All About Thom

The Facebook game goes like this. Someone gives you a number and you have to list that many interesting, but generally unknown, facts about yourself. While the interestingness is debatable, my responses were a bit long. How lucky you are to get a glimpse into the mind of Thom!  

1.       I often have dreams that I can fly. Not Superman flying. There are 2 types of dreams. Sometimes I concentrate & levitate up and then take off.  Other times I am while running, my strides get longer and higher until I am flying. It seems so real that when I wake up, I still think I can do it.

2.       We pride ourselves in that we have been to so many places. I believe that I could move to and be happy living in any of them. We have never lived in a downtown urban area & that is something that I’d like to do.

3. The three women who have come closest to the American Presidency are Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton, & Sarah Palin. I have seen them all in person (met two). All within 20 miles of our home. If you knew where I live, you’d be amazed.

4.       Two baseball/softball injuries plagued me for years. First, a bad hamstring ( hamstrung by a hamstring? ) and couldn’t throw a baseball without shoulder pain for years. But both were seemingly cured after only a few weeks of yoga.  

5.       Despite the aforementioned pains and the fact that I am overweight, I am worried that for the most part, I’ve been pretty healthy my whole life. I’ve never been the one looking up from the hospital bed and I am not looking forward to it.

6.       I’ve been to a lot of places, but tops on my list of places that I have yet to see is St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow and the Parthenon in Athens.  Those are lifelong dreams.

7.       If Jennie & I had started having children sooner, we’d probably have 5. When accounting for our kids, I’ll see all three, but still think I’m missing some.

8.       I’m a church going Catholic, but in my view, the message is infinitely more important that the messenger. I really don’t think Jesus minds, but I am sure there are plenty of Christians that would.

9.      I feel passionately about things and the way I think our country should be. But my views are tainted by pragmatism, so I focus on what I think is possible. I feel like I have to sacrifice for progress, but that makes me feel like I’m giving up on what I believe.

10.       I rarely drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t even like coffee. But I need soda. I really do. Diet or regular matters not as long as it is caffeinated and carbonated.  We don’t keep it in the house, so I get little bits at a time. Out to eat or a bottle at work. If I go a couple days without it, on comes the DT’s.  

11.   Smell is a very important thing to me. Not turned off by bad smells as much as enjoying good ones. I always smell my food. I love the scents of the seasons. The smell of perfume or shampoo when a woman passes by or even the smell of cigars & beer that always takes me back to Wrigley Field.
 

 

 

Can We Get a Another Curse Back Here?

As a baseball fan, and a St. Louis Cardinal fan, dealing with the limited viewing choices of the late '70s & early '80s, most of my time was spent watching the Chicago Cubs on WGN. The Cubs were, at best, mediocre, but their leader & best player was Bill Buckner. If they needed  a clutch hit or defensive play, Bucker was The Man. He was the go to guy. So, that is why I have always felt bad for him being considered the goat of the 1986 World Series and for a while, the bearer of The Curse.

For those of you who may not be baseball people, it was believed that the Red Sox sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees netted the Sox not only cash, but also a curse that would keep them from winning a World Series ever again. Boston had been a dominant team in the early years of baseball. After their owner's fire sale of players, done to finance his Broadway shows, the Red Sox turned into perennial also-rans. When they finally did make it back to championship caliber play, in the big games, Boston came up short. They didn't just lose. They'd lose in some sort of humiliating fashion.

Half an inning away from winning the World Series in 1986, a ball rolled through Bill Buckner's legs, allowing the winning run to cross the plate. The New York Mets scored three times in that inning, sending the Series to game 7 and an eventual Met championship. Of course, the entire Red Sox team was to blame. Every runner left on base, every pitcher's blown save, every missed opportunity in each of their four losses was somebody's fault. In baseball, it is everybody's fault. But Bill Bucker got the blame for the whole thing. He had to take one for the entire team.

Having my Cardinals lose to the once lowly Red Sox in the World Series twice in 10 years makes me kind of miss the curse. Most of my cursing was saved for my own team in the 2013 edition of the baseball Twilight Zone that suddenly had the Red Sox winning. The Cardinals out hit the damn Sox right up until they got men in scoring position.

Four times the Cardinals have played the Red Sox in the World Series. Two wins a piece. Why the hell did I have to be alive for the Cardinal's losses?

What gets me is, I don't hate the Red Sox. I usually don't anyway. They sit somewhere in the upper middle of my baseball team hierarchy. If they were playing someone else like the Dodgers or the Phillies, or certainly against the Yankees, I'd be rooting for Boston. It is hard to wipe away first impressions. Despite their now 3 World Series victories, I still think of the Sox as losers. And who doesn't root for the losers?

Instead, I'm here frustrated and angry, thinking about this disgusting Boston team, known for their long bearded faces like some backwoods creepy red necks. And not the charming Duck Dynasty rednecks. I'm thinking Deliverance. I just want to go through their locker room with a can of Barbasol and some Schick razors. Or maybe a weed eater.  I want to sink their stupid duck boats.

I want a curse!

How glorious would it have been to have David Ortiz bat .700 in a Boston Series loss? Or for the Cardinals, dead in the water, to pop just two or three more hits in the 7th inning of game 6 to turn a sure Boston victory into a stunning loss. AT HOME! Now that would have been a wonderful way to lose!  Baseball gods of fate! Why have you forsaken me?

But for now, a curse is too little, too late. I turn on ESPN or the MLB Network and I get Red Sox talk and clips of their victory parade.  I'm not ready for that. Fine. You won. Congratulations.

For now, I find solace in the internet. And here I thank Yankee fans, now kindred spirits in our mutual disgust for the American League team in Boston. Those wonderful Yankees fans have put lots of images and video of the Sox past failures for people to enjoy. Players in their Boston uniforms with heads hung. Stunned looks of pain on their faces. Fans crying.

And a ball rolling through a first baseman's legs. That makes me feel better. Avenged. And kind of warm and snuggly inside.

Sorry, Billy Buck. You have to take one for the team.

Age Ain't Nothing But a Number

I'm old. Getting old anyway. There is no denying it.

I’m used to getting older and feeling older. The signs are everywhere. Billy Crystal hit it perfectly in the movie City Slickers, saying,

“I'm losing hair where I want hair, and getting one where there shouldn't be hair."

The physical stuff, the extra weight, the waning hair, the lack of ability to stay up to all hours without days of recovery. Those are the obvious. Everybody gets hung up on that stuff.  

It is the subtle weird stuff that makes me think I'm days away from smelling like BenGay and a diet of Jell-O.

Product placement is something that gets me. When my kids ask for things like Pringles, Rolos, or Skittles I say, “I remember when those were new.” All I need is a geezer accent to make the statement complete. "And when I was a kid, candy was a quarter, dadgum it!"

It really was, but I don't say it too often.

An odd one that snuck up on us last year was being the oldest parents in the Santa line. There is nothing like being surrounded by a bunch of 20ish parents that can make one feel particularly aged. Thankfully, the center of attention is a much older, rounder, & bearded guy. That way, I didn’t stand out as much.

More recently, in the World Series the other night, each of the Cardinals’ three pitchers were born in the 1990’s. Fine. Being older than the players is something I came to terms with quite some time ago. But when I found out the Cardinal manager was younger than I by three years, I had had it.

There had to be a change, so something in me has decided that I need to remind myself that I am still young. Identify the young things that I do, so I will either a) feel younger or b) find young things to put on that list.

So, when I finish a long run, I feel young. I still got good knees and a strong back. On volleyball nights when I have my serve working and the ball goes everywhere I want it to go, I feel pretty young.

And last night, something good happened.  Remember that bit on the first Spiderman movie when Peter Parker was described as having reflexes so fast they border on precognition? Totally me. I was putting dishes away. I had not turned the light on in the pantry and I'm in the dark putting a dish back on the shelf. Above me I heard the clink of glass and movement above. And like a ninja I deftly tossed the contents of my right hand into my left and snatched the falling serving bowl from the air before it passed lower than my chest. Bazinga! I’m all Spiderman and the Flash and… some other really fast guy all put together. That made me feel pretty good.

I can even generally figure out technology. Working with iPods & smart phones efficiently enough. In certain groups I can even be the go to troubleshooting guy.
 

And, I still understand that there is price inflation as years pass, so I am not offended and shocked when I pay $1.00 or more for a candy bar.

A sure sign of youth is that I am still full of hope. I haven't become an old curmudgeon who snarls at everything and everyone because the world is what it is and there is nothing you can do about it. I believe that things will get better. I truly believe that people will do the right thing. I believe that voters will start sending the right people to run the country and pay more attention to what is going on. And I am still hopeful that the St. Louis Cardinals will start hitting with runners in scoring position and win these last two World Series games.  Hope is a good thing. And it is an emotion for the young.

A pessimist would love to point out that all these wonderful, youthful traits will all leave me eventually. The long slow process of physical and mental decay will pick them off, one by one. I suppose so.

But for now I remind myself that there is much to feel good about. I have my wits and my body.

I can do things that other people my age can't.

I will do things that other people my age won't.

I've done a lot and still have more to do.

Dental Joy

All I wanted was some Lucky Charms. Simple enough. But as the cold milk spread  over and between my teeth, like an invading force, it found the spot that was once guarded by an ancient filling. Ancient by some standards. Twenty five to thirty five years or so. But, I had no idea until that moment. That very exciting and painful moment when ice shot through my jaw and up to my brain, literally lifting my head, stretching my neck, and snapping the rest of my body to attention.

There is this bundle of nerves, for your cheek, lip, and all the teeth on one side of your jaw, right up to the midline of your incisors.  That bundle feeds the feeling in all that. So, one nice little shot’ll do it. Takes 'em all out. A mandibular block. That sucker numbs everything at once. One little shot. No big deal. So they say. 

They give you a topical anesthetic that is supposed to keep the needle from hurting as it penetrates the inside of your cheek. Yeah, right. Once that 27 gauge cold steel gets in there and starts rooting around under your skin, looking for the inferior alveolar nerve, the topical don’t mean much.

I handle pain alright. You do what you gotta do. Just wait for the numbby, flubby feeling in your lip. But first comes the sudden sharp jolt from the cold air rushing that exposed area that says, the numbing agent didn’t qutie take yet.

Once you’re there, that whine of the high speed drill complimented by a sweet burny toothy smell relaxes you. Your cheek pinched between the suction tip and your teeth lets you know just what part of your face isn't numb. And we move on to the jaw rattling slow speed that turns into a skull rattle when the dentist glances the handle off your upper teeth. “Oops. Sorry.” I didn’t think they were supposed to say, oops?

Grinding, drilling, packing, shaping, and finally, biting.

Magic.

Of course, once the xylocaine wears off the left side of my face feels like I took a punch from Cain Valesquez.

But at least I could eat my Lucky Charms.


 

Lake Ontario - The End of the Line

And we end, right where it all began. Lake Ontario. I never really gave this one much thought. It is always here. A Great Lake like the rest, but like Michigan, there was an air of familiarity that made it an also-ran. But experiencing the other lakes enhanced my image of the lake in my own backyard.

I've had some adventures on this lake. Tossing aside those faded pseudo-memories of a Lake Michigan beach visit, I can say that this was my first. I'm not from New York, but I did visit a cousin who lived near here, in Liverpool, way back in the mid-seventies. I remember distinctly a trip to Fort Ontario, an old British, and later, American fort. Once a battleground in the War of 1812. I remember getting a blue old timey military cap, the firing of cannons, and the biggest lake I had ever seen, just outside.

 In my time here in New York, our little family has been swimming IN Lake Ontario, eaten dinner BESIDE Lake Ontario, and even got stuck out ON Lake Ontario. Yes, out fishing with a friend, the motor on the boat took the rest of the day off. The oars came out and we did our Viking oarsman thing. Heave! Ho! Yeah, we got nowhere.  In the end, what got us to shore was a tow job from the U.S. Coast Guard. It was pretty cool to get screened and searched as if we might have been smugglers. Lots of questions. Checking our ID's and searching the boat. It was like being in an episode of Miami Vice. I'm sure I'm not the first person to compare Oswego, New York to Miami.

 

 The route of our Great Lakes trip took us along side of Lake Ontario on our way back through Canada. Even though we had been to Lake Ontario many times, to make it official, we took the time for an actual visit shortly after our return home. Of course, we went to Rudy's. If you're going to Lake Ontario, you have to go to Rudy's Lakeside Drive-In. Oh, what a wonderful place! Described by my wife as "deep fried yummy on a stick," Rudy's is not a place for health food. Like Sponge Bob says of the Crabby Patty, "It is good for your soul". Walk up to order cheeseburgers, fried shrimp, and wings along with a Byrne Dairy chocolate milk chaser. Sit and watch the waves while the kids swim. Or just chuck rocks out into the water. Watching the sunset and squeezing my woman. That is Lake Ontario to me.
 

So, we stopped by all five Great Lakes. Technically, what is the big deal? You could say they all look the same. Just some big lakes. But they all had unique views and experiences that made them special. What I remember most of Lake Ontario on our trip is seeing the Toronto skyline from the opposite side of the lake. All the way from St. Catherine’s, a good 30 – 40 miles away, there it was on the horizon, just waiting for us. We've done so much, and still, there is so much more to see.

Don't Wait

There is this album released in 1965 by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The cover has a woman who would appear to be wearing nothing but an outfit made entirely of a tasty white dairy topping. Whipped Cream and Other Delights was the title. My sister insists that we had the album at home growing up, but I don’t remember it. And this isn’t an album cover a young boy would forget.

 

I have a friend that I worked with who first told me about the album. Her dad was a fan of Herb Alpert and as a kid and she always thought this cover was funny to look at. That was probably two years ago. We don’t even work in the same building anymore.  

 

I came across Whipped Cream and Other Delights at the thrift store a while back. The cover and the disk were both in pretty good shape. I paid a whopping 99¢ for the album. I thought of my friend and that this little reminder of her childhood might be a nice, albeit small gift. Maybe I’d give it to her for Christmas or her birthday or something. Whenever. I couldn’t decide, so I stuck it on a shelf to worry about at some later date.

 

So, skip forward from that to last week. A different friend who works with me now had a particularly rough day. She was literally betrayed by someone who had been a friend. For no fathomable reason this person acted in a most callous and disgusting way. It really hurt her, and those of us around her, her friends, did what we could to be supportive. Sometimes there isn’t much you can do, but you do what you can to take away or minimize the hurt.

 

That incident made me think about my friend of the Whipped Cream and Other Delights. I got the record off the shelf, wrapped it, and found a way to get it over to the school where she works now. It just might make her day.

 

I could have waited until Christmas, but I got to thinking, if I have a way to make someone I care about smile or make them happy, then why wait?

They might really need that smile right now.

Stars

It happened again this morning and it doesn’t ever get old. Two days in a row, in the same area of the sky, I got to see shooting stars. Today’s was better. Again there was no moon, but this morning there was no clouds at all, rather than the whisps yesterday. The air had a bit of a chill so the stars were a poppin’. The meteorite was a bright one, and came to light under a familiar constellation, like someone underlined the legs of Orion the Hunter, with a truly magic marker. Its tail was thick and had a sparkle that hung on for a moment before it faded into the dark sky.

That is one of best things about getting out in the morning. I love it. Out and hitting some part of town where ground light is scarce and looking up at a part of the sky that is just teeming with stars. So many that there are no discernible constellations. No noticeable pattern.  Just thousands of points of light shining through the biggest Lite Brite paper ever. Every once in a while, like that errant onion ring in an order Burger King french-fries,  I get the unexpected surprise of a shooting star.

While everyone else is home in bed, I am there. I’m seeing this! Nobody else. I’m thinking like Melvin Udall in the movie As Good As it Gets, because he’s there and no one else is, “And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me.”  I suppose that feeling isn’t unique to me. I would hope that everyone has something like that. Maybe it is dogs, gardening, or dressing up like a plushie.

I just think that those meteors and I have much in common. Both of us traveling through our space, unknown to anyone but nature’s and space’s silent spectators. Out in the dark, momentum and gravity lead us on a trajectory to somewhere. I’m just glad that I’m not the one that bursts into flame and disintegrates.