Dandelion Wine

The summer of 1971, I was 11 years old.  Sixth grade was behind me.  "Middle school" loomed ahead.  Both parents worked.  I and my two sisters were tended to by a nanny.  Her name was Mary.  Her son's, John and Jerry had been my playmates on and off for years.  I lived To Kill a Mockingbird and I'll Fly Away.

I woke every day that summer by 7:30.  I cooked my own breakfast--cereal, or cinnamon toast, or toasted cheese--and by 9:00 every morning I was in the garden.  I hoed and harvested tomatoes, squash, okra, radish.  With cousins who lived two houses up the road, I built "forts" in the field beside our home--areas where the near-head-high (to an 11-year-old) rabbit tobacco plants were bent down at the end of a maze of an entry path.  I played spin-the-bottle and got into all manner of other trouble with female cousins and neighbors.  (When I consider the freedom we had to wander back then, I consider it a wonder we survived.  Clearly none of us think our own children capable of the same responsibility at such early ages.)

But my favorite memory of that summer consists of the reading I did lying in bed each morning, enjoying that last fleeting hour of coolness before the sweltering southern summer sun turned house and world both into a place where any clothing more than cutoff jeans and a wholly optional tee shirt were too much to bear.  I remember Dandelion Wine and The Martian Chronicles.  And by remember, what I mean is, I remember that I read them, and that I enjoyed the former in particular, tremendously. As for the action of either, I've not a clue.

Fast forward forty years.

Tonight, out walking with the family after dinner, the air was laden with the smells of summer in the country.  I live in the city mind you, or what native Richmonders refer to as "the near west end."  I laugh at that.  Four blocks "nearer" and it would be in The Fan, and no one disputes that as being essentially in the city.  But the alleys here are alive with the smell of flowers, of cut grass, of treated wooden fences, of the dirt beneath your feet, of gardenia, magnolia, and honeysuckle's last gasp.  Rabbits run down the alley before you and squirrels scold from fence top.

And if you close your eyes and take a deep breath, you can travel through time to a summer of lazy mornings, food fresh from the garden, Royal Blue spray paint and fresh bearing grease applied to a boy's bicycle, crawdads snatched from beneath flat rocks in streams about to be dammed to create perfect ponds for skinny-dipping deep in the hollows of grandparent's old homesteads.  You can smell the leather of new wallets perfect for tucking away money earned pricing groceries in a family store--money saved with the object of a new RCA clock radio in mind.

And you can wake again the next day to that clock radio, pull the paperback book from the nightstand, and embrace again a dawning day and the beginnings of a lifelong love of the wonder of the written word.

All in a breath, if the right four-year-old is tugging at your finger to show you the treasure of newly discovered unidentifiable metal plucked from the otherwise inconspicuous dirt of the roadway.

Of Big Boys, Bad Boys, Little Boys, and Life

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

My stepson, bless his heart, has had a hard time of it of late. He is, as we used to say in the Air Force, "all thrust and no vector" (used in its single-dimensional if non-lexicographic sense of direction only without magnitude). He cannot control himself. He is not angry or malicious, mind you.  That phase passed long ago, the inevitable result of a world turned upside down by divorce.  No, this version of non-existent self-control is more driven by curiosity, over-abundant energy, above-average intelligence, and a disposition to disregard all boundaries of space and property.  I awoke Saturday morning to find his bed empty and the tiny man downstairs, in the study, where he knows he's not to be, playing on not one, but two computers, both verboten. His repeated random keystrokes and who knows what else had vexed mine right into the blue screen of death. Not an auspicious beginning to the day, and it went downhill, in the Tiny Man's case, from there right through Sunday evening when, after dealing out consequence as dispassionately as I was capable of for nearly 36 straight hours without much detectable effect on behavior, I was granted parole to go see a movie in the interest of my sanity.

The movie is not important.  Important is that, as I was putting on my coat to go, having had mostly only attention in the form of one consequence after another for the better part of two days, around the corner came a tiny man with a surprisingly flattering request: "Can I come with you?"  "No son.  Good night."

A brief exchange, it's true, but weighty.  I needed a break.  He needed . . . me.  Never mind that other than a brief six-hour respite at work I had been on his case like white on rice for two days. I had thought he'd be as glad for the break in constant surveillance as I, but no.  Nor did it change this morning.  Out of bed nearly an hour before he should be, he was sent back to it, but chose instead, to avail himself of the pre-dawn darkness to rummage his sister's room while she slumbered.  Busted yet again, his last sight of me this morning was exasperatedly tucking him in, kissing his brow, and closing the door to his room.

Fast forward through a long day at work where sometimes even the grown ups, when they don't get their way, are a trial more akin to rearing a four-year-old.  Fast forward to bed time, and a calm conversation about consequence, about why again tonight there will be no Wii for the young hacker.  And once there, freeze frame.  Freeze on a bundle of four-year-old boy sitting in a half-century of lap, cradled, protected, nurtured, and loved, and listening calmly, and answering correctly when asked, "Why is there no Wii for you tonight son?"
"Because I went in the study and I played on the pooters."
"And why did you lose blanky this morning?"
"Cause I was in sissy's room playing wif her stuff."
"And who has control of how these things go son?"
"I do."
"That's right."
"I got blanky back."
"So I see.  For putting away all your clean clothes in their right drawers I hear.  Very good, son.  I'm proud of you."
"Will you carwy me downstairs?"
"Carry you?"
"Please."
"Okay.  Let's go."

Zoom in to angelic face of featherweight boy bundle snuggled into broad, man shoulders with blanky for pillow, arms around neck, tiny head tucked against bearded chin.  I thought I might melt.  The import, really, of "Will you carwy me?" is simply this: "I'd prefer my feet never hit the floor again tonight.  I like here."  Velcro.  Even the squirms mostly worn out of him by a rambunctious day.

So down we go to rocking chair in living room.  Man, boy, blanket, BlackBerry.  Why BlackBerry?  Simple: music.  For the next thirty minutes, we snuggled and surfed.  We worked our way through a series of music videos on YouTube, tiny hands holding the boy-sized screen as we worked our way through songs, me singing with most of them, each ending in the same refrain: "Can we do anover one?"  Half an hour like this until, eyelids droopy, we headed up to brush teeth, don jammies, and be tucked in for the night.

Who needs whom most at the end of such a day is never really clear, not really even relevant, perhaps not even answerable.  We empty our boy and man pockets on a common table: security, vulnerability, strength, fragility, age, youth, wisdom, innocence, calculation, impetuousness, anticipation, trust, and love.  It works, this sharing.  He's tall already, but in these moments he fits still in the crook of an arm.  Safe.  Calm.  At home.

What I offer below is a list of those videos, that music.  Soundtrack of a life.  Witness to the wisdom of a license plate: love wins.

At Least Somebody's Writing

And really, really well at that.  Of course I knew this when I married her. :-)  It's quiet here at They Rode On, but if you like reading for the beauty of the stories and the words, check out the last few days work over at Cafe Catiche.  You won't be sorry.

A Nine-Year-Old on the IQ of Bats

Last night, at the playground, just after sunset:

Doc: "Emma, did you know that bats will chase a pebble if you throw one up in front of them?"

Emma: "Are bats retarded?"

25 Random Things About My Father

I mentioned once before, just in passing, John Eldredge's claim, in Wild at Heart, that every man is wounded somehow by his father. I implied in that earlier post that such wasn't the case with me. Today, Father's Day, I want to state it outright.

I do not believe I suffered any psychic wounding at the hands of my father, ever.

Honestly, that's no small claim. I've watched other men and their dads. I've watched women and their father's too. I had acquaintances long ago that couldn't return home when they left the Air Force Academy they hated because their fathers told them not to come home if they quit. I had a so much more than friend, who will likely read this, who went there for a year, because her father told her if she would try it for that long, he would foot the bill for college elsewhere--she did; he did not. I've heard fathers say things to children in public that made my heart ache.

I had and have the best father I know. I know a couple more who are right up there with him (my new father-in-law among them), and I have friends who think or thought the same of their fathers. We are lucky people, those of us in this club, and today is a day we celebrate that luck.

Not all that long ago, I posted 25 Random Things About Me. Today, I'm going to take a shot at publishing another 25 about him. Wish me luck.

25 Random Things About My Father

1. He has taken up the drums. At least, he bought a drum set months ago, and for a while at least, he was playing them. This is especially interesting to me because a little less than four years ago, I took drum lessons for a short while. Neither I nor my father knew this about one another, which is a good segue to the next point:
   
2. My father's life has mirrored mine in so many ways that it's genuinely eerie, especially romantically. I could elaborate, but I'm going to leave it at that for now.
3. I suspect my father of being a closet adrenaline junkie. He owned a motorcycle from the time my parents split up until well into his second marriage. And he was, after all, a volunteer fire chief for over a decade.
4. When I left for the Air Force Academy, over three decades ago, the last thing I remember him saying to me as I walked out of Charlotte's Douglas Airport to climb the stairs to a waiting jet, other than, "I love you," is, "If you get there and you don't like it, son, you know you can always come home." It put staying there all on my shoulders. No expectation, no threats, no rebellion value in leaving (not that I ever felt any need to rebel). It made it possible to stay even during the months that I hated it most and seriously thought of leaving. Having options makes almost any task less onerous.
5. In all the years of my youth, he gave me only one spanking I hadn't genuinely earned. That one time, he was acting on misinformation from my Sunday school teacher. I didn't forget, but I didn't really hold it against him either. I just never liked that teacher much after that.
6. I've seen him pitch nearly perfect games of horseshoes. At Five Forks ball park in China Grove, NC, I watched him and Lee Smith, on their way to winning first place in a church league, throw ringer after ringer from one end to the other. It was awe inspiring.
7. He taught me gun safety at an early age, and how to shoot birds on the wing, to drain a rabbit's bladder before putting it in your hunting coat, how to build a rabbit trap, and how to enjoy the beauty of good bird dogs working a field.
8. He also taught me, by example, to think of all men as equals, at least equal in worth and rights, vehemently disdaining all the petty prejudices that so many fathers so sadly wean their children on. The stories in this regard are almost legend and fodder for longer posts at a later date. I'll simply say here that had Harper Lee known him, and if you knew him and her novel, you would think him her model for Atticus Finch.
9. He blames a long tour in Alaska, at Gambell Air Base, on St Lawrence Island, for the early loss of his hair. His seven brothers each kept theirs most of their lives.
10. His children have always come first in his life. Whatever other ambitions he may have had, I truly believe that being a good father was the ruling goal of his existence. God knows, he put up with more, and sacrificed more, for our sake than any other man I know would have.
11. Right behind Atticus Finch, the character from fiction that he is most like would be Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry. He was, for all practical purposes, the unspoken mayor of the small town in which I grew up. Smaller than Mayberry.
12. He can teach anyone to waterski and he was always good at it himself. For the most part, when anyone learned to waterski with us, they learned to slalom, right out of the gate.
13. He plays a wicked game of hopscotch. He always played with us on the shore during our annual vacations at Windy Hill Beach, SC, and I have since played more than a few times with my own daughters.
14. He loves tractors. He may think we haven't caught on to that, but he does. I'm not entirely certain there isn't a frustrated farmer trapped in him somewhere.
    
15. His two greatest shots in golf may have been his hole-in-one and his blind eagle. The hole-in-one was so dead on that it bent the base of the pin going into the hole. In basketball lingo, he "stripped the net." His blind eagle I was there for--a par-four on which he'd hooked the ball into the adjacent fairway, hiding the green from him behind a set of pines dividing the two holes. He hit the ball over the pines on his second shot and into the hole. I found it there. He was still looking everywhere else.
    
16. His dedication to golf during my youth was such that my youngest sister once recited the days of the week as, "Sunday, Monday, Golfday, Wednesday, Thursday . . . " He worked all day on Saturdays until he retired, but only half a day on Tuesdays. He is as good a golf coach as he is a ski coach. I should have tried out for the golf team at the Academy instead of wasting my time with track.
17. He would still like to learn to fly. He says he's let that ambition go, but I think I know better.
18. He can fix or build just about anything.
19. So far as I know, he has never cultivated any of the vices that other men, including myself are prey to. He doesn't swear, drink, or smoke, and yet he doesn't begrudge other men those "pleasures." I think he is simply cautious of the genes he carries, having had a father, grandfather, and more than one brother for whom these things were problems.
20. He is fiercely and poignantly patriotic. I remember him once calling me to the window over our kitchen sink, pointing to the flag flying at the fire station he helped found about a quarter mile away, and saying, "Isn't that beautiful?"
21. In our family business, he was all about Total Quality Management and focusing on the customer long before TQM became a watchword for the rest of the world. I remember trying to figure out what the fuss was about when the Air Force tried to institute TQM because I had always thought those principals were common knowledge. I've learned better since.
22. He is a true gentleman--gentle and yet fiercely strong. He is always polite. He opens my stepmother's car door, holds her chair, helps her with her coat.
    
23. He's more or less ambidextrous. He plays sports left-handed, yet he writes right-handed. It makes him very handy to have around when your ball is up against a tree and you really need a left-handed club to swing.
24. What he lacks in distance these days, he more than makes up in accuracy. I've been able to outdrive him since college, but I've never outscored him on the links.
25. I love him. I admire him. And I still want to be like him when I grow up.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

Dream Team Baby

Hard to believe it's been more than 18 months since I first mentioned the Dream Team on this blog. They were getting cranked up then, and I had every confidence they would be a success. Now they've really hit the big time. This morning, long time friend, Conner Herman, and her partner, Kira Ryan, made an appearance on NBC's Today show. You have to love it when good things happen to good people.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Funny, and Not So Much

Two videos arrived today. One I laughed pretty hard at:

Joe Cocker

Translation of Joe Cocker Woodstock Performance

Finally, after 40 years, someone has opened the vault and revealed the answer to a question that has clawed at our brains since the 1969 Woodstock album was released:

What the hell were the lyrics to Joe Cocker's version of 'A Little Help From My Friends'?

He was so wigged-out and loopy on a multitude of drugs, no one has been able to understand his garbled, mush-mouth version......until now!

Click here for the lyrics...

Hat tip: Con

FaceBook

The other, I came to more circuitously. It would be funny, but only if it cheers someone who seems to think I was unclear about a pending change in my own status. (And no, technically, by the video below, I did not break any rules.) Still, one more tip regarding FaceBook:

Adventures in Toilet Training

I had girls the first time around. They had a stay-at-home mom. If there were challenges like this, I didn't know about it.

• Challenges like a young lad marking his territory . . . in the house . . . sister and friends giggling to watch.
• Or stopping in someone else's lush green lawn, midway through a walk around the block with the dog and announcing, "I pee pee!" So we see. Even for a tiny man, the whole world is a urinal.
• Or setting him on the toilet after an announcement that he needs to be there and turning my attention back to something in the kitchen, and minutes later, hearing the rattle of an empty toilet paper roll that I distinctly remembered being a new roll only minutes before. I arrived to find him reaching between his legs to press down the fluffy white mass now swelling in the toilet. As I set him gently on the floor, sort of chuckling to myself, the ever task-focused and thorough young gentleman immediately ran to the back of the toilet and already had both hands on the flush handle as I said, "Noooooooooo!" and reached out to prevent disaster. Jet Li's lighting grab and disassembly of an opponent's 9mm pistol have nothing on the speed with which my thumb flew under the handle to counter the full weight of an almost-three-year-old.
• Or stepping away to give him a moment of privacy the next day, then hearing the flush, and flush, and flush, and flush, and stepping back to find the left hand on the flusher and the right playing in the swirling water. Inquisitive minds want to know: where does all that water go? We buy hand sanitizer like Jay buys milk.

Days, mere days. I have blog fodder coming out my ears; I just don't have time to write.

Temporal Black Holes

Wonder why I haven't blogged much since I moved to Georgia? I have crossed the event horizon of a particularly massive Temporal Black Hole.

Temporal Black Hole

Origin: From Temporal (of or pertaining to time) and Black Hole (an area of space-time with a gravitational field so intense that its escape velocity is equal to or exceeds the speed of light; thus, not even light can escape from it).
First known use: circa 1989 (by someone now known as "Doc," to describe a frequently observed phenomenon in his own life).

-noun
1. An area of space-time with a temporal field so dense that not even a nano-second can be saved from it. (Traditional clocks passing within the event horizon of such a field have been known to spin so fast the hands cannot be seen, or else, fly off, or simply vaporize. Digital clocks continue to count in proper sequence, but so fast that the numbers appear as solid or mildly flickering 8's. An entire day can pass in what seems only seconds.)

2. Any child under the age of five (possibly seven, eight, maybe even nine), regardless of gender.

Sure, he looks harmless enough, but that blur around the edges of the photo is wholly the effect of a warping of space-time. I swear I was holding the camera still.

Another Look at Social Networks

Getting the word out.

From yesterday's Inside Higher Ed:

Not long ago, a woman I know got a phone call from a sibling who reported that one of their sisters had died a few hours earlier. It was painful news, if not unexpected given the sister’s long illness; the call was part of a narrative of grief that had been taking shape for a while. But in telling me about it, she also noted an odd and slightly awkward detail. She’d actually learned the news a bit earlier, on Facebook and via Blackberry, where it had been announced in a “status report” from her sister’s daughter. . . .

An individual’s death is a rip in the social fabric. And communication among those closest to the deceased involves more than transmission of the news. It is process of patching up what remains of that fabric, a reinforcement of bonds. By some implicit rule, we take it as a given that family will get the news before it is available to a world of strangers. Not that things always happen that way, of course, but the exceptions are felt as such.

The full article is here, and it's an interesting consideration of the ways in which our modern communication tools are affecting the rules of social interaction.

Nor is it coincidence that I would open and read that yesterday morning. Despite my recent musings about matching the right information to the right venue, I find that I've failed to do so. A family member was upset at me only yesterday because a major event in my own life that I thought I'd kept her informed on, I apparently hadn't. No death involved, but a milestone of similar magnitude nonetheless. Mea culpa. I learn. I'll do better.

Parents and Facebook

On a related note, I pointed out two months ago that the face of Facebook was aging. A consequence of that has been the issue of how much of a young person's life should be open to the view of his or her parents. Happily, that's never been an issue in our family. From the outset, I've been a part of the social network of my daughters. It was one of the prices of being allowed on the internet from our home.

But for some kids, especially those whose online personas are anything but laudable, the presence of their parents on Facebook has thrown a kink into the normal stretching of the wings that takes place for almost all college students in their first year. I can't imagine conducting myself in such a way that I would have been ashamed for my parents to know what I was up to, nor do I think my daughters have that problem. (Of course, academe being my world, my threshold of shock, my expectations, and my tolerance are all fairly accommodating. The disaster that resulted from my oldest daughter's accepting one of her older relatives as a "friend" wasn't all that funny to anyone but me.) I certainly had plenty of friends in college for whose parents ignorance was bliss. And I know all too well from the use to which I've put Facebook as a college administrator, those online alter egos can be all too telling.

The conflict which often ensues is the topic of the following interesting piece from last night's CBS Evening News. Enjoy.

Update [5/21/09]: I've removed the embedded player because it automatically started the video every time the blog was loaded. If you'd like to view the video, you'll find it here.

A Tribute to Moms

Recently, I had the fun of being cc'ed on an exchange between a young mother and her aunt. Today's the perfect day to share that exchange, only slightly altered to protect the innocent. ;-)

First, the aunt sent the following:

Just in case you are having a rough day, here is a stress management technique, recommended in all the latest psychological journals. The funny thing is that it really does work and will make you smile.

Picture yourself lying on your belly on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream, and you're naked.

Picture yourself with both your hands dangling in the cool running water.

Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air.

No one knows your secret place.

You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called the world.

The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.

The water is so crystal clear that you can easily make out the face of the person you are holding underwater.

There! See? It really does work. You're smiling already.

Funnier still was the response:

I could use this little meditation you sent below, Aunt Libby. Here was my day:

I was angry because I lost a potential client today and it would have been a very nice check. Then I came home, pilled the dog, took the dog with me to get Jack from school because she gets lonely and had been in her kennel all day. She might pee in the house otherwise. I then took Jack and Emma for coffee and flower-buying, got home to find that the dog barfed all over the back of the car (choose your battles) because I gave her the pills on an empty stomach, Jack cried because I was outside cleaning it up, so I brought him out so I could finish without having to deal with his crying. We came inside to cook dinner and do homework. Jack was dancing in circles loudly and I was trying to read a webpage aloud to Emma over all his yelling, then he wet his pants and had to change clothes. He wanted my help only and refused to cooperate with his sister. More yelling, this time, not playful yelling. Naked Jack. Finally Dressed Jack. Dog distressed because Jack was too loud for her to eat in peace and his toys were in the way of her dish. Finally dinner, then outside again. We tied the dog to the porch. Planted flowers with Emma, Emma was dancing around in a panic over ant piles, I was coordinating kids, digging, and spoons (we have no shovels). Meanwhile, the dog knocked over flower pot on front porch and it turns out to be ant-infested. Ants everywhere. Soil everywhere. Plants knocked out of the pot. Bad Husky! In the middle of all of this, Jack peed in his pants AGAIN. He was standing on the porch naked from the waist down and flagging his underwear over his head yelling, "All DRYYYYYYYYYYY!" while neighbors walked by-- one of them was pregnant. I told her, This will be you. We finished planting. Emma went to water the new flowers we planted and got the dog's leash tangled in the hose. In the middle of all of this, I start using "Damn!" and you can imagine why. Untangled the dog, convinced Jack to get his own clean underpants on, took the hose from Emma who wanted to turn this into a Wet and Wild Water Event as opposed to Help Mom Before She Shoots Us Event. Finished watering the plants, cleaned the porch, and restored the pot to an upright position, scolded the dog who took a major clue and found a place to lie down and watch the action, rounded up the kids, walked the dog for her nightly poop. Jack walked holding his penis the entire time and when we ran into a neighbor, moved the grasp from his penis to inside his underwear (he just had on that and a shirt by that point) and proceeded to pull out a massive wad of Husky hair from between his cheeks, I don't know how. I just don't. We made it back to the house, ran the bathwater, children's father called four times in a row because he is a pain in my @#$ and refuses to believe that ONE phone message might actually be enough, Emma had left the shampoo bottle on its side and it congealed in a big sticky mess in the tub, Emma left god-knows-how-many messages for Chris while I am bathing Jack-- (apparently she learns this trait from her father??) kids in bed, Mom tired, dog sacked out in the hallway like she did all the work.

The scary part? This is pretty much EVERY day. Some kind of chaos, every day.

Thank God for Moms! It's a wonder they allowed us to live or didn't just sell us to the highest bidder.

Viewer Discretion Advised

The following subject matter is not appropriate for all audiences. If you are tender of heart, go elsewhere today. I mean that.

How soulless and perfunctory and heartbreaking and final is the language that ends a union, even read aloud by a gentle and compassionate female magistrate (thus complying, at least in some more limited interpretation of the language than ever was meant, with the pastor's proscription that "no man put asunder" those whom God has joined):

This matter was reviewed by the court on 4-17-09.
Petitioner appeared in person. Co-Petitioner appeared in person.
The Court has considered the testimony and evidence presented.
The Court has considered any Financial Statements filed and makes the following findings and orders:
1. The Court has jurisdiction over the parties because: The parties filed jointly on ____.
2. At least one party was domiciled in Colorado for more than 90 days before the Petition was filed.
3. At least 90 days have passed since the Court acquired jurisdiction over the Respondent or Co-Petitioner.
4. The marriage between the parties is irretrievably broken.
5. The Separation Agreement between the parties is found to be not unconscionable as to support, maintenance, and division of property, and is incorporated herein.
6. All provisions in the parenting plan regarding the children are in the best interests of the children, including residence, allocation of parental responsibility (including decision-making responsibilities and parenting time), and any other orders necessary to effectuate the best interests of the children.
The Court therefore orders:
The marriage is dissolved and a Decree of Dissolution of Marriage is entered.
Each party shall perform all of the applicable provisions of the separation agreement or permanent orders.
The Separation Agreement filed on ____ is incorporated into this Decree.
The Parenting Plan filed on ____ is incorporated into the Decree.
Any Support Order entered will become part of this Decree.

It is signed and dated and recorded and it is done.

Beginnings are all hope and promise; endings, all sadness and loose ends. And no matter how inevitable it was or at what point it became so, still, Brian Turner's poem, "Sadiq," is all I can think of today.

It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more. -Sa'di

It should make you shake and sweat,
nightmare you, strand you in a desert
of irrevocable desolation, the consequences
seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline
feeds the muscle its courage, no matter
what god shines down on you, no matter
what crackling pain and anger
you carry in your fists, my friend,
it should break your heart to kill.

Snow Day, Inside and Out

Life is about choices, about balancing what we want with what we need, what and whom we will be near with what and whom we will miss.

Missing my daughter in Colorado is a constant ache, a dull throb like that of a tooth that you walk around with your tongue over to protect. It might be different if she had reached the age to fly the nest and left for college, but instead, the nest disintegrated around her, and with all the other changes in the world last year, her father retired from one job and came to South Carolina to take another. Being apart was a given. Where I would be was the choice--somewhere in this country, or in another land, half a globe away.

But there is balance. That throb of missing one daughter is constant, but on the other side of the scale, I am in the same time zone with almost everyone else that I so dearly love. I see her older sister every few weeks, one way or another. I even see the younger every six weeks or so, sometimes more often, sometimes a little less. There is Facebook and MySpace and text and e-mail and video messaging, but bear hugs and butterfly kisses don't quite translate through those things.

What brought all this on today was seeing photos in The Salisbury Post of the snow in the neighborhood of my childhood home. Those photos reminded me how glad I am to be here, in the South, on this side of the world where most of my heart resides. Originally, that had been the topic I intended to post. Funny how the truth outs itself. The joy is pure and transporting, and instantly balanced by the throb of an absence that will never completely fade, for either of us I expect. I look at the scenes of snow, think of the gray skies covering a world that seems to light itself from the bottom up, and think, "She'd like this . . . but her head would be awfully cold today." (That would be because she took part in a benefit for cancer at her school, and is now sporting the hairstyle of Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta.)

I drove back from Georgia through that snow on Sunday night and into Monday morning. It's the first time the Jeep has been in 4WD since Colorado, but it was in that mode for well over an hour during that trip. I chose to come the southern route, through Athens and Augusta on US-78 rather than through Greenville on I-85 and I-26. It was, so far as I could tell from the news yesterday, a good decision. Though the major shutdown of the interstate appears to have occurred slightly north of my route, it could just as easily have been me out there stuck for seven hours. Surface roads don't have that problem. You can always go around. But stuck on an interstate is stuck. And by driving late that night, I avoided the only real obstacle a 4WD Jeep Grand Cherokee outfitted with fresh, new tires would face: other drivers. In all, the alternate route and snow together added less than an hour to the trip, and was, actually, rather beautiful.

As for what inspired this post, you can see a gallery of photos from readers of The Charlotte Observer here. (The Salisbury Post is closer to home and has better photos, but is too worried about their copyright to post images of sufficient quality to even be enjoyable on the gallery. "Buy this photo" teases one button on their site. Well, if I could see it, I might be tempted, but . . .)

Here are a couple of the better ones from the Observer. Enjoy.

I Guess Throwing Erasers Is Out of the Question

From the YGTBKM file, this was in today's Post and Courier: "Battery Creek teacher suspended for shooting foam dart."

Associated Press

Thursday, February 26, 2009

BEAUFORT — A science teacher at a South Carolina high school has been suspended after he shot a foam dart at a 14-year-old student.

The Beaufort Gazette reported that 29-year-old Jeffrey Baker is on paid administrative leave from Battery Creek High School for Monday's incident.

A Beaufort County Sheriff's Department report said Baker fired a foam dart from a toy gun toward a group of students who were talking and laughing in his class. The report said after most students quieted down, one girl continued to talk, and Baker fired a dart at her in a "joking manner," hitting her left shoulder.

The report says the girl slapped Baker with the back of her hand. School district officials would not say if she was or will be disciplined.

The report says the girl's mother wants to pursue an assault charge against Baker.

I remember when teachers threw erasers with impunity. At my "college," an instructor once launched one at a sleeping kid beside me but hit me instead, leaving a huge chalk-dust blot on my dark blue uniform jacket. Apology? Law suit? Assault charges? Right. He pointed at me and said, "Wake that guy up!" Those were the days.

Hopping Around

Blogging will be light for a few days. I'm on the road. In Colorado to hear my daughter sing tonight with her high school's jazz band. Should be fun.

I'll be busy for at least 24 hours trying to keep my foot out of my mouth, or get it back out. So it goes.

Father-Daughter Night: Hooters, Taken, and Flat Aidan

Hooters

One of the advantages of living in Charleston is being able to meet my oldest daughter, a student at UNC-Wilmington, for dinner every few weeks. Last night we met up in Myrtle Beach at the Hooters that hooked the rest of my family on Hooters's wings. (I can almost hear the audible gasps: "You take your daughters to Hooters!?" Take them? We've had birthday parties there, graduation parties, informal gatherings. After the first time they tried the wings there, during a visit following a day of outlet shopping at the beach, a visit to the very place we ate last night, I had to be sure we got there in time for the afternoon specials to avoid breaking the bank. Trust me. No other wings like them.)

Taken

Following dinner, we headed to the mall next door to see Taken. If you need a Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, lone wolf sort of action thriller, this will fill the bill. Just be sure to pull the circuit breaker on your reality filter. It's not that any of the action sequences are over the top. No, they're well enough done. It's not that the whole kidnapping for sex slavery thing is overdone. No, that happens often enough to require an annual briefing on it to everyone in the Air Force. It's the other things that films like this consider unimportant that make such films utterly forgettable.

It opens with the obligatory "let's show who he is" scenes. He's a guy with close friends from his past life as a "preventer." These are guys who visit for a cookout and invite him along on a contract job, to remind them and us he "still has the edge." These are the guys he can call on to analyze the tapes once his daughter has been taken. The guys that will tell him he only has 96 hours to find his daughter and then wish him luck doing it all on his own. What?! Speaking purely figuratively, I have gay friends with bigger balls. In fact, my female friends have bigger balls. If anyone in that line of work called a "friend" and said, "They've taken my daughter. I'm going to get her back," the reaction from the other end would be, "Party! Rock and roll baby! Where should we meet you?" Not this movie. So long as that fairly significant break from reality doesn't bother you, you'll be fine.

And if that one gets by without causing any problems, you should be fine when he gets his daughter home. That would be the seventeen-year-old who's been kidnapped, drugged up, tramped out for auction, kept as a virgin for a particular type of clientele, but no doubt "schooled" in a few things, and then (spoiler alert) rescued at the last second by daddy, unlike the now dead girlfriend she went to Paris with. If you're okay with him having to run the whole op on his own, then you'll be fine with her arriving back in the states after her less-than-96-hour adventure all cheerful and bubbly like she's been away at cheerleading camp. I'm sure that won't bother you anymore than it did me. Even the man who gave us Rob Roy has to eat, and all that well-choreographed stuff in the middle that stretches incredulity so much less does somewhat satisfy every father of daughters' secret longing to run rampant through the entire high school or college male population of would be defilers of his princesses. Catharsis. Get some.

Flat Aidan

Lastly, remember Flat Jackson? Well, now it's time for Flat Aidan. I pulled him from yesterday's mail just in time to make the trip to Myrtle to see his cousin and get a money shot with the Hooters Girls. :-D


And my sister, Aidan's mother, thinks I mind this why? Looking back, I see a trend. I have a Chief Female Associate (CFA) beyond compare, so this new awareness does me no good whatsoever, but listen up guys: If you can't borrow a baby or a puppy from your friends who have one, get out the black construction paper and the white marker, and work on your back story. Trust me on this. And ladies, don't even think about giving me a hard time. We have to work with what God gave us. All you have to do is toss your hair.

Snapshot: Home

Two people sit in a room that could not possibly be more warmly lit. The walls are a deep red tending toward iron oxide in the light of lamps on the mantle, on the black, baby grand Steinway, and on the marble-topped end table. Plentiful windows trimmed in glossy white enamel let in the subdued light of a gray day. Rain washes the world outside and taps a syncopated rhythm in the downspout on the near corner of the two-story house. Through the paned glass rear door, deck boards glisten and reflect the gray sky broken by the branches of a winter forest. Below the deck and across a back yard of mostly moss and through the bare winter trunks beyond, the creek isn't so much angry with the surplus it hurries along as merely enthusiastic, energetic, awake and purposeful now, unlike its usual sleepy self.

Inside again, a wood fire crackles warmly in a stone fireplace and the man looks up from the corner of the couch where he's grading student essays on a notebook computer the desktop of which shows two rocking chairs and hanging baskets on the front porch of this house and the background color of which matches the walls so that when he leaves he takes this place with him (but never so much as of himself he leaves behind). He looks up at the fire, across the gray-white-and-black Husky sleeping contentedly in the middle of the thick carpet, almost but not quite snoring, centered on the fireplace and positioned halfway between the man and woman. The woman sits nearer the fire, sideways to it in a rocking chair she refinished years ago and in which she has cradled to sleep countless times her young daughter and younger son. And for all that the idea of a rocking chair calls forth visions of age, this is a young and beautiful mother whose oldest child came into this world years after the dog stretched lazily at her feet. Yet in her rocking image, as she sits editing a book on yet another notebook computer perched on the fuzzy soft blanket that warms her knees, the man sees in her the mother she is, the mother who gave her life, the grandmothers he never knew, and years hence, the grandmother she will become. And in that vision is the wellspring of the contentment we only think comes from the smell of chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven or the dulcet tones of a lullaby trickling down the stairs from the nursery like the gentle fall of water over the stones of a brook. Feeling his gaze, she looks up at him, tilts her head and smiles.

Nothing is spoken. Two separate lifetimes lead to this moment, and for now, this is but a passing like two participants at a Maypole who meet one another twice in each full round of the pole. For now, the dance is necessary. Patient they are. Because of all they've seen and what they know, they content themselves with those passing smiles. What they've each seen is what enables them to understand one another as no one else could. What they know is that the nature of the Maypole is such that each passing, each circuit of the pole, each cycle of reunion and separation brings them closer to the base, closer to a union from which parting will no longer be necessary.

For now, the rain keeps a broken rhythm, the fire crackles in counterpoint, the Husky chases Arctic hares that lope misplaced through the powdery new snow of Siberian dreams, and the man and the woman know what they know.

For now, that's enough.

UNCW Among Top 50 "Best Value" Public Colleges

The University of North Carolina Wilmington is one of the nation's 50 "Best Value" public colleges and universities according to The Princeton Review, one of America's most widely-known education service companies.

That's what I'm talking about, Vern! I need one of those bumper stickers that say, "My Daughter and My Money Go To . . . "

More here.

Dogs

Back in August, when I was making the trip across the country to my new post at the Citadel, I was reading The Art of Racing in the Rain, on the trip. Consequently, I associate the book and passages in it with portions of the landscape between Colorado Springs, CO, and Charleston, SC. It was a beautiful book. It was recommended by a good friend. I enjoyed it, and I recommend it to any of you who share your lives with a dog or dogs.

This afternoon, I went to a movie, Marley and Me. As the movie is based on a book I've never read, I can't comment on it with respect to how well or poorly it captures the spirit of its print precursor. But I can tell you I enjoyed the movie. I did make the mistake of going expecting a comedy though. And while the movie has funny moments, I don't think it can really be called a comedy at heart. What it is, is a movie about life, and especially about married life, and about the choices that we make when we agree to share life with other souls, be they a dog, a spouse, or children. I think the thing I liked best about this movie, is that, like the movie Once, this is a movie in which people make the right choices in hard circumstances. Or better yet, they make the right choices in circumstances that can't even be called hard--they are simply the normal circumstances that most of us find ourselves in, in the ordinary course of living our lives.

So, I recommend the movie. I can especially recommend it as one to see with the children. I'll warn you though, take tissue. We couldn't help but wonder today if perhaps the two young children behind us, around seven or eight I'm guessing, hadn't lost a beloved dog at some point. They were quietly sobbing by the time it was over. I have to confess, I came near to joining them.

My own dog is over ten years old now. She came into my life eight years ago this week. She was and remains an astonishingly beautiful dog with a luxurious coat and piercing blue eyes. And like Marley, she began her first night with my family alone in the garage of friends we were visiting in Oceanside, CA. Her howling didn't earn her a ticket into the house, but it did result in my spending the night on a couch in the garage, with her on the carpet by my side, snuggled up with a tee I'd worn most of the day. Once upon a time, she would go on runs with me and pull me along for a couple of miles before she would tire enough to merely keep up. These days, she can just keep up, and that for less than half a mile. Beyond that, I wouldn't even ask her to do more than walk. In people years, she is, after all, over 70.

If you share your life with a dog or dogs, go enjoy the movie. I don't think you'll regret it. And here's a tip: swallow and blink--it'll staunch those tears. Just try it sometime.

And by the way, Happy New Year.

Anniversary Unnoticed #2

I've begun to wonder what it is about the fall and winter that leads more than a few of us to begin blogs in those months. Most recently, Phil celebrated his fifth anniversary of airing reflections publicly. Similarly, Buck recently celebrated the completion of his third year of a blog that, stylistically, has more 18th-century echoes than he probably even knows (and he doesn't strike me as the sort of person to sit around reading Samuel Johnson in his spare time, so I'm guessing those elements bleed over from an earlier career, 'dear reader,' whatever your views on that topic).

No doubt there are others whose anniversaries fall in this time frame, but which I've missed through sporadic reading or because they, like me, missed their own anniversary. 20 December was the two-year mark for They Rode On. It slipped by in a flurry of holiday activity.

On that particular day, I was busy flying to Colorado to spend holiday time with my daughters. That I even mention that here attests to the chameleon nature of such an enterprise as this. There are blogs where most of the readership is composed of people who are largely strangers to the author. There are others where the readership is almost wholly family and acquaintances. And there are many, I think, like this one--hybrids of sorts. I know there are strangers who read here, likewise there are family members and old friends. Best of all, perhaps, there are also people who were strangers once, and whom I've never actually met in the flesh, but whom I've come to think of as old friends. The life of the mind may be unique in that way, in its ability to bond people firmly and in a short time. There's less opportunity there to be swayed by superficial things.

And the beauty of a blog is that it allows that sort of yoking of dissimilar things. I had thought that eventually this would evolve into one sort of thing or another. Instead, it has remained as eclectic an endeavor after two years as it was on day one, perhaps even more so. To all of you who've come along for the journey, thank you and welcome to you. If anything, I would say make yourself more at home. Comments are the alms of the blogger. Some of us would write regardless, but it's always nice to know that someone's reading and to know that maybe what we've written makes them think, or smile. More than once, I've left nothing more than a smiley face as a comment at friends' places, just to let them know it wasn't the great void they were sending their missives into.

So, again, thanks to you all for tagging along, for commenting, for inspiring, and for tolerating. I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is looking forward to an exciting new year. I think we are all going to find ourselves somewhat victims of that ostensibly Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Soon enough, I think, our answer to that will be a confident, if somewhat jaded, "Been there. Done that."