A few years back on the Central Coast

Last weekend I took the Heathens to the movies. Just they and me, us just three. We saw “We Bought A Zoo”, a heart-wrenching tale of a father and his two kids who undertake ownership of a zoo as part of buying a house, all brought on by their attempt to move past the death of the mom in the family. Heathen #2 took the opportunity to nap, #1 took it all in and wrestled with the concept of death and roaring lions, while I took the chance to weep like a damn baby every five minutes. Yeah, I don’t recommend you go into that movie with the hopes of a comedic romp, but if you feel like staining your sleeves with tears and snot like a child might, then by all means, go.

The movie highlighted the struggles of family dynamic, of a father trying to connect with his son and daughter, trying to find purpose when his has seemed to vanish into the ether. I haven’t lost a spouse to death, nor have I up and quit my day job, but nonetheless, I’m struggling. We all are. In this time of Facebook and Twitter, where everyone is trying to sell either the very best versions of what they WANT you to see, or in the case of the  latter, bitter snark, it’s easy to feel as though you’ve fallen off the Normal Train.

Lord knows I’ve made horrendous errors. My propensity to only learn things the hard way has cost me pride, dignity and self-respect on more than one occasion. I’ve had friends, good friends, take a look at me and just say “nahhh, I’m not dealing with you.” The ability to take everything too personally has slowed down my personal growth to the point where the middle finger is often my primary reaction to people who may, or may not be, just trying to help. And the sad truth is that is it’s probably going to be that way in many aspect of my life, always. I never wanted to grow up thinking “well I better not experience THAT part of life, because I’ve been told it’s not good, or it’ll hurt.” I’ve NEEDED to grab the stove, so that I could KNOW what getting burned felt like, to hurt like that, to live.

So how to reconcile this rocky path I keep choosing with raising my boys with a semblance of stability? I looked over at them during the movie, as the father in the movie was in the middle of arguing with his son, and I felt distinct chest pains; already my boys like to push the edge of the envelope, and although it’s a normal part of establishing your individual identity, it still hurts sometimes. People in this life will let you down, as I have to many, and I’ve had done to me; but these, my boys, my most rewarding endeavor in this life….they’ve changed the game completely. At the age of six and eight, they’ve taught me more about being an adult than any other adult I’ve known. It is they who continue to teach me how to be a parent. Those two giggling spasms of drive-me-loco energy are who prop me up from my darkest moments. From some unknown paternal well of inner resolve, I’m able to put aside my selfish drive and focus on strength for them in return. From the moment they arrived into this world, naked and screaming, nothing has driven me quite like the sense of protective love I feel for those lunatics. Nothing else could.

Our paths together will continue to wind around unknown corners, little hurts and big heartbreaks testing our will and resolve. But I didn’t get to town on the Normal Train myself, so to bend to convention seems an unlikely option as a parent for me. I’ll love those boys ferociously, for all their lives and then some, and maybe they’ll grow up to question just what kind of unhinged dad they’ve inherited. That’s okay, I’ve never claimed to be normal, or stable for that matter. They’ll grow up with many questions about this fantastic, mean, beautiful world, but one thing I hope they never question is my boundless love for them.

As heart-wrenching as it was, it really wasn’t the movie causing my eyes to leak so prolifically. The sheer enormity of this journey of fatherhood can, at once, cause you to buckle at the knees and give you the kind of strength you never dreamed existed. What a crazy blessing. Thanks for having my back, boys. I’ll always have yours. Always.

My Grandparents On Their Honeymoon, 1941. Old School.

“Thanks, Grandpa, for letting me drive you to the service; it means a lot to me to be able to spend this time with you”, I said, probably a little too loudly.

“I didn’t have a damn say in the decision”, he replied.

“Odd”, I thought, “that’s the second time in ten minutes he’s cursed”. While I may swear like a sailor on shore leave, my grandfather isn’t prone to profanity except in times of great distress. So, in essence, it wasn’t weird at all: my grandmother, his wife of 70 years, had passed away in her childhood home after 92 years of toil on this earth. While not totally unexpected following a difficult surgical procedure, the loss is profound for all of us, not the least of which for this once-strapping man, reduced at age 94 to minimal talk and the frail carriage of a body he struggles to control. Here’s the man who showed me how to ride a bicycle backwards in his late 60’s now requiring two people and a considerable effort to get him from his wheelchair to the car, where I’ll spend what will probably be our last time together privately, save for Uncle Phil riding in the back seat.

As soon as he uttered his seemingly derisive curse, I noticed the faintest hint of a smile curl up at the corner of his mouth. He was yanking my chain in the face of all this sadness, while I witnessed, for the first time in 33 years of knowing him, a tear escape his blurred eyes. His rock, his soul mate, the love of his life had soldiered on into the beyond, and while he was surrounded by family, I was struck by the enormity of his new, lonely reality. And yet, there he was, tears dripping on to his natty pin-striped suit, busting my chops, just a little.    

“Did I ever tell you about the time I told mother to meet me in Omaha?” he mumbled to me as we bounced through the rough outlying town of Oildale, a nasty stretch known for brawling roughnecks and hardscrabble living.

I thought I’d heard all of his stories over the years; most I knew by heart. I’ve always tried to patiently hear each one each time, knowing that these chapters are the significant tales of his life, and someday, when he’s gone, those will be my memories of him. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard this story and told him as much. His stooped posture took on a re-invigorated thrust of energy, and his gnarled hand rested on my arm, one conspirator to another as Uncle Phil leaned forward from the back seat, hungrily devouring his father’s words, no matter the content.

“I had just graduated from Officer’s Candidate School in Maryland” he feebly uttered, “and I wanted to get posted as far west as I could, wanted to get back home. So I tried for, and found out I was going to be stationed at Ft. Crook, Nebraska. That’s near Omaha, you know. And so I got ahold of your grandma in Bakersfield and told her ‘Meet me in Omaha’. It was 1941, or 1942, and the war was on. I got on a train, and mother got on a train in Bakersfield, and wouldn’t you know it, three days later, we both got there. (I later found out they got there within a half an hour of one another, something of a miracle, given the time period, the war, all of the variables).  So there we are, and I meet her on the platform at 11 at night, and I hadn’t seen her in 3 months….” his voice trailed off at this point, and he muttered a little more about getting a hotel and ending up in Nebraska for 3 years, but for the briefest moment, as he described being on the train platform, he was again a young man in uniform, serving his country and waiting for his pregnant bride, a remarkably stoic and thoughtful woman. The reunion was being played out in his mind, and he was  joyful at the thought; more tears flowed. Time froze for he and I both, loving silence enveloping us in its sad beauty.

“I told you to slow down; it’s 45mph here, and you’re going to get a damn ticket if you’re not careful”

“Yes, sir. I’m doing 44, Grandpa.”

“I know. You know that time we took that trip to Mexico?”

“Of course Grandpa. It was a very important time in my childhood.”

“I remember we were all there at Puerto Vallarta, at dinner, and Robert announced that he would be marrying your mother. And I remember, you must have been, what, 7? And I remember you looked up at me and you said ‘Now I can call you Grandpa’”, another sad smile emerging from the corners of his mouth as he recounted the evening in perfect detail. “I told you to slow down through here.”

Now we’re BOTH leaking water from our eyes, the tough old farmer and me. He and grandma were the only grandparents I’d ever really know, accepting me into the family as one of their own from the moment I came crashing into their lives a chaotic 4yr. old, top of my lungs and full throttle. In their strong, quiet way, they’d be the foundation of so much in my life, from the now priceless hand-knit pot holders she would give me at Christmas to the work ethic he demanded of his family, trying to instill a sense of self-sufficiency and pride in craftsmanship that is the hallmark of each of their seven children.

He was at once strong and vulnerable as the oil derricks and freight trains quietly passed by the windows of his Buick, and our time slipping too fast before my eyes. He won’t read this, and I don’t know if he can today recall the conversation we had three days ago, but as we journeyed together to bid a sad farewell to a remarkable woman, he gave me what will probably be his last and most important gift: the recognition of our bond as family with all that that entails: loving, squabbling, growing, but through it all, doing it together.

After the service and the lunch and he was situated in his chair, grandmother’s recliner conspicuously unoccupied by little more than memory, I clutched his gnarled hand and told him that, yes, I’d be safe going home, and more importantly, I love you, Grandpa.

“I love you too, Uli.”

Maybe she’s in heaven and maybe she’s in Omaha, but I bet no matter where it is, she’s waiting to meet you there, Grandpa. And she’ll be damn happy to see you again. Thanks for the ride, it was worth every last mile to me.

Yeah. That. Courtesy of Wollongong, Australia

“Face it: you’re a town guy. You NEED people around you, neighbors to steal coffee from, people to shoot the bull with.”

Of course, she was right. People that know you generally are, especially when it comes to your defining characteristics. I was heading down an off-ramp of isolation, about to be compounded by a 24-hr. flu. My eyeballs were sore, my body ached and my mindset was all knotted up. Living as we do, out on 5 acres and surrounded by relatively xenophobic neighbors, you must get used to your own company, and if you’re not careful, you’ll end up with a borderline Amish personality.

We’ve been out there about 6 years, and that which I loved so much has turned into a lonely landscape, especially this time of year, leaves off the trees and a bitter wind coming out of the west most days. Without the old excavation company to justify needing so much flatland, the big shop and wide open spaces, it is a reminder of a business gone; and, like the neighborhood feels when your lifelong friend moves away in the fourth grade, it’s that much less fun to live on that street. But mostly, I miss people.

Surely the need to be in contact with my fellow man is a thwarting mechanism for dealing with latent issues of abandonment, or some other psychological malady occupying the walls in my head. And, at the rate the therapist charges, you feel the need to consent most wholeheartedly. But there’s a part of me that prefers the wisdom of my friend in the coffee shop, she responsible for that quote above. I DO like people. I find them fascinating, their stories weaving character into our lives, so much more interesting than watching my weeds wither all winter long. I find a calm with people that I never would used to have, back when I acted so much older, a 65 year old in a 30 year old body, bitching nonstop about the errant ways of others.

Whether it’s at CrossFit, down at Patton Alley Pub, the ice rink or the firehouse, we all need some community. We need to belong to woodcarvers guilds and historical societies and fraternities of one stripe or another. When we leave those communities we tend to cast about, rudderless fools adrift in chum-laden chaos. And I LIKE chaos, just minus the chum.

I’m glad she recognized that fact; when we get down in the mouth it feels good for a friend to reach out and say “hey, jerk! Come back to your community. You may be an ass, but you’re our ass.” And sometimes that means a change of address.

I hope the future neighbors have coffee.

No running for me, thank you very much

This time of year, Missouri lives in a cold-storage state of mind. We’re stockpiling holiday cheer and consumptive orgies for round 2, having just overindulged at Thanksgiving and lazily eyeballing the birth of Christ as personified by televisions going on sale at low, low prices. One particular day, the weather turns cold, very cold and we brace for it with ever-louder holiday music and a fondness for melted cheese dip. Belts get loosened a notch and we analyze football games on the weekend while inflatable Santas keep watch over the neglected leaves in our yards.

No wonder people hate themselves over the holidays.

We cook like the end of times is nigh, we apply subtle social pressure to one another (“hey, are you already done shopping for the kids? Bob knocked his all out  last week. What an asshole”), we pretend not to notice the wagging finger of the devout as they clamor for us to remember the Christ in Christmas, and we force smiles to one another as we anticipate yet another two weeks of our children NOT being school and tearing our homes apart all while we seethe inwardly and debate the merits of child labor laws in our minds. It is enough to make you pray to the baby Jesus in the manger to smite down the inventor of Black Friday in a righteous fury. THAT would have set the tone for history, in my opinion.

But since Jesus has not seen fit to smite down those who would program holiday music to begin the day after Halloween, I need to find other ways to avoid fits of freezing temper tantrums. Workout burnout comes quickly to the short attention spanned, and there’s something cleansing about running that even motivated me to write about it the other day (here). In this weather, though, running is pure misery, in some respects. Grown men end up wearing tights (guilty), snot meanders onto your upper lip more frequently, and it’s hard to catch your breath in cold jabs. Misery, it turns out, loves company. I know someone who I can force to run with me, even on those days when my runner-wife decides she can’t bear to watch my painful loping: the dog.

He’s been signed up to run the Frosty Paws 5k with me on December 10, and he didn’t even sign a consent form. To be fair to the poor bastard, I thought he might be in need of a training run or two, since he’s been living like a damn spoiled Saudi prince at the house. That picture above? His normal workday, personified.

So we ran this morning. He was less than impressed, and after taking a prolific dump somewhere near mile one, I could tell his heart just wasn’t into it. Clearly, he was missing his daytime episodes of Animal Cops Houston and pining for another rendition of “White Christmas” to be cranked over the airwaves. With a droolish curious look on his mug, he trotted alongside me full of the attitude you’d expect from a teenager, only to be excited by the taunts of random squirrels and the chance to pee on new trees. That’s ok….if I’m going to have festive cheer foisted upon me, he’s going to have cold runs forced upon him in anticipation of a race in a few weeks. It’s the holidays, dammit. Show some spirit.

The Dad We Wish We Had On Turkey Day

You know, we have so much to be thankful for, you and I.

If you’re reading this, you have access to the internet, which means you’re not spending you time hunting down raccoons for a meal. Likely you have a roof over your head, the ability to live outside of the yoke of an oppressive regime in the heat of the Middle East and enough money to buy that latte you’re drinking at Starbucks with your Power Mac laptop which is how you stumbled across this page.

As a cynical raconteur and avowed skeptic, I find it easy to take the “not only is the glass half empty, it’s cracked and leaking but I’m too lazy to do anything about it except complain to no one in particular” approach. On a related note, this is precisely why I’d make a crappy religious zealot; I wouldn’t believe myself most of the time. I could stand to be a little less jaded, I suppose, a little peppier when I get into a fender bender, a few more “woo-hoo’s” at CrossFit when I see someone skipping rope really, really fast. And truly, in this life, there is so much for which to be grateful.

• The unconditional love your children have for you (at least before their age gets into the double digits)
• The way in which your dog acts upon your return home, even if you were only gone for 5 minutes; the maniacal tail (or nub) wagging, the eyes, casting about wildly, the incessant pawing. You’ll always be the biggest celebrity in your dog’s world.
• Waking up in a country where you can be as free as you’d like. Free to be informed, free to be ignorant, but most importantly, free to be.
• Thermostats in the winter, and the ability to use them.
• Enough leisure time on our hands that we pay the Kardashians of this world exorbitant sums to basically live in front of cameras and date/marry professional athletes at their casual will.
• We can choose to run for health or sport as opposed to running for our lives from a pride of hungry lions with low blood-sugar issues.
• When Wall Street’s greediest chowderheads choose to abscond with others money, and our faith in man falters, we still forgive our neighbor for running over our garbage cans or that jerk who swiped your parking space….we forgive him too. Or we oughta.
• A well stocked liquor store on virtually every corner. Turns out, that’s quite handy.
• Family. Even the one’s you’re not talking to right now.
• Friends. Even the one’s who won’t talk to you right now.
• A house to clean. Laundry that needs to be done, because that means you’re still needed for more than just operating the dishwasher.
• Want bacon? Go buy bacon. Want a big-screen tv? Go buy one. Wanna meet a disease-infested tranny hooker in a park after hours? Go to Craigslist. My point? We don’t lack for much, except for an appreciation for what’s in front of us.

And I may well be the worst when it comes to a basic appreciation…..but not today. So thank you, one and all, for mostly just being you; friend or foe, you’re shaping the landscape of this life for me, and I’m grateful for the challenges and gifts of this life. I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled pessimism soon enough, but today, I’m just thankful.

I was runnnnning....

Pad, pad, pad, pad, pad, pad, gravel-crunching halt as I wait for the turkeys to pass, they who look at me as the fool for running in the rain. Pad, pad, pad, pad, a moment of self doubt as I painfully lurch up a hill, then careen down some slippery wet rocks, envisioning being found in a broken heap three days later, mostly eaten by gloating turkeys, pad pad, pad, pad, pad……….release.

Runners as a group intrigue and irritate me all at once. They are a cult of ghosts, sometimes whispering by you alone as you walk down a trail, sometimes loudly clanging cow bells at organized events, where despite truckloads of bagels and bananas, everyone looks emaciated. The purists look down their noses at everyone, the uninitiated have gaits that are apparently horrendous, and I still can’t get a read on why anyone thinks the actual running is “fun”. Here’s what I HAVE learned, though….running accomplishes two things for me:

1. If I ever want to cut weight, there’s no more surefire way than to take up running, preferably longer distances than from the kitchen table to the fire truck.
2. The release of endorphins, the purging of mental toxins, the ability to converse with the voices in my head, the mindless and fruitful flights of the creative side of life, all of these take place as I lumber through parks and trails and neighborhoods, one pathetic mile at a time.

I have no desire to run competitively in a long distance capacity. I’d like to try a half or whole marathon once, just so I can put a sticker on my car and act all elite and shit, but truth be told, competing in that arena requires a discipline and lack of body fat to which I’m not really ready to commit. So it’s like I casually date running, we hook up when it’s not hockey night or CrossFit isn’t happening, and while I always feel good afterwards, I’m still not in love enough to actually become a runner. The Wife, however, has; she completed a half-marathon this past weekend, an accomplishment for which I want to kill her out of envy and beam with pride, in equal amounts. She now subscribes to Running Runner or some other such magazine where I am to understand they tell the reader to run and rest and eat. In that order.

So as I went running by the turkeys the other morning, it served meaning for me. Running alone in the rain is an act of purification and rare joyous solitude. Scrambling over wet rocks and avoiding getting clubbed by bounding deer keeps me on my toes, a crossword puzzle of the legs and lungs. As well, there are people and events taking up space in my mind, squatters, really, who aren’t paying rent. They are of no consequence in the big picture, so of course, I give them way too much time and effort. Negative, hateful and judgmental as hell, I’d normally admire these qualities and insist that we be the best of friends, but such isn’t the case. No amount of staring at blank pieces of paper, willing art to come forth, or essays to be written can take place when I’m allowing the monkeys in my brain access to pipe wrenches and pots & pans. They, the events, the people, the mayhem, needed to be evicted. Right there on the trail.

That happens at mile #2. Mile 2 is where notice is served, and the mind begins to take back what belongs to it, the monkeys get crammed back into cages and mayhem is mitigated into controlled chaos…

Shit shouldn’t be happening to me like this, says the mayhem.

Sure it should, says the running mind. Life isn’t about being fair, or easy, or how YOU want it to turn out.

Mayhem says it doesn’t work like this.

Sure it does, say the miles. Your script matters not, but guess, what? THIS is life. It IS supposed to work out like this, and you’re just a bit player, a stand-in. Now, watch out for that branch, it’s gonna clean smack you in the face.

Mayhem begins to lose control of the conversation, and outwardly, I smile. Grinning like an idiot at the turkeys and the deer and the jittery squirrel, who eyes me uneasily, I smile. This is that moment. This is why some people run. In the confines of conversations of the mind, this is what I seek. Time to once again be landlord of my own mind. Running as church.

Balance will be restored. It may not be of your design, but you’ll survive. Life isn’t a sticom, nor a rom-com, nor a Shakespearean endeavor. It is what it is, and you’re a part of it. Open the door; let the assholes out and the sunshine in.

As rain and sweat and tears all mingled freely across my face and down the trail, I realized that despite low miles, a disparaging lack of consistency and a body more suited to hockey than distance mileage, I am, in fact, something of a runner.

How Ed Did

It started out, as it always does, with little fanfare.

Another day on duty at the fire station, the usual foot traffic behind us, heading to or from the Brown Derby liquor store or the grocery store or the local AA club, located two doors down from the liquor store. The players change, but the plot never does. Many of our 911 calls center around the needs of the homeless, and they utilize the 911 system with a frightening efficiency. They know the ins & outs of how to get the fire department there right away, and as such, we often get to know them on a personal basis. We develop dysfunctional relationships with them, us being referred to as “hey fireMAN” and they by their nicknames or street monikers. Some are funny, many are violent, most are in a depressing state of being. Our people are a colorful, crazy lot, and as I tell each rookie who does a rotation with us, “don’t look down your nose at anybody. We miss two paychecks and we’re right there with them.”

SO, we have a new man about town in our ‘hood, he a peddler of ladies delights. While he’s never come right out and SAID that he’s a pimp, we can watch his moves from the station and it’s pretty clear he’s not selling vacuums door to door. The giveaway, however, is his telltale dollar-bill-sign hat that he usually wears, cocked at an angle. This gentleman is in his fifties, I’d guess, and working the hustle to make it. He’s always friendly and polite to us, often gets into shouting matches with unseen adversaries near the dumpster behind our firehouse. We’ve made runs on his lady friends, and he always seems irked when one of his employees is off the clock.

Our new friend made his way into the engine bay the other day and loudly proclaimed: “exCUSE me!?! Could I get some help here?” My hands were literally full at that moment, so the other engineer handled the situation. It went down something like this:

“How can I help you sir?”

“Well, I ain’t gonna lie; me an’ my ol’ lady, we been drinkin’ vodka again. Her knee is all kinds of messed up.”

“Oh, I see. Would you like me to get an ambulance headed this way?”

“I didn’t SAY that. I just said, we been drinkin’. She might need some he’p. With her knee.”

“Not a problem, I’ll just grab our medical equipment.”

“Hold on…..”

(-intended break here. THIS is where it got interesting. HE is in our engine bay, SHE is about fifty feet away in the alley. SHE is the injured one. WE have no problem heading to her and rendering assistance. But HE isn’t having any of that foolishness.  HE needs to demonstrate that he’s the top cock in the henhouse, and that shit ain’t happenin’. So, he turns and (with dramatic pause) hollers out -)

“WOMAN!!! BRIIIING yo’ ASSSS!”

At this point, my co-worker likely pissed himself. He couldn’t laugh; not only would this be unprofessional, it would be a direct assault on the pimp’s self esteem. This was HIS time. HIS woman. He was proving to us that HE and HE ALONE ran this show. She, of course, obliged and zombie-dragged herself up to us, where my partner offered what he could: little more than consolation for an unseen and undiagnosable ailment. How can you treat a problem that refuses to be recognized? You give emotional support, directions to the ER (totally unnecessary, in Dolla’ Bill’s eyes) and hope for the best, knowing that you’ll see each other soon enough, when the alcohol leads to further bad situations. We take it for what it’s worth, smiling all the while.

Plus, he gave us the phrase of the week, one which we flogged to death around the station; ordering people to the kitchen, ordering people on to the rigs, ordering one another to change the channels on the television. As was told to me by the same co-worker “ain’t no conscience in the pimp game, fool.”

Love them or hate them, the characters of Commercial Street are what color the fabric of our life in the firehouse. I’d rather work nowhere else in the city, for these are our people. They bring meaning to our jobs. They keep us all human. And they know that day or night (usually late at night) they can call us, and that we will, indeed, bring our asses.

s'not funny.

Once in great while, I get to time travel. I don’t need physics or machinery or even a white lab coat. It’s much simpler than that; I just go and work as a Watchdog Dad at one of the Heathens schools. This program is designed to have positive male influences present at schools throughout the day so as to deter kids from becoming filthy drug dealers and tax cheats. We help out in classes and eat barely cooked meals with the kids so as to re-live the torture of grade school. But the real trip back in time? That takes place on that playing field where hierarchies are established, hearts are broken and gravel is shoved up into the nostrils of the weak: The Playground.

Today I tottered out there, dizzy from trying to keep up with kids adding “9′s” and “6′s” and subtracting “3′s”, eager to shake these mathematical puzzles from my brain. As the children of 2nd and 3rd grade came tearing out the halls, ready to unleash yet even more crazy from their bottomless wells of boundless energy, I quickly found another adult; it would be necessary for there to be witnesses if any of these psycho-monkeys decided to band together and beat the monitors to death with red rubber balls and rocks.

Quickly they segregated: the boys kicking footballs and shoving their enemies into trees, while the girls quickly banded into packs of 3 or 4, apparently bound by various shades of pink or sparkle. And suddenly I was 8 again. I was the last kid getting picked for the pickup football game, left behind with a kid who insisted on being called “Punker Joe“, his only defining quality that I can remember being twin trails of snot running from his nostrils to his mouth. I can’t seem to recall my own children’s birthdays, but as vividly as getting hit by a bus, I can repeat the names of Shea Morenz, Bodine French, Austin Prince and Adam McLean, the Lords of Vieja Valley grade school in the early 80′s.

Their chatter left me devastated: “let’s leave Emily alone, we’re not with HER!“, “you SUCK!” and “Parker put a booger on my butt!!” I could handle that last one, but I was dazed by the collective effort to ostracize the loners and kiss the asses of the popular. Nothing’s changed since 1983. Attitudes are getting better or worse, depending on who you talk to, parents are acting like friends to their kids, Western society is on the brink of collapse, all that, but the pecking order on The Playground is the same.

Brittany, Brit’ney and Kylie are gonna prance like princesses declaring who’s in and who’s uncool; Riley, Jesse and Corbin are looking for chances to kick someone (literally) off the monkey bars and that weird group of kids will be off in the corner trading Bakugon ninja-jedi cards, twin trails of snot streaming down their upper lips, their eyes looking at me knowingly, silently inviting me to join their band of lovable losers.

"Dont Let The Bastards Grind You Down", permanently

“You can’t kill The Rooster” – D. Sedaris

As he got back up, complaining about how he’d been unfairly checked, the player on the opposing team failed to notice that his skate had taken the liberty of slicing up my hand, my own hockey glove long gone. I failed to notice it at first as well, picking up my stick and skating towards my wayward glove, blood streaming down my hand. The ache was replaced by the adrenaline of being knocked on my ass after the aforementioned player and one of my teammates collided. As soon as I noticed the bleeding, I headed to the locker room to try and tape off the flow, more angry than hurt. These guys were bringing a tough game; it was one in which I would continually get knocked down, hit by pucks and otherwise made to look the fool as our fire department hockey team attempted to keep the losing point spread to less than double digits. I came back out onto the rink and promptly took a high-speed shot to the thumb as well as a few more shoves, hits and wayward stick beatings. Into the third period, I wound up for a slap shot and was able to finally score. Shortly thereafter I collided with another player and I’m pretty sure I broke my lower face, as I couldn’t feel my jaw after my head hit the ice.

We lost 7-5.

And it’s exactly what I needed.

My friend Jake is one of the operators of the site LIVXFIT, a place where CrossFit mentality is applied to domains outside of the gym, utilizing positive values to approach life’s continual hurdles. We’ve been mind-bending ideas about his take on adversity, dealing with it, working through it, overcoming it. I recently threw my virtual hands in the air, signing off with the complaint of how I’m not exactly a good sounding board at this point. There is chaos o’plenty in my household, it’s not being helped in any way by the gossiping of people in my world and I’m feeling like a grade-A failure at so much right now; these aren’t exactly ingredients for overcoming your adversity with your head held high.

Then I took a look down at my leg. That’s my tattoo in the picture. It stems from a mock-Latin phrase made popular in World War II by General “Vinegar” Joe Stilwell and translates into “Don’t Let The Bastards Grind You Down” (I’ll leave you to decipher the red ink). A song by the same name was made popular by ska band The Toasters back in my younger years. I’d always liked that saying, and one day when a good friend closed our correspondence with that phrase, I knew immediately what my next tatt would be.

Funny thing about getting ground down by bastards and adversity in general: we usually don’t get the luxury of determining which adversity we’d like to embrace or which bastards will be attempting to grind us down. Places like CrossFit allow us to define our challenger (weights or times or strands of rope hanging from the rafters), and failure to overcome our self-imposed adversity can be conquered with the repetition, discipline and determination. I’d love to be able to choose which obstacles will be placed in my life’s path so that I could prepare, train and eventually, hopefully, triumph; to do this all while striking manly poses and giving off the scent of cool confidence would be even better, thank you very much. Even house fires and vehicle accidents, while chaotic in nature, can be mitigated with the application of training, knowledge and experience. When we successfully extinguish a fire, it’s not a triumph over adversity; it’s our job.

Unfortunately, our choices, both good and bad, dictate just how hard those bastards will come out swinging. Oftentimes those bastards turn out to be our own selves, and we’re left bloodied and battered and bruised by the struggle. Some turn to spiritual guidance for solace. Others, cynics and agnostics alike, often look down into the well of their own soul, searching for strength from within. Wherever it comes from, the ability to rise to the challenge of adversity boils down to survival. It’s easy to say you’d choose to be strong should the occasion demand it; I’d also like to say I’ll lift a car off of a baby if I have to, in spite of the fact that I wrenched my back trying to lift 315lbs. of non-screaming metal off of the ground a few months ago. Only actual experience will bear out whether we have the sand to make it in this tragic and beautiful life. I can only hope that turning towards whatever adversity that rolls my way gives me a chance to survive the impact and learn from the experience. It’s gotta beat curling up in a ball and screaming at the circumstances.

As we limped off of the ice, I noticed some of my best friends on our team were grinning like foxes in the henhouse. They knew, as did I, that despite getting the ever-loving shit kicked out of us, we brought a tough game right back to them. They were better players and the scoreboard showed that. Our ragtag band of hockey-illiterate firemen had somehow scraped a few points off a well-prepared challenger; at least we got to select the adversity in advance. But the spirit shown is the same that I’m finding necessary to endure the challenging times that lay ahead.

Our paths aren’t well lit, nor pre-determined, in this life. It’s time to take a puck to the face and realize that it won’t, after all, kill you. It’ll hurt like hell and if you’re lucky, the scar will be more of the “life of danger” type than the “I look like a serial killer” variety. But that’s not what matters. The struggle, however, does. Let’s make damn sure we’ve given it all that we’re capable of, even if at the end of the day, the scoreboard doesn’t declare us the victors. The victory lies within the effort.

Only They Know What They're Thinking

There’s an old school song lyric that I recently saw made into a tattoo, and it’s one that’s been rattling around the confines of my addled mind for more than a few minutes:

“Gaudemus Igitur

Juvenes Dum Sumus”

Translated from Latin, it means:

“Let us rejoice therefore

while we are young”

This summer I got to witness my son go from inflatable water wings and clinging to the sides of the shallow end of the pool to diving for rubber snakes in the 6′ deep section. He figured out how to throw a baseball without looking like he was having severe muscle cramps. He rode the bike without training wheels. His drawing skills keep getting better and he can draw a better SpongeBob than I. My other son is a young comic with disarming charm – he held the door open for a lady at the movies tonight, and he’s only six. His memory and recall are what I rely on almost daily to find my car keys or that one shoe I keep losing.

They’re growing up, those boys.

As we slide into Fall, and seasons and lives continue to evolve and change and grow, so too do my young Heathens. Their futures are unwritten, as are all of ours, but their slates are clean. You and I, we are living with the battle scars and badges of life’s choices, for better or worse. When they run across the lawn at full speed, with reckless abandon, I want them to cherish that very moment; I am. They won’t, they’re just busy living life with the throttle pinned wide open, much more concerned with which Transformer can defeat which Jedi than with drinking in the heavy, proud emotions I feel as I watch them. Before long they won’t want to spend their free time playing catch or Lego’s with me so much, and that’s as it should be. Here’s what they will know: no matter what, I’m right there for them with every step from learning how to drive to learning how to deal those uncharted waters of first loves and unwanted teen acne. For now, today, they’re still right here, and yet I miss them already. Perhaps it’s time for me to kick off the shoes and jump on the trampoline with them for a while, or at least till I get motion sick.

Time to rejoice a little. Love a lot.

Even if I’m not so young.