Adios Nine to Five

                       Adios Nine to Five


It was a happy day, a sad day; it was a day for long last looks and bittersweet thoughts.  It was a day for hugs and smiles, pats on the back, laughter and tears.  The workplace took on a different complexion today for her, a color never before seen when she realized that she’d never view it again as an employee.  She’d never climb those 22 stairs up to her office level again, never spend her weekdays among her “other” family, the folks she’d spent the long, echoing years working among.

She’d taken up her duties at this company 42 years ago when Nixon was president and the end of the Vietnam War was still raging.  Now it was Obama’s turn in the White House and the world had changed in uncounted ways.

I heard my wife Judy get out of bed early today, much earlier than normal for her.  I knew from her tossing and turning in the night just past that her rest had been fitful and her mind was already at her workplace, already shaking hands and smiling through the just-under-the-surface tears. 

Already saying goodbye.

I almost arose with her then, in the dark of her last day at work, to offer a ride to the office, to offer some funny remark, some bit of humor to make her relax a little.  But instead I stayed in bed as I normally did, listening to her go through her ritual of “getting ready for work” one last time.  This was her day and I wanted her to have that ritual unimpeded one last time.

I felt I understood her thoughts, at least a little bit, as I had gone through the same bittersweet period of time in my life four months ago when I did as she was about to do.

Retire.

When I heard her car leave the driveway I got out of bed and let the dog out of her crate.  She was raring to go, as always, and raced me down the stairs to await near her food bowl, her tail wagging madly, her nails clicking on the kitchen floor and her tongue already tasting her morning kibble.  She knew how mornings were supposed to go.  Food first, then outside where she would sniff the air, sniff the ground and watch the world all around with her bright doggie eyes.  She’d perhaps comment on a nearby squirrel, a robin hunting worms in the neighbor’s yard, a bicyclist zooming along or a noisy car passing on the street.  Hopefully she’d do her potty and we’d go back inside.  It was chilly this morning.

The dog never gave a thought about her mistress’s retirement that day.  Perhaps being a dog might be a good thing from time to time.

I drank my coffee and read the morning paper as usual, then got busy working on the project I’d been toiling on for a week or two – painting the kitchen.  It was a “normal” day for me, a “retired guy” kind of normal of course, but normal all the same. 

But my thoughts kept drifting to my wife.  Was she out of her last meeting with her boss yet?  Had she visited the workmen and engineers that all seemed to know her, even the ones she couldn’t quite put a name to?  Had she packed up the last leavings of her desk and turned off her computer for the last time?  Had she bid a heartfelt goodbye to the folks who worked closest with her, those whom she spent so doggoned many hours with.  Had she gazed around the office with the newly-minted eyes of a retired person, trying to imprint the sight into her mind, trying to place these images into a long-term memory that she could pull out sometime in the future and cherish.

Had she started home yet for the last time?

Around noon I heard her car come into the driveway and enter the garage.  Soon she was coming in the back door, her hands full with flowers, gifts and the final load of this-and-thats from 42 years at work.  She described her last day to me, first with a catch in her throat as she described the raw emotions of the morning.  As she recounted the events – the receipt of the flowers, a monetary gift from her supervisor, the many conversations of the morning – her voice cleared and the true joy of finally achieving retirement suddenly became evident to her.  She had arrived at last.

We chatted on for an hour or so, recounting our mornings – her's being the much more eventful one, of course – then took a drive to take care of some errands and to grab a bite to eat at one of the local restaurants.  The fresh spring air around us seemed lighter and more vibrant as we both realized that we had just embarked on a new journey, a trip paid for by us with our many years of toil. 

It was now time for the payoff, time to look around and see the world as a new and different place, a wonderful place, a place where we could do what we wanted on a Tuesday or Thursday as well as on a Saturday.  We could sleep in or get up early, be as energetic or as slothful as we wished.  We could grab a suitcase and hit the road for a few days if the notion took us.  We could take a class, learn yoga or pottery or how to speak Patagonian.  We could volunteer at a charity.  Hell, we could even take up skydiving!

And we were still mobile and not yet hampered by severe physical problems that would limit our adventures.

I could tell my wife was feeling much the same emotions as I.  Our conversation wandered around the future, things we could do, places we could see, friends we could have fun with and more idle chit-chat of that sort.

But deep down it still was a bittersweet day for her, I knew, leaving the day-to-day certainties of her work, the people there, the comfortable rhythms of the nine-to-five, the Monday through Friday, the relaxation of knowing that you were an expert at what you did and what you did you did well.

I also knew she was beginning to understand that the downside of work – getting up so darn early in the morning, dressing as someone else required you to dress, doing work that could sometimes be long, tiring and boring – was over!  All the rules, regulations and necessary behavior of the office was done! 

Finito! 

So now her last day at work is finished.  The sun has gone down on her time at the office and her being defined as “an employee of AABBC Company”.  Now she is retired, an independent contractor, footloose and open to whatever comes down the road.  She can do or not do, be or not be, enjoy or not enjoy as she defines each of those things. 

It was a bittersweet day, a tumultuous day, a day for emotions and tears, sorrow and smiles, farewells and I’ll-be-in-touchs.  A day both sad and happy.

So welcome to my world, wife.  May you find the happiness, the contentment and the joy you so richly deserve in the upcoming years.

Busy Days?

                           Busy Days?



I guess I could take a break from my busy day and sneak a few words into the blog. 

Did I say busy?  Hmmm…  Well, of course it all depends on your definition of “busy”.

“I’ve been so busy…” Well, you’ve heard that and you know how everyone says that – they’re busy doing this and busy doing that.  Too busy to do this and too busy to do that. 

But I’d be really surprised if that was actually the case.  Busy is such a subjective word.  What you consider busy I might think was an easy day and visa-versa.  It depends a lot on priorities, too.  What you consider important or what you actually want to do.

I’m pretty sure I was busy today, but of course it was a retired dude’s kind of busy. 

For example:

My mornings are busy with the routines I’ve developed (fallen into) since I retired.  Get up when I darn well feel like it.  (Yay!)  Clean up, dress and let the dog out of her crate.  Feed her and let her outside to “decorate” the side yard as she sees fit.  Pick up the decorations in a small bag and donate them to the trashcan.  And of course she has to bark a bit, usually.  Seems like it doesn’t take much to fire her up most days.    Another trait I have to work on dissuading her from.  Then it’s a fresh cuppa coffee and the morning paper, which I read more thoroughly nowadays than I used to.  Then?  Well, then I generally have some plan of attack for most days, a focus.  But, then again, not all days.  Some mornings I just log onto the computer and see if anything strikes me as something I might like or want to do. 

Usually something comes to mind.  Whether it’s applying more paint to something that direly needs it, cleaning this or fixing that, going here or going there.  Or it may just be a day where I write a nice letter to a friend or take the dog out for a long stroll. 

However the day turns out, whatever I do, essential or seemingly frivolous, at the end of it I always want to believe that the day mattered and that it made a difference. 

There is a lovely story that I want to share with you concerning this very thing.  It goes like this:

 “Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he turned to me and said,

"It made a difference for that one.”
― Loren Eiseley
It mattered to that starfish. 

And I like to think that most days mattered to me too, more or less.

And so let’s now divert from the philosophic portion of this particular blog and continue with some doggie stories. 

You probably knew that was coming, didn’t ya?

For those of you not interested in more Trixi tales, I bid you an affectionate adios.  I’ll see you back here sometime soon.

OK gang, you still with me?  Then off we go…

For those of you who are keeping track of the “incidents” concerning our new dog Trixi, you might want to click off a couple more.  As you might remember, she scared us a while back by slipping off her collar and making an unexpected sojourn to our neighbor’s front yard.  She was just checking out their concrete goose, apparently.  It’s one of those concrete goose statues you see all over, but this one happens to be wearing a red coat and that is, I’m guessing, what attracted her.  She did came back when I called, so that’s a point in her favor.  After that particular jailbreak I decided to replace her collar with a harness we’d bought her specifically for walking, an Easy Walk type.  It has its leash link in the front of it rather than behind the dog’s head, so if the dog tries to pull away from you, its design twists the animal to the right and back toward you.  It works pretty well, too.  Anyhow, I decided to leave it on in place of the collar that she slipped out of.  After a couple of weeks wearing it, I wondered if it might be a little uncomfortable for her as it was fairly snug, so I got a “regular” dog harness that I thought might be OK and feel a bit more comfy for her. 

She figured out how to slip that harness in two days flat!  Back on went the Easy Walk.  Unfortunately she had apparently been pondering the angles and straps of the EZ Walk too and ended up slipping that one also.  Again we were lucky and she returned from the neighbors when called.

What the heck do I do with this Houdini now?

After a hurried phone consultation with our vet, I got a recommendation to try asking a local dog trainer about collars. I called him the next day and he said to come on up and we’d do a “meet and greet”, the mutt and me. 

Or is it the mutt and I?

We drove (actually I drove and Trix rode) up to the trainer’s place on that rainy, dreary day, parked my car and saw the trainer stick his head out the door and wave me and Trix to come in.

The dog and I scooted from the car to the building, trying our best to stay between the raindrops and not succeeding very well.  Jim, the trainer, was a very friendly chap and we talked quite a while about collars and his training methods.  I agreed to join one of his training groups starting up in a week and also wrote down some of his ideas of collars I might try.  He first showed me a Martingale collar that is used on a lot of greyhounds.  Those dogs have smaller heads and strong necks, so a regular collar will slip right off.  That description sounded a lot like our buddy Trix.  The Martingale looks like a regular collar except it has a chain loop in the front, so when the dog pulls, the loop contracts and pulls the collar tighter.  It’s similar in effect to a choke chain except it shrinks the whole collar at once instead at one point like the choke chain and will not jam.  He also showed me a Sprenger prong collar, a nasty-looking chain device that has, like its name implies, prongs that point into the dog’s neck.  They are NOT sharp and are only there to attract the dog’s attention when it pulls.  I slipped one on Trix and we walked around the trainer’s big room.  Trixi was remarkably amenable to walking and NOT pulling when wearing that one!  So when I returned home I ordered one of each off the Internet.  Now we’ll see how things go when they’re delivered!  We’ll also see how the training goes as Trix and I start next week.

So wish Trix good luck and wish me patience, fortitude, resilience, courage and… more patience.

The Great Spackle Caper

       The Great Spackle Caper






Another doggone snowy Sunday, but at least it’s not a zillion degrees below zero like most of February has been this year.  This particular snowy day, to differentiate it from the myriad other snowy and cold days inflicted upon us this winter, started around midnight last night with a light dusting of snow and was followed by heavier stuff in the wee hours.  My son works third shift and reported this morning that it was pretty steady over the dark hours of the night and that driving home was more than a bit dicey.  So the calendar now says it’s the first of March and we haven’t been anywhere near normal this winter, in temperature or in snowfall.  One’s been way higher and the other way lower.  I’d like to say it’s been a typical winter for hereabouts, but it really hasn’t.  It’s been pretty grim.  Granted we’ve had worse in past years, but not a whole lot worse.  Anyhow, the calendar is wending its slow, methodical way toward spring and in a few weeks I’ll probably look back at these words and wonder at their impatience.

Now for the latest.

As some of you may remember, we rescued a dog back in November last year, about a week before Thanksgiving, and she’s been a real humdinger for us.  She’s a smidge over 40 pounds and a mix between Shepherd, Boxer and Terrier.  That’s according to the papers we got with her from the rescue place.  I’m not sure how they derived that lineage, but its probably close.  I’d probably peg her more likely as a cross between a pit bull, a whitetail deer and a goat.  I’ll get into the goat reference in a minute. 

Just remember that goats eat ANYTHING!

Our rescue people, One of a Kind out of Akron, received her from the Mahoning Pound.  That’s all the history that’s been written down about her, so her life is a mystery to us for its first three-four years.  She’s had puppies we do know, ten pups in the last litter we’ve been told, and more than one litter, too, according to our vet.  She’s spayed now so that’s definitely in her past.  Her color is what’s called brindle, sort of a medium brown with faint, almost tiger-like, striping.  Brown and white face, white chest and white paws.  Long, deer-like ears, one of which is bent inward like she’s giving you a military salute when you see her.

Our family has always had dogs as far back as I can remember and so has my wife’s family.  This new dog is fifth in a line of canines my wife and I have owned in our married life and she may be the largest.  She was 40 pounds when we got her and we’ve added a few since then, as she started out pretty skinny. 

She’s been a good dog, I suppose.  She’s friendly toward us in the family, but that’s normal and expected, as dogs consider their owners as part of their pack.  She likes other people when properly introduced to her, but can be a little intimidating to people knocking at the door.  I’m not too upset at that.  Larger more intimidating dogs can make a house very much less ripe for break-ins or other problems from outside. 

The rescue place where we got her had named her “Trick” as they received her near Halloween.  We preserved most of their name selection by renaming her Trixi. 

She seems comfortable with it.

Readers of my blog might remember her actions not long after we got her involving her ingestion of a LOT of Baker’s Chocolate and my procedure on how to make her “offload” the dangerous treat. 

I thought that I might get lucky and that would be the worst we would see from our new buddy. 

I should have known better…

Here’s the latest chapter in Trix’s ongoing story:

I retired a week before Thanksgiving last year.  I fiddled around for a while after that momentous day, doing this and that and helping my wife with Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations.  She makes lots of cookies that we give away and mail to various relatives and my assistance was appreciated.  At least I think so.    After the holidays were over I decided to tackle some maintenance issues with the house that had been put off for way too long.  Interior painting was the first on agenda.

I started of course by moving furniture to make various walls available for preparation and painting.  During which preparation I used spackle to patch various holes and other dings and scrapes in the walls.  This is an old house, so the imperfections in the walls were numerous and all over.  I’d just spackled a number of holes one day and not long after that noticed Trix eyeballing the pink stuff lower down on the walls.  (The spackle I used went on pink and dried white.)  As dogs have been known to do, she took a lick of the stuff.  And another.  Apparently it had an odor that was pleasing to her. 

I shooed her away.  Spackle was not a food item and the label said it was poison with a capital “P”.  So I made an effort to keep her away from where I was working. 

But good intentions and real life are sometimes not always synonymous.

On Wednesday this past week I was plugging away at another project upstairs in our house – repairing a wall.  A long time ago a hole was made in that wall of our bedroom.  It’s been so long ago I’m not really sure how the hole was made, but there are some vague recollections about someone (could it have been me?) taking a punch at the wall in a fit of pique and going through.  (Shame on whoever it was!)  I was younger and dumber back then, so I just “patched” the hole with some metallic tape, then painted over the tape when I painted the room.  The damage was behind our bed’s headboard so wasn’t really an eyesore.  But now, since I was doing projects, I decided to fix that hole correctly.  I started with the “screen and spackle” technique where you attach a screen or grill patch over the hole then spackle over it.  Then sand and respackle until it is smooth and able to be painted.  I’d put the first layer of spackle on the grid and used quite a bit of it to cover the metal, then went downstairs for a sandwich while it started to dry.  After eating it and fiddling around down there for a little while, I went back upstairs to see how it was drying.  When I took a look at the repair I was confused.  The metallic grid was clean and shiny.  No spackle on it at all, pink or white!  I rubbed my eyes and looked again.  Yes, clean.  No spackle.  Wait a minute.  I KNEW I had done the work – I wasn’t THAT senile yet.  I looked on the floor – could the stuff have fallen off?  No, nothing was lying on the floor.  I shook my head, trying to rearrange the cobwebs in there and looked again.  Could the stuff have oozed into the cracks of the grid and gone inside the wall as unlikely as that scenario was?  Nope, none evident.  Then an icy chill ran down my back. 

Could it have been that stupid dog? 

When I found her she was flopped on the couch looking sleepy and real innocent.  That is until I noticed the smudge of spackle on her lower lip.  Holy cow!  She’d eaten ALL of the stuff!

I called the vet immediately and was told to use the “table salt or peroxide” trick to make her vomit it up.  I only could get a smidge of salt into her pie-hole this time before she clamped down and stubbornly refused to open her mouth.  It would have taken a scissors jack to open those jaws then, so I bundled her up and ran for the vet so she could do… whatever it was she needed to do.

They muzzled her and poured some hydrogen peroxide down her gullet, then handed her leash to me to take outside so she could vomit.  So I stood in the cold and snow watching the dog watching me.  She eliminated the OTHER way profusely, but nothing out of her mouth.  She seemed oddly normal for a poisoned animal – no convulsions, no drooling, and no wheezing.  Just a patient look as if to say, “Are we done out here, doofus?”

I returned inside the vet’s office and reported the non-upchucking.  The vet said to just take her home and watch her.  Feed her a bit more than normal to “keep things moving” internally and if she demonstrated any signs of illness to bring her in no later than Friday morning so the vet could “get it out”.

So I took the obscenely normal-acting dog home and fed her.  And watched her.  And watched some more. 

She could NOT have been more normal.

The vet called the next morning and I reported Trix’s condition.  And she called the following morning.  I repeated the report.

I read the label on the spackle during that waiting period.  Not good reading.  “Call the Poison Control Center” and “Do not induce vomiting” were mentioned.

Trix just continued doing her doggie stuff as time went by, blithely oblivious to our anxiety.

I’m sure the vet thinks I dreamed up this whole escapade, but NO, I didn’t!  Honestly!

And that’s where we stand today.  It’s been said that cats have nine lives, so let’s add another ancestor to my mutt.  There’s gotta be some cat in there somewhere! 

Along with the goat…

Dead of Winter

                                                           Dead of Winter
It’s another cold winter’s day here in our little piece of paradise on Earth, this perfect place we call home.  The weatherman told us today that the temperature was colder right here, right now, than it was in Nome, Alaska.  For the end of January, that’s pretty cold, my friend.  And to add insult to injury, we’ve got what’s called a “panhandle” low coming in tomorrow evening that’s forecast to dump from 4 to 12 inches of snow, the amount depending… 

Of course that’s the delimiter, the weasel word – depending.  It’s the weatherman’s “get out of jail free” card.  If the low goes a wee bit more north, we get the smaller amount of snow or maybe even rain.  If it’s a wee bit more south we get walloped with much more of the white stuff.  Of course the weatherman is always dealing with probabilities, with maybe this or maybe that.  Being an old weatherman myself, I always side with the guy making the forecast.  I’ve been there and know how much work goes into the seemingly effortless presentation on the nightly TV news.  But I also know there’s a lot of s.w.a.g. involved.  Swinging Wild Ass Guess. 

I really don’t worry too much about the weather any more.  I know that wishing and hoping that the weather would do “this” or do “that” is always an exercise in futility as the weather will be what it will be.  It’s really not a giant matter to me any more, either, as I’m retired now and don’t have to fuss with going to work in the inclement weather.  But my wife and son are still working, so they’ll have to fiddle with it. 

Good luck!  Just don’t wake me. 

But of course they will if need be.  I’m not going to get off the hook that easy.  So we’ll see how Sunday night/Monday morning turns out. 

I’ve been doing a lot of painting these past few weeks.  The interior walls of my house have needed a fresh coat of paint since…  hell, probably since Ronnie Raygun was our Commander-in-Chief or thereabouts.  So since I’m no longer gainfully employed, I’ve decided to finally tackle this task. 

To my joy I’ve rediscovered that “painting the house” is a lot more involved than just putting paint on walls.  A lot more!  First you move the furniture; then remove all pictures, clocks, sconces, paintings, candles, et al from the walls; then spackle up all the holes; then sand the spackle and any other rough spots on the wall; then tape up all the places you don’t want to paint; then apply the paint to the trim areas – around outlets, windows, doors, etc.; then use the roller to paint the bigger areas; then, since I was painting woodwork also, remove the tape and retape before painting the woodwork; then paint the woodwork; then remove the tape and touch up all the boo-boos you made during the previous 19 steps.  Then you put all the pictures, clocks, sconces, paintings and candles, et al back on the wall and return the furniture to their original places.  And since there is very little room in my house to move furniture, you do this three times for each room.

Pardon me while I catch my breath!

I didn’t remember it being quite this hard the last time I painted.  Of course, like I alluded to previously, that was some (many) years ago and I was…  well, quite a bit (a lot) younger.  The old muscles and the bad back that I tend to these days are handicaps that weren’t an issue back then either.  Now they are and my bed is a very, very welcome place at the end of the day.

 My previous jobs have all been computer-related office positions, so the physicality of my life has been minimal.  So now I’m paying my dues for most of a lifetime of soft office chairs and comfortable keyboards. 

But you know what?  That’s OK!  No one’s got me on a clock now and if it takes me two or three days to do a task instead of one, that’s fine too.  It’s getting done and the result is quite pleasing, at least to my eyes.  Being as this house is over a hundred years old and there isn’t a square corner or flat surface anywhere, the suitability of results can be very subjective.  So let me just say that it is pleasing to me, so if it isn’t to you…  well, so be it.

The paint I bought to accomplish this task was supposed to be low-to-no VOC’s.  VOC’s are volatile organic chemicals – substances that allow large amounts of molecules to escape from the liquid through evaporation and sublimation.  These vapors can make you ill.  Gasoline is a good example of a high-VOC substance.  Apparently my paint is a low-VOC, not a no-VOC.  I started feeling a bit icky today and have attributed it to breathing the vapors of the paint for too long at a time.  I guess I’ll need to watch my exposure to the paint in the future since I won’t be able to ventilate it to the outside like I could do in the summertime.

Too damn cold!  (see earlier paragraphs!)

The weatherman also said we’re very near the climatological center of winter – the coldest most miserable time, so the outlook for the future is warming and nicer.  Of course that’s speaking climatologically, not two days down the road, which, as you might recall, is when the snowstorm is due.  So to sum it all up, there’s a lot of winter left in this ol’ year, bucko.

People still ask me occasionally how my retirement is coming along.  Am I liking it?  Am I enjoying it?  Am I ready to go back to work?

My answers were and still are - yes, yes and no, but as time goes by, it’s like answering other rather no-brainer questions.  Do you ask a fish if he likes the water?  Do you like having two hands to do stuff with?  Do you like that the color of snow is white and grass is green?  Hmmm…  Yes?  No?  I guess?

Being retired, for me, is about as noteworthy nowadays as being employed was a few months ago.  Just pretty much the way things are.  I compare it to being married.  The first few days (or weeks or months) after being married are unique, strange and very, very different than being single.  Then it becomes status quo.  It becomes the ocean you swam in. 

I guess being retired is getting to be that for me.  Status quo.  Same-same.  Non-remarkable.

Do I miss work?  Naw.  Very little.  I do miss the folks I worked with.  At least most of them – some more than others.  But going into an office and doing the same thing over and over and over again ad infinitum?  Do I miss that?

Not a bit. 

I have found out, however, after I retired, that I needed to find a purpose for getting up each day, something to occupy my mind and my body.  It might be as simple as going to the gym and getting in a bit of a workout.  Or cooking something a bit out of the ordinary for supper one day.  Or possibly even painting my doggoned house!  Some reason for my continuing existence.  I recently read something that spoke to me on that topic and which put some focus to this need, this drive.  The entire article boiled down to a three-word question that you needed to answer every day.  The question simply is: Did Today Matter?  Can you honestly say at the end of the day that what you did that day mattered?  And if it didn’t, what will you do about it tomorrow? 

Sometimes the deepest philosophical questions can be summed up very simply.  Did today matter? 

I wrote those words down and placed them on my computer monitor.  I now end my days looking at it and answering the question as best I can.  Yes, I think so or no and I need to do better.  The mattering can be as monumental as deciding to quit smoking or to get married, to as inconsequential, but still meaningful, as always thanking your wife for her labor in making you a meal.  Or calling a friend who you know is a bit down to just chat for a while.  Or to take a pain-reliever, drink fluids and get plenty of rest when you’re ill.

All those things matter.

So another cold winter blusters and moans outside our windows, trying to make you believe that winter is all there ever is, was or will be.  But the smell of fresh paint on my old walls and the mouth-watering smell of my wife’s pot roast cooking in the kitchen lets me know that all’s well, all’s as it should be and spring surely is “just around the corner.”

Three Strange Ones

                   Three Strange Ones



It had to be sometime in the winter of ‘69-’70 or thereabouts.  I’d gotten out of the Air Force late in ’69 and had moved back home with my parents and brothers.  I moved back home not because I didn’t want an apartment and a life of my own, really.  It was just convenient, a comfortable place to settle for a bit while I figured out what was what, where I wanted to go and how I wanted to proceed with my life.  And it really was nice being back with the family again in my old room after living in a barracks for four years.

Sometime during the cold part of that year there was a movie that came out which everyone was talking about.  From all the buzz going around it sounded like a good one, so one night I headed on down to the movie theater.  It was an evening show and it was dark when we got there and, of course, dark after we left.  I say we because my dad accompanied me to this particular movie.  Mom wasn’t interested, if I remember correctly, so dad had chimed in and said he’d kinda like to go too.  I was glad for the company, to be honest, so we headed on down to see the show.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the movie “Easy Rider” or not, but it was quite a movie for its day.  Two motorcycle riders from Los Angeles traveling to New Orleans in search of America.  Peter Fonda played the part of Wyatt and rode the lean chopper with the ape-hangers and the red, white and blue American flag gas tank.  He also had a matching helmet with the American flag motif and a leather jacket with an American flag on the back.  Quite a patriotic look you might say.

Remember that jacket.

His partner, Billy, was played by Dennis Hopper, pre-“Apocalypse Now” days, riding the other chopper with the short straight handlebars and wearing a fringed-leather buckskin jacket and kind of a floppy cowboy hat.  Now these two guys were definitely counter-culture for the time.  Hippies, perhaps you might call them.  On their way across America they encounter bigotry and hatred from the small towns they rode through.  The residents hated and feared their non-conformity.  They did drugs, spent a little time in a redneck jail and picked up a liberal alcoholic lawyer, played by Jack Nicholson, who joined them on their way to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  A terrible fate awaited one of them on a back Dixie road that would lead you to the conclusion that death is the only real freedom.

It was an emotional roller-coaster ride for my dad and I.  The movie was great and the music was mostly ’68 rock – Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild”, The Byrds “Wasn’t Born to Follow”, Jimi Hendrix “If 6 was 9” and a number of other great ones.  We were totally satisfied with the movie as we walked out among the last group of moviegoers.  Our car was parked across the street from the movie entrance and facing it.  We got into the car and sat for a few minutes, probably talking about how cool the show was and more than likely smoking a cigarette while we chatted.  Just as we were about to start the car’s engine and head on home we noticed a figure coming out of the closed movie theater’s front door.  All was dark except for a couple streetlights casting some rather dim light on the sidewalk.  The figure walked up the sidewalk from our right to our left, and when he was past us a bit we noticed he was wearing a leather jacket.  With an American flag sewed on the back of it.  He turned the corner after a few moments and was gone.

Dad and I looked at each other.  We’d both seen the figure and his outerwear.  We’d both seen the American flag. 

We’d not seen the person in the theater.

Could it have been…? 



In the years 2001 through 2014 I worked for a county water department in their computer room.  I watched the computer that monitored the water system, made sure the chlorine was adequate and that all the necessary water was available for the customers and safe to drink.  I also answered the trouble phone and dispatched crews to fix water and sewer problems.  I worked second shift, 4 o’clock to midnight.  Some nights I had company and a second operator worked along with me.  On Thursdays and Fridays, however, I worked alone.  The rest of the county employees all left at 4:30 and then it was just lil’ ol’ me for the rest of the night.

Early in that decade-and-a-half I worked there, one of the midnight shift operators, a lady, lost her husband in a gruesome motorcycle accident.  It was a terrible time for her.  Most of the county came to the gentleman’s funeral and the lady was quite devastated as could naturally be expected.  During her mourning period she heard about a place that made custom teddy bears that were supposed to help with the grieving process.  They were called therapeutic teddy bears and could be dressed like the person who had passed away.  My lady friend’s husband had worked at an auto parts store, so she had the bear dressed in the easily-identifiable vest that all the auto supply guys wore.  It was actually kind of cute.

She brought this bear in to show all of us other employees one evening and left it there until she picked it back up the next night.

Remember that bear.

The office I worked in had a number of cubicles and a large amount of maps hanging on the walls depicting various parts of the water and sewer systems in the county.  This office also was known to occasionally make odd noises during the nighttime hours.  We all knew it was just the building expanding and contracting as the night ebbed and flowed and generally paid little heed to it.

The night the bear sat in the desk behind me was one of the noisy nights.  Much more so than normal.  I was alone that night, most of the lights were out in the room I worked in and, to be honest with you, the doggoned bear was creeping me out a bit.  More than a bit, actually.  As the night progressed, the thumps, cracks, bangs and other noises were much more prevalent and noticeable than “normal”.  The maps hanging on the walls rustled and rattled much more than “normal”. 

Just as if someone was walking past them quickly.

And the feeling of a presence was disturbingly real.

I recall sitting in my chair with my back to the room and listening.  I was aware, perhaps, of an otherness nearby, but was also sure it was not malevolent, not evil in any way. 

Just a presence somewhere behind my back. 

I recall distinctly saying aloud that I knew the lady’s husband’s spirit was surely there and that it was welcome to stay for a while but this was not its time or its place.  I continued to read my novel, an activity that we were allowed to do during quiet times at night, and did my best to ignore the maps rustling and the bumps that were there that night.

And continued to feel the presence of…?

The next day I compassionately told the lady to take her cute little teddy bear home with her.  I needed no more company from it or her late husband.

Of course it was probably just the air handler making gusts that rattled the maps and it was probably just the brick building settling a bit more than usual that night.

Perhaps…



In 1969 I was stationed at Howard Air Force Base in the Panama Canal Zone.  I was an Air Weather Observer and split my work between the Base Operations Building down on the base and up in the control tower.  The tower was manned 24/7 by at least one aircraft controller and always one weather observer. 

One dark midnight shift I was working in the tower, drinking coffee, quietly chatting with the controller and keeping an eye on the darkness around us when the radio crackled and a voice from the GCA radar operator was heard.  His job was to watch the skies on his radar screen from his building down near the runway and to help approaching aircraft line up with the runway and to land safely.  GCA stands for Ground Control Approach.

“Tower this is GCA.  Do you have any inbound traffic?”

The controller double-checked his schedule, making sure that the only traffic inbound wasn’t due for many hours, picked up the mike and responded, “Negative.  Nothing at this time.”

GCA said, “I have three targets about two miles west of the base heading southbound.  Can you confirm?”

The controller and I stepped out on the catwalk that circled the whole tower and scanned to the west, me with my bare eyes and him with binoculars.  It was dark, quiet and there was nothing to see.  We watched for several minutes and listened closely.

Back in the tower the controller told GCA that we had seen nothing.

GCA said, “The targets have now turned left and are crossing the approach area of the runway within a half mile.”

We again exited the tower and scanned the dark skies, concentrating to the south.  Still nothing.

And there never was anything to see that night.  No lights, no aircraft noises, nothing. 

Not even any birds.

Sure, it could have been a Panamanian army flight going around the base which we’d not been notified about.  It had happened before.  Rarely, but it had happened.  But three targets?  And noiseless? 

It could have been that.  Maybe…



So what am I trying to accomplish recounting to you these three stories, gentle reader?  To make you believe in ghosts?  To describe a UFO encounter?  To insinuate that a movie actor had walked out of the screen and left the movie theater through the front door?

Of course not.  Or am I?

In any case, stories like these do demonstrate that there is a LOT more going on “out there” than can easily be explained.  A LOT more.  And that our neat and tidy universe probably isn’t so neat and isn’t so tidy.

Sleep well tonight, my friends.

And So This Is Christmas

                 And So This Is Christmas




December 23, 2014

Dear Mom and Dad,

And so another Christmas has come.  It’s kind of debatable right now whether it’s going to be a white one this year.  There’s a chance of a little snow, sure, but today feels more like a spring day right before a storm – warmish and with gusty winds.  An odd prelude to Christmas.  The weatherman says that’ll change before long when a fast-moving front comes through.  I kind of hope it brings a little snow with it. 

Christmas is somehow always a bit better if there’s snow outside the windows.

You’ll be glad to hear we’ve decorated again this year at our house.  The tree is up and lit, the Christmas nick-knacks are placed in their customary homes for the holiday and all the stockings are hung with care.  Tony’s at least is.  It gets a little harder bringing all the Christmas finery down from the attic each year you know.  And then to put them all away afterward.  Old bones and old muscles like to protest the exertions, but we managed again this year with a lot of help from our son Tony.  If you’re curious, he’s 33 now.  I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, even for us.  Mom, you left us long before Tony came along so you missed out on all his “wonder” years.  I think you’d have got a kick out of watching him grow, seeing him go from an infant to a boy and finally into the man he is today.  There were rough patches, of course – all of us have them on our journey through life, but he’s doing all right. 

He’s doing just fine.

Dad, you were lucky enough to see him in some of his early years.  You left us when he was just a pre-teen, but I’m sure you could see he was growing up to be a fine young man.  Please know that he remembers you fondly.

You guys have missed a whole lot in the world since you crossed over.  Some awfully bad things happened since you left, most of them better left unspoken, but there were very good things that happened also.  The Wall came down in Germany.  That was a surprise and a wonderful thing.  Along with that the Soviet Empire dissolving too.  Very unexpected.  We got a black president some years back and he’s done quite well in the office which surprised some and didn’t others.  But along with that we’ve had lots of gridlock in Washington also.  Maybe that’s not such a startling thing though.  I’m sure in your lives you saw plenty of things from that bailiwick that were not in the interest of the nation.

So much more history has happened in those years, too, but I’ll try to not bore you in this letter with all that.  Suffice it to say a lot of things happened, some would have made you cry and others you have stood up and cheered.  It was what it was.

Technology has come a zillion miles in the last few decades also.  We have stuff that we take for granted now that would have been considered impossible in your day, pure science fiction.  Phones in our pockets that we can use to talk around the world.  Computers that help us do almost everything.  Hell, a lot of our phones are computers that do most everything!  The tech today is soooo cool!

The world has changed so very, very much from your days.  The world is as different since you’ve been gone as it was different from the civil war times to your days. 

Perhaps even more so.

Your son and daughter-in-law are doing all right too, I hope to tell you.  I retired last month, as unlikely as that sounds, and Judy will follow me early next year.  A milestone for us for sure!  We’ve grown older as the time has past, older than you might even guess.  I’m almost of the age that you were, Dad, when you had your last illness and I’m way older than you ever were, Mom.  It’s so very odd being older than your folks, so very unnerving.  Yes, to boil it all down, we’re not “spring chickens” any more.  We don’t have our doctors on speed dial right now (don’t ask, it’s a new telephone thing), but their numbers aren’t too far away.  The wife and I have typical ailments for our age group I suppose, but we’re handling them as best we can.  As I’m sure you did in your day.

Your other son Chuck is doing all right too.  He’s still out on the West Coast and living the life of a Californian.  It’s home for him now and has been for many years.  We visit occasionally and talk fairly frequently on the phone or text each other.  (Again, don’t ask.  Texting is…  naw, ya don’t need to know.)  He’s my lil’ brother and will always be family.  He’s a good man, Mom and Dad.  He, also, has his demons to battle, but he continues to fight the good fight and wins more than he loses.  You’d be as proud of him as I am.

Judy and Tony and I are still in the same house we moved into in the late ‘70’s and have diligently labored keeping it looking decent.  We’re comfortable here and hope to remain here as long as is possible.  It is our home, with all the connotations that word contains, and I wish you could stop by and say hello some day.  Maybe for just a cup of coffee and some good conversation.

We’d really like that.

We’ve got a new dog, too, don’t you know.  She’s a mutt of uncertain heritage, but seems to be a good girl.  She’s a rescue, a bright 4-year-old whose past will forever be a mystery to us, but her future will be one of love, comfort and companionship.  Some bad habits will need to be rectified, sure, but that will come.  I think you guys would like her!  We call her Trixi.

And so it is Christmas.  Time again to let our thoughts fly to memories of family, friends and celebrations of days gone by.  Rooms full of husbands and wives, aunts and uncles, grandparents, children, evergreens decorated with treasured ornaments, gaily-wrapped gifts calling our names. Dining room tables groaning with wonderful meals made by the skillful hands of loved ones.  Smiling faces of relatives and friends basking in the glow of another holiday on this good Earth, another Christmas.

I remember how much you guys loved the holidays.  How, even though on many years the money was very, very tight, Christmas was always a priority, always a high point, and always the pinnacle of the year.  Money was somehow always found.  I remember how Dad would drive over to Gram’s house Christmas morning and bring her over so she could share the day with us and how she would bring her famous, freshly baked breakfast rolls.  We all sure liked that!

I think about you guys often, you know, but never more than around the holidays.  Our present family Christmas traditions are distinctly ours, of course, and that is as it should be, but their roots are always, always yours. 

Thank you for that.

In only a few more hours it will again be time to wake to the magic of Christmas morning, to bid each other tidings of good cheer, to immerse in the ties of family.  To relish a good cup of coffee and to enjoy the opening of the gifts which were so enticingly spread under the Christmas tree.  To enjoy the smiles and happy faces of our loved ones.

I wish you could be here.  I wish it so much…

And so this is Christmas…



 

Tuesday. Mid-December. A Workday.

Tuesday.  Mid-December.  A Workday.

The rain was coming down on Tuesday, not in driving buckets or torrents of storm-lashed water, but in misty cold veils and swirling eddies of raindrops and vapor.  The sky was a leaden-gray color and the wind blew - now in gusts and later in lazy zephyrs and whirls.  It should have been colder as it was mid-December, but it wasn’t.  The 48-degree temperature more resembled a day in early March – fitful in its unpredictability and unable to be nailed down.

I should have been a little depressed, I suppose.  I’ve been known to mimic the weather with my mood on occasion – sunny on bright days and morose on days such as this one.  But I wasn’t.  I was perversely in a good mood and feeling quite optimistic.  I had the radio tuned to my favorite classic rock station and was enjoying its offerings at a higher volume than normal – pretty doggoned loud, actually, as I sang and hummed along with the familiar tunes to the best of my ability.

My quest for the day was a lunch with a friend of mine at a restaurant north of Akron to be followed by a stop at the office where I used to work to drop off some Christmas cards and a platter of cookies and candy for the troops.

The parking lots of the businesses and factories that I passed that day were full and the work of the world was being accomplished as I rumbled past, glancing occasionally in their direction as my pleasure directed me.  This was the start of my fourth week of retirement and the business of business was starting to seem a bit removed from my new norm, the workers seeming an odd bunch as they scurried and hurried here and there doing whatever it was that they did.  I observed without comment or much thought.  The world was as it was and I was now removed from that portion of it.

For that I was glad.

And it was a workday Tuesday and I was off for a relaxing lunch.  That still seemed a remarkable thing.

The rain was not quite strong enough for the intermittent setting on the wipers, so I had to reach up and hit the handle now and again to clear the view.  The miles drifted by under my tires, hissing with that wet road sound that we’re all familiar with and the radio kept me rockin’ with AC/DC, The Stones, Jimmi, Zep, Queen, ZZ Top and all the other immortals.  I was cookin’, I was grinnin’ and the miles were passing by.

I arrived at my restaurant destination at the agreed upon time and soon was sitting in a booth with my friend Larry.  We’d not seen each other much in the past three years and we had oodles to talk about.  He brought me up to speed on what had been happening in his life since his retirement and I caught him up on what interesting things had gone on at the office during that same time period.  We gabbed and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company, each one of our stories triggering similar tales from the other.  The food was also excellent, Larry’s filet steak and whiskey, my honey-glazed chicken and lemonade.  Our sitting there as equals was a situation a little different than it had been in the past as we were no longer supervisor and subordinate, but two old retired friends who were comfortable in each other’s company and who wished each other well.

It was kind of odd and kind of nice at the same time.

Several things that Larry said that afternoon hit me as important enough to remember – insights, perhaps, on the way he thought and the way the world worked, at least to his eyes.  He recounted one of his last trips to the office – on a visit about a year ago perhaps – and a question that he had asked his replacement.  Dave was the name of the guy in question and he had worked as Larry’s assistant for many years before Larry retired.  He was assigned to Larry’s old supervisory job and had been performing those duties with expertise and competency during my last several years on the job.  The position in question was that of County water department supervisor. His responsibility was to operate, maintain and, when needed, expand the county municipal water system.  Larry had worked there long enough to truthfully state that it was “his” water system.  He’d build more than half of it while he was employed there and it was, in all respects other than formal title, his baby.

During that last visit to the office and during his conversation with Dave, Larry had asked him, “Is it your water system now?” stressing the word “your”.  He was of course referring to the invisible reins of responsibility that would fall on the new supervisor when he was, at last, comfortable with the myriad facets of the job.

Dave answered simply, “Yes.”

Larry said he was happy with the answer and the underlying meaning that both men knew the answer entailed.  Dave was, at last, “The Man”.

It’s funny how certain things strike you.  That statement packed a lot of meaning in a very few words and I’ll remember it for a long time.

After a few hours of good food, good drink and good conversation, Larry and I bid each other adieu and I adjourned again into the wet windy afternoon.

I drove the next 40 minutes or so, feeling fine and enjoying the world going about its workday around me. I passed through the various neighborhoods and communities between the restaurant and my former workplace in a bubble of contentment, enjoying my present role as observer and not participant.

I arrived there, totally by coincidence, at about the same time I used to arrive when I was working second shift.  I dropped off the goodies which were well received and distributed the Christmas cards to my former work-mates.  I chit-chatted with the folks, the first-shift ones who were heading off to home shortly and the second-shift ones who were settling down to their long evening of work.  It had only been three weeks since I’d been an employee there, but the disconnect was obvious.  My desk was now someone else’s, the furniture was somewhat rearranged, the work I had once done was being done by others.

I was now a visitor and it was obvious.  They belonged to the class of the gainfully employed.  I no longer did.  I was the visitor, the retiree, the Old Guy who used to work there.  Only three weeks separated my station from theirs, but it was as big a divide as day and night, plus and minus.

The quick and the dead.

But when I left, my mood was not sad or mournful at my change in station, my new place in the scheme of things.  I wasn’t melancholy or wishing I could return to the ranks of the wage earners.  Through the corner of my eyes I thought I could see the envy written on my former fellow employee’s faces, the subtle urge for them to also call it quits, to also return to their homes as I was now doing and to be done with the toil and turmoil of work.  To call it a day…

To join the ranks of the retirees as I had done.

But perhaps what I thought I saw was only a reflection of my own smiling face in a shiny piece of metal in the office.

I bid them all a fond farewell as I left and again motored south into the rapidly approaching December night, again grooving to the old rock songs and the hissing tires on the asphalt, again retracing the route I’d taken hundreds of times in the past from work to home.  Before I knew it I was again pulling into my driveway and saying hello to my wife, my son and my eagerly appreciative dog.

I was again home, I was still retired and all was well with the world.

It was a Tuesday in mid-December and a workday.