa Claus waving from the roof, please take a second look.
It may not be Santa at all.
It might just be me, up on the housetop, waving for help.
Desperately seeking a safe way down.

The Music Man

2010-11-24T05:48:00.000-08:00

I always said that if I invented a time machine, I’d use it to do something useful, like go back 30 years and invest in Apple Computer, or try and prevent something awful, like the invention of the cell phone or the leaf blower. I did go back in time recently, but instead of wealth or satisfaction, I got irony.
You see, my grandson is a musician.
A drummer, in fact.
In a heavy metal band.
Now, I’m an ardent supporter of any kind of live music, even though metal probably isn’t what I’d choose for an afternoon tea or the soundtrack for my own funeral. But it’s pretty loud stuff, even radiating all the way from the garage, through the walls and up the stairs into the second floor living room of my son and daughter-in-law’s home, where we were supervising grandchildren and wondering if we might need either a hearing check or head examination soon. But as a musician myself, I’m determined to support any attempt to make music, no matter how earth and ear shattering it might be.
BOOM-WHAPPA-BOOM-WHAPPA-BOOM-WHAPPA-BOOM-WHAP
She: That’s kinda loud, isn’t it?
Me: What’d you say?
I have a lengthy background in quite a few kinds of popular music. It’s a part-time “career” that began back when I was a young teenager. I graduated from a soft, mellow classical guitar and folk music, to a cheap but loud Japanese electric guitar and amp, then embarked on a determined campaign to learn every good song on the WLS Silver Dollar Survey.
I set about accomplishing this by playing--over and over and over and over--the same basic group of three-chord rock -and-roll hits in my parents’ dining room, just feet from where they sat, vainly trying to read, watch television and think straight.
WANG-WANG-WANG-WHA-WHA-WANG-WANG-WANG-WHA-WHA
My mom” “It’s kinda loud, isn’t it?”
My dad: “What’d you say?”
I couldn’t help but think of them. I couldn’t help thinking of how truly loving and supportive they always were.
+++
“If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes and it will change.”
We’ve all heard this hackneyed old phrase that virtually every region of the country claims for its own.
But.
Our return trip from son Colin’s place in Northwest Minnesota provided a study in contrast. We woke up on departure day (Monday) to the sight of 8 inches of fresh snow, with more piling up at an alarming rate. Increasing my pleasure at these wintery conditions was a temperature that threatened to cause my unprotected ears to freeze and fall clattering to the driveway as I shoveled us out. Yes, it was all of ten degrees, with a brisk breeze to boot. The weather guys reported it as a “narrow band” of dreadful weather, so we set out for home. Whiteouts and crazy truck traffic drove us off the expressway quickly, so we zig-zagged our way on secondary roads, taking our time and eventually easing out of the snow belt. It was midafternoon when we started getting calls from home.
Seventy degrees.
Windy.
Scary-looking skies.
Sirens.
Another tornado in Galva!
Sheesh.
If we could have gotten an earlier start and hustled a little more, we could have enjoyed a full sixty-degree temperature swing, plus just about every brand of severe weather in the book.
Maybe next time.

What I found in Fargo

2010-11-18T05:48:00.000-08:00

What are we doing in Fargo?
November in Fargo is not exactly April in Paris.
Other than the denizens of even chillier outposts like Thief River Falls and Grand Forks, who probably drive down to warm up a bit, I can’t imagine anyone would come this way on purpose anytime after the first snow.
Actually, my son and his family live across the Red River in Moorhead, Minnesota, but Fargo is more fun to say, especially for those who fondly remember a certain quirky movie that featured multiple murders, thick upper midwest accents and an allegorical wood chipper.
So, what are we doing in Fargo?
The stated purpose was a quick visit and some grandkid-watching while our son and daughter-in-law made their escape via a quick work-and-fun trip to the west coast.
But, the first order of business was getting there, which is not always a small task when the winds turn cold and winter weather sweeps across the plains. Forecasts, in fact, were for up to ten inches of new, cold, white stuff right along our usual travel path through northern Iowa and central Minnesota. We countered with a headlong dash straight west in an effort to curl under the storm and head north behind it.
Amazingly, it worked. We made it, though it took a couple hours longer than usual. But after seeing the big, bad blizzard that hit our regular route, we realized the long way was the best way this time.
But what are we doing in Fargo?
One of us was planning a trip to the local Fargo Mall.
“Do you want to come?” she asked.
I was thinking about sharp blows to the kidneys, sinus infections, root canal work and all the other things I’d choose over a mall visit when someone added,
“They’ve got that baseball thing.”
Baseball thing? Did someone say baseball thing?
The thing in question is none other than a museum dedicated to local boy, home run king and hero of my youth Roger Maris, who stunned the baseball world--and himself, I think--by hitting 61 home runs in 1961, breaking a record set by Babe Ruth over 30 years before. The museum is located in a shopping mall because that’s how Roger Maris wanted it.
“Put it where people will see it, and where they won’t have to pay for it,” he said.
Yes, it’s free, though I would have happily paid a couple of bucks to see the uniforms, pictures and other memorabilia, and watch the short documentary that ran continuously.
I remember that 1961 season well. I was a Yankee fan myself, partially because, with just a couple of televised games per week, they were pretty apt to be in the regular rotation simply because they were so darn good. That’s the other reason I liked them, as I had not yet developed the sad, silly persona of a Cubs fan and still thought winning was the point of playing the games.
They call Maris a “reluctant hero,” not because of any lack of drive or determination, but because he would have been happier almost anywhere but in the spotlight. He was an uncommon kind of superstar even then, though the differences would be almost incomprehensible among the inflated egos of today’s ballplayers.
“Nowadays, guys take curtain calls for sacrifice flies in July,” said writer Bob Costas of Maris’ hesitant, almost blushing wave to the cheering New York faithful after he blasted number 61.
He was quiet and shy; a family man with six kids. He never really felt accepted by the New York fans and members of the media. That 1961 season was marred by incredible pressure fueled by hate mail and death threats from misguided nutjobs who either didn’t want the Babe’s record broken or wanted someone else to do it.
But Maris did break the record, with grace and class, and with the full support of his teammates, including Mickey Mantle, who battled him for the home run lead up until the last few weeks of the season.
But he never received the credit he deserved. And he still hasn’t. Despite a pair of Most Valuable Player Awards, all-star and golden glove seasons and that incredible 61-home run year, Maris has never been named to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
"He had a stellar career," said Maris’ son Kevin. "He did things in the game that no one has ever done. It would be nice to see baseball right a wrong that has been going on now almost 50 years. I think a lot of fans assume he's already in there, and when we tell him he's not, they're in awe, in shock. It would be nice to see baseball right an injustice."
Roger Maris died of cancer in December of 1985. He was just 51 years old.
“He was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there was,” said Mantle.

Technology Marches On

2010-11-11T05:30:00.001-08:00

I’m not in the market for a new ride right now, unless it’s the cool convertible I’m always dreaming about. But I was reading up on some of the new cars, anyway, and I was pretty impressed with all the stuff that’s now available--like hybrid gas/electric drive trains, voice-guided navigation systems, backup and blind spot cameras and thermal sensors, and--wait for it--a car that actually parallel parks itself. It’s all pretty heady stuff to a guy who considers a new, sproingier bungee cord to keep my driver’s side door shut as a pretty significant advance in automotive technology.
But it got me thinking.
"This is, perhaps, the most technologically advanced age ever," I thought.
Well, I don't really think about things in those kinds of terms, but you've got to admit there's a lot going on nowadays, between transportation and communications. But is this really the time when the most has happened?
Maybe not.
Take my paternal grandfather. The men on my dad's side of the family got married late in life as a rule, so the generations span an amazing amount of time. He, for example, was born in 1866, just a year after the end of the American Civil War.
That's right, my grandfather.
That's right, 1866.
The first civil rights act, the beginning of post-war reconstruction and Jesse James' first bank robbery were all in the news that year. And as proud as you might be of your Blackberry or iPod, imagine a lifetime (he died in 1917) that started in the days of mules and horses, wagons, the telegraph and steamboats, but saw an incredible array of ideas and inventions, including (but not limited to) the typewriter, barbed wire, bicycles, traffic lights, the telephone, transcontinental rail travel, the first practical gas and diesel engines, the automobile, motorcycle, airplane and helicopter, toilet paper, Coca-Cola, the dishwasher, the zipper, motion pictures, the vacuum cleaner, crayons, plastic, instant coffee and the Theory of Relativity.
My dad, who was born in 1904, was around for tea bags, corn flakes, sliced bread and the toaster, television and 3-D movies (3-D specs included), along with Scotch tape, the jet engine (and jet planes), antibiotics and polio vaccines, the atom bomb, the computer, the drive-in movie theatre, man-made satellites, the frisbee, the first parking meter, silly putty, the microchip, astroturf, the artificial heart, transworld air travel, the first video game, manned space flight and the first walk on the moon by men from earth.
Whew.
It's hard to imagine what my grandfather thought the first time he saw a primitive airplane chugging across the sky. And I know my dad, who once took a more-than-thrilling ride in a biplane piloted by a barnstorming World War One air corps veteran, was glued to the tube when men first stepped foot on the moon. I suspect their sense of excitement was somewhat greater than what I feel when I googlesearch a few baseball stats. And I do know they managed to take many of the new inventions in stride, with my grandfather developing his own brand of bicycles in the 1890's and my dad owning his own Model-T Ford at the age of 12.
I did a little research on the past couple of decades or so, and saw a different picture. For one thing, there seemed to be fewer really meaningful inventions listed in the period. And most of them had to do with forms of communications, with items like personal computers, cell phones and an ever-growing bunch of smaller and smaller devices intended to turn keep us firmly connected to the rest of the world wherever we go. The aforementioned automotive ideas rated no more than a mention as clever ways to sell a few more cars.
While many historians say that 15th century printer Johann Gutenberg's invention of the movable type presses that made the inexpensive mass-printing of books possible as, perhaps, the most important invention ever, it was the creation of the internet, along with the tools that relate to it, that seems to define where the world and its inventors are heading today.
Don't get me wrong; I love the internet and many of the other communications choices we now have at our fingertips. I love the ability to say, "I wonder" and find an answer quickly and easily. I liked being able to find out many of the facts cited in this column without digging through a pile of history books. I like writing a quick, instant message to my kids, and I truly adore seeing what my grandchildren are doing right when they're doing it.
But I don't like what new age technology has done to some kinds of communications. The handheld "social networking" devices that are an essential part of so many personal wardrobes keep us in ever-constant touch, but also can have an adverse effect what we say and how we say it, as we post, tweet, show and share a barrage of things--ranging from the banal to the downright obscene--that we'd never dream of saying and showing in person. "Interactive" and "virtual" are buzzwords of the new technology, but fall way, way short when they replace real face-to-face communications and actual reality.
Old fashioned as it might seem, I sill like going places, seeing things in person and, sometimes, even figuring things out for myself. And I guess I think we all could survive a little less technology...and a little more human contact.
I would, however, like someone to teach my car how to park itself.

But now, it's November...

2010-11-04T04:35:00.000-07:00

The first of November dawned bright and crisp. I enjoyed the flat, soft light and brisk breezes of the morning as I paced my front porch with the first coffee of the day. My stomach was, perhaps, a little grumbly from the taste-testing I had done the night before to make sure the treats we handed out to some 211 tricksters the night before were safe and edible and worthy of the holiday, but it was nothing compared to the satisfied glow of a self-sacrificing task well done. I can provide that number with some confidence, because I semi-carefully kept track as my wife oohed and aaahed over costumes and cheerily gave each little visitor their choice. Not because I cared, but because I was curious.
As we waited for the on-and-off stream of princesses and werewolves and dinosaurs and devils that appeared at our doorstep, it occurred to me that Halloween trick or treating is one of the few things that hasn’t changed much since I did it a long time ago. Kids still dress up and run from house to house, dragging along parents or older siblings and dreaming of the wonderful year they are deemed old enough to do it by themselves. They shout “trick or treat,” without much real idea of what a trick should or could be, for which I am thankful. Some say “thank you” and some don’t, but it really doesn’t matter as they revel over the sugar-based buffet of goodies provided by my clever companion. She is, after all, an imaginative purchaser and provider of new and unusual treats, and while it’s not exactly foie gras and smoked salmon on the menu, it always receives rave reviews from those lucky hundreds who partake in it.
But now it’s November.
I can tell, because the chill in the air is in earnest. I have finally agreed to welcome cold weather with my annual, grudging, upward spin of our thermostat, so the boiler in our basement chugs and rumbles as warming steam bangs its way through the cold pipes and radiators in our hard-to-heat house. I can tell because the leaves have changed and fallen, and even the majestic pin oak in the park across the street has begun to display the dusty gold glow that is often the final step towards a barren winterscape.
The crops are mostly out of the fields now, with the backroads crowded with trucks and tractors pulling the tools and fertilizers that will finally prepare the ground for its winter sleep.
We wonder about upcoming trips, with a journey planned for Minnesota later this month, no firm plans for Thanksgiving yet, and with hopes that winter weather and busy schedules will cooperate enough to see children and grandchildren in our home for Christmas.
But you never know. It’s November, now, and the weatherman is even talking about snow this week. My older son Colin, the erstwhile southern Illinoisan turned Minnesotan, sent me a picture the other day that showed a jolly jack o’lantern layered with their first white stuff of the season.
“Happy Hallowinter,” I laughingly replied. But now it’s November, and the real winter weather can’t be far behind.
A shiny box of apples sits on the table, along with the last crumbs of the cider donuts I couldn’t resist, while hot soups and crusty bread have re-entered our diet. Salty, my self-tamed, hand-fed squirrel has almost entirely deserted me now as his interests turn from the fast-food crackers I hand out to hardier stuff, like the nuts he’s buried for the what’s to come.
Even his arch-nemesis, my surly cat, Max has noted the change of seasons.
He was waiting for me the other night when I got home after covering a late game. It was almost 11, and the moon and stars shown bright on the frosty landscape. He came inside with me to try and con me out of some extra grub, then asked to go outside again. Max enjoys the nighttime, where I know he stalks and hunts and otherwise acts like the feral little beast he really is.
I opened the door for him and he started to slip over the threshold. Suddenly, from the park across the street, came the low, throaty hoot of a great horned owl, looking for his own cold-weather repast. We hear those owls all year long, but now the cry sounded hungrier, somehow, as all wild creatures wait to hunt and to be hunted in readiness for a new season.
Max looked up at me, his eyes big as saucers.
Slowly, he backed away from the door and crept back into the house. Then he streaked upstairs, where he crawled underneath the covers with his sleeping mistress.
“Welcome to the food chain,” I called to him. “The wrong end, that is.”
It’s November.
It will frost and frost again. The trees will shed every last leaf soon, and those leaves will dance and blow and burn and disappear. Many of the birds have headed to their winter nests, with squawking, chirping backyard-summer days replaced by the quieter, windblown sounds of autumn.
But it’s not just falling leaves and busy squirrels and hungry owls that mark this time of year.
We recently overheard a waitress in a New England cafe, who was talking to some customers who were inquiring into her background. She was, apparently, a local girl, who had lived in sunny Florida for several years before returning to her native Vermont.
“It’s just not natural for things to stay green all year long,” she exclaimed. “The seasons need to change. Things need to rest for awhile.”
People, too, I guess.
Soon enough, it will be yet another time of year. We will fight the cold, the snow and all the other weather-related challenges that face us. Wintertime and the holidays will plunge us into a desperate orgy of decorating and gatherings and celebrations and shopping. We will be busy beyond belief, because that’s how we are supposed to be.
But not yet.
Because right now, it’s November.

Just when you thought I wasn't paying attention

2010-10-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

“Are you listening?”
I’ve noticed that the other half of my spousal team often seems to think I miss a lot, probably because I don’t always hear what she’s saying or see what she’s seeing. But while she no doubt thinks I oughta have my eyes and ears (and head) examined, I take shelter in the fact that it’s a gender-based thing that’s out of my control. The hearing part is just selective deafness that prevents me from catching chore assignments and criticism as to my mode of dress or social deportment, while the seeing thing is simply Male Pattern Blindness, a chronic malady that strikes virtually every man once he gets married.
But I am paying attention, sometimes, at least. And as I’ve recently collected a few observations and revelations, it seems only fair to share.

•See how they run.
I gained a renewed respect for a brand of high school athlete last weekend when I covered the Sherrard IHSA Regional Cross County championships. 139 participants bravely. determinedly and spectacularly charged through wet, cold conditions in a sport that seems somehow foreign and way too tough to those of us who generally run only when chased by large, furry animals with big teeth.
Even the coaches log some miles, as they run from spot to spot on the course to cheer on their runners.
Heck, I got a little winded just watching them.
But in a day and time when some adults feel all kids are lacking in ambition, energy, drive and focus, it’s great to see just the opposite in these special athletes.
Kudos to all those kids who run hard to win...or just run hard to run.

•That’s how the ball bounces
Speaking of sports, I was covering a volleyball match the other evening when something occurred to me. Why is it that volleyball is the only sport where the ball can ricochet off the gym ceiling or rattle around in the girders and heating ducts up there and still be considered “live” and playable? I’m not objecting, mind you, as it’s pretty interesting to watch the girls maneuver themselves to be ready for the darn thing when it comes back down. In fact, I’d like to see that rule extended to a few other sports. Imagine how much more exciting basketball would be if you could bounce a pass off the ceiling or an air conditioner. And think about a football pass play that includes a rebound off the score board or goal post. It sort of reminds me of when my kids and friends used to play a brand of front-yard baseball that featured a huge hard maple and a giant fir tree as essential parts of the in-play field. A ball that got stuck in the branches could still be coaxed out, either by the wind or another thrown object, then caught for an out.
Sure made it interesting.
Just saying.

*Ditto on those political ads
Regarding another field of play, the political arena, Star Courier Associate Editor Mike Berry hit the nail squarely on the head in his column last week when he decried the negative brand of political advertising we’ve been subjected to recently. It’s not just a local thing, as opponent-bashing was in full swing in all the states we visited recently. Back in my days as an advertising agency guy, my company handled campaigns for a couple of U.S. Congressmen and several local and regional candidates. We consistently--and successfully--put a positive, truthful, informative spin on things, with ads that touted the accomplishments and ideas of our candidates, while all but ignoring the person on the other side of the fence.
So what happened?
I spent an hour watching the morning news segment today, and unfortunately, the vast majority of the on-air advertising was political. I should have kept track of the number of negative ads that were filled with misleading, out-of-context “facts,” but didn’t think of it before the number was too vast to recall. I can, however, tell you how many problem-solving, truly factual and informative messages there were:
Zero. Nada. Zip.
Are we really that dumb?
Are they?

•By the way, you can blame me
For those wondering about the period of high winds we’ve experienced this week, blame me. I recently raked and piled leaves. Twice.

The Homecoming

2010-10-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

The Eagle has landed.
Or in less obscure and dramatic terms, we’re home.
After a long jaunt up and down the eastern seaboard, we arrived back at our digs late last Wednesday night after a long, lazy drive out of the Smoky Mountains, through the rolling hills of Tennessee, into the flat Amish country of Indiana and southeastern Illinois and, finally, through the Illinois River Valley leading home.
All was well.
The house was still standing, my lawn had been mowed by good neighbor John, and even our cranky cat, Max, was waiting for us as if it had been just four hours instead of four weeks. Under the tutelage of his personal cat whisperer, our neighbor and house-watcher Shannon, he has now learned to actually eat the once-despised dry cat food that he generally ignores in favor of something canned and smelly. The only real sign he knows we were gone is that he insists on sleeping with us instead of going out to stalk in the nighttime neighborhood. On the other hand, it’s been pretty cold.
After weeks of sleeping bags, motels rooms and other borrowed bedsteads, the creaky old berth that once was my grandparents’ bed felt just fine as we began to settle back into life at home. The house was cold, as I had turned the thermostat way down before we left, but I’ve so far resisted the temptation to really warm the place up, as we continue to put off the real beginning of the bank-breaking time we call furnace season in our hard-to-heat old barn.
But it’s warm all the same as we share the beauty of midwest autumn, enjoy the greetings of friends and neighbors, hear all the news, and begin to tell the tales of our travels.
One of the things we’ve always done when we roam is to explore all the other places we could live if we wanted to. This trip was no different, as we looked closely at beachfront bungalows, brick cottages, backwoods shacks, intercoastal houseboats and cute water-view condos that caught our eyes. And while the thought of someplace different and nearer to water and woods and kids and, especially, grandchildren, is a tempting idea that we’ll continue to explore, it’s hard to imagine a life that doesn’t also include our big, old family home, our dear friends and the beautiful sight of Wiley Park on a crisp fall morning.
Home, that is.
+++++++++
We were startled by--and proud of--the sight of son Patrick, whose smiling visage graced the front page of the Jacksonville Daily News the morning after we arrived back in North Carolina after an up-coast swing. Paddy, who teaches English at nearby Richlands High School, is also the offensive line coach for the football team. It seems the O-line was expected to be the weak link on an otherwise talented squad, but after a four-game sweep that saw Richlands average over 50 points, he and his undersized overachievers were being credited with much of the season success so far.
“Coach Sloan has done a great job of pushing us and telling us anything’s possible, no matter how big or small we are,” said one player.
Attaboy.
By the way, Richlands shares a nickname (Wildcats) and colors (blue and gold) with the now-defunct Galva football Wildcats. Serendipity, plus all my old Galva stuff is right in style.
++++++++++
“You ought to write a travel column.”
That’s the reaction I’ve received from several readers since arriving home. Yes, I guess that’s kind of what this column has been for the past few weeks, as I’ve tried to tell you a little about where we’ve been and what we’ve seen. And while these pages will now turn to more home-bound topics until the next time we hit the road, I’d probably be amiss if I didn’t include a quasi-comprehensive list of “best” or, at least, memorable things encountered along the way, like the real travel writers do:
•Best beach: North Topsail Island, NC
•Best campsite: Ocracoke Island, Cape Hatteras National Seashore (nestled next to an oceanside dune, with the most incredible moon/stars display ever.)
•Best historic tour: Historic Jamestown, VA archaeological tour
•Best ferry ride (we took lots of them): Ocracoke to Cedar Island (two and a half breathtaking hours across Pamlico Sound)
•Best fall views: (tie) The mountains, streams and valleys of Vermont and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
•Best fall weather: Galva and Kewanee, from what we hear.
•Best back road: Highway 12 through the Outer Banks,which connects an island with the mainland via ferry.
•Most exciting experience: (tie) Sailing on Lake George; getting lost in the Bronx.
•Most lavish hotel room: Trump Marina in Atlantic City (under $50 with an AARP card!)
•Best meal: The birthday cake I shared with my grandsons.
•Best free stuff: The sample room at Ben & Jerry’s factory
•Best WiFi hotspot: McDonald’s--everywhere.
•Best public restroom (this is important, really.): My Old Kentucky Home State Park, Bardstown, KY
•Best highway sign (state-sponsored): Moose Crossing (Vermont)
•Best highway sign (non-state-sponsored): The word “Virginia” spelled out with pumpkins. (surprisingly, Virginia seems to be the jack o’lantern capital of the world.)
•Best place we had never heard of before but discovered along the way: The National Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Emmitsburg, MD.
•Best small town we had never heard of before but discovered along the way: Woodstock, VT.
•Best T-shirt: “Don’t ask the locals for directions, they lost an entire colony.” (Roanoke Island)
•Best food I thought I’d never try, but liked anyway: Goat cheese grits. (Really!)

From Beginning to End

2010-10-14T07:19:00.001-07:00

Sometimes it’s hard to know just when a story really starts.
This one probably began nearly a month ago as we pulled out of our driveway on the way to a pair of North Carolina weddings and a long list of places we wanted to try and see that would keep us bouncing on and around the eastern seaboard for the next four weeks. Or maybe it really began on a tree-lined street in a small Indiana town, as we shucked the tyranny of the interstate highway system and began enjoying the trip for the sake of the company and the view. It might have been the first glimpse of the mountains or the first breath of salt sea air; the first sloppy kiss from a grandson or the joyful ones shared by blushing brides and proud grooms. The sight and sound of relatives and friends around tables and trails and beaches and backyards and the water views and mountain majesties we all shared. The real story may have started the night we saw the midnight UFOs from the shores of our beachfront campground, or maybe on the rainy night I sent us hurtling the wrong way on the cross-Bronx expressway. The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Emmitsburg, Maryland and the Trump Marina hotel in Atlantic City both offered stories of their own, as did the battlefields of both the American revolution and the Civil War, the apple orchards and color-drenched mountains of upstate New York and Vermont, and the riptide currents of a hurricane-driven coast that finally gave away to slow, warm, gulf-stream waters. Fall came and came again over these past few weeks, throughout the hummocks and hills of the northeast forests and, finally, in the vast, winding prettiness of Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which had just received its autumn paint job as we traveled through on the last stretch towards home.
But if the places were pretty and varied and worth remembering, they were no more a part of this journey than the people.
We encountered convenience store clerks, waiters and waitresses, toll collectors, ferrymen, rangers, cops and a whole host of other folks who managed to be funny, interesting, happy and helpful in turn, making us realize that people really are ready to be nice if you give them a chance.
It’s been a shakedown cruise of sorts, as we test our wings, our energy, our enthusiasm and our full-time compatibility after years of diverse careers and interests that often made time together more like a series of stolen moments than a ongoing thing. No, it wasn’t all beer and skittles every mile of the way. Much of the on-the-road friction that did occasionally occur was due to my bold, but sometimes foolish navigation style. No doubt, my nighttime appearance, with a headlamp banded around my forehead and two pair of reading glasses stacked together for better map reading, did nothing to increase her confidence in my abilities. But we eventually got where we wanted to go, with well over 5000 miles of highways, backroads, coastal causeways and mountain passes to our credit.
The good news is she’s still speaking to me.
There are almost too many stories to tell, though I’m sure we’ll try over the next days and weeks and months and years, even. Meanwhile, we’ll look at pictures, scour over maps and memories...and dream about the next time.

Green Mountain Dreaming

2010-10-07T06:47:00.001-07:00

It all started with a cow.
A bunch of them, in fact, grazing and lazing in a mountainside meadow
in the shadow of the Adirondacks.
“That’s the biggest cow I’ve ever seen,” said my observant,
cow-conscious companion.
“It’s dairy country,” said my brother-in-law, who was driving us on an
apple-picking color tour of his region of upstate New York. “There are
a lot of dairy farms around.”
I’m no cow fancier myself, but there were, I thought, a whole lot of
cows, for sure.
The next day found us in lovely Vermont, which in the words of that
same companion is kind of like “Wisconsin with mountains."
Cows galore, that is. Big black and white Holsteins, along with the
ever-beautiful Green Mountains, now alive with the red-gold hues of
autumn.
I was glancing at one of those tourist maps that show different places
and events in the area when I saw it. While it might not be the
raison d'être for every one of those bovine buddies, it surely gives
them something to aspire to as they stand around.
Ben and Jerry’s.
The gentle ice cream giants have a factory just outside Waterbury,
Vermont, where they churn out (pun intended) a quarter million pints a
day. They also offer factory tours.
It was a cool, cloudy Monday in a state where every city--even the
busy ones like the capital--is kind of in the middle of nowhere. So, I
figured it might be a little slow in ice cream heaven. Heck maybe I’d
get the scoop on B & J’s without much delay. Maybe two scoops, even.
Wrong again.
The combination of the fall foliage season and the lure of lots of ice
cream combined for long lines of fans hoping for a glimpse--and a
taste--of their favorite.
We got our own first taste of Ben and Jerry’s back in the early 80’s,
before they became a nationally-known brand. We were visiting in the
northeast and I had been sent to the local market for ice cream.
Instead of returning with the requested Häagen-Dazs, I showed up with
a bagful of of wacky flavors like Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia.
She thought I was a genius, maybe for the first time.
Maybe for the only time, in fact.
We enjoyed the tour, especially the sample room. I even got an answer
about the cows, as the guide noted that the company “employs” 40,000
cows belonging to a family dairy co-op in the northern part of the
state.
“Model employees,” he quipped. “All out standing in their field.”
But even more enjoyable was experiencing the way the topography and
scenery evolves as you travel across and down through Vermont. From
meadows and cows and distant mountains to close-up mountainsides mixed
with racing streams and deep, deep forests, the state is a back-road
dream. Our sense of adventure was heightened by repeated “Moose
Crossing” signs, along with one warning that there might even be a
bear here and there.
I’m asked, from time to time, whether there’s a part of the country I
like the best.
I can honestly say I’ve liked them all on this extended east coast
foray. It’s been kids and grandchildren on the beach, American history
lessons in the Chesapeake basin, the warm welcome of a cousin living
on the edge of the Civil War battlefield called the Wilderness, the
excitement of sailing with a sister and brother-in-law on beautiful
Lake George, and some wonderful wandering through the land of maple
syrup and Robert Frost.
But best of all is the fact that we’re doing it. We’re going to some
of the places we always said we’d go, seeing some of what there is to
see, and dreaming of the next time we hit the road together.
Dreaming, too, of the long road ahead and the way home.

America...from the beginning

2010-09-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

Zoom.
“Wait, slow down.”
“What?”
“I wanted to read that historical marker.”
“Oh...sorry.”
Zoom.
“Do me a favor, willya?”
“What?”
“Just go a little faster so I won’t even be tempted to look.”
It’s hard to imagine being in a place without wondering what it was like before. While there’s plenty of interesting history to be had right where we live, spending time in the southeastern stretches of coastal Virginia and North Carolina provides a veritable treasure trove of ideas and information for history buffs like us. I, for one, revel in the kind of trivia and minutia that’s made me a terror at both Trivial Pursuit and as a Cliff Clavin-style historian, while she, a teacher to the end, wants to know, retain and share the facts. Those two interest areas are often apt to conflict, with me wanting to sniff around every historic high-and-low-light, no matter how small or unimportant, while she’d rather dedicate time to understanding and appreciating the bigger picture and more significant historic sites and events. The resulting difference in styles accounts for the the dialogue at the beginning of this column.
No matter, because there’s plenty of both to go around in the region we’ve been exploring...an area one colonial Jamestown archeologist called “Ground Zero for modern America” while touring us through the original site of England’s first permanent settlement in the new world. Jamestown is far from the only place to look and learn, as we’ve discovered in a diverse collection of stops that has also included the lost colony of Roanoke Island, Williamsburg, Edenton and Ocracoke Island. It’s a tour that will continue over the next few days as we meander here and there and further north on our latest low-stress, low-budget look at America.
Some of the places we’ve seen so far are treasured national monuments, and some are little more than dots on a map. But close up, they all seem important in the formation of a nation that, today, sometimes shines and sometimes struggles to live up to that first glowing promise .
We’ve been touched in many ways as we’ve looked at the lives and homes and cultures of those early natives, settlers and slaves who came together, did what they did and created a society that started it all.
“I know we need to go to Europe someday, but there’s so much to see right here in America,” she said.
She’s right. And this is just a start.