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If there’s anything that will reliably cause hurt between friends these days, it’s gotta be politics. And it shouldn’t be that way. (He says, while cringing in the self-knowledge that he’s as guilty as the next guy or gal of the unthinking jab.)

I grew up in a Republican family. At least my Dad was an avowed Republican. But today, I have to wonder how palatable he would find some planks of the Republican platform.  

I should interject here that identifying the family of my childhood as “Republican” should be taken with a certain grain of salt. In the late fifties and early sixties, a family was identified by the father’s politics. I don’t recall my mother’s comments from that era, if indeed there were any to recall. It was a sign of the times that women didn’t generally speak up concerning beliefs that clashed with those of their husbands. That would come to a crashing halt for my Mom in the early 70’s but I digress…

As a teenager, I was a member of the first wave of eighteen-year-olds who voted in a national election. The presence of Democratic Party proselytizers on the corner near my high school campus dictated that my registration as a voter identified me as such.

I voted for Richard Nixon at my first opportunity. I felt that his foreign policy was progressive when contrasted with that of his competition. I was focused on withdrawal from VietNam (an area in which he sorely disappointed me) and enlightened pragmatism in our dealings with China (an area in which he satisfied my then-beliefs). I don’t recall being passionate about any other national issues in those days and given my age at the time, it’s certainly possible I based my choice primarily on those two considerations.

Since then, I’ve voted for the candidate I thought would best serve my own beliefs concerning the direction of my country. While I consider my voting record private, I will tell you that a thorough review from 1972 to today would probably confound any attempt to identify me as a staunch member of any particular party.

This is not to say I haven’t had identifiable leanings. For much of my young adulthood, my friends and family knew me as a conservative Republican and most of my utterances in those days would admittedly have supported that view. But in the last twenty years, I’ve shifted my allegiances in ways that would regrettably and inaccurately identify me as a traitor to my Republican friends and a latent conservative to other friends.

Also during the last twenty years, through my role as a father of daughters and as husband to a strong woman and as an advocate for folks living with disabilities, my views have shifted. At the same time, through ludicrous political positions ranging from Reagan’s trickle down obscenity to Clinton’s claim that it was about his personal sex life and not about the Chief Executive committing perjury under oath, I felt more and more marginalized by the country’s two largest political parties.

It’s been quite awhile since I felt aligned with any formally organized group of political thinkers. The 1% certainly don’t all believe as I do and I don’t believe there’s any such thing as The 99. Neither Occupy Seattle nor the people they claim to despise represent me. So, as a thinking person – and I’m hoping folks on both sides will at least grant that perhaps I do occasionally think – I just can’t get on board with anyone who believes that if I embrace the plank I have to support the whole platform.

I cast out both extremist claims: that only liberals are caring or that only conservatives are responsible.

I won’t advocate for any particular position in this posting. Can’t guarantee I won’t from time to time in other postings but for now, I’ll just offer my thoughts on a few issues of the day. For those who may be inclined to read or not my blog based on my political beliefs, I offer this small bit of soul-bearing, admittedly not comprehensive but probably appropriately representative:

·         Government at any level exists primarily to organize resources to allow people to live together. I am primarily devoted to the U.S. Constitution but only to the extent that it continues to serve us well. If it is not a living, breathing document, it is nothing at all.

·         With that said, I believe in the evolution of case law; that the principle of stare decisis must be tempered by respect for new situations, fresh information, and evolving cultural influences; and that devotion to any constitution, law, regulation or ordnance is and should  always be trumped by reason.

·         Any sovereign entity holds and should responsibly exercise the right to enforce its borders.

·         It is ludicrous and hateful to assume that one wave of immigrants is more deserving of succor and assimilation than another.

·         It is anti-pragmatic to consider the health care and public services costs associated with immigrants without also considering the richness – both cultural and economic – that they bring with them.

·         Fundamental health care is not mentioned as a right in the Constitution, so national movements to provide both basic and catastrophic health insurance can only be reliably considered from a practical point of view. I personally believe that every person in this country should have access to health care, and that no one should ever be faced with making a choice between health care and other essentials – roof and walls, food, knowledge and training, personal dignity. We can talk about how we accomplish this but I find it amusing to hear folks argue against “socialized medicine.” What do you think we have now? Find a medical school, pharmaceutical company or hospital that receives no public funding, then we can talk. Otherwise – and I say this with love – kindly shut up.

·         The principle of freedom of religion can be upheld only to the extent that it rests on a foundation of freedom from religion. I will never support any political party or movement that claims to have a god or gods on its side. Neither do I resent you practicing according to your beliefs, so long as you keep it out of my face.

·         Sexual orientation and sexual perversion are not the same thing. Some people do things in the bedroom that I consider ickey. That doesn’t mean they are lesser humans. And a lot of those people doing ickey things would proudly identify themselves as heterosexual.

·         In any society I can respect, EVERY CHILD should be able to count on protection and support from ANY ADULT. Adults who fail to accept and live by this tenant are indeed lesser life forms.

·         Self-restraint trumps censorship every time. We need MUCH more of the former and always, less of the latter.

·         I don’t know it all, but it is incumbent on me to act on what I do know.

·         In a free society, you vote where you are, when you are, according to your understanding of the issues. Allowing any political “leader’s” proclamations to become a proxy for your own thought is irresponsible. Note to cheering throngs - please just stay home on election day.

·         Welfare as currently deployed is a sad and destructive program. We need programs that build people up, not that encourage them to be warehoused and marginalized.

·         My thoughts will continue to evolve, or so I hope and believe. Anyone whose political position doesn’t shift over time either got it perfectly right at a very young age, or just isn’t listening.

Jaywalkers and other hardened criminals

The other day, the jungle drums in our office building were working overtime with the news that the local gendarmes were assiduously enforcing the city ordnance against jaywalking. Several of the people who work in our building, including one of my office mates, got dinged with $54.00 tickets.

You would have thought someone had mooned the queen!

That whole day, messages and water cooler chat were all about the unreasonable attitude of the cops. You can probably imagine how it went but just in case, here’s the nutshell version:

                “Why are the cops hassling people trying to get to work when there are drug deals going on within view of the same officers? Don’t they have better things to do than bother hard-working, law-abiding citizens? And besides, it was still blinking when I started across.”

You want the short answer? Just wait for the light! How hard is that?

Look, I understand there are priorities in the enforcement of laws. This is most likely the reason why jaywalking crackdowns are so infrequent. But does the relative severity of narcotics and prostitution violations mean that we never enforce ‘lesser’ regulations?

The fact is, jaywalking in downtown Seattle is totally out of hand. I don’t drive there very often but when I do, most of the problems I have is with the jerks on foot who walk wherever and whenever they want, secure in the assumption that no driver in his right mind will dare run them over. Which in my case, is a valid if annoying assumption.

I guess I could go on for pages about this particular issue but the truth is, I ride the bus and it doesn’t affect me all that much.

What does seem worth the space is a brief discussion about civil behavior.

Our laws are never going to be sufficient to ensure civility or even safety in our society. We can’t account for every possible eventuality and if we tried (some societies have), we’d end up with an opaque welter of rules that the best of us would find burdensome and the worst of us would use as weapons in petty squabbles.

But we do need some rules to help us all understand and abide by the common expectations that – if abided by – allow us to live and work together in peace. Traffic behaviors are one area in which, left to our own devices, bedlam would ensue. Don’t believe me? Think about how many yahoos do dangerous things every day even with the laws we currently enforce.

The truth is that traffic flow in an urban setting needs to be regulated in order to allow ease of flow and provide some modicum of safety. In fact, it’s a serious chore to figure out how to take all these inputs – walkers, riders, drivers, messengers, deliveries, road work, freeway ramps, flow to suburbs, commercial vs. retail vs. residential vs. mixed use, etc. – and produce a plan that works. So, traffic engineering has become a discipline of its own. These folks take into account all those factors with which I personally don’t want to be bothered and they come up with a plan. All I have to do is follow the plan.

It isn't because we have enough police to follow us all around 24/7 that we're relatively safe from robbery and assault. We’ll never have and shouldn’t want that many cops. Most of us are relatively safe most of the time because most of us follow rules we’ve agreed upon.

Some people just don’t want to follow the rules. They think the rules are too petty for them to bother with. But if we’re making petty rules, change the rules.

I know some of you will think me a crank for this one and I don’t really care. If you park in a disabled space without a placard, chances are I’m going to send your photo to the traffic department.

If you’re in Seattle and you walk against the light (and by the way, when it starts blinking, it’s too late to start across), chances are you’ll get a $54.00 dollar ticket. Just pay up and be glad you didn’t get run over.

Snow driving

SO, what part of “Stay off the roads except for emergencies” is so difficult to understand?

‘Nuff said?

A gender thing?

Our friend Sindy recently called attention to a You Tube posting of Miss Representation.  You really want to check it out before we begin our discussion for today.

Go ahead, we’ll wait…

All ready?

Okay, so now that we’re all in the same starting blocks, let’s think about what we saw. I could say that as the father of daughters, I’m outraged. But that would misleading.  Although this video does a good job of highlighting gender inequities, it’s not like this is news. 

And THAT is what I find outrageous.

The problem of presumed gender roles has led to an enormous waste of human potential. And not only because women have been traditionally relegated the traditional role of home-bound nurturer  / sex goddess.

The fact is, this topic is just way too big for a father of daughters to handle in a little vanity blog. But it’s also too important to leave alone.

I was tempted to do one about standards of beauty and inequities in the professional world and abuse, but it’s just too big a subject for this vehicle and tonight, for this writer. You should see the paragraphs I deleted before I uploaded this piece.

Who am I to chime in on why more than half of our population is treated like sex-toys-or-nothing? So I’ll leave those paragraphs in the deletion bin. Well, except these few…

The pragmatist in me just won’t let this bit go: As a society, we’re wasting a resource we simply can’t afford to waste. We look to models and reality stars and trophy wives for our role models. And we’re missing so many who really should be considered role models.

I’m glad we know about Jean Kirkpatrick and Condoleeza Rice but what about Marie Tharp?  Why don’t young girls grow up knowing about Amy Smith or Regina Benjamin? Why do so many know about Bill Gates but relatively few about Patty Stonesipher? I could go on and on…

We’re wasting latent talent that we don’t encourage to flourish. Even setting aside basic fairness, that’s just dumb.

There’s a piece of billboard art making the rounds. It shows the tail end of a ‘60s muscle car under the caption, “Remember when your cup holder sat next to you and wore a poodle skirt?”

You have to wonder how many cup holders could have helped change the world, given the opportunity to drive.

Miss representation

My buddy Sindy posted this on Facebook but in case you haven't seen it yet, please take a few minutes to watch it. There will be a group discussion soon.

Go to: You Tube
Search criterion: Miss representation


See you soon.

Chili weekend

I made chili tonight. Turkey chili. It’s good stuff – or will be after it steeps overnight – and it’s totally healthful. Four kinds of beans, chunked meat from a roasted turkey, green and red peppers, onion, carrot, some hot pepper, black pepper, a touch of garlic, some oregano and various secret ingredients.  And by secret ingredients, I mean of course the stuff that Mary will add while I’m not looking.

This is not to say Mary sneaks her additions into the pot. We just cook collaboratively. We’re going to be doing a lot more of that in the near future as we work on making some changes in direction. Yes, we’re on a health kick, what of it?

We went to the market earlier this evening and purchased the food we’ll eat this week. It’s been a long, long time since we did the grocery shopping together. It was a nice evening out. I recall when we were first married, we’d go to Von’s in Fresno and spend an hour shopping, running a mental tab as we went since we weren’t rolling in money in those days. Not that we are now but that’s a whole ‘nother blog.

We really enjoyed being together, making these itty bitty decisions as we made our way up and down the aisles. It was … well, nice.

We’ll have chili tomorrow night and again Tuesday (it gets better over time, trust me), tilapia Monday, pork Wednesday, and so on. And of course, veggies, salad, healthful snacks and so forth. We’ll be working together on our meal planning and prep and cooking. And it’s been awhile since we’ve done that, as well.

Over the years of raising a family, we’d perhaps become a little too good at delegating tasks to ourselves and each other and it seems, doing very little actually together. And now that it’s just us in the house and we’re able to be a bit more selfish in our day-to-day choices, we’re drawing closer together. We put the Christmas decorations away together. We talked together about how the girls are doing at school. We ate dinner together.

It’s ironic that in building a family and dividing up chores to make things manageable, how much of our life we spent apart. There were probably many weeks during which our primary time together awake was when we both happened to volunteer for the same event for the girls’ schools or choir or…

I’ve been asked many times in the last four months whether Mary and I are sad with the girls out of the house. The blunt truth is, not a bit. That’s not to say I don’t miss the girls. I’m constantly wondering how they’re doing or thinking about how one or the other of them would react to this or that. I need them at odd moments and they’re just not here.

On the other hand, they’re each embarked on building their own lives and I’m a thrilled observer. And meanwhile, I have my wife back. We’re working on reclaiming the house as our own and planning hikes and yes, shopping together.

And tonight, I made chili that won’t be done until Mary seasons it to taste.

Life is good.

It’s list time again!

Ramifications of the bankruptcy filing by Hostess brands:

1.       No more “Twinkie defense”.

2.       I will personally suffer a Ding Dong deficiency.

3.       With the loss of Wonder Bread, we’ll have to switch to sandwich bread that only helps build strong bodies eleven ways.

4.       Dolly Madison will lose her day job.

5.       Henceforth “ho-ho” will be heard only during the holidays.

6.       The mystery of the white stuff may finally be resolved.

7.       Hoarders will stock up on Twinkies that will never go bad!

8.       The balance of power between healthful foods and snack foods will be terribly upset.

9.        The value of white stuff injectors will tank.

10.   Zingers will no longer be offered in fashionable homes.

11.   I know where you can pick up a few really big ovens, really cheap!

Another bit of poetry

Hickety-snickety, kickety-poo

Zirtity-purtity, pockety-loo

Fizzle mee dee

Ricklee ree bee

Chunkity-punkity, rickety roo.

Gawd, it’s cool being talented!

But seriously, I spent an entire bus ride today making up nonsense poetry in mine noggin. And I’m not even seeing a therapist!

A matter of priorities

I arrived home from D.C. tonight to the thrilled dancing and barking of two dogs who – I thought – were beside themselves with the sheer joy of my renewed presence.

Until I made my way to the kitchen and they both did the sit-and-stare with a focus  that only a begging dog can accomplish.

I am apparently viewed less as a much-missed and beloved friend than as that guy who can be counted on to fetch biscuits on command.

A tardy letter

Dear Dad:

I know this is a bit late but the thoughts come when they come. What can I say?

I stopped by to see you and Mom the other day. Not much had changed as you know, but I always like to touch the stone when I’m in the area.  I drove by the old house on Belvale and it was pretty much the same, as well. It’s odd to think about how tight that little group of neighbors was.

 I remembered you and Uncle Bill helping the Unlands put in the side extension to their driveway. And the time you and Jack and the guy whose name I can’t recall ran down the street to pull Greg’s brother and his car out of the garage and put out the fire before it could spread to the house. It was the second time in my life I’d witnessed as you rescued someone from a fire.

I drove by the high school and recalled your pride when I played drums with the stage band at the basketball games. I always felt your disappointment that I wasn’t an athlete, so knowing that I’d done something that made you proud was a big deal to me in those days.

I drove down 17 past the airport and when I went past Coleman, I was reminded of the years you spent working a job that you grew to loath in order to provide for your family. I hope you’d be cheered by my dedication to my own work and pleased that I’ve found a job I love. And I hope and believe you’d be gratified that I know how much you contributed to my own work ethic.

You likely know we buried Dave last week. I hope you also know of the rapprochement between him and his kids in the last years. At the end, he was a Dad and we’ll leave it at that.  But family funerals – there’ve been too many in recent years - always make me reminiscent.

I thought about our childhood. We never had much money but we always had the things we needed. You took pride in that, as well you should. You were first and foremost a family man.

Little things seem to form your legend in my mind. Like the time Pat and I got the “working fire truck” from Santa and you spent the whole weekend with us setting cardboard box buildings on fire and then putting them out, only to light them again.

I loved when you would lean back on your floor cushion and take on all your kids at once in a wrestle and tickle match that always sent me on an emergency trip to the restroom from laughing too hard.

You didn’t always approve of my choices and sometimes tsked at my failures but you always rejoiced in my triumphs.  I’m sorry that in demanding your approval, I sometimes overlooked your love.

I remember your terror when I stayed with you after Mom passed and the dawning knowledge of how much you’d relied on each other all those years.

I recalled sitting with you recording the stories that would become your eulogy for Uncle Bud and how your soul tore at the thought that your brother would never trade outrageous golf lies with you again.

And the time you and Mr. Russell tortured door-to-door salesmen by calling each other so the second one they contacted could pull the psychic act and pretend to “read” their sales pitch before they could begin.

I can picture you doing the twist on the Sullivan’s patio spread with corn meal. It’s truly an awful picture. No offense. And speaking of god-awful, I’ve apparently inherited your fashion sense. That one’s best left alone.

Picnics at the lake (I still have Mom’s big yellow potato salad bowl), drives on Sunday evenings, road trips to L.A. and Virginia, all stand out for me as signature events of my upbringing. My love of road trips is another welcome inheritance from you.

We had the same problems that seem to plague so many fathers and sons but I always knew you were there for me. I have regrets about facets of our relationship that I’ve come to understand don’t really matter. I’m no more the perfect Dad than you were but through my own journey, I’ve come to know how hard you tried.

You did a good job with the resources at hand. And your give-a-shit factor was high. What more could a son have asked?

Memory Lane

Metaphor became reality for yours truly the last two days as I returned to a place where I spent high school through young adulthood. (Okay, I'm asking you, dear readers, to accept without close examination the premise that I've actually become an adult. Please, just walk with me.)

I flew to San Jose to attend a family funeral, and spent the evening before with a wonderful friend of forty years and her daughter and her daughter's  best buddies. The into-the-wee-hours talk about where we were, where we are now and how we each got here was a blizzard of old remembrances, dawning understanding and nodding gap-filling. This meeting became a soul-fulfilling, thrilling adventure at the confluence of "where did you go" and "you've always been right here." It was truly remarkable and life affirming.

The next day found me attending the funeral of a family member whose affect on my life was sometimes positive, sometimes less so, but always profound. Leaving my GPS forgotten on the kitchen counter at home made me a last-minute arrival and allowed me to sit in the very last row and I unintentionally but thankfully assumed the role of observer. It was revealing and frequently wrenching to listen to the accounts of folks who knew a person much different from the one I knew. In the end, a life is defined by an amalgam of partially obscured views and the best path is simply to allow each their own legend according to the memories they hold.

Neither of these meetings is the raison d'etre for this blog entry, although without the framing perspective provided by loving reconnection on the one hand and ambivalent goodbye on the other, there would have been little reason to write today.

It was on the drive from Soquel to Morgan Hill that I found myself assailed by a flood of disparate memories. Bouyed by the unabashed joy at a friendship confirmed and the dread anticipation of a relationship that could now never truly be resolved, my mind was opened to the past in a way that was quite unexpected. I found my psyche flooding with acknowledgements of formative events that until now I hadn't realized were so.

I wouldn't have thought a 20-odd mile drive along a long-familiar, twisting mountain highway would be so cathartic. But as I drove along, the road became the thread linking old memories to the me I've become. I've travelled these curves with girlfriends and buddies, on the way to work and relaxation. I have driven this route possibly hundreds but at least many scores of times.

There's Cat's where I spent so many hours watching Lindy sing and across from which Dave's mom died one careless night. And Mountain Charlie's where my buddy Dan won the World's Belly Bucking Championship and where I was spotted by my friend Joe and called to the stage to sing Lazy Bones with him and then sang Lush Life for reasons I didn't understand at the time and then walked out through a silent crowd who somehow sensed that this would be the last time I'd ever sing Vala's anthem. Or the Wine Cellar where Bill and I pretended to be lounge singers (ahem!).

The esses remind me of the eternal argument over which is THE Dead Man's Curve. And driving to Pat's wedding where I would share the best man slot with a six foot blow up Gumby and a moth eaten, stuffed lion named Kippy. And to lots of places but nowhere in particular on Steve's last night before going off to join the Air Force. And to Summit to watch the show Sherree and Tom directed with the kids of Loma Prieta.

I rode shotgun with the careful Anne and the terror-inducing Bill. And then again with Bill the day before his wedding when what he needed most was a friend who would shut up and drive. This road took me to the camp the Ee-girls had set up at Sunset and the overnight solitude and white noise of Red, White and Blue.

The Alameda overpass that I can't pass under without wondering what was the last disappointment that led the guy to pull himself out of his wheelchair to topple to momentary but anonymous fame as the suicide of the day. And the perc ponds where people would raced radio controlled model boats. And Lake Vasona, where Dave and I went unintentionally sailing in the Volvo.

The tilt-up industrial park where I worked after the Navy is still there, as is the brooding Lexington and the turnoff to Roaring Camp. And of course the way to Highway 9, where I went with Sherree for an ill-advised hike without supplies on a hot day that led to heat exhaustion and a mad dash to find something, anything to drink and all the time frantic in the knowledge that I had broken Tom Young's younger daughter but more immediately, had failed in my boyfriend duty to protect the last person in the world I'd want to hurt.

I remember the drive back to my Mare Island base when I bet Steve five bucks I could open the bottle of soda without a church key before we reached the 101 overpass and at the last moment tossing it over the side and proclaiming, "Well, it's open now!" And seeing the Lost World dinosaurs and wondering but never bothering to go look, becoming one of thousands who thus consigned it to financial ruin.

Santa's Village is still there - sort of and as something else. As are the memories of innumerable friendships. Sort of and now, perhaps something else. And there was the awful, solitary drive the night that I realized she was with someone else now and that it was time to think about moving on. I did that drive twice, years apart and in response to rejection from two different women. It hurt both times and it helped both times. The highway was my confidante and mentor in ways I guess I never understood until just now. And maybe not now.

And the time my agent decided it would be a hoot to tell me she'd wangled a dinner invitation at my favorite sci-fi writer's home in Bonny Doon and driving there wondering what to say and finally practicing opening remarks until I was confident and the confidence flooding out through my toes when the woman of the house made clear there was no dinner party planned for that evening and "What did you say your name was?" and then the bewildered acceptance that I'd been had and the desire to turn and flee until the smirking woman asked "Did Elizabeth put you up to this?" and I knew and wondered which way to turn until this God-sent woman said well, I was there and I might as well come in for a bite  and later that night, getting home and realizing I could not recall so much as a word of a two-hour conversation or a yard of my drive back along 17.

17. It was a road and a destination and the freedom to have no destination in mind.

This highway connected me to so much and the memories of it to much more. Memories distorted by time and hopes, triumphs and disappointments. Memories that may or may not be factual but are nonetheless perfectly true. I wonder who that boy-man was who drove those twenty-odd miles all those times.

I may never really know.

The Christmas Lady

My folks are long gone from this life and I think of each of them under certain conditions or at particular times of year. I think of my Dad at work a lot, because the work ethic is something I think I inherited from him. I also think of him when I'm fixing something around the house. He had the home repair skills of an aardvark, but he tried. He would have been proud to see me hanging drywall, sweating copper or rewiring circuits.

I also inherited from him a curiosity about the things around me. When we'd be driving the highways and byways on our annual road trips, Dad always needed to understand the story behind the things we'd drive past. You couldn't get him to stop to pee until your eyes were actually yellow, but he couldn't pass the World's Largest Open Pit Mine without stopping to take the tour. He loved touring work sites and learning things and what he'd learned on trips would become part of his patter later on. He was also sort of the keeper of the McDermott family legend, alongside his sister, my Aunt Mary. I think of him a lot during my family or business travels. To the extent that I'm able to spin a yarn, I owe that skill to my Dad.

At Christmas, thoughts invariably turn to Mom. She was indeed the Christmas Lady. When we were small, I remember the assembly and decorating of the tree as a multi-day event. Before a single ornament found its way aboard, every branch was tied up to the trunk with green string, lest they droop once loaded. Then, she'd apply the strings of lights, patiently winding around and around to achieve a homogenous look throughout. That consumed the first evening.

The next evening, we'd put on the ornaments. Each child had one ball with their name spelled out in glitter and only that child was allowed to hang that particular ball. Mom was a hard taskmaster when it came to the overall look of the tree. Hanging too many balls on the lower branches unsettled her sense of balance, bringing timely and specific correction. Too many to one side or the other was also dealt with lovingly but firmly.

After we'd gone to bed - and only after we'd gone safely to bed - Mom would go back over the tree, moving, adjusting, trimming and tying as necessary to yield the overall look she found presentable. Only then would she consider the tree ready for the piece de resistance - tinseling.

Tinsel was the crowning glory of Mom's tree decorating approach. Doing it well was considered a sign of intelligence and a deeply caring soul. Doing it poorly was tantamount to a high crime. Woe betide the child or Dad who put too much on one branch ("You're clumping it!") or draped it in any orientation but straight up and down ("Have you ever seen an icicle grow sideways?").

This probably sounds very compulsive and even overbearing but it wasn't. Not really. We all went along because we knew that when we were done, we'd be looking at a thing of beauty. And year after year, that's precisely what came to pass.

  Mom's compulsion about Christmas perfection also extended to wrapping technique. When decorating  a gift, the paper had to lay perfectly flat with better-than-hospital corners and tape perfectly applied, exactly parallel to the edge of the paper. Bows were largely homemade from the ribbon we bought in econo spools. By the time we were ten, each of us could wrap a present to military specifications, including curling the ends of the ribbon using the thumb-against-scissor-edge method.

Gifts were something else. The best Christmases were those that involved handmade gifts from "Santa." Like the Matchbox scale whole city my brother and I played with for several years until Godzilla (our cat who likely wasn't aware of the role in which she'd been cast) chewed off the ends of all the telephone poles and batted the fake bushes to smithereens. Or the clothing she sewed for my sisters' dolls, the best-dressed little pseudo humans in Lake Hills.

Santa did misstep once or twice. Like the time "he" brought me a complete football outfit. My parents were confused when they found out I'd given away the whole uniform to a friend who actually liked football except for the helmet, which my brother and I used as a stand-in for an astronaut's headgear. But it was easy to forgive these occasional fauxs pas when you'd show up with an unexpected friend for dinner and magically, a perfectly appropriate gift - wrapped and labeled - would be presented to the unannounced guest as though it was nothing out of the ordinary. I never quite figured out how she pulled that off but she did, again and again.

My mom died years ago. But before she passed away, she passed on a certain reverence for approaching Christmas as a crusade. We don't follow all her edicts - our tree is "fake," in a nod to my allergy to spider mites. And the Bellevue McDermotts have established our own tradition of hanging and filling Chirstmas stockings, which was never part of Mom's game plan.

Even so, she's right here with us at least once each year. In the perfectly wrapped gifts and the big late-afternoon feast. In many of the decorations that have found their way onto our shelves and tables. In the tradition of buying gifts for a needy family from one of the "sharing trees" at the local mall, we respect Mom's determination that come hell or high water, every kid gets a gift at Christmas.

I suppose much of this seems fairly passe. Many families share most of these traditions and I'd guess lots of you look on your own mothers as a Christmas original. And of course, we're all right.

For me, Christmas came each year in the person of my Mom. So, you'll excuse me if for this one day, she's the most important person in my world.

Happy Holidays to each and all of you from Marion's baby boy!

Christmas list

Things your daughters give you when everyone knows this might be the last "family Christmas" for awhile:

·         A truly wonderful picture collage

·         A secret note describing what you mean to them

·         Really special ornaments that only you and they know how special

·         Software to convert all the years of VHS to DVD (score!!!)

·         Unabashed smiles

Things your wife gives you after (going on) twenty-five years of wedded bliss:

·         A pill sorter

·         A soap caddy

·         A pot clip to hold the mixing spoon

·         A box of Bandaids (seriously, Bandaids!)

·         A knowing smirk

Trust me, I could not have made this up.

Happiness list

Happiness is…

1.       …walking through a mall behind your adult daughters and they’re holding hands.

2.       …dogs worn out from the cold weather so they spend most of their time inside sleeping.

3.       …the salespeople who were canvassing our neighborhood as we drove up turned out to have already stopped at our house and they didn’t come back.

4.       …Christmas lights!!!!!

5.       …two weeks of leave.

6.       …when your doctor demands you lose some weight and the number she prescribes is WA-A-A-A-A-AY less than you’d already figured you needed to lose.

7.       …new neighbor has been there several weeks and does not appear to have any annoying neighbor characteristics (cross fingers).

8.       …between business travel and daughters coming home, I’ve managed to see zero sports or political news for over a week.

9.       …Daughter One introducing me to Big Bang Theory; I think I have a new show!

10.   …KAYAKING!!!!

11.   …hangin’ wit’ me baby!

Cycle of life

Okay, so my last post (phrases including Eugene) was a bit of an inside joke with Daughter Two. I'd apologize to the rest of you if it hadn't been so much darn fun to torture the daughter. Which brings us to the topic de jour.

There are definite phases in the life cycle of a Dad. Somewhere between clueless first time parent and clueless, frumpy old geezer, we go through stages in our development. And they all revolve around either the parent or the child being made to appear or feel like a dufus.

When the children first arrive, they have but to lay there to convert otherwise witty, urbane adults into doting parents (read: dufae or would the plural be dufum?). I know that I thought spit bubbles were cute when extruded from the innocent lips of baby mine. I saw a wino producing precisely the same bubbles and in far more interesting colors this afternoon and 'cute' was nowhere to be seen in my thought balloon.

Mary and I thrilled to each new achievement by our babies, even those that are embarrassing to admit today. I can't imagine what led us to believe a blown out diaper was an object of amusement. Also can't imagine what synapses were misfiring in the old noggin to make me find mirth in strained pea garp.

But time goes by and the parents recover some modicum of dignity only to shift the mantle of dufusness to the kids long about kindergarten time. Kids at that age will wear the dufusest , most outlandish colors or pattern of colors. I have proof, I have photos. They'll even do it to themselves, concocting hairdos - frequently with the aid of a licking dog - that make our parental guts explode trying to hold back the guffaws.

There's a pause during the middle school years when the kids struggle to be cool and the parents struggle just to keep them from imploding. Most middle school kids are pretty sure they're the biggest dufuses in history and tragically, many of them are at least in serious contention for the title . It's a brutal in-between time.  But you know life will get better eventually and mostly, you concentrate on convincing them of that life fact.

Just when you think the whole family might walk off a cliff together, along comes high school! Parents no longer care about being cool to their own PTA friends. No-o-o-o! For some reason known but to Yoda, parents of high-schoolers struggle to be cool to their children's friends!!! It would be tragic if it wasn't so damn comical. The duficity meter goes off the scale as parents pretend to understand sagging jeans and coal miner eyeliner. We totally ignore the fact that the minivan that made us the cool parent who always chaperoned field trips in grade school, that very conveyance now marks us as irretrievably, insufferably, painfully, stupefyingly uncool. Prisoners in dufusdom.

The college / first real job years represent a truce as both sides hold their collective breaths. Then...wait for it...

Yes, the former kids become first time parents and the cycle begins anew. Which is really bad news for the now-grandparents, who can only make room in the dufe-cycle for their newborn grandkids by themselves vacating the playing field, sliding off the merry-go-round into the dreaded zone of geezerdom.

I am still in the slide zone. Okay, I'm hanging on with bleeding nails, but still there. Neither Daughter One nor Daughter Two has produced offspring so I hang on to my position on the field of honor. The Daughters and I battle over who's the current holder of the Dufus Cup. My absolute lack of ego when it comes to doing things embarrassing in public give me a slight edge.

Anyway, I don't blow bubbles yet.

I think.

A list for all you Eugene-lovers out there

or, Eleven More Ways to Torture Daughter Two

Words found using "Eugene" in a Google search:

1) ..., OR

2) ... software

3) ... Mirman

4) ... Pilcher

5) ... Register-Guard

6) ... Cernan

7) ... Schmeigel of the MIT Schmeigels

8) ... O'Neill

9) ...Swim and Tennis Club

10) Actors' Cabaret of...

11) ...Folklore Society

A totally unbiased theatrical review

Mary and I went to Daughter One’s last Red Curtain Revue at college last night and I saw a completely new person in many ways.  She was a dancing, singing, emoting entertainment machine and I loved watching her. But I always love watching her. She’s my kid and she’s very talented.

But aside from her on-stage performance, there was this new persona, something I’d suspected was there but hadn’t actually seen: Daughter One as director. She staged several of the numbers and they were the numbers that showed the most inventiveness in the show. She chose the right people and played to their strengths, providing the sold out audience with truly a peak experience.

The Whipped Into Shape number was just something to behold and when she had the whole cast to work with, her production number of Freak Flag was tour-ready.  I didn’t know Be My Friend from “Edges” before last night and Daughter One’s rendition has made it a new favorite number.

Perhaps you’ll see my daughter perform some day. If you’d seen her work product last night, you’d hope for that day to come soon.  When she says “Let me entertain you,” she delivers on that promise.  

I know, proud Dad crowing about his daughter. And you’ve no reason not to suspect that I’m being a bit more hyperbolic than the performance deserved. And you’d be wrong.

I’ve always been honest with my daughter about her performing because it’s a tough road she’s chosen, not one that you want your beloved daughter to walk down unprepared for reality. I’ve told her when I was less than blown away, when she needed to tweak this or that or choose a better number. She’s come to expect honesty from me and my reviews have not always been easy to provide or to receive. So she knows that when I say the following, I mean it:

Angela, you’re so ready. So, go give the world what you have to offer.

Apologia

On an average day, I am accosted by three or four beggars who apparently believe that some portion of any monies I might have about my person can reasonably be classified as “extra.” As in, do I have extra change? Yeah, that’s why I work every day – to keep a surfeit of “extra” money, in case I’m asked.

Yesterday, I faced a new wrinkle. One of the “Occupy Seattle” denizens actually asked me if I had “funds for the cause.”  I declined making a donation and hurried past, not being entirely certain I could make the 5:06 and not wanting to stand in the rain waiting for the next limo – er, bus! I mean, bus!

The Saviour of Society who’d requested a grant apparently found my response too abrupt and decided I needed to be brought down a peg in front of all my fellow just-got-off-work-and-in-a-hurry-to-get-home-out-of-the-weather-ites. In a voice loud enough to carry from Pike to Pine and back again, she asked, “Don’t you care about humanity? Human rights? We’re the 99!”

I didn’t turn around but I continued to hear her exhortations as I crossed Pine and turned West toward the bus stop. Several of the folks who witnessed the exchange broke out in chortles and one lady said, “Ooh, I think you might have upset her!”

I went on my way and hadn’t thought about the encounter until I saw an article about one of the Occupy X groups today. And I thought, perhaps I really should have been more receptive to her plea. Perhaps I owe her an apology. And everyone knows the best apology is a public apology, so here goes.

Dear young 99 percent lady:

I apologize for being too abrupt in my refusal to contribute to your cause last week. I must have been distracted by the freezing rain and the fact that I’d just put in nine hours working as an advocate for persons living with disabilities and I failed to take the time to give you money to support your more important pursuits. I don’t know how I could have been so unfeeling.

I truly am sorry that you felt ignored. For the fact that you and your compatriots have not been able to make any headway in changing the world, I am also sorry.

I regret that most of us have to make a living and thus have utterly failed to pay you the attention you so obviously feel you deserve.  For being less than receptive to your yelling and drum-beating, I apologize.

I am sorry that the world is not fair and I accept my share of the responsibility for having failed thus far to right all of society’s wrongs.

For the imbalance of trade, I am penitent. I take the blame for plague, crop failure and fat people in stretch pants.

Sad-eyed doggies are almost entirely my fault, as are drought in Africa, tsunamis and the duck-billed lips that have of late befallen so many aging celebrities.

For lying politicians and the decline of serious journalism, I ask your forgiveness. Also for tornadoes, floods and teenagers wearing pants that don’t cover their butts.

I am burdened by the knowledge that I’ve utterly failed to eradicate cellulite, crabgrass or computer dialers. And I lie awake nights tortured by guilt over the proliferation of ’reality’ television programming focused on pawn shops, bounty hunters or brain-stunted idiots named Snookie.

Had I only paused to think, I might have offered my abject apologies for global warming, corporate greed and the fact that sometimes, crooks get away with, well, being crooks.

For these and so many, many other failures of civilization, let me offer my official mea maxima culpa. Truly, would that I could right the world’s wrongs. I can’t do that and really, I. Am. So. Sorry.

But there is this one thing…

After much soul searching, I do have to admit that I really don’t feel inclined to accept blame for the fact that you’re a shrill, self-important, unrepentant leech whose view of the world is limited to platitudes that will fit on your cardboard sign and whose approach to effecting change involves camping out in designer camping gear, pausing for hourly lattes, and screaming at people who are sincerely trying to make a difference in ways that have a chance of actually working.

That one’s on you.

Being prepared

I was looking at the Lake this morning and thinking about putting the kayaks in the water while Daughter Two is home for the holidays. Accordingly, I put together this “must take” list. Did I mention I like lists?

Anyhoo, herewith my list of items the well-prepared kayaker takes along for outings with the daughter during the winter months:

1.       Primary paddle

2.       Standby paddle

3.       PFD (life jacket to you  lubbers)

4.       Hand pump

5.       Sponge

6.       Paddle float

7.       Pogies

8.       Paddle gloves

9.       Paddle jacket

10.   Wet suit

11.   Whistle

12.   Waterproof flares

13.   Line throw bag

14.   Booties

15.   Extra wool socks

16.   Extra wicking shirts

17.   Knit cap

18.   Sunglasses

19.   Floppy hat

20.   Water bottles

21.   Snacks in dry bag

22.   Lunch in dry bag

23.   Camera in dry bag

24.   Headlamp

25.   Beach towel

26.   Extra dry bag for keys and wallet

(NOTE: When you start making lists of stuff for which you’ve long since ceased to need lists, it’s possible there’s another reason. Like, say….CAN’T WAIT FOR DAUGHTER TWO TO COME HOME!)

David and Dominic

Not all of my teachers have had fancy degrees. David and Dominic were two of the greatest teachers I’ve ever met. They weren’t really teachers in any formal sense but they sure taught me.

I was managing a small plant making plastic bottles and filling them with glue. When the bottles came out of the molding machine, random lots of 100 or so would be set aside for close inspection. The sample bottles had extra plastic called tabs that had to be removed manually, then the bottles would be candled. That is, they’d be held up to a light to search for pinholes. The last thing you wanted in a bottle that would be filled with glue was a pinhole. We called this whole process “de-tabbing.”

We had trouble keeping employees de-tabbing because it was boring, thankless, repetitive work. Everyone thought the work was beneath them, that is, everyone but David and Dominic. David and Dominic had intellectual disabilities and they thought a job that allowed them to sit and shoot the bull inside out of the weather was just fine.  They’d set their chairs and bins and lamps up just inside the roll-up door and they’d talk and laugh and greet everyone arriving for work and watch the trucks unload and meanwhile, their hands never stopped moving.

One day as I walked by on my way to the warehouse, Dominic ducked my gaze while David beckoned me over with his face screwed up in a show of great urgency. I had a meeting to get to and I knew from experience that any time David wanted to have a little fun at my expense, I was going to burn at least five minutes or so. And anytime Dominic wouldn’t meet my gaze, I just knew I was in for it. These two were inveterate practical jokers. Still…

“Yeah, David, what can I do for you?”

David pulled out a bottle, tore off the excess plastic and eyeballed it over the candling lamp and tossed it into the ‘accept’ bin. Then, he looked up at me with the expression that I knew meant he thought he was about to ask me a trick question, trick questions being sort of a staple of David’s sense of humor.

“Why are we doing this?”

Trying to keep my exasperation from showing, I started to explain for about the nth time that when the machine formed the bottles, some extra plastic was caught and squeezed between the mold cavity and the blow pin…

“No, Mr. Mike!” he cried out his frustration. “Why do we do this?” and he popped the tab off another bottle as Dominic, hands still and head cocked, strained to catch every word. I thought I detected a giggle but I let it pass.

I counted to ten slowly before starting again. I’d been told that David had the mental capacity of a five-year-old so I tried to find a simpler way of explaining that would allow me to go on my way and get some work done. “You see, David, the hot plastic comes out in a tube and the clamp closes the mold around it, and…”

“Mr. Mike! I KNOW all that!” David gave me a look that left no doubt as to which of us he thought was the dumb guy. “What I mean is, why do we do this…” he tore off yet another tab…”when we could just do this?”  And with that, David grabbed a handful of bottles and flung them full force onto the floor, scattering them from the loading dock to the first high stack of finished goods. People on the other side of the production floor stopped their work to see how I would respond.

I was wondering whatever possessed him to make such a mess but David just smirked at me and pointed to the floor while Dominic collapsed in giggles behind him. Looking where David pointed, this time I saw more than the mess. Scattered around me were bottles and tabs but no bottle-and-tabs. Every tab had been wrenched lose by the impact. When I looked up again, David and Dominic were both laughing and so was I.

By the time the crew reported the next morning, we’d jury-rigged an air cannon and a metal screen and were blasting the tabs from hundreds of bottles at a time. We still had David and Dominic candle our sample lots but the dreariest and most time-consuming job in the plant was now accomplished by these same two guys using an air cannon in their free time between sample candling lots.

David received a big bonus for his idea that year. And I received a bonus, too. I learned something about listening to the idea before judging the person and that not all smart ideas come from people we think of as smart. I learned that I didn’t have a corner on the smarts market and mostly, I learned that a person who thinks outside the box can never really be put in one.