The Way of the Meme

I don’t think I’m a bad person. Like most people there are one or two things that I’ve done in my life that I’d like to take back. But when I get to the pearly Gates there isn’t much I have to hash out with St. Peter. Not until Sunday. That is when I chose to forsake my faith and was won over by the power of the meme.

The meme – social media’s single serving nugget of knowledge and humor. This fortune cookie of the electronic age, a picture and a splash of words meant to hand out wisdom, laughs, or inspiration. Oh sure, to most people a meme is something that they just breeze by in their newsfeed, stopping for a quick glance. I was one of those people.  But as I lay in bed at 6:30 Sunday morning, I was debating my running plan for the day. Should I keep it simple or should I really push myself? I want to do a half marathon, and there is this 11 mile route I had been considering, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that distance. But then I saw the light.

Limitations? 
I HAVE NO LIMITATIONS! No weakness! No excuses! No matter that I hadn’t gone that far since April. No matter that I haven’t run more than six miles since my hip flexor & IT band told me to they’ve had enough, sending me to physical therapy for a three months. 
It didn't matter that I was recovering from Plague Lite. 
Why consider the time crunch and that I'd have to explain to my wife why I wasn't back in time for church if I failed?  It didn’t matter. I couldn't fail. The meme spoke to me. They ALL did!

Yes!  No regrets!   

ITS NOT TOO LATE!

LIVE EVERY DAY!

COMMIT TO MYSELF!

HAVE FAITH!!!!

 Amen, brother! I believed and I was going for it.

And for a while it was great! Jogging along one of my familiar routes until I hit the usual turn. And instead of turning, I broke free and went straight. Heading west with every step and getting closer to Auburn than I had run before on this road. Still well within my usual distance, I was moving along confidently. Morning fog was burning off as I went past the grazing yaks. (Seriously. We have yaks here). Doubt was there, for sure. Fueled, no doubt by fate’s foreshadowing  of danger to come, with a larger than usual assortment skulls and bones along this stretch of Weedsport-Sennett Road. Not human, I believe, but all deathy nonetheless.

And before I knew it, I arrived at the valley of the shadow of death, which on this day was called Turnpike Road. That was where Auntie Meme was letting me down. Doubt crept in. Maybe I did have limitations. I was approaching my recent distance maximum and on a slightly unfamiliar road. And I hadn’t yet hit the half way mark. Way out here more trees and less traffic gave it a road less traveled feel. Comfort came in knowing I wasn’t the only runner out there. Hansel and Gretel must have jogged not far in front of me as they left a trail of runner’s loogies along the way. Way better than bread crumbs, I guess. No one was getting lost out here because even the crows weren't picking at that. 

Turnpike beat me down at miles 6 & 7 as it was all hill, hill, hill. The downs were good. Ups? Killers. Fine. I gave up. I was beat. I had to walk. Had to. Run/Walk, anyway, all five miles home. The meme was wrong. I did have limitations. It was a Golden Calf who did not take into account my tin IT band. 

I could still repent, right? Maybe St. Peter will cut me some slack. I can plead guilty to lesser charges. Mentally writing this blog during mass or for doing some light stretching in the pew should cover my blasphemy charge.

So there is no power of the meme. But I did get out of bed and try. Eleven miles under two hours wasn’t bad. I didn’t get home too late. I didn't even have to schmooze my wife. I’ll be saving that for St. Peter. 

Small Town Works of Art

The news that Immaculate Conception Church along with the other Catholic churches in Streator, could possibly be razed fills me with fear. Fear of losing my church, my childhood, and my hometown.

 I know that I am part of the problem. In 1984, my family moved west to California. After high school, I went into the Air Force and life guided me to Upstate New York rather than back to my childhood home. I am part of the exodus of people looking for greener pastures in other cities and other states. So, maybe I have no right to complain. I am not a registered Illinois voter, a registered parishioner, and I do not have a nickel invested. But I still love the city of Streator. I love my childhood there. I love the sights and sounds and the people. I love the person that my time in Streator made of me. These churches are a defining feature of the city and their absence will affect more than the Catholic population.

St. Anthony was MY church. I grew up on Washington Street, walking distance to St. Anthony’s School and church. From my yard I could always look up and see those towers. I could see them from Lathrop’s house on North Park Street and after dodging the trees in City Park,from near Scudder’s house on Kent Street. From most points in Streator, I could look up and know where home was. Not much has changed. Driving in for a visit, approaching Streator on Route 18, I’ll look for those two points out on the horizon and know that I am almost to my ancestral homeland. Along with the spider-like water tower, the steeples make Streator one of the few towns in Central Illinois with a skyline whose defining feature is more than a grain elevator. Like a beacon, they give me direction. I can look up and know where I am or where I need to be.


Looking at the big picture a cynic could say that these structures aren't unique. They are pretty generic as late 19th century American Catholic churches go. But Goethe called architecture "frozen music", and that is what these churches give to Streator in a way that nothing else in town does, and for the foreseeable future, nothing else will. When I look up at the steeples of St. Mary's, St. Stephen's, or the dual steeples of St. Anthony's, I see height and beauty. They own the only architectural awe in town.

And these churches weren’t built by the government or some multi-national corporation. They weren’t put here by some Rockefeller or Carnegie or even Disney. Those magnificent structures were built by the working people of Streator. The people who may have lived in your neighborhood or sat in the very room in which you are reading this article, put in their time, talent, money, and hard work to build up those parishes and finance those buildings. Citizens of Streator created or at least sponsored these works of art and I can't fathom that there'll be new commercial buildings on the horizon to rival them.


It isn't just the outside of these buildings that sing. Streator is a working class town. One wouldn't expect to see anything special here. But I have always thought of these churches as our own art museums.

Newsflash. Despite my years of Catholic education, I never was the best Catholic. And that started as a kid sitting in the pews of St. Anthony. Generally there for mass, I was more likely to find myself looking about. The experience started just walking through those big wooden medieval doors into the wide open space, the ceiling a mile high. Too clueless to ever be cursed with Catholic guilt, I wasn't one to be intimidated by those apostle statues. Atop the 12 pillars on either side of the nave, they looked down, welcoming me back.

I find my seat. Who's here? Any cute girls from school? Is the funny hat lady sitting in the front row again? Without fail, my eyes would be drawn to the stained glass. Supersized saints and the sun piercing its way through the glass, I would find myself lost in the detail and the illumination of color.

Looking to the high altar on the back wall, it draws my eyes up and up until I couldn't tell if the crucifix at the top was of the altar or painted on the ceiling as part of the fresco of Christ's Ascension. But that was the point, wasn't it? Was it part of Heaven or Earth? 
And with my eyes to Heaven, music from the great organ reverberated around me, shaking the building, shaking the pew, and shaking my body. And the scents of candles and incense fill the air and fill your nose giving you a multi-sensory experience that was like nothing you've ever known. 

Telling our children that art and beauty and history are to be cast aside when they become financially inconvenient sends us to a bleak future. What else is in Streator to attract the eyes and imagination of its citizens? Certainly not seeing those vaulted arches turned to a pile of rubble. If we lose them, how will we ever find our way home?

This is Why You Coach

I wish I had done this years ago. Every team is special in its own way. You always remember the names. You even remember the faces, although they are perpetually 9 years old. You remember the kids, but some of the reasons why and the little stories and details fade. This year I put them down. I try to think who my favorite player was this past season, but it was a 12 way tie. 

Ally wants to do everything perfect, all the time. But it doesn't work that way. A few bad pitches in a row and Ally got down on herself, so it would be my duty to go out to the mound to talk to her and get her to relax. Maybe hold hands in a calming circle and do some deep breathing and drop some Oms. It doesn’t work that way either.

There is a scene in the movie “A League of Their Own” where Geena Davis responds to her angry pitcher/sister who accused her of not helping her through tough innings. Davis asked, “Who was it that threw a rosin bag at me and told me to get my fat butt back behind the plate? I forget?”  I thought about that line every time I went to talk to Ally.

But for a kid who spent the first few weeks of practices telling me all the things she couldn’t do or didn’t do last year, Ally became a very dependable and important part of our team. Because when she was on, she was on. Then she’d go from worried face to happy face. Happy face Ally pitched very well. Maybe sometimes on the mound her exuberance might have been close to the wrong side of excessive celebration, but I let that go and rode the wave as long as I could, because I never knew when I’d be a couple pitches away from dodging a rosin bag.

Most of our games started at 6pm on weeknights. I’d asked the players to be there half an hour early. 5:30 would give us time to get warmed up and ready to play. I move at my own pace. I have a job. I have three kids who could never be called slaves to the clock.  They certainly move at their own pace, so the concept of times and schedules escape them entirely. So, occasionally, particularly with away games, I’d be a minute or two late. On my team was the only 11 year old who keeps track of time. 

Thank god for Courtnee. I never actually saw her with a watch or even with a phone that might give her an indication of what the time was. But she knew. And Courtnee would take it upon herself to let me know what time it was. “Coach, you’re three minutes late.”  “Coach, it’s after 5:30. Where have you been?” Her reminders were always delivered with a little bit of a smirk to be playful, but also with her arms crossed as if to say, ‘don’t let it happen again’.

Molly was by far the youngest on the team, playing a few years out of her age group. She was by far the smallest player on the team.  But Molly was the scrappiest. Molly was the most likely to dive in first. Molly was usually the dirtiest.  Molly asked if she could work on head first slides. Despite her tough exterior, she was always ready to pull out the cutsie boo-boo face in an attempt to get her way. Still, my lasting image of Molly is her hip to one side and her fist rested upon it. Her brow is furrowed and lips pursed, Molly was always ready for a throw down.

Frannie is a true all-star in that she plays like one and acts like one.  For those of you familiar with The Sandlot, Frannie was our Benny Rodriguez. She could play anywhere and do it well. Frannie could hit and would start every game saying, “I’m going to hit a home run.”  And she had the goods and the guts to make it happen. Everything Frannie does is big. Big hair, big smile, big laugh. Big hits. One game Frannie grounded to the first baseman. As the fielder when to tag Frannie, she thought she could slide past.  In the collision Frannie twisted her ankle. She went down hard and she really appeared to be in pain. Frannie refused to be carried or helped off the field. I awkwardly held her arm as she hopped from 1^st base to our dugout on the 3^rd base side. The next inning Frannie sat out and worked on her ankle. She hobbled on it. Limped on it. Walked a bit. When she showed me she could at least jog, I let her back in when her turn came to bat. Bases were loaded and she delivered the biggest hit of the game. Frannie crushed a waist high pitch to left center field and sprinted all the way to 3^rd base. And her ankle felt fine.

Could there be a more literal ballplayer than Reilly? I think not. In one game Reilly tried to talk her way out of a base because she wasn’t actually hit by a pitch. It only hit her shirt. She was even literal in her batting. She would either swing, or not swing. If she didn’t swing, she didn’t move, no matter how close the ball was to hitting her. This quality was great for a coach because that meant that Reilly would do what we asked her to do. She was on 2^nd with no runner at 1^st. I gave my usual spiel from the coach’s box, “There is no force, so if a ball is hit to 3^rd base or shortstop, don’t go until they throw.” Most runners get excited and take off, getting themselves tagged out. Reilly held and was safe on 2^nd, scoring on a later play. Other times, the literal thing can get me.

One batting technique I always have to work on is where the batters keep their hands. They tend to hold the bat close to their chest. The problem is that when the pitch comes, they pull their hands back as if winding up, then bring the swing forward. Usually, this makes the swing late. Keeping it simple I have always said, “Hold the bat back as far as you can”. Over ten years of coaching and I have said this literally thousands of times and I never doubted the efficiency of the words used to convey my meaning. Then along came Reilly. Her body at bat was so twisted that  her shoulders almost faced the backstop. Finally, I asked her why do you do that? “Because you told me to hold the bat back as far as I could.”  Yes, I did. So, my decade old phrase needed to be modified with what I call, the Reilly Addendum. “With your shoulders parallel to the plate, hold the bat back as far as you can.”  

Maddie. My little Angel Fish. I suppose having one’s father as the coach can be difficult. A bit more is expected of you. Not to mention the coach’s comfort level in speaking a bit more sternly than with kids to whom he isn’t related. And having your daughter as a player isn’t much easier. She is a bit more willing to rebut any criticisms or helpful baseball hints. Maddie has no problem calling attention to herself. This girl is always comfortable on center stage.  I can see her now, strutting to the plate in her red helmet adorned with a jeweled tiara. She stops at the batter’s box to bend and grab a handful of dirt and rub it between her hands, a la Jackie Robinson. Holding her left hand out she tells the pitcher to hold on and wait until she’s ready as she pounds the plate and takes a vicious practice swing. And on the field, and running the bases she is more animated than anyone I have ever seen. The dose of flair and fun that Maddie brought to the table was huge part of the personality of this team.

Sydney  had a rough time with team sports. Her previous teams were not particularly successful. Our team certainly wasn’t winning. She didn’t like it. After a rough loss in Cato, Sydney chose to turn herself around. There was an increase in focus. I think Sydney became more daring. She started swinging more often. She started swinging harder. Sydney started hitting and Sydney became more confident.  And that carried on right to the end of the season. Throughout the season, our girls were not sprinters and we didn’t go home on many passed balls. Our last playoff game was against the #2 seeded team. They  were good and had a solid, athletic catcher. In that game, Sydney took off for home twice. The girl was making it happen.

I always knew Emme was there. For nearly every practice and every game, that girl was the first one in the dugout. And questions? Emme always had questions. Not stupid questions. Everything she asked was baseball/softball appropriate questions. Often they were thinky questions that required longer explanations. Things like, “Who covers 2^nd when a runner steals?”  “What if the 1^st baseman leaves the base to get a ball?” Good questions, indeed. But if she was in front of me, she was asking something.  And timing didn’t really matter. In one game the girls were headed back onto the field and I wanted to get the team fired up with a little refresher on strategy for the inning and a pep talk. “Coach.” “Yeah, Emme?” “When we’re on 2^nd and there is no runner on 1^st, why do you tell us not to run if the ball is hit to the shortstop?”  True story. I guess inquiring minds want to know.

Our elementary school has a basketball camp to get 1^st &  2^nd graders interested in the sport. I was working one of the stations and it was there that I first met Breanna. That girl made me work. Breanna was fun, impish, & strong. She’d drive you nuts, but Breanna’s Dorothy Hamill haircut, big smile & constant laughter pulled you right in. Breanna had this bat that was too heavy for most of our girls. It was too heavy for Breanna two years ago when she was first on my team.  It was a big Captain Caveman club of a bat that even she would have trouble getting it around quickly enough. But when she made contact, you knew it.   

What I liked about Morgan is that she reminded me of me as a player. Nothing made Morgan too exited or too down. Morgan did everything you'd ask and would take advice in such a matter of fact way that she seemed like some baseball old timer sitting on the dugout bench tipping her cap back and simply saying, "Yep."
This part of Morgan's personality could work both ways. Sure, I never had to talk her down, but it also meant that she moved at her own pace and did things her way. Even though this was her first year at this level, Morgan was a very dependable catcher. But at times, Morgan would play catcher as if she was a goalie for the Buffalo Sabers, using her shin guards for blocking and deflection of low pitches. Usually, it didn't matter. She had things in hand. But every once in a while a ball would bounce off her shin guard and squib away, letting runners advance. I'd have to call to her, "Morgan, use your glove more than your shin guards." She'd look back and in a languorous way that would make any slow talkin' West Virginian jealous, Morgan would say, "Yeah, ok."

Leah was one of several on the team that was a rookie to softball. And though Leah came a long way over the course of the season I can't claim much credit. Why would a coach have to put pressure on a player that puts so much pressure on herself? Leah worked very hard and despite no previous experience she became a reliable and effective pitcher.  But, like Ally, if Leah threw a few bad balls in a row, I'd have to visit the mound to calm her down. "Leah. You're making the face. Just relax and throw and you'll be fine." And then she was fine.

When I get a chance to draft Lauren, I do. This is the 3rd year I've had Lauren on my team because she is a player. Lauren can be as fun and as silly as any 10 year old girl, but when the game

started, she was all business. Lauren was aware of what was going on and what she needed to do. There was no doubt that Lauren was trying her best. Her long limbs made Lauren a fun kid to watch. She had this huge sweeping swing that made it look like forever for the bat to cross the plate. More often than not, though, she was ahead of  the pitch. And it wasn't just her arms. With her socks pulled high, Lauren looked like a deer running the bases. I swear that at full stride, the girl could go from 1st to 3rd base in six steps.

Dusty Weed Whacker Goes for a Ride

I don’t really make yard work a priority. I just don’t. It gets 

done when it gets done. Something always comes up that 

takes precedence. Baseball games, work, sleep, laundry, 

house cleaning. You name it. Weather can throw a wrench in 

the works. You can’t cut if there is too much rain. You can’t 

cut if the long grass isn't dry enough. And don’t get me 

started on leaves. Whatever the issue, winter or nature will 

just take care of it eventually.

My neighbor on the other hand is a lawn person. Her yard 

always looks good. Not that there is anything wrong with 

that. There are all sorts of people in the world with all sorts 

of lifestyles. No one is any better than the other. You got

 Baptists and Catholics, liberals and conservatives, and even 

Coke people and Pepsi people. She’s a lawn person.  Her 

lawn is a wide open, plush, green landscape. Beautiful.

Today, work gloves we on the hands on this side of the fence.


 Oh, we were out in force.


Four people mowing, weed pulling, branch lopping, and 

weed whacking our way through the jungle that was our 

yard. We looked Yard Crashers on energy drinks and coffee.

Sadly, our neighbor is moving soon. I don’t know if she saw

us, but I think she would be proud. She keeps a groomed 

yard, but I don’t think she thinks less of ours. She is too nice 

to say anything like that. She might say, "Just so you know, I saw a mountain lion hiding in the tall grass near the fence." She probably doesn't even care. 

Maybe she thinks that her yard looks better next to ours.

 

But part of me thinks she saw us out there working and 

thought,


 “Ten years as neighbors and they finally put that damn week

 whacker to use.” 

Mini Machiavelli

What a beautiful morning. I finished my run and came home to a pretty quiet house. Everyone in bed, they have all taken advantage of our free Sunday morning.  After cleaning up, I crawled back into bed, lying there in my shorts with the fan blowing on my face and the rest of my body enjoying the breeze from the window.

As I laid down, Jennie took that as her cue to get moving. She left the room and soon after Maddie entered. Dressed in her black One Direction pj's and her bedtime Swiss Miss braids looking rough after a night's sleep, the girl crawled into mom's vacated spot on the bed. I looked over to watch her cuddle in under the comforter and bury her head into the pillow. She looked over and said, "I love you, Daddy."

I reached my arm over across the king size bed. Maddie put her hand out and our palms come together. Holding hands, eventually both of us curled our fingers, hooking them like inverted 'J's'.

I rubbed my thumb across her hand and fingers. Maddie does the same for a moment, but her caress seemed to evolve into a tapping. Tapping from one side to the other, back and forth. I did the same. Time with my little girl, kicking back listening to birds outside and watching the curtains puff in from the breeze. A soft relaxing Sunday morning, I drift closer to sleep.

Then she strikes. Her thumb stomps mine. One, two, three four. She declared a thumb war.

I lost. Then to Maddie, with her evil laugh, go the spoils.

Steps to a More Manly Thom

One of my favorite stories about myself comes from my time working at a law firm in Syracuse. Two female attorneys got on the elevator with me. One literally hiked up her skirt and began adjusting her panty hose. The other whacked her arm and gestured to me. Ms. Upskirt blew it off. “It’s just Thom.”  She finished her business, ironed out her skirt with her hands just as the doors opened on the first floor, and walked off.

So maybe I should have seen this coming. But I didn't.

I tend to think a lot of myself because, well…I’m me. So, when a single woman I know expressed her disappointment that I had no brothers and said, “I’d love to marry someone like you” I was quite flattered.  Self esteem points to spare!

But just a short breath later she says, “I’d like to have a nice gay man around to do my laundry and cuddle when I need it.”

Self esteem points gone.

Now, I don’t want to disparage anyone’s God given sexual orientation.  I’m not insulted that she’d say that. But I am just as aghast as some gay man might be if a female friend compared him to a 46 year old, overweight, heterosexual.  I don’t fit any of the gay criteria made famous in a Seinfeld episode 20 years ago. I’m not neat, thin, or single. So, what kind of vibe am I giving off?

Sure, I forgo a lot of going out because I spend time with my family. I do laundry. I love my yoga. The women at work do sometimes feel comfortable enough around me to refer to me as "one of the girls." That can't help. It appears that maybe I don't do enough manly things.

But that isn't true, I tell you! I do manly stuff. Why just the other day at Wegman's some fine looking ladies on this magazine cover caught my eye and I went over to take a look. Have you seen the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue this year? Well it was there, right next to this magazine with Erin Burnett and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on the cover. A little more brains and a little more clothes than the SI cover, but I was checking out women, anyway.

Maybe she's right. I guess I should do more to project myself as a 21st Century heterosexual male. A little brainstorming and I've come up with a some changes that can move me in that direction.

1. More insensitivity  and obliviousness to women's feelings.

2. Flee the room at any mention of menstruation, feminine hygiene, or even the word 'period', even if it is a discussion of punctuation. You can't be too safe.

3. Play golf.....NOT PUTT-PUTT!

4. Understand and talk at length on the intricacies of a football offense.

5. Spend more time outdoors with no shirt, oblivious to the fact that no one wants to see my nipples.

6. Continue with my current clothing choices.

7. Have a deep fascination with any conversation involving cars, grilling, or lawn mowers.

8. Get a barbed wire tattoo around my massive biceps.

9. Call time spent with my own children 'babysitting'.

     Last but not least....

10. Less showers, more cologne!

Yeesh. None of those choices really appeal to me. I guess I'll be happy with the way I am. I'll hang out with women. They smell better than men anyway. And a minivan is way better than a red sports car as a symbol of my manhood.

 I really don't have time for this. I have laundry to do.


 

 

 

The Kids are Alright

Music is one of my ‘things’. I listen to music as often as possible. Without question there will be music going when I drive, work, or run. Just about all the time. The music that I prefer, naturally is MY music. It is predominately the music I grew up with. My idea of new music is hearing a song on the classic rock station that had been long lost and I'm inspired to dig an old cd out of the attic. The familiarity, the style, and the sounds of that music speak to me. They sooth me and they fire my passion. This is the soundtrack of my life, the sounds of my youth, and the sounds that put me at ease as I age and move on to unfamiliar worlds.  

One morning I found myself driving I-90 West with tired eyes and Hotel California came on the radio. That long mystical guitar intro to The Eagles’ Hotel California was the perfect ambiance as I’m watching the sunrise in my rear view mirror. On the way home later that night, tired eyes on the other side, The Eagles came to me again with Take it to the Limit. These melodies & arrangements framed these moments perfectly while echoing so many other moments. They were there when I was an 8 year old sitting on the vinyl back seats in my parents old LTD with the window down and hot summer air blowing in my face. They were a part of my high school transition to California and followed me to Texas, Germany, South Carolina, and New York, back to California, and to New York again. It is these sounds, and others that do the mental stirring of my memories whipping up all the big moments, the mundane moments, every single road trip, every run, and every feeling in which songs and others like them played a part. My life.

I can be open. I pick up some new sounds here and there. They tend to come from my kids, students, or various sources unknown to me.  Some Train, Katy Perry, & even a taste of One Direction have penetrated the sanctity of my playlist. That is how I found myself listening to International by Pitbull and Chris Brown. I allowed Zachary to choose the radio station and all I could think is, "This is what my kids are growing up with? Total crap." But hope is not lost.

If Zachary's iPod music queue was a salad, 'my' music would certainly be the lettuce. Definitely the base and making a solid presence. Madeline heard Tainted Love on the radio recently and blew a gasket. "Who is this? Can we get it on iTunes?" The girl could not believe it was an 'old' song. She has also developed a love for the song Breakfast at Tiffany's.  

Honestly, that has a lot to do with her adoration of Audrey Hepburn and her trademark black dress & pearls from the movie of the same name. But a good choice, nonetheless. 

Thomas also scores major points in his love for The Beatles. My favorite is his favorite, but his interest does seem to be genuine. He's become skilled at identifying lead vocalists by their voice. Then the other day, over lunch at Panera, Thomas initiated a game of Beatle trivia and 'what is your favorite..'  I asked him what would be his favorite album cover. He took a spoonful of his mac and cheese, his eyes rolled up and to the right as he pondered the question. "Revolver. Definitely Revolver." Good answer, grasshopper! And I didn't even know that he knew that. (His favorite albums are Help! and Rubber Soul, so I was certain he'd go with one of those). 

So, I think musically, they'll be alright. Each of those kids has brought new music to me. Jen & I have made sure that they appreciate the old stuff the same way my parents' Leon Redbone, Leon Russell, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash have solidified their presence in my mental (and physical) playlist. 

Chasing Lightning Bugs on Old Orchard Lane

There was this girl.

That’s the first line of so many good stories. There she was. Here she is, secure in memories of my childhood, somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12. She wasn’t the first crush I ever had. Those were numerous. I figured out early that girls were infinitely more interesting and appealing than boys. Not that I was ever a playah. I compare better to Karl Fredericksen in the movie UP! More of a silent but loyal follower.

My parents had these friends who lived on the other side of town and for a couple years they spent a great deal of time there playing cards and talking until all hours. These friends didn’t have children our age, so if us kids wanted to do anything fun, we had to create it ourselves. The finished basement was our kingdom. It had a bar which was pretty cool for serving up drinks. Alcohol wasn’t on our radar yet, but we had unfettered access to soda. There was also a bumper pool table and a cabinet under the stairs with the biggest stockpile of Playboys I had ever seen.

But in the daylight hours we would make our way outside. It was a neighborhood, so there was always some impromptu gang of kids ready for more to join in on whatever adventure was brewing. Whiffle ball, hide and seek, or just plain exploration were the standard activities. In my mind there were a dozen or so kids around.

But the only one I remember was Angie Rinkenberger.

So many people have gone in and out of my life over the years. I've forgotten most of them. There are people who I have interacted with on a daily basis for years, whose faces and names are fuzzy, faded memories to me. This girl, who I saw a handful of times in the late 70’s or early 80’s, remains fresh in my mind. I couldn't really tell you any specific things we did. I can’t remember any of our conversations. I just remember looking for her. I remember wanting to be around her.

First off, part of what made this girl memorable was her name. The sound of it intrigued me even then. And now, as an adult, it sounds even more like a girl from one’s past. I can say that I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Angie seemed a bit more serious than the most of the kids. Maybe a bit more ‘mature’ than the rest of us 10 year olds, so she always came off as a leader. And where ever she wanted to go, I’d follow.  I liked her eyes. And she smelled good.

What the scent was escapes me now.

Was it her shampoo? Was it soap?

Maybe it was bubble gum.

I can’t say, but it made me want to be close to her. I knew that I wanted to ask her to be my girlfriend, but two things stopped me. Fear of rejection. What if she said no? Then what?

Then there was fear of success. What if she said yes? Then what? I’d have no idea what to do next.

No matter. I would instead, admire her in secret and we’d have fun just being kids chasing lightning bugs from one yard to the next.

Now, as I tend to do, I find myself skimming the obituaries of the local papers and in that of my old hometown. I saw Angie’s name and a picture of the grown up woman that she had become and my heart sank. We went to different schools in Streator and I would later move to California, so my memories of Angie were confined to our pre-teen years. I have no inkling of her life or her journey or what would bring it to a premature end. The obituary offered no clues, either.

I find myself so sad for her and sad for her family, losing her at such a young age.

Selfishly, I am a little sad for myself, feeling the reality of life and age setting in.

Instinctively, I was tempted to copy the picture from her obituary and save it to a digital photo album. Stack it there with so many other memories and events from my life.  

There's no need for that, though, because I’m pretty happy with the picture in my mind that has stayed with me for so many years. That of a humid Illinois evening and a young girl on a grassy front lawn with wavy brown hair and dark eyes. She is dressed in pink shorts and a white tank top, and she's saying “Follow me.”

Happy Birthday, Me!

This is an old birthday post of mine from Facebook. I really like this one and find it an enjoyable read for today, my 46th birthday.

The simple life is good. I just turned 44 and instead of a mid-life crisis purchase like a motorcycle or sports car, I find myself with a new fridge. It's my 1st that dispenses crushed ice. Even if it is some sort of cosmic metaphor, the ice as the years of my life and my youth getting mangled, crushed, ground, spit out and left to melt away into the eternity of my glass. Still, every drink is like a sno-cone. Which is nice. Life is good.