On Maths and Misspellings

For nearly seven years I've maintained this page.  It is hard to say why - although I have tried, over and over and over - I have composed nearly five-hundred posts.  I suppose that is because of the quicksilver quality of intent.  Early on it was quirky and fun, bordering on silly, towards the middle it was about storytelling and these days, well, the mercury has slipped from my hand.

For instance, there was a time when I teased a lot about Nick's spelling mistakes - don't get me wrong, I still think they are hilarious - but, as I look at this now, today, a different perspective presents.  He tried. He didn't care if he couldn't spell a word, he used it anyway.  If he spelled "seconds" "cecants" or tried "explanishion" for "explaination," who cares? 

Here's the thing, he's still trying on words.  He has a wonderful, clever and almost playful relationship with words these days.  Sometimes, still, he may use a word incorrectly, but, often, there is a sort of loveliness in his mistakes.  The other day he used a mashup that still echoes in my mind, "aloneliness" for "you know, when you are by yourself in your room and missing your friends."

Indeed, Nick, I do know that feeling.


More than once over the years, I poked a little fun at Zack's weird math problems and charts and such.  There were a lot of numbers in the, well, stuff he crafted and drew and noted.  There are a couple of examples in this post, The Quirky Little Math Piece (or Move Over Einstein) (no, your title's too long).  In it he did a strange backwards equation, and another, stranger, algebraic-like thing.  When he handed it to me he asked, "Is it right?"

I told him it was.

He still likes to get things right and the math has gotten much more accurate.

Here, I'll show you:

This is on the opposite side:

Finally, he got out the graph paper to present his final answer, showing his work:

I don't really get what it is, something to do with the total possible permutations on a Rubik's cube.  He says it's right, I don't doubt it.


I spoke earlier of intent.  Boy, that's a rabbit hole of a word - but it comes down to purpose, reason.  'Intentionality' is actually a philosophical concept.  Although it all seems clear in the definition, my intentions have been anything but - they've shifted, morphed, evolved, wavered.  They've at times been pure and true and at other times they have been misguided, mismanaged, muddled.

I guess when I started out, I wanted to show you them.  Then I sort of got the notion that I was showing them them.  I think that may have changed into me wanting to show you me showing them them.  At times, more recently I've been trying to show them me.  Add wanting, at times, to impress or agitate or endear or cajole, well... you.  Confused?  You get used to it.

This is the part where I conclude with one all-encompassing theory of intent.  I shone a light on the misspellings and maths way back when because I thought it was cute and fun, which they were.  Today though, I see what they are doing now, who they are becoming, with such deeper clarity because of those very things.

So, here's my theory:  We can't know intent, we can only guess at it.

You're welcome.

Peace.

From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat at the breakfast table ..."

Sunday morning breakfast humor:
"Excalibutter"

Yes, indeed you are correct, Nick said it...


Thanks for stopping by, quite a "sellabrashin" wouldn't you say?

(If you were to view my blog in a real web browser, in other words, not the lame mobile mode, you'd see that there are "random" posts, and an archive and a whole bunch of "topics" off to the left of the posts.  One of them is "misspellings" and another is "take-home folder."  Some of them are really sweet and cute... just thought I'd let you know.)

Random

Nick did this one time.  All he said when I asked him why was "I felt like it."

Life's like that, ain't it?

He also made a cake for a dinner we made for a meeting at the church.

He's a good boy.

Zack is a deer boy as well.

That's all I got.

Peace.

I Had a Bad Day

I had a "bad day" yesterday.

I remember when Nick was in first or second grade he came home one day long in the face.  One of the very special things about young boys - children in general, I'd guess - is the sleavedness of their emotions.  I asked him what the matter was and he answered, simply and quietly, "I had a bad day."

I pressed a little, maybe to see if something big was bothering him, you know, bullying, workload pressure, math problems, the ever looming proficiency tests that seem so important but aren't.  I guess I wanted to fix, to make better, to solve.  I know better than that, I really do, but little souls are so damn vulnerable.

"I just had a bad day, Dad!"

Yep, sometimes that's all that needs to be said.  I reckon he did all the figuring in his head, understood where the day failed him, knew why his day was bad.  And that's the whole of it, don'tcha think?  Understanding why your day was bad?  I think inherent in a young, growing mind is a concept that, embarrassingly, eludes me sometimes - Hope.  Nick knew better days would come.  In fact, if I'd had cupcakes or cookies or salami or pie at the ready, I could have quickly made his day good again.  I'd bet after his bath, in cozy pajamas, reading a chapter of Narnia or whatever we were reading aloud that evening, he probably forget all about his bad day.

But, this morning I was still hanging on to mine.  Oh, I try not to let it trickle down to Marci and the boys, I mean, it's not like something awful happened yesterday, in fact much more awfuler things happen all the time.  No, it was far more selfish than that.

For instance yesterday I played a set of maybe ten or twelve songs on the old Alvarez, new Ernie Ball strings a-janglin'.  It's a little known fact that artists and craftsmen and hobbyists and enthusiasts must work on their thing - "practice" we call it.  Honestly, I sounded good, didn't make too many mistakes, nailed a couple of  Slaid Cleves songs I've been struggling with.  It was a good session.

But for some reason, as I cased up my guitar, I wondered why I go to the effort?  No one hears me, really - occasionally my family, a couple times in firepit season around a campfire for some friends, a few Christmas carol singalongs, that's about it.  Yesterday, I couldn't help but seriously think that if I shelved the guitars away for good, well... nobody'd even notice.

I've been doing some writing lately.  I'd guess you wouldn't know it as the tumble weeds roll over the crickets on this blog, but I have been.  I've been working on longer stuff - memoir style pieces, longer short stories and fiction, some songs and even some prayers - all of which take cajoling and tweaking and mistaking and deleting.

Yesterday, I was working on a story about my own seventh grade year of school as the boys start theirs.  Well, the phone kept ringing, the text kept blooping, the chores kept interrupting.  I considered driving over to the old Junior High school I went to in the seventies, now an administration building, and bullshitting my way in and taking a tour of the old place, smelling it and tasting it, realigning myself to the perspectives of size and time.  But, all I could think was if I go out I'll need to stop by the library and Nick needs reeds and I'll have to get some groceries and then the timer went off and the boys would be home soon and I'd better this and that and the other thing and... I shut down the computer.

And, I choked back a sob as I did.  It felt like I was casing up my thoughts, boxing them.  I thought, well, maybe that's where they belong.  Boxed.  Stored.  Offcast.  Sequestered.  Abandoned.  I know this feeling well.  I've let go a lot of dreams and wondered if this was another.  Somewhere in one of the Corinthians in the book labeled "King James" it says:  When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Yeah, but what defines a "childish thing?"  And, perhaps if we all "understood as a child" this world might...

But, it still echoes in my mind, this verse and I often feel childish, writing and singing into the wind, into the trees and ashes and dust.  Perhaps, aside they should be put.


This morning, I was making breakfast and packing lunches.  I'd purposefully avoided opening FB or The Post on my phone, I could think of nothing better to make a bad day worse, and, well, I wanted to have a better day today.  I did register, as one will do these days, that I had a new email.

After the boys left, without any real forethought, as if instinctively, I grabbed my coffee and opened my phone and just before I opened FB I saw that email notification again, and, risking spam or more things to put on the new whiteboard calendar we've had to hang as times get busier, I opened it.

It was a note from a writer friend of mine who said he was looking through my archives (only available on the desktop version of this site) and stumbled upon a couple of posts he very much liked. Well, that alone was enough to make me glance over at the pile of boxed memories and dreams I'd just yesterday set aside.

It is a silly little post from my first year of blogging - actually, my eighth piece ever - that exactly forty-seven people have seen.  It's called, complicatedly, Inexplicable Instructions and Flow Charts.  He used words like "clever" and "wise" and "meaningful."  I'd not thought of it in years but remembered being pretty proud of it when I wrote it.  It did exactly what I was trying to do back in those early days.

He said he'd jumped to it from another post he'd seen called "Simple Gifts." He called that post "purposeful" and "sweet."  The boxes rumbled a bit.  My friend said other nice things, said I'd been supportive and kind to him, he said I'd influenced him in his early days, said he'd hoped to have as clear a purpose as I had.  He said that I had a sense of...  not really the point, Bill.

I needed his encouragement this morning, I really did.  I had to get to an early morning oil change appointment for my truck, so I showered and headed out.  I put a box on the table as I left, no dust was on them, yet.

The repair shop is next to a coffee shop in my old home town of Mason so I walked on over there to wait for the truck to be done.  The place is a local place, not a soulless Starbucks, and I walked in the front and through I few rooms set like living-rooms, and headed to the counter.  I ordered my extra-bold with heavy cream and sugar and, well, I heard an accordion. Yes, you read that right.  And then... a banjo.  And then, some sort of percussion and what seemed to be another, or was it two, accordions warming up.

The shop, Kidde Coffee, has a sort of sun-room patio out the back door, where they have live music of an evening.  In fact, I've played a couple open-mics there in the recent past.  I opened the door and what to my wondering eyes did I see?  An accordion band.  Three older guys on the ivories, a very wizened Gandolf looking dude on cowbells and washboard, and a guy maybe my age claw-hammering a five-string.

At, 7:55 in the morning, of a Wednesday.  Well, once I became accustomed to the sight, I took a seat at a table a ways away.  I mean, what else mattered at this point.  They were bantering back and forth, straightening out their music and getting settled.  One guy had sent his instrument in to be worked on and was trying to get used a spare one of the other guys let him borrow.

"I'da sent it in sooner," he said "But, I couldn't find a ten-foot box."

They all shook their heads in sympathetic agreement.

"Been there," one of them said.

"But then my wife said I might be able to close the bellows and use a smaller box," he said.

They all agreed what a smart and good woman his wife was.

I laughed out loud, never having encountered accordion comedy before.  Later one of them called it "bellows humor," which I again found very amusing.  They waved hello to me and asked me my name, one of them said he thought he remembered my older brother.  I sipped my coffee and smiled.

After a few more minutes, right at eight, the aged wizard punched out a three-four beat on his two cowbell and washboard kit and the accordions started a lovely German polka in three part harmony.  They were wonderful, joking and happily playing for their audience of one - and each other, I'd have to say.  They did standards and waltzes, all of which I knew.  They laughed back and forth, teased each other and were having a grand old time.

About ten minutes in, a group of what one might call "little old ladies" came in and got coffee and sat down to listen, groupies no doubt.  A little later a young woman who'd been at the counter with an eighteen month old little girl, came out to leave and, without missing a beat, the band segued into "The Chicken Dance" a sort of polka thing with choreographed hand and body chicken movements, with a fun little butt wiggle and... it's Cincinnati thing, you wouldn't understand.  She set the girl down and they did the dance, the choir of groupies did in their seats.  I tried as well, but I'm famously bad at it.  Every damn one of us were grinning like idiots.

It came out that they got together every Wednesday morning for what the banjo player, the straight man it turns out, called a "painfully public practice."  They called themselves the "Mason Mediocre Band" but that didn't get any search results, so, I think they were joshing.

I had to go, the truck was ready and I had stuff to do.  I thanked them and headed out and picked up my truck.  As I started it I thought, you know, what the hell, I'll go back for another cup of coffee and a bit more music.  I pulled in just after nine and, well, they were gone.  One of the guys had just finished putting his instrument in the trunk of his late model Buick and was on his way out.  I watched him as I parked.  If I hadn't of seen him I may have wondered if I'd made the whole thing up.  You still might be wondering...

I got to thinking as I drove home - as I'm wont to do - that maybe it's not time to put those old guitars up on a high shelf, and maybe it is time to open those boxes back up - time to uncase the lot.

Honestly, I'd never played and sang to be a big star someday.  I may have lied to myself about that, but... I just wanted to have some fun, accomplish something, impress a girl here and there and maybe a few guys as well along the line.  I've played my share of open stages and and hosted a few backyard and kitchen hootenannies in my day.  It was fun, it's been fun, it's still fun.  The wind, trees, ashes and dust have made a pretty fine audience as well, thank you very much.

I guess what it comes down to, in summary - finally, you might add - is that I'm glad I had a bad day yesterday, it made today that much sweeter.  In less than two hours I'd been reminded of why I do these things I do, reminded of the childlikeness I will not and should not put away.


There's more, there's always more.  Yesterday, Nick had an after school lesson on the bassoon (he plays oboe now), his first.  His dear music teacher let him bring home the instrument and he couldn't wait to get it out and play it for me.  I've had the fortune of hearing some bassoon in my life, a dear friend from a lifetime ago had a friend who still plays as a professional, she was a student at the time.  It's a beautiful and rich and soothing sound.  And as Nick played a low B-flat, it seemed to come floating back through some thirty-plus years of memory.

As he went to bed last night he laid back on his pillows and said, "I had a good day, Dad."

You know what, today, so have I.


Thanks for coming 'round.


Here's something from the backseat...

 "I like thunder and interventions."

Who doesn't...?


Peace.  

(Nick's playing the bassoon right now, I wish you could hear it, you know, to add some verisimilitude...  Lord knows, this piece could use some.)

Mine, Yours, Theirs... Who Knows?

It's easy to compare - and easier to contrast - our childhoods to those of our children.  On the surface it all seems so disparate.

There's the classic music argument, but, you know, I never really thought "my" music, whatever that might mean, was any better than my parents.  Belafonte, Mel Torme, The Kingston Trio, Burl Ives and so many more, will forever hold up against Jethro Tull, The Rolling Stones, John Denver and will always beat The BeeGees.  The truth is, I like today's pop music enough - Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, The Lumineers, Train, Saint Motel - it's all quite listenable.  Is it over-produced?  Yes, but so were The Police.  Do I hate auto-tune?  Yes, with the same hatred I had for Disco, but, I've heard a lot of that, too, and it didn't hurt me.

Somewhere in the mid-seventies I got the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar.  Jesus, I loved that LP.  I played it all the time, wrote down the lyrics, starting and stopping the turntable - probably ruining the vinyl -and singing along like a rock star.  If you were to go upstairs right now and ask the boys what they wanted to listen to, I guarantee they'd answer "Hamilton!"  I gotta admit, when I first heard it I was offput, the rapping, the modernity, the f-bombs and salaciousness - it seemed too much for my tender "1776" ears.  Now, after a dozen or more times listening through the whole show, well, I think it's about the best thing I've heard this century.  We've even checked out the book about the musical from the library.  Is it better than "Superstar"?

You know, that's where it gets tricky.  The defiant teen that still sleeps in the basement of my psyche might scream, "Hell, no!"  The rock-and-roll-ness of "Superstar" juxtaposed to the Christian subject matter really blew my mind back then.  But, you know what? the historical story that "Hamilton" tells, set to rap and funk with real language and astonishing rhymes, yeah, pretty cool. too.

So, maybe it's not the music, it's what the music does for us, them, did me, then.  That record, spinning on my portable turntable on an unmade bed, opened my mind up.  Learning the words, singing along, imagining what part I might have, wondering how Mary could seem so hot, all of it sent my mind further down the road of understanding.  For the boys, hearing it on the CD from the library, watching vids on YouTube that had the words, listening to the whole soundtrack on long rides because Marci bought it, rapping out the songs on the playground with their friends, well, I think the experience has shown them that same road - the "there's-so-much-more" road that surprises us all over and over in our lives.

(Also, it is so damned cute to see them singing those difficult lyrics, smirking at the cuss words, nailing the rhymes and keeping up with the difficult and foreign style.)


The other big discussion is, of course, technologies.  I watched my share of television as a kid, but, it was hardly edifying.  I'd've killed for even the worst of today's Disney programming back then.  What I saw was weird kid's shows - I'm looking at you Uncle Al - and creepy puppet shows and bad B movies or good movies cut to shreds hosted by drunken dudes dressed as werewolves.  I even thought Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Greenjeans were sort of, well, strange.  I think the boys have it better.  They'll watch whole seasons of old shows on Netflix, every Animaniacs, every Loony Tunes, old and new Bill Nye, documentaries on the brain and optical illusions - all, commercial free.  Honestly, I think they have me beat there.

The boys don't play a lot of console games, we have a Wii but it hardly ever gets played anymore.  They do play some "RPG" games on their computers or Kindles.  They play one called "Grail" and another called "Wizard 101."  They get really involved in them sometimes.  They play for hours and have nonsensical conversations that would rival any Ionesco play.  At times I get frustrated with them, I feel they are wasting time and money and brain cells on them.  I'm wrong, of course, to judge them because of one simple truth: I'd have killed to have a game like that when I was their age.  Fact.  I spent a summer playing Cribbage and "Battling Tops," both of which are rather boring and monotonous.  I can't imagine how much fun I would've found the games they spend hours on.

There are more things to come, smart-phones come to mind, texting, face-timing, game playing, study groups... and worse things I suspect.  But, is texting your girl any different than stretching the ultra-long cord from the kitchen and sitting on the basement steps and talking with your girl?  I doubt it.  Is not turning in your homework because you forgot the assignment better than getting into a Google chat with your classmates and doing it all together and wise-cracking as you did?  I doubt it.  Back in the mid-seventies we had a blizzard that effectively isolated us in our country home for over a week.  My brothers were away in college and I didn't have anything to do.  I'd traipse on over to my friend JB's house and we'd sit in his sixty-something Ford Falcon and smoke cigarettes, but, as I recall, that was about the only peer connection I had the whole time, I'm pretty sure the phone lines were down.  Would I have liked an opportunity to face-time and goof around with Dave and Bruce and Don or Lisa or Polly?  You bet I would've.


What other examples are there of this disparity of childhoods?  Here's one I've given some thought to: sports.  Although I did play organized Pee-Wee football - Pop Warner, for the informed - the vast majority of the sports we played were backyard pick-up games.  Baseball, some basketball, lots of football, a bit of volleyball - which as I recall segued into several months of badminton - an occasional game of soccer, for which we used a kickball, and some kickball, no doubt using a soccer ball, but I don't remember seeing a soccer ball until I got to college.

"Good for you," you may be saying.  Yes, uhm, but...  I think that's sort of a myth, "The Sandlot" and a few other movies, our own propensity to spin the details of youth into an often false utopia, that innate belief that all was right as a child, turn those games into movies themselves.  The real truth is that they were chaotic, there was lots of yelling and taunting and saying cruel things about each other, there were fights and constant arguments about rules and in-bounds and "do-overs" and "interference."  Playing football, tackle, believe it our not, we were reckless, bloodying our noses, cauliflowering our ears and blacking our eyes to the point where I'm surprised our parents were never questioned about our home life.

Baseball was a mess.  We never had enough kids so we let the littlest run bases and stand in the outfield.  Of course there was never an umpire unless someone's Dad sat on a Coleman cooler calling arbitrary strikes and balls, sipping a Miller Highlife - hence the cooler - and warning us that if one of us spilled his bottle he'd kick our asses.  There were rarely more than two baseballs and, honestly, fewer bats.  When we didn't have an ump or enough players, we'd have a designated pitcher, who called his own strikes, pitch to both teams.  We had no idea how to hold the bat or catch a grounder, it's not like we had any guidance or supervision, we were too afraid to spill Mike's dad's beer to approach him.  We'd call a fly into right an "automatic out" and we'd have the dreaded and confoundingly stupid "ghost runners" all over the damn field.  This, as in football, resulted in arguments, shoving matches and someone taking their ball and going home.

It all seems like fun in retrospect, but, honestly, it wasn't always.  Another thing that never seems to come up when grown folks wax poetic about their collective, superlative childhoods is "picking sides."  Some of the scenes in "Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" are less harrowing and dramatic than those that develop as thirteen or fifteen (always an uneven number) kids, almost always boys in my experience, chose sides.  First someone has to be a "captain," the chooser, actually, two of them.  In an ideal world, these are popular, cool dudes with fair and honest hearts.  In reality, they were often the bullies, or the older guys, or the strongest, or whoever's ball or net or bat it was.  Now, the captains choose from a line of boys, all hoping to not get on the dick's team.  Friendships are betrayed.  Chubby and runty kids are chosen last.  "First-picks" go fast and "mid-picks" look eager and athletic and loyal.  Last minute trades to even things out are discussed but never acted upon.  One poor kid is left standing, sometimes me, wondering how things will work out.  "Well, I guess I'll take little Billy Peebles," and I try not to be noticed as I walk towards my brother's team.

It all sounds silly looking back on it, I mean how hard could it have been?  I know feelings were hurt, I can still see the disappointed faces on the boys I was choosing from when I finally stepped into the role of Captain.  I know I betrayed a friend or two choosing a better athlete over my lifelong friend, JB, or picking someone I thought was "cool" but was, looking back, a dick.  I know bodies were hurt, bruises, scrapes, a broken bone or two and probably uncountable concussions.  I also know it was often tense.  Was Wayne gonna punch somebody?  Would the big guys come again and take over the field?  Would darkness fall before the game was finished?  Would I get hurt?  Picked last?  Lose?  Get blood on my pants?

N & Z play "rec" ball - baseball, soccer and basketball.  There are refs and umps, the teams are chosen by committee in an attempt at fairness.  Qualified and dedicated coaches are on hand to show proper technique, offer support and act as role models.  Fights don't break out, there are plenty of balls and, well, hearts don't get broken.  I like to think I enjoyed the wildness of those backyard games, that I understand life's unfairness a bit more, that I learned about friendship and loyalty.  Yeah, maybe so...

Honestly, I'd have rather played rec ball.  It looks like fun.


Listen, I can only speak to my own childhood, as you can only speak to yours.  I think these memories of it are intensely private.  There are memoirists and novelists, songwriters and such who are brave enough to shine a light on theirs, but, my experience has been that people are reluctant to talk a lot about it, especially as it gets further and further away.  And, as it drifts further from now, the edges soften, the details obscure and the lessons transform.

There is song title that flits around in my mind from an album by Jethro Tull released in the early seventies: "Life's a Long Song."  The rest of the lyrics are, well, a bit uninspired, but that title - the refrain of the song - is worth remembering.  Life is a long song.  Childhood is long, careers are long, days are long, as are some years.

I recently heard a saying - I think I've mentioned it here before - "mine is not a failed attempt at yours."  I wish more folks would try the remember that.  I also think the inverse is true, just switch the  mine and yours.   Basically, my childhood and the boys' is the same childhood.  I also don't think you can "call" your childhood - label it good or bad, fruitful, lazy, whatever - because, even as it seems fixed in time, the way you see it is practically lunar or tidal - ebbing, waxing, waning, sometimes there, bright and strong, other times so far out on the horizon it seems nearly gone.  I don't think it is fair to tell someone how to fill their life, that's their hand to play.  You can't manipulate memory or set a lesson in stone.

Time changes everything isn't the lesson in stone, perspective changes everything, might be.

There is a lot of time in a lifetime, I am always astounded at how many lives I seem to have had.

There is a lot of time in a childhood.  Hours to be filled.  

I filled mine my way... and, they're doing a perfect job filling theirs.


Filling theirs with cutting meat for home-made Big Macs.

Or fidget spinning in a class shirt you designed for "field day."

Or taking a selfie with your dad.

Or learning "Hedwig's Theme" on a flute

Or, playing in a sandpit on your "first-cousin-once-removed"'s farm - God I hate the nomenclature for close family, someone should work on that.  (As an aside here, I grew up near sand and gravel pits so, seeing them jumping off and scrambling up one 800 hundred miles and forty-five years removed, was a bit odd - one of those moments when it all gets jumbled in my head.)

Or they might spend their time behind nice chain-link fences, throwing a few long balls...

...or  walking to a dugout...

... or being the battery as a fastball flies between hand and glove on an unforgettable midwest midday.

Or maybe they'll fill a couple of hours pranking me while I'm getting new tires for the camper, cutting paper and drawing smiley-faces and taping them onto every single thing in the refrigerator and freezer - a story I will guess will be told for a long time:

Well, I suppose I've taken enough of your time.  Thanks for stopping by, I know it's been a while since my porch-light's been lit.  I appreciate you looking out for it.

As always, Peace.

I touch on this theme frequently around here, this "whose childhood is whose" thing.  In "Esta La Luna" things get all jumbled around and in Closeted Memories I mention the gravel pits of my youth and how I filled some hours as a kid.

(Here's a link to that Tull tune, if your interested, it's actually a pretty good song.)

Love and Stuff: An Accidental Ode

Christmas came and went, didn't it?  I wasn't too heavy into it this year, I can't say why, it just didn't resonate as deeply as it sometimes can.  The boys are currently somewhere between the magic of Christmas past and the mystery of Christmas future.  Santa's packed up his bag and moved on, but the depth of a God-child here on earth is yet to be fathomed .

It's only my opinion, but I think, after it is over, maybe we should all ask "What did you give for Christmas?" instead of "What did you get?"  I guess that can get a little sticky, too.  I don't mean what great game system you gave or new device or phone, bike or board.  I mean what did you give of yourself?

We didn't give the boys anything big or important this year, just socks and toys and, you know, books, stuff.  I think every Christmas Eve since the boys were born, Marci and I have laid in bed wondering if we got them the right things, gave them enough, did enough.  I'd guess a lot of parents do that.

Will they like the bikes?  Is this the right game or book or toy or hoodie?  Are we doing enough?

It hurts to wonder about those questions.  It hurts to feel you're not doing enough.

But, we are.

We've given the warmth of hearthfire and carols.  We've shown them deep love and honor.  We've lifted them up above the madness so they can see Hope on the horizon, taste Dream in the wind and hear the songs of Kindness, Courage and Wildness.

It's all hard to see, though, if your doing enough... most of the time.


Nick and Zack wanted to buy each other gifts this year.  We've done it in the past but it's been sort of a "I want this" situation, veiled in "secrecy" - yeah.  This year they decided to choose gifts for each other on their own, without any "suggestions."  From what I gather, and gather I do, they told each other not to tell them what they were thinking about for the other.  They wanted to be surprised and, on Christmas morning.  They were.

Nick wanted to get Zack two things, a new Rubik's cube or similar puzzle and a book of music for flute.  He and I went out together and found the puzzle and continued on to a local music store that I knew had songbooks.  We found the beginner and intermediate flute books and Nick spent a long while deciding on one.  There was a book of songs from the Harry Potter movies, which we were actually in the middle of watching.  It had "Hedwig's Theme" in it, and he was excited about that.  He said it would sound so pretty on the flute, which I agreed with, but many of the other songs were unfamiliar.  He also found a book of Beatles songs, most of which he knew and knew Zack would as well.  He decided on the Beatles one and was very pleased about his decision.  Nick does pleased well.

Marci went with Zack, first to get a remote-controlled "Hexbug" - a toy he knew Nick liked because he had one he already played with quite a bit.  From there they went to the bookstore.  He had the idea that he wanted to find a cookbook for Nick.  Nick cooks with me some and enjoys it and Zack thought he would like his own recipes.  Apparently, he spent a great deal of time deciding and going back and forth between several.  Most he found too simple, Nick's skills are well beyond beginner, and some too full of things he didn't think we'd like  He finally decided on Complete Children's Cookbook, from the publisher DK.  It's a wonderful choice.

The boys were both very excited about their gifts from each other and, here's the kicker, for each other.  They both spent a lot of time considering the right gift for the other.

I've been thinking about this a great deal.  Why, I wondered, were they so enthralled with this process?  Initially, I just figured it was because they'd not had the chance to do it before, which is probably true.  I thought maybe they just wanted the praise and thanks they might get for giving a good gift.  This may be part of it, but, I think they are better than that.  Recently though - like, in the last five minutes - I considered a deeper reason and I think it rings true.

In giving Zack a Rubik's puzzle Nick was telling Zack that he respected him, admired him, for all the hard work he'd put into learning how to solve the many different puzzles he's had over the past couple of years.

The remote-controlled robot said to Nick that Zack saw how much he enjoyed the one he had, that that his joy was important to him, Zack, and he'd like to add to it.

A Beatles songbook says "Hey, I think you're good at this."  It says try this challenge and, I know you can do it.  It says thank you for filling our home with music.  It says I appreciate you.

The cookbook was more than paper and pictures and ink, it was a physical act of encouragement.  "Here is this, I know you can do it."  Zack has seen how happy Nick is when he helps with dinner, seen the determination he has to learn new skills, seen his pride in a job well done.  He was simply showing Nick his appreciation.

Listen, brothers, men, boys, have difficulty saying "I love you"  That's a broad statement, I realize that, and of course men do, say it that is, I do, the boys do.  But... I'm gonna stand by it.

Here's why.  I've seen how well we can show love to one another.  Because love is such an all-encompassing emotion, because it so big and deep and scary, because it seems so overwhelming, especially to boys, we, well, we skirt it.  We go around it, under it, over it, but, we feel it.  We know it.  We need it, it's just that there are so many kinds of love we find it hard to define, to hold onto.

I left a football out in the rain and snow not but a few weeks after I'd gotten it for Christmas when I was maybe twelve or eleven.  It was ruined and I was mad and disappointed in myself.  My brother, who was in high school at the time, a star football player, came home with an old, worn out football.  He said something about how there were plenty in the locker room and some never even got used.  It was a bit flat but he helped me pump it.  I think I treasured that ball more than I'd have ever the new one.  Knowing that he noticed how sad I was meant the world to me.  My little boy's soul saw it for what it was, an act of love.

My older brother used to play chess with me.  I was in fourth, maybe, grade and he was on the high school chess team.  Until I had kids I couldn't imagine the patience it must have taken to play against a novice such as I was.  But he did, more often I am sure than he would've liked to.  It was an act of love.  He noticed once, not longer after that, that I was reading books that were not the best and below my reading level.  He let me read his Sherlock Holmes books and later his formidable collection of science fiction.  I felt the respect he was giving me, I felt honored, loved.

It may surprise some folks, but I think men spend more time observing men than they do ogling women.  And boys watch men and each other all the time.  I know I did, I know I still do.

Men show affection, love if you must, in a whap on a shoulder, in a handshake with both hands, with a look in an eye.  It's veiled in a friend's "I'm sorry" or a "nice shot" or "good luck."  It's there when your dad says he proud of you, when a brother compliments a pass reception in a fall backyard or an unexpected chess move in front of a winter fire.

We share the burden on the first day of practice with one another as an act of courage:

We stand shoulder to shoulder, hats in hand, popcorn at our feet, under the eye of the old man in an act of devotion - to each other, to the past, to family, to justice.

Boys and men parse out their love.  This bit in that, that bit in this.

Dancing, happily at the fair together is solidarity and trust:

And so is silliness:

Men, and boys, need to feel the wildness inside them, and they need to do it with others.

A jump off a "cliff":

Side by side marching into battle, stick-spears and stick-bows and stick-daggers at the ready:

A river walk:

A mudfight:

All are acts of wildness and, when faced together, shared, they become the knotted bond of trust, which is, of course love.

There are more ways we show each other these bonds.  We dream together, boys especially know there is nothing sadder than an unshared dream.

The dream of the big leagues, two boys a battery in the majors:

The dreams that are fiction and make-believe:

The dreams that radiate from a fire, from the past:

And the dreams that we look forward, together, often not knowing what those are, but not knowing together:

Yes, we dream together and it is done in love.

Sometimes these moments are short and quiet but echo in our memories for years.

A game remembered well after the players and fans are gone, a loss, a win.  Acceptance:

A moment, frozen in a frame.  A moment to last a lifetime:

Showing love is in our gestures and poses, in the winks and nods and smiles, in the hugs and even the punches; in every run scored, ball dunked, battle won.  It is, and has always, lived in this pose:

I've seen this vignette so often, from battle fields to scrapbooks.  And, I think, that may be my point.  Although left uncaptured by cameras, I have been in all these images.  I could insert myself into any one these scenes.

I think most men could.  And remember men are, and shall forever remain, boys.


Listen, I've kept you too long, again.

Peace, and thanks for stopping by.


(There is something super funny about that last picture, give it a closer look.)


((I should probably add that all the images were vetted by the boys and some of these may have been in past posts here.))

Projecting Art

The boys started Sixth Grade a week ago so I can think of no better post for today than showing you the majority of the art projects they did last year, yeah, in fifth...

(You might remember, I took the summer off.)

Now, I can't say that Warhol would be the first place to start in an Art class.  His iconoclasm requires a broad knowledge of both what came before him and the incredibly strange zeitgeist of the era from whence he sprung.

But, hey, it's a soup can and that's silly:

Z went with Zack's Mystery Soup - no surprise there.  It says right on the label "It's a Surprise in every can.™"  Yep, he added a trademark.

Nick went with Dragon Soup.  I heard it tastes like rattlesnake.  I'm pleased he spelled everything correctly and... wait.  That says "Peebles's" right there at the top.  Possessives are hard.  I like the handwritten font, he makes the lower case "b" like I do, not using the silly bridge thing they teach but a sensible round bottom that looks like the letter.

They moved on from that to the "Crushed Can Project."  As I recall, they were to 'anthropomorphize', their word, a smashed pop (that's soft drink in Ohioese) can.  They used other found and re-purposed materials.  On the left is Zack's lion, majestic and all, surrounded in stars as lions often are.  Nick's is a sloth wearing a panda shirt on a branch, or maybe a crazed ear-less orangutan.  An otter?  (Nick, Dude, I'm sorry, I forgot to ask, hopefully you'll remember.)

Here's a classic.  The string spiraled around other string - all different and emphatically arbitrary colors, it's important to note - on a painted paper plate - again, the colors don't seem to matter.  You probably made one long ago, it's in the curricula with the stretchy string potholders, you remember, the ones that melt and burn when you hold a hot pot?  Let's call them "Stringies..."

Hold on.  Are those the same one?  No one's blue on the outer ring and the other one is brown, right?  Wait.  Is that mine, or yours?  Truth is, it could be anyone's.  (Possessives are hard.)

Let's move on.

This one baffled me initially.  It was like the last two days of school when all this stuff came home and I just put it aside and, well, took the summer off.  I remembered they talked about Impressionism and I think this was to illustrate pointillism.  They painted butterflies on muslin over a piece of rough (80-grit for the art historians) sandpaper to mimic the affect, I think...

Zack's is one of the two and Nick's is the other.

Zack made this groovy Seventies poster, they were heavy on the affirmations.

Meanwhile, Nick was busy making a "Mix Tape."

(Actually, apologies to Nick, I can't seem to find his groovy Seventies affirmation poster.  I remember seeing it, but I think he brought it home mid-year and now I can't find it.  I pretty sure it said "Sensitive, Kind, Loving, Strong" and, of course, "Awesome.")

These two owls made it into the Spring Art Show, which I think we missed because of a sporting event, or Skyline, probably Skyline.  Actually, as I recall, they didn't really want to go.  I don't know why... I may have then.

I think this year's pieces de resistance are the two clay fishes, painted and fired, the whole thing.  This project replaces the ashtray project I did.  Thirty years ago I'd've loved these as ashtrays, truth be told.  Good conversation starters and all.  Man, it's funny how time changes everything and yet, stuff stays the same.

Zack's has a baby fish in its mouth.  (Hey, boys, I've still got them, whenever you're reading this.  They're on top of the bookshelf in your room, have been for years now.  Don't mind the dust.)

I reckon I might have a point here at the end.  Boy I'd like to...


Listen, I should've probably done this piece when the stories were all fresh.  But, in a way, what's interesting is that I am approaching these today much as they might in a few decades.  What might they think of them then.

Perhaps, they'll think, "Man, that sandpaper thing was stupid."

Or, "I remember being really proud of that soup can thing."

Or, maybe, "I remember how proud and impressed Dad was with the fish sculptures."

"Why didn't we go to the Art Show?"

Beyond that, they might be reminded of what a great school system they went to, reminded of dear teachers and old friends; see what opportunity and understanding studying art and Music afforded them.

I imagine them at a distant reunion talking about Mrs. So-and-So, the Art Teacher, and one of the boys pulling up this blog on whatever device there is by then and, misty eyed and wistful, scrolling through these projects and knowing that once life was good and they were very much loved, honored and cherished.


I know I've sort of promised to get away from this sort of post, ones showcasing the stuff they do here, now, at school.  I mentioned I might do this piece and they didn't have a problem with it.  In fact Nick said:  "Oh, yeah, it would be really cool to see those someday when we are all grown up."

Well, here they are boys, but, I'll bet you don't feel all grown up... you never will, but, that's a secret for another time.


Peace, as always, thanks for looking at these, I appreciate you spending the time with me.



Update Sept. 8, 2016

I rarely change or add to or alter a post after I've finished it.  I truly think that creative work must finish, reach a state of completion.  For instance, I've shared here some lame poetry I wrote in the eighties, there were a couple of poems that had some promise and I was tempted to revise them.  I realized that that would mean I hadn't trusted myself, or believed in myself when I originally wrote them - which I did, very much.  I've also written songs and, as I play them today, so many years later, I often think of a better line or a way to change the melody or something.  I don't.  I already finished them.

Sure, around here, I fix glaring typos - of which there are many - and tense stuff, but I never change the gist of the thing.  Today I might.

You see, I forgot the end of this piece, the final image.  Here it is:

The boys both finished the year with high honors, all A's I guess you'd say.  (I threw the awards down there so they'd remember them later, they were proud of those, but they aren't really on point.)  I wanted to say something clever about how all these art projects added to the stellar education they are being afforded, or something like that...

I thought of something else though.  Just as they worked hard and made the best of the opportunity in their Art class they did the same in their academic work as well.  That's a horrible sentence but I can't seem to fix it.

Nick and Zack are seizing their shot at this.  Seeing the importance and working hard in Art and music, coupled with the scholastic work they do in math and science, social studies and language arts, gives them a hand up on the difficult trail before them.  A good song, a heartfelt story, a desperately sad painting, a beautiful new film version of "The Little Prince," all serve us just as importantly, just as nobly, just as essentially, as algebraic theorems, basic chemistry, geography, even history.

Yeah, maybe I just shoulda left it as it was...


I'm gonna tell you the truth here.  When I initially designed and worked through this piece, I had every intention of framing it around one thought.

Lets put an A in STEM curriculum and call it STEAM instead.

I decided not to, mostly because it didn't serve the memory I wanted to put down here, didn't honor the material.

Peace. 

Vimeo Test (Private)

Bill thinks he marked this private.  He is wrong.  I just hit publish.  You see, he posted that ridiculous Hand and Bolt thing Friday after I left.  He knows we are trying to get away from that style, trying to distance ourselves from the story of these boys, he knows that he must move on.

He doesn't want to.

We have to. 

(The video is close-captioned.)



I do feel obliged to tell you that he did have a very nice piece on faith and fatherhood published on City Dads Group.  He's not nearly as good as the writers he's been thrown in with.  Ones who wouldn't end a sentence with not one, but two, prepositions.

Here's a link "Teach Faith to Children So They Can Find Their Own Prayer"


Peace to you all,

Other-one-me

Chess and Salvation

I've played a lot of chess in my day.  I've gifted chess sets to friends on several occasions, I even knew an old man who carved them.

That being said, I've never played on one this cool.

It used to be that I understood what they boys were talking about - hell, I even speak fluent toddler - but now, as their horizons reach further, as their education experience broadens, as their personalities and sense of selves expands as it will forever, I, um, don't.

Nick made this for an extra math project his teacher had given him to, well, keep him busy and focused.  Apparently, it's called "Decimal Chess" and one has to draw a card and solve a decimal problem, i.e. one and three-fourths is what as a decimal, what is the average of .5, one-fourth and 1.25, use a number-line to solve...  you get it.  You can move after you solve the problem, if you don't the other player moves again.

I suggested that chess was hard enough without solving an equation - although the idea of getting two or more moves in row is sort of interesting.  He said they were easy equations and everyone would know them.

Remind me not to play "Decimal Chess" with Nick...

I found this piece of notepaper on the floor.  It is Z's writing so I asked him about it.  He looked at it and quickly crumpled it up and said he didn't remember why he wrote it down.

"True Salvation is off to a good start."

It sounds like an opening line to a novel.  Perhaps, True Salvation is a new band.  Maybe he is experiencing a profound religious, uh, thing...

You know what?  I am not going to ever find out.  I am well past knowing everything about them.

That's sad... and good.


This parenting thing can really mix a guy up.


From Marci's  "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

"Chanting always works."

There is that...


Thanks for coming around again.  Peace and goodwill and stuff.