Heads or Tails - "Springtime Memory" - 3/10/09

Today's Heads or Tails prompt is "Springtime Memory." I grew up in northern Idaho and the first sign of spring was always a joy after a long, cold winter. I also lived in Wyoming for about ten years (seemed like longer), where winter is even more relentless and severe. I wrote down a few thoughts about early spring in the mountains. If you are curious as to how this piece sounds in guttural monotone, you can hear me read it by clicking here.

Springtime in the Rockies

Vernal sun erases winter frowns as surely as a drug expunges pain
Hearts encumbered by cabin fever released into the warmth
Optimistic blades of grass poke through stubborn snow remaining
Children kicking through the slush, parkas retired for at least today
Skinny deer seeking feed long buried, nourished and hopeful

Garages reorganized, snowmobiles for motorcycles and skis for golf clubs
Windows opened that had been frozen shut, fresh air in, stale air out
Birds arriving from their hibernal roost, voice their delight in song
Their melodies bring welcomed joy to the tomb like silence of arctic cold

Squirrel gangs emerge from their winter hole in the wall hideout

A single flower risking exposure, banking that it is truly spring

A wire brush to the Weber grill, search for “Kiss the Cook” apron
The marshmallow world becomes colorized in growing earth tone plots
Dry creek beds overflow with runoff, water much colder than the springtime air
Audible crazing as ice gives way, the sound of winter retreating
Budding renewal as life emerges from winter kill, a rebirth
Ecstasy in the mountains as survivors gambol in the healing balm
Hibernation ends jubilation begins, forest families take roll
Natural adversaries postpone conflict to revel in resurrection

Before hunger and temperament set Darwin’s laws into motion
All life that lay dormant, rekindled by nature’s new beginning

Sunday Scribblings - Fellow Travelers - 1/20/08

I have traveled extensively in my life, but sadly, mostly alone. This is partly by choice and partly because I am such a bastard that few people enjoy my company for long enough to endure any kind of extensive trip. But, this writing will be about a companion that doesn’t care that I am an asshole. She loves unconditionally.

In December of 2000, I escaped the frozen wasteland of central Wyoming and moved to Myrtle Beach, SC. I put everything I had in storage and set off in my new SUV, with my traveling companion, Suzy. Suzy was, and is, a Dachshund. As a puppy the size of your hand, I gave her to a friend’s daughter for Easter in about 1996. Suzy was re-gifted to me just prior to my trip. Situations required the family to move into a rental property that would not accept pets.


So Suzy and I departed on the 2,000-mile adventure. I hadn’t gotten out of the driveway before I realized that this journey was going to be interesting. I had always known that Suzy suffered from OCD. If you think that Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is only a human condition, you have never spent much time in the company of a canine, or at least this one.

The first compulsion that I observed with Suzy was her obsession with chasing a ball. From the time she was a tiny puppy she loved fetching a ball. No one taught her to fetch, she just figured out that if she brought it back you were inclined to throw it again. She never tired of it. She would chase as long as you would throw. She would not even stop to relieve herself, rather let it fly while she was at full speed. When you wanted to stop the game, you had to hide the ball. I mean HIDE the ball. If she saw where you put it, she would either engineer a way to get at it or look at the spot in which she believed it to be and whine until she drove you completely mad. If you just stopped throwing it, she would move the ball closer and closer to you with her nose. That failing, it would soon be on your foot or in your lap. There was no ignoring her and hoping she would lose interest. She NEVER lost interest.


If you uttered the word “ball”, even under your breath, her ears would perk up and she would begin to dance in anticipation of chasing her beloved ball. Even the words “mall”, “hall”, “doll” or anything else with an “all” sound, elicited the same manic response. Tennis balls were her favorite, though I believe she would have tried to retrieve a bowling ball. If you threw more than one ball, she would make every attempt at bringing them all back, driving herself mad with indecision.

Once, I took her to the beach to chase balls and on the way home I stopped to get gas. I hadn’t realized that one of the balls had gotten lodged between the back seat and the door. In the length of time it took me to pump the gas and buy a drink, she had chewed my leather seat trying to retrieve the ball. She normally did not chew, but when it came to “ball” she was unbridled.

Okay, back to the trip. The new obsession that Suzy exhibited, and would continue to exhibit for the next 1,999.9 miles was that she required that I pet her at all times. I didn’t really have to make a stroking motion; rather my right hand must constantly rest on her. Any attempt to remove that hand resulted in her repositioning it with her nose. Should I try to put both hands on the steering wheel, she would crawl onto my lap and whine. Not once, while the vehicle was in motion, did she sleep. I tried once to put her in the back seat but it became obvious that was not acceptable to her and since she has toes like a badger, I again feared for my leather.

We made the trip without incident, though my right arm slept for most of the journey.

When we arrived in Myrtle Beach, my plan was to leave her with my son Josh and his wife Tia until I settled in but she bonded with my daughter-in-law and has been her dog ever since.


Suzy is now about 11, very old for a Dachshund, due to their fragile back and hips. She is grossly overweight (Suzy not Tia) and her ball chasing days are about over.

She coexists with their 100+ pound black Labrador, Bob, but it was obvious from day one who was boss. She has terrorized Bob for seven years now. Suzy has no idea that she is only a foot tall. She fears no dog. She is the alpha dog.


A cat once beat the crap out of her, but that is another story.


Bob loves Suzy. Before she arrived he had terrible seperation anxiety whenever he was left alone. Suzy's presence calmed him. Suzy pretends to hate Bob, but when no one is looking she will play with him. But she will not share her bone, her food, her attention, or her place on the couch.



Suzy does not really like children. They move at her too quickly and are a bit rough for her liking. Suzy is a gentle creature. She does not bite them, but she will avoid them and if they continue to pursue her she will growl and show her teeth, maybe even a little warning snap. This is my grandson Carson getting into Suzy's personal space. She is less than pleased.


Remarkably, the only children she tolerates, and even seeks out, are two young autistic boys that are neighbors of Josh and Tia. She is pictured here with one of them.


The other photo is of Suzy and Bob waking my son, Josh, on his birthday.


Suzy is now, pretty much of a couch potato and as you can see, still enjoys being stroked. Don’t we all.

Sunday Scribblings - "I Carry" Friday 11/16/07

This week’s prompt of “I carry” came at exactly the right time. I knew in moments what I had to write about. Could we please have a prompt next week that I can go back to “writing with a smirk”? It is much less painful..

I carry with me a heavy sadness that manifests itself during the Holiday Season. At no time is the disparity between the haves and the have-nots more evident than as Christmas approaches. The first pangs arrived today as I stood in front of a Salvation Army Angel Tree. I am certain that most people know what that is but in the event that one of my readers is from Neptune where there are no trees, or Dubai where there is no poverty, I will explain. The first name of a needy child is placed on a placard and hung from a Christmas tree. Along with the name is a present request and clothing sizes for the child. I am not sure how the children are selected as needy. I guess it is arbitrarily determined that there is a breakpoint for those in need and those not. I feel sorry for that child who barely misses the cut for needy and does not qualify for an anonymous gift. Anyway, you just select a child at random and provide some hope for Christmas. It is a great program and I participate every year.



One of the main reasons I participate in the Angel Tree is that in 1960, had they had such a program, I would have qualified. The Bunker Hill Company, which my dad worked for, was on strike for 220 days in 1960, ending on December 10th. We were living in Wyoming, where dad could find work in uranium mines, though he longed for the relative safety of lead (not much of a choice there). So a few days before Christmas we left Wyoming in a blizzard for northern Idaho, on bald tires and an 8 cylinder, running on about 5. Somewhere along the journey my dad purchased a Lionel electric train that I had been clamoring for. He did not have money for the necessities of life, but felt I needed a Christmas Present. My memories of all my 55 Christmases blend together but I remember Christmas that year more than any other. I remember it with a great sadness, which I have carried with me all these years. I know that I should be happy that my dad loved me enough to sacrifice for me. But I am not. I have carried with me a certain amount of guilt that a Holiday put him in that situation. I have sorrow that the Christmas Holiday has such a potential for sadness and disappointment. Most of all, I have remorse that I probably never said thank you for that sacrifice.


As I selected a child to sponsor, the sadness came in torrents. It is not a child’s fault that they are born into a situation by which they are deemed needy. It is not their presence that caused a parent to be unemployed, uneducated, unreliable, unlucky, unacceptable, untrained, unambitious, unappealing, unbefitting, uncoachable, unclean, unadept, undatable, uncultured, unequipped, undesirable, uneducable, unethical, unhirable, unfavored, unpolished, unpaid, unpardoned, unpleasing, unpolished, unlikable, unlaundered, unloving, unmanageable, unmotivated, unneighborly, unnamable, unprivileged, unprized, unrealistic, unproven, unpurified, unreceptive, unrestrained, unrespectable, unrefined, unremarkable, unabsolved, unacademic, unacclaimed, unaccomplished, unacquitted, unappreciated, unaromatic, unwed, unworkable, unsterilized, unsuitable, unteachable, unthrifty, unutilized, unvalued, undignified, undiplomatic, undiagnosed, uninsured, or unendowed. But, it is not necessarily the parents’ fault that they are needy. My dad was certainly not culpable. He was many of the uns listed above, but none by his own doing. He was a victim of circumstances. Yes, sometimes it is by their own choices: Alcoholism, drug addiction, laziness, abusiveness, abandonment, etc., but not always.



There are no guarantees that Charli, a 12-year-old girl who likes Hannah Montana and the High School Musical will actually receive the gifts I purchase for her. In the back of my mind is the vision of her guardian selling the size 14 pants to buy drugs. But I have to try. Maybe Charli’s daddy is just a victim of circumstances. Charli deserves to feel special, at least at Christmas.

Sunday, October 27, Sunday Scribblings - Hospital

I have been submitting to Sunday Scribblings sporadically for about seven months and it has occurred to me that most of my ramblings have been very superficial and reveal very little of myself. While most of the other writers in this community take themselves and their writing very seriously, I have often trivialized the prompts and made light of whatever topic was presented. As a result, those few that read my ramblings have probably formed an opinion that I never have a serious thought. My first instinct with the prompt “hospital” was to follow my modus operandi and provide humorous anecdotes about bedpans, nurses trying, unsuccessfully, to find a vein for an IV, paper gowns, and sharing a semi-private room with a corpse. But that would have been an untruth. The first thought invoked by the prompt “hospital” follows:


My mother died in November of 1986. I was not there. I was serving overseas in the Air Force and by the time the Red Cross contacted me it was too late to come home. My father did not know to contact the Red Cross to notify me and he did not know how to make an international call. We were not the kind of family that frequently kept in touch. Communication was primarily through letters, so there was no indication that anything was wrong in Idaho. She had already been cremated by the time I was notified. I spoke to my dad and he indicated that he was fine, though I knew he wasn’t. I was a single dad with three kids who had recently survived a divorce and an immediate uprooting to a foreign country. Dad knew that my place was with them and there was no point in returning home after the fact.


In March of 1989, I was still in Europe, and received notification that my Dad was in the hospital and that his life expectancy was in the hours, not days. He was in the final stages of cancer that was so far advanced by the time he sought medical treatment, that there was none available. I left my kids with friends and immediately flew home.


When I arrived at the hospital I did not recognize the figure that they told me was my dad. He had not been a large man, but he worked in the mines for 35 years and was very strong with powerful arms and a grip that could put me on my knees. He now weighed less than 100 pounds and consisted of skin stretched across a skeleton. I am not even certain that he knew I was there. All I could do was hold his hand, put ice chips to his parched lips, a cool washrag on his forehead, and talk to him. I probably said more to him in those few hours than I had in my life. Let me explain. When I was young my mom did most of the communicating. When I reached my teens, I didn’t communicate at all with my parents. I thought I knew so much more than them, what was the point? Then I left home, went to college, got married, joined the Air Force, and never came back, other than for short visits. So my dad and I never got to know each other as adults. The man that I was trying to comfort during his last breaths was a stranger to me.


That hospital room, silent but for dad’s labored breath and my soft words to him, became a time machine. I was transported back to my youth, to our youth. The times we went fishing, watching the Friday Night Fights, the times there were presents under the tree that dad could ill afford, our late night raids on the kitchen after mom had retired to bed, going bowling, playing catch. It all came back to me in a flood. This was both my first first-hand experience with death and my first realization of who this man really was. For my entire life, I had taken both him and life for granted.


The doctor came in, said dad seemed stable, and told me that I might as well go home and get some rest and come back in the morning. I tried to insist that I would stay but he convinced me to go since I had been up for who knew how many hours, including a flight from Germany to Spokane. I had been at home for about an hour when the hospital called and said dad was gone. The nurse said that it seemed he was just waiting for me to get home.


Back at the house I grew up in, I sat in the recliner that dad had spent the best part of the time since mom died. There was a stack of papers on the end table. I picked them up and looked through them. There were newspaper clippings, both from my baseball days and from my military career. But the one thing that caught my eye was a Christmas card that I had given my parents when I was a teen. I had written a little poem entitled to my parents:
There’s a lot of things I should do, that I don’t
And a lot of things I could do that I won’t
There’s a lot of things I shouldn’t that I do
And a lot more things I should, than I do for you

Those four lines capsulize my life about as accurately as anything I could say here. Those of you who expected my usual “writing with a smirk” will be disappointed greatly, particularly Lucy. I should be back on form next Sunday.


Postscript: I carried my parent’s ashes with me for about ten years, not really knowing what to do with them. The containers began to leak so I had to make a decision. I was living in Wyoming at the time and carried them to a beautiful and unique place where I dumped them into a river that disappears underground (see website). Neither of them had ever been there and we had no connection with the area. It just seemed like a nice place. I had actually inquired about spreading dad’s ashes on the mound at our beloved Yankee Stadium, but found it was against city ordinance.

http://www.windrivercountry.com/lander/sinkscanyonstatepark.html
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