Caualties of Caring

It's one of those things I'm surprised my mind latched onto, but it had. I found myself wandering and wondering within about events from long ago and lessons that seemed so obvious, to me at least...

I watched the couple as they walked through the parking lot away from the movie theater and toward their truck. There could be little doubt that the hormones were flowing within both of them. They walked so close together and in such perfect harmony that they shouted to the world the definition of being joined at the hip. There was little doubt that they were very much in lust, but something told me it was more than that, and my suspicion was confirmed when they got to the old Ford pickup. He opened the door for her, and she climbed into the lifted truck and onto the bench seat with the heavy Indian blanket seat cover. He walked around and climbed in behind the wheel. She slid next to him, kissed him and then slid back to the passenger side to put her seat belt on. In a moment the engine came to life, headlights lit their way, and they were gone as I smiled, recalling times now distant…

"I'm wasting my time with you," he said as I tried to do something I'd never done before--drive a car. In the end the high school driving instructor's comments to me were mainly that I was about as bad a driver as he'd ever encountered and that there was nothing he could do with me. There would be no more driving lessons for me as far as he was concerned, and he doubted I'd ever get a driver's license.

The conversation at home that followed is long forgotten but finding me behind the wheel of dad's car out on the gravel of Hog Island Road with dad as the passenger isn't. As I held the steering wheel in a death grip, he calmly talked about how I had to pay attention to everything around me, but most of all I had to be aware of where I was in relationship to the objects around me. The philosophy of a man who earned his living driving the biggest vehicle out there on the highways was to know where I was at all times. This was something I would eventually forget, but not before I became the first of my high school class to get a driver's license.

One of my dreams in those days was to become a NASCAR driver, so the words of my high school driving instructor had struck a rather sensitive nerve. I suspect it was a very real motivation for "The Flight of the Family Ford" over the next two-plus years. Thus it began; one more teenager driving his parents' car on the streets, roads and highways of Wisconsin seeking his freedom and identity in a world that secretly desired neither for him.

How or why a shaped and painted piece of metal becomes an extension and a declaration of just who a person is mystifies me, yet I believe it to be a truth. I think of my truck sitting out in the drive today and realize how much it symbolizes who I am: a dependable if somewhat worn-down soul. Back in the 50s and the 60s it was no less the truth. What you drove was a direct reflection of who you were. So being much of anything special while driving a '64 Ford Custom was more than a little difficult, and Lord knows as a sixteen-year-old boy, special is the only thing I wanted to be.

If there was no other alternative than the one way you could be special while driving your dad's car, it was to have your girl sitting beside you. Of course, having a girl in the first place was an important part of the equation, and in my case I was blessed at different times over the next years with three lovely women who sat beside me, and so perhaps in the best way of all, I was the "coolest of the cool" even though I wasn't driving a Mustang or an SS 396. I drove along all the while feeling the presence of another at my side, and in those moments life was good.

High school ended one day, and not all that much later I found myself in the Navy and very far away from that little town. It was on a destroyer in Charleston, South Carolina that I would meet someone who would become one of the most important people to me. To this day I don't recall how we met, but on a destroyer that had been commissioned at the end of WWII, a sailor knew everyone from the captain on down.

His name was Phil, and on this particular day we had gone over to a shipmate's house so Phil could take ownership of Robby's Fiat Spider. Two bucket seats, convertible and manual transmission were all part of the package, and for a couple of twenty-year-old sailors, life didn't get much better than that. Robby gave Phil the keys, and we were off to experience the freedom of sailors with wheels for the first time.
What I can tell you about that day can be summed up rather quickly; the top was down, the light was green, the radio wasn't turned up. Phil took the right lane because the traffic was stopped at the light and the lane was open. We cruised into the intersection only to see the grill of a Navy ambulance as it slammed into Phil's side of the car.

The mind really is a wondrous thing, and what others say about significant moments in their lives is for me true. Life really does slow down in that moment. I remember feeling the dashboard against my thighs as I was being propelled upward and out of my seat. Then my chest hit the top of the windshield. What I remember most in that brief instant are my glasses flying off my face and reaching out to catch them. Without a doubt it is the best catch I've ever made in my life. Having played first base all those years, I did make one or two dang good catches, but none to equal that one. As I fell back down into the seat, my only thought was Phil.

"You OK?" I asked as I looked over at him.

He looked back at me and said, "No." His eyes rolled back in his head, and his face streamed blood.

In a way it's funny thinking about it today. The guys in the ambulance that hit us jumped out, grabbed us, threw us in the back of the ambulance, hauled us to the hospital and patched us up. Phil ended up being all right though he did get more stitches than I, and I'd made the best catch of my life with those glasses somewhere just beyond the windshield of that little two-bucket-seats and no-seat-belts Fiat Spider.

She slid across the bench seat of my Ford Torino and up against me. It was that feeling I'd felt years before when someone special had pressed her body up against mine and I liked it a whole lot more than just a little. A very big part of me didn't want her to move, not one inch, and life would be good. And for a moment I held the feeling within me of that special someone sitting beside me, and so close that everyone knew that she was my girl. This time was different. This time was going to be forever and this time it didn't matter whether everyone knew or not because I thought I knew.

"We're not going anywhere until you slide back over and put on your seat belt," I said to her.

It was obvious in her eyes that she was taking my demands as a rejection of her affections. I doubt that I said the right thing to her, and to this day I suspect it was the start of a life together that was filled with doubt and questions. In the end it was never the rejection of a beautiful and intelligent young blonde's affections that caused me to, in a manner of speaking, push her away. The truth was twofold. I had heard that the center position in a car was the most dangerous place to be and that I was certain in that moment that I wanted her safe and in my life for the rest of my life.

As I eased in behind the wheel of my old truck, I thought about the couple driving away and how life never quite lives up to expectations. I thought about how keeping someone safe is never a one-way street, and simply because everyone is wearing a seat belt, there's no guarantee that there aren't going to be casualties.

Perceptions

On October 30, 1938 the Columbia Broadcasting System created a bit more than just a simple little stir in a nation gathered around their radios and listening to a program on Mercury Theater on the Air. It was the Halloween episode directed and narrated by Orson Welles and adapted from the H. G. Wells' novel War of the Worlds. The first two thirds of the radio broadcast was done as a news report of actual events, and for those tuning in midway through, the perception was that the earth was being invaded by aliens from outer space.

There are things in this world that, I suspect, will always be a constant for most everyone. One of those "universal truths" almost certainly would have to be that summers in the upper Midwest are always better than the winters for those who've reached the age of some sort of claim to responsibility. If you were a kid growing up in a little Wisconsin town, it likely didn't seem so much the truth only because there was fun to be found no matter the season. Winter had snow and sidewalks slick with hard packed snow, or better yet, ice which made for great sliding and "skating" without the luxury of ice skates. That old sled with the metal tracks worked on any incline from the lawn of the old boarding house next to the funeral home to the glorious hill beside the Methodist church. You didn't need much to find joy in yet another day even if it was only just above zero outside.

Of course, even for kids, summer has advantages that winter will never be able to duplicate. For one, the days are a whole lot longer and warmer, so the need to put on layer upon layer of clothes is done away with. I'm pretty sure that my standard summertime "uniform" as a kid was shorts, shirt and bare feet. I don't think there was any kind of problem with the folks being able to afford shoes, it just never seemed to be a part of what was required while outside and on the run. It didn't take long for the soles of my feet to get toughened up to the point that wearing holes in the bottoms of a pair of perfectly good shoes didn't seem to make much sense anyway. Of course, the downside to that were those miserable sandburs that always found their way into that really soft spot right between my big and second toe or right dead center in my heel. Then there was always that black asphalt on those days in July and August when I'd swear the whole street was melting, and not only were my feet going to end up being burnt off but also I was going to sink in up to my knees, and then how was I going to get out? The memory of that black and, normally hard-as-rock surface slowly oozing up between my toes, can still be felt and the footprint left behind still seen. Because of those days of leaving toe and heel prints in the asphalt when I one day heard about the La Brea tar pits way out in California, I had no problem believing that once you got yourself into that stuff, you weren't getting out.

Today I'd be hard pressed to tell you with certainty exactly when it happened since the days and years never have been the things that tend to stick solidly within my memories. Vague generalities usually seem more the norm for my memories, and I often marvel at how some folks seemed to remember days and dates with the precision of an atomic clock, though the truth is, I've sometimes wondered if they're merely better at believing they remember than I. In the end there are moments I remember mainly for the moment and the rest, the time, the day and all the rest are at the very best fuzzy smears around the edges of the memory. And so I did a bit of research, tried remembering the moment even a bit more clearly, and found a place on the web that pretty much validated what I've remembered all these years.

As a kid in "the Fifties" I didn't know that much about the world beyond the city limits of my town. In fact I'm not so sure I knew all that much about life two blocks over from my house and even less about what went on across US 12 & 16 other than that dad spent his fair share of time at any one of the three bars over there. At eight years of age, about all I knew with any certainty was that pretty much for sure we were all going to get attacked by the Soviet Union. We just called them "the evil Russians" most of the time, and the only way we could save ourselves from those terrible A-bombs of theirs was to duck under our desks when we saw the flash. I never really wondered what might happen to me if I wasn't at school and didn't have a desk close at hand to duck under. I guess I just figured that they'd only try to blow us up while I was in school. The rest of the time I figured I was pretty much safe.

So on that evening in July, you couldn't begin to imagine the thoughts that raced through my mind as we ran screaming toward the only safety close at hand, Sheila's house, four solid walls and a door that would slam shut once we got behind it. Thinking back on that moment I want to believe there was some undetermined mixture of fact and fantasy in both our minds as we ran hollering and screaming that the world was about to end. Then again we were kids who really had no idea of where reality ended and something else began; for us there still were no clear and defined boundaries on most things in our lives.
We'd been playing, Sheila and I, across the street from her house on the southwest corner of Division and Liberty streets. I'm not sure why, but it seems that most, if not all, of my earliest friends and playmates were girls. Sheila had a couple brothers, one older and one younger, but she and I were the same age. My mom and her mom were friends, so we spent time together doing whatever it was two kids might do on a summer's evening. In those days there wasn't a house there, and so that lot and the grass lawn around the old boarding house were fair game for running, falling, rolling and pretending big time. And I'm guessing that's exactly what we were doing as the sun was setting and the night sky was beginning to show itself.

I'm not sure who saw it first, but I know that neither of us could begin to comprehend what we were looking at. For more than a moment we stood there transfixed by the sheer beauty of what we were seeing and unable to move. Never before had we seen anything like it, and so there was nothing from our brief histories on earth to even come close to relating what we were seeing to other than those "evil Russians" and mushroom clouds. And so we stood there watching what we suddenly concluded was the beauty of our impending doom. So at that moment on that evening in July of 1957 in that little town in Wisconsin two kids, an eight-year-old girl and boy, turned on their heels and began running faster than they'd ever run in their lives away from what they'd just seen in the sky and toward the only safety they knew in the moment. In their minds and in that moment all that their teachers had tried to prepare them for what was coming to pass, and there was no school desk to hide under to save themselves.

The Menominee Indians of Wisconsin believed that the lights indicated the location of Manabai'wok (giants) who were the spirits of great hunters and fishermen. The Inuit of Alaska believed that the lights were the spirits of the animals they hunted: the seals, salmon, deer and beluga whales. Other aboriginal peoples believed that the lights were the spirits of their people.

Our mothers came out the front door at the sound of our screaming. In time we were reassured that the evil Russians weren't attacking; they were safe; we were safe at least for the moment.

The bomb never fell, the "evil Russians" never attacked, the Martians have yet to be found, and the Northern Lights are something we marvel at on the rare occasions that we see them. And still the feeling of being truly safe is an elusive thing at best. Those kids running toward the only safety they knew had no idea that perceptions are only that, perceptions.

Friends Who Aren’t

No doubt there are those who never give it a second thought. They don’t question the world around them, and they never give lip service to questioning themselves about their integrity. The words and the wisdom of the elders had long since left indelible marks upon the psyche and the souls of those who long ago accepted that the words “because I said so” were all there really was to life. The reality that surrounded them was no more or no less complex than those words, and besides, it made life so much simpler. When the situation called for it, the rational and valid response could always be that that was what you had been told. Who could argue that it was your fault? And still there always comes a time when you know deep inside that passing responsibility for your actions onto another was at best a lie and at worst the coward's way out.

Men were not supposed to grow that big, not in the world I grew up in. At five feet ten inches in height, I took pride in having learned that I was slightly above average in height for males in the United States. There were no fast food places yet serving hamburgers from cattle filled with growth hormones and the like in the sixties in that little Wisconsin town. So for someone to be as big as he was really didn’t seem all together normal for a kid who was pretty sure he was starting to understand everything there was to understand about just about everything. To this day in my mind’s eye, I see him hauling a student down the hallway and into his office, and all the while the kid's feet never touched the floor once. What was truly intimidating was that the kid he was hauling away was older and bigger than I. There was no way I wanted that man knowing my name, much less taking notice of me. Thanks to others he never did.

It was nothing more than a cardboard box albeit a rather large one. My guess is that maybe a refrigerator had been delivered to the cafeteria, and for whatever reason the box hadn’t been hauled away yet. No matter, there it sat right in front of the gym doors and the entrance lobby of the high school. And there we were, Bob and I, not really thinking about much of anything and certainly not planning what was to come.Bob had been my friend almost forever. His folks actually owned the house I lived in, and all I had to do was walk across the yard to hang out with him most any time I wanted when we were in high school. We went to church and Sunday school and even did our years of Bible School together. He’d been one of the guys who’d pulled me off the kid who’d taunted me by calling me Wally in the church basement. We’d talked about girls, dated girls together, and would continue to through the weekends at Hillsboro and all of high school. He’d sat behind me in band and beside me in choir. In fact, he and I would spend my last evening in that town together, and in the end, the floor in the back of that Mustang would be devoid of Budweiser cans. Looking back on it today, he may very well have been my best friend, and I never realized it.

Finding us together after lunch in the lobby beside that big cardboard box in front of the gym doors shouldn’t have meant anything to anyone since it would have been something expected and certainly not out of the ordinary. We were just two friends standing there, waiting for the next class, talking to classmates, and doing nothing in particular--nothing that is until Kim showed up.

There are people in this world that are perfectly fine individuals on their own, doing whatever it is they do. The trouble is when these folks get an audience, there can be unforeseen problems for everyone involved, especially when they’re a guy, they’re maybe fourteen or fifteen, and they haven’t yet gotten their growth spurt, and all the while they think it’s funny to annoy upperclassmen.Today I couldn’t even begin to guess whether there was even a word spoken between Bob and me. The only thing I can say for certain is that one moment Kim was standing there in front of us carrying on like a Jack Russell Terrier on speed, and the next he was inside that cardboard box with our help. That box was big enough that Kim wasn’t getting out without the sort of help he’d gotten to end up in it. At first he demanded to be let out, but that lasted only a moment. Those who had witnessed the incident had found it funny, but now there were others coming out of the lunchroom unaware of what had just gone on. And Kim had realized there was an opportunity to garner even more attention.

Those new to the sight of the abduction and confinement had only an inkling that something was happening because of the smiles, the snickers, and the glances at the box. Kim had crouched back down and thus was completely unseen. In the end, if we had left well enough alone, things probably would have turned out differently, but Bob and I decided to add our own twist to the situation. There we stood on both sides of that box with fresh faces all around wondering what was going on. Why some things work the way they do in this world I’ll never understand, but in this particular scenario no one said anything about what had just happened.

I didn’t think it was the truth at the time, but later I would learn that I love a stage, and this was a chance I simply couldn’t pass up. In that moment I became something of a circus barker, encouraging those less than eager to step right up, to hand over their dimes, and to see the bearded lady just beyond the flap covering the tent's entrance. Of course in this case, the sideshow was looking down into a large cardboard box, but believe it or not, the effect was the same. The innocents before me had no idea what was inside that box, but they knew something was up if only because everyone else was standing there smiling and snickering. With encouragement from me, they crept closer and closer, almost shuffling their feet and holding one another’s hands, until they were about to look into the box.

To this day I don’t know how he did it, but Kim’s timing was so good, it damn near scared those of us who already suspected what was about to happen. The screams that rang through that lobby in that moment might still be echoing through those hallways. It was a thing of beauty, sheer magic hidden within a cardboard box, and the next thing there was laughter all around.

Things have not gotten better over the years in high schools, but even in that innocent little school back in the late sixties, hearing students yell and scream in the lobby at lunch hour is going to generate action from teachers and others in positions of power. This moment was no different because before the laughter had died away, there he was standing in the middle of all of us. All the while Bob and I hadn’t moved from beside the box, and so here we were, snickering once more-- students, Mr. Seefeldt, Bob, me and what appeared to be an empty cardboard box.

You’ve got to give Kim credit for having more courage than I ever would have because he stayed hidden for just a moment more while that mountain of a man stood there glaring just a bit unsure of what had just taken place. That’s when he took another step toward that cardboard box and up popped Kim. In the time it took for light to pass the distance from that box to our eyes, Kim was out and standing beside us. To this day I swear Mr. Seefeldt let a smile cross his lips, but just as quickly it disappeared to be replaced by the stern look of a disciplinarian, a part of the role he was paid to fill.

Why I was excluded from the roundup and the visit to the office, I will never understand. Bob would accept responsibility for everything and end up with detention for what had happened. Later we would talk about it, and he would say that he knew I had never gotten into trouble, so he just kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to be the one to get me in trouble.

Life went on and things happened the way they did. There was much more that the two of us would do together over the coming months, but in the blink of an eye I would be gone from that place and those people. Bob would stay, and I understand he lives in the house I had lived in while going to high school.

Doing the right thing is something that isn’t always learned at the feet of one’s parents or other authority figures. Being an individual of courage doesn’t always come on a battlefield while facing death. Sometimes the true measure of a man can be found in a moment when what he should have done was walk into the principal’s office and admit his part in the indiscretion.

It would take me a lifetime to realize that Bob had been my best friend but I had not been his.

…and the truth was...

I’ll be damned if I can forget it even though I suppose I should have a long, long time ago. And I’d be lying to myself and everyone else if I told you I could or for that matter even would want to. Why in hell would you want to forget ever having seen an angel? Why would you ever want to forget falling in love with that angel? And why for God’s sake would you ever want to forget that you know that angel loves you?
No you don’t forget those sorts of things even though it can find you cursing the universe and all that is for how it is and even worse for why it is.
But sometimes forgetting is the most important part of claiming, or in some cases reclaiming, your sanity.

There she was that night, sitting so close that I could almost touch her and the truth was that touching her, holding her, feeling her next to me was all I wanted. The years between the first time I'd seen her and this night were as nothing but a mist. There was no amount of time, no distance, no counting of days, weeks, months or years that separated that first time from this moment. The effect I felt within my being this night was nothing less than the shivering of my soul the same as I’d felt the first time I’d looked out into her eyes from that stage I’d been standing on one evening years before. This night once again she simply drew me to her as no one had ever done before. I had felt that feeling only once before and when I had she was there and no one will ever convince me of any other explanation than that she was the reason. And because of her once again on this night my soul had shivered.

I was in love, I was married and neither had anything what so ever to do with the other.

Like it or not there are rules in living life and getting by the best you can from day to day without finding yourself on the receiving end of someone’s anger and large bore hand gun. One of those rules is that you don’t mess with what is not yours. When it comes to feelings and emotions for another everything about all of it can become problematic at best and downright impossible at worst. If you’re fortunate the moment comes and goes with few if any repercussions.
If there’s one thing I’ve never been in all my life it is lucky or fortunate.
In those first meetings I knew I wanted to somehow tell her to wait, to wait if only a little while but I doubt she would have or perhaps could have. If there is such a thing as fate it was pushing us both forward, toward each other and away all in a way that neither or us understood or perhaps more accurately recognized in those early moments. For both of us, as time would reveal, the problem was that I knew that I was married but likely wouldn’t be for all that much longer. I couldn’t really let that fact be known mostly because I had a persona to keep in place for all the world to see. Had she known the truth that I was totally unwilling to reveal to anyone things might very likely have turned out far differently for both of us. And for both of us that holding back by me would be a lesson hard learned when it comes to things such as being honest, open and free with feelings, thoughts and self.

She got married and I got divorced. I suspect her wedding was a bit lovelier than my coming home one Sunday afternoon to find it absent a wife and two daughters. The woman I had once stood before God and others and promised to be true to for all of time had left behind the dog only, I suspect, because she couldn’t add him into the menagerie she had sought sanctuary in. And no it wasn’t that I hadn’t seen it coming, I had, but my timing had been way off on all of it. Then again that was my thinking on everything and how it was and of course as usual I’d not thought to look at the whole picture and realize there were two of us driving. She’d decided to take an off ramp I hadn’t seen coming and all the while I’d been thinking there were miles and miles to go or at least enough miles until our daughter graduated high school. She would never know that there had been a part of me that hoped we’d find some middle ground in all of it though the likelihood of that coming to pass, I’d always known, was remote at best.
Somehow, every now and then, that other woman would show up in my world. I’d known her when she wasn’t married and never known her name. Now I saw her time and time again and knew her name all too well. It was her married name that created the space between us because of rules we both believed in and thus trusted to be good, right, proper and worth following in our lives. On the oft chance our eyes would meet we would pause only for a moment and then look to other things or other eyes. None of those over long looks of longing and passion but rather the glances that simply said we knew a secret that no one but we two could know.

And so there she was once again that night as I stood in front of a bunch of people I was expected to entertain for an hour or so. There she was sitting so close that I could almost touch her and the truth was that touching her, holding her, feeling her next to me was all I wanted. There I was wanting only to sing to her, to be with her and for both of us to be somewhere other than where we were right now. The truth was that it would have been a lot easier if she was still back there in the town she’d moved to; far enough away that I couldn’t just jump in my truck and find my way to her any time I wanted to. No, it would have been better if she were still back where she’d come from and then I’d be thinking my thoughts and in the end all my plans and schemes and dreams would come true and no one would get angry, no one would get hurt and everyone would have what and who they wanted.
I couldn’t look at her even though I tried more than once. I’d pass my gaze over her and I would know each and every time that her eyes had not left me. It’s funny how there are those who can see the things you choose not to see at times. A few days later someone would ask me about the woman sitting right there in front of me that evening and in my answer I would lie only because the truth was more than I am willing to admit even to myself most every waking moment of my day. I would tell the person asking the question that she is just a friend.
“No,” she said to my answer, “she’s more than just a friend; I saw how she looked at you.”

There are rules in living that for the most part when followed help one to navigate the daily flow of life in a rather uncomplicated sort of way. When you follow those rules, mostly written but some simply understood, you tend to find the river will flow peacefully though there will likely be a few rapids to deal with, a few moments that will test who you might truly be and whether or not you believe the things you claim to believe. For the most part when tempted you will likely walk away no matter how much you wished you had the courage to simply tell yourself that no matter the risk or cost involved the journey through the rapids ahead are worth it. That wondrous moment of touching something more of you inside yourself and the sheer joy of simply being unable to deny that in this moment you are once again alive, participating in your own life and feeling the things that so many others never feel. You step away from the edge because to take the step off may lead to falling into the abyss and never finding a way back out.

I went to bed alone that night not knowing for certain whether it was the only option I had. In the darkness of the night I didn’t feel all that proud of myself for having hugged her, picked up my guitar and walked away. I’d done what others said was expected of not only her but myself as well. The sting of someone else not having followed those expectations years before had left an unhealed scar within my soul and I’d be damned if I’d be a willing participant in such a thing no matter what I truly wanted.
In the emptiness and the stillness of my night I could still see her sitting there in that chair with legs tucked up beneath her and that beautiful hair flowing down around her face and on to her shoulders. I could hear the sound of her voice and I could feel the emotions that touched the deepest parts of my being when our eyes would meet. I lay there cursing myself for being the coward I am and not having stepped off that ledge, not slid closer to her, not reached out to take her hand, pulled her close and for once show her what I’d always only told her, that I love her.
I had walked away that evening doing what I believed others would want me to do; doing what I was certain others would have expected of me. I walked away that evening believing because of it I would hold my head higher and think better of myself. And as I lay there I knew it was all a lie.

… and the truth was that touching her, holding her, feeling her next to me was all I wanted.

Sometimes I Forget

It’s Open time here about and I have a bit of a unique vantage point for all of it. I’ve heard it said that the Phoenix Open is the largest single outdoor sporting event in the world and it wouldn’t surprise me. Heck, I don’t think I can even come close to counting all those little blue outhouses they’ve got lined up everywhere. Buses roll back and forth along Bell Road filled to overflowing with folks heading to or from the tournament right alongside the property I work at and the line of people walking on the sidewalk the mile and more from their parking spots is non-stop from early morning until very late at night. Of course by the time the sun is beginning to set many of those same hikers are only occasionally walking on the sidewalk while the bike lane makes for a somewhat wider, if perhaps more dangerous, path to try to navigate. And yes there are the times when someone can be heard slurring the question, “Where the hell’s my car?”

Wednesday is a rather light day in comparison for the crowds and they will get larger, much larger. It was for me a good day to watch the folks heading west one foot in front of the other and consider the possibility that maybe next year I will join them. Over the years working where I do I’ve had the opportunity to meet a few of the golfers, some of the men and women, often times very beautiful women, working the booths and a whole bunch of the spectators and for the most part they have been fine folks one and all.

As I watched there was a young woman I noticed walking by herself and certainly walking with what seemed to be a very real and tangible purpose. Everything about her seemed to have come straight out of a fashion magazine because her dark hair looked to be perfectly cut and shaped for her face. Her lips seemed to almost sparkle from the lip gloss, her nails a red somewhere just beyond the color of a perfectly shined Red Delicious apple. She was wearing the sort of blouse that had gotten Tony Kornheiser suspended from his work for two weeks for the comments he made and a skirt that would have failed Mr. Seefeldts’ kneeling on the ground one inch above rule by about eight inches. The high heels had the desired effect I’m sure and I admit to admiring her posture and her walk as she went along down the street. And though I was an appreciative observer of the sight that had passed by me I am at times a practical man and I found myself thinking that those shoes were not the kind one would typically want to wear while following their favorite golfer around the course.

The time has long since passed for me to stop apologizing for enjoying the pleasures of a beautiful woman anywhere within my line of sight. Most will not believe me and many will simply reject my statement that lust seldom has anything to do with my love of the sight of a beautiful woman. I plain and simply have always felt that one of the most glorious and amazing pieces of art God has ever taken the time to create is a beautiful woman and His masterpiece is always the woman who is beautiful from the inside out. And so I no longer apologize for the fact that one of the great pleasures in my life is to have the good fortune to see a beautiful woman no matter the place or the circumstances.

The young woman walking away from me was certainly beautiful on the outside but I’d never know about the inside. It’s funny though how you can tell almost right away with a person simply by saying hello to them, looking them in the eyes and hearing them say hello in return. And the truth was that I’d already decided in my own mind that more than likely this woman might well have some work to do on the inside simply because the truth is you don’t go to a golf tournament done up the way she was without having something else as a part of the agenda.

Back a few years ago I’d seen a local TV station report on the women who go to the Phoenix Open and more precisely to the Bird’s Nest which is the huge tent that contains the nightly entertainment, the dancing, the rubbing of shoulders and the very large amounts of alcohol that are consumed by the folks who go to the tournament. The thrust of the interview was about how these girls actually plan months prior to the event and how the goal of the weekend for each of them is the same – to find a man. Not just any man mind you but a man with money. They didn’t even really care all that much whether he was single or married as long as he was someone who met their criteria which seemed to be fairly simplistic in that all he had to be was male and rich. Their wardrobes were picked with the weekend in mind, their appointments with their beauticians and stylists were timed to this weekend and they did their best to not miss a single thing when it came to this hunting expedition. They would be ready to claim their trophy and like as not he’d never see it coming.


I can’t speak for others but I feel I’m fortunate in the fact that I’m not a man who would find his identity these days simply having a young and beautiful girl hanging on my arm. Having said that I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the thought of such a thing would excite me and I wouldn’t shoo her away just for being young. The reason I’d send her on her was is because she’d still be a girl. She has so much yet to learn about life and living and though the naiveté and shear exuberance of youth might be alluring and endearing I’d much prefer the company of a woman.


I have watched and will watch many of these very same minded ladies walking along over the next days, walking past me and never looking my way because out of the corner of their eye they will have seen the work uniform and the hair in need of a more trendy cut. And yet as they walk by I will forget if only for a moment that I am no longer that twenty or thirty something young man who might have once upon a time very easily slipped in beside any number of those girls if only they were not off on their safari. And if but for a moment of forgetfulness I will imagine myself walking along beside one or another of these smiling, graceful, stylish young beauties and she will be holding my hand and I will be inhaling the smell of some magical elixir that has fixated me on only her.

Lately I’ve given more credence to the concept of a list of things to get accomplished before the time has run out for me. I’ve gone to an NHRA drag race and to a NASCAR race and I feel good having said I’ve done those things. Cars and speed were always something I loved and wanted to be a part of but never was and so this is as close as I’ll likely ever come. The list of things to be done has become somewhat commonly known as the Bucket List and mine I find hard to fill up for any number of reasons. I’d like to make an album one day, though I know that’s not what they really call them anymore, with my daughters singing along. Though I’ve rafted part of the Colorado through the Grand Canyon and entertained others on the journey I’d like to do both one day from the start to the end. I’d like to follow the changing of the leaves down along the East Coast of the US. There’s more I suppose if I sat and really thought about it for a while like just walking those streets back there in that little town in Wisconsin one more time and a few that I likely couldn’t do anymore no matter how much I’d want to like swimming in that old swimming hole one more time.


Sitting here knowing that tomorrow the sidewalk will be lined with people as they walk along toward the TPC Stadium course I’m thinking that maybe one more of those Bucket List things might very well be to join them for a day, to walk the course, to watch all the people in the crowd and to cheer my lungs out as someone makes one of those impossible shots they so often make.

With the thought of all of that comes another vision, a vision where I save all my nickels and dimes over the next year, lose a few pounds, get a stylish haircut sometime in February of 2011, make sure I’ve got some fine looking threads to wear and buy a ticket to The Bird’s Nest. Who knows, there just might be one of those beautiful women there with the same idea.

And whether you believe it or not here’s hoping she’s over forty five.

A Song for All of You Lovers

All these years later I can still hear her singing along with me as we did that song by Bill Staines. It has always held a special place for me because though Bill never was a part of The BackDoor the guy whose kitchen table the song had been written on had been. But even more so it holds a special place because of how her voice made the song so much more than I was ever able to do on my own. Her harmony was scary for a guy who had to do his damnedest to sing lead as she sang beside him. I always wanted to go to where she was in the song rather than to carry on with the part that made the song what it was. And so I’d try my very best to listen to myself and not to her as we sang and fortunately for me a good part of the audience would always sing along.

On the rare occasion these days that I still sing the song I always dedicate it to anyone who has ever been in love, is planning on being in love or is in love. As I tell the folks I’m pretty sure that should cover most everyone.


A couple days ago I got a call asking me to do a Valentine’s Day gig. I told them that I couldn’t do what they were looking for and so I had to turn them down. The songs I’ve fallen in love with over the years have little to do with found love and most everything to do with lost love. And because of that there is never any harmony to be heard beside me and thus singing lead is not a problem.


And so with the approach of another Hallmark Holiday or perhaps from my perspective another birthday for Arizona I think about the folks I watch out there as I’m singing this song and I think about all of you who might have someone that is within arm’s reach. I have no roses to give but I do have a song. At the end of the song I tell the folks to give their sweeties a hug. Do the same for those that mean the most to you and for God’s sake kiss ‘em like you mean it!

Now, go find a copy of “Roseville Fair” by Bill Staines, listen to the words, hold them close and remember that at the very least the house isn’t empty when you come home at night.

If I’d Known Then…

There was something not exactly right but what would you expect? It’s ’94 Chevy S-10 with 217,000 miles on it for God’s sake. Little annoying sounds are a part of both the frustration and the attraction of this old black beast of mine. When you’re not one of those folks who replaces their transportation more often than they change their homes’ air conditioning filter you learn a little about what’s haulin’ your butt around from place to place. And I know most of the sounds this old 4 wheel drive truck makes from start up to runnin’ down the highway at speed. I know the sounds of the engine and the sounds of the wind as it whistles through the dried out seals around the windows. Thing was this wasn’t so much a sound as a feel and it seemed to me to be coming from the right front wheel area. No matter, I was late enough for work so stopping to check things out never crossed my mind. I’d been through worse with this “friend” of mine and this didn’t seem so bad.

It took a couple hours before the thought of the “feel” from my truck crossed my mind again. At the moment work was slow enough and so I went out to check the front right wheel and see if there was anything serious actually going on. I’d thought what I was feeling was coming from that side and so that’s where I looked and somewhat to my surprise I found nothing. I knew one thing for certain and that was that I had felt “something” and so I walked around to the driver’s side to check things out.

A couple weeks earlier I’d changed the rotors and the discs on the front. I’d done the job more than a few times over the years and it was no big deal. Heck, I could almost do it with my eyes closed. What I’d failed to do was something I had always done in the past, drive a few miles and then double check everything. Make sure everything is still snug, in place and if need be repeat a step or two just to keep everything as it should be.

Standard issue on a Chevy S-10 pickup of the 1994 variety are five lugs and lug nuts on each wheel; the purpose of which is rather obvious – to keep the wheel on the vehicle. I was looking at a driver’s side front wheel with two lugs and lug nuts still attached though precariously so.

There were a couple thoughts that ran through my mind as I looked at the sight before me. The drive to work had not been a solitary journey; there had been a lot of other drivers out there on Bell Road that morning in front of me, beside me and behind me. And the truth is that the speed limit sign was only there as a suggestion so on that city street that morning five to ten miles over the posted was pretty much the norm for all participating in the morning commute. So it was possible that I’d been going fifty five down Bell Road, folks to the left and right and everywhere else, with two lug nuts holding that left front wheel somewhat in place.

The trail my thoughts followed was that there were people in those vehicles, folks who maybe had loved ones and families, innocent folks all, all around me and had those last two studs given way there was a very good chance that someone besides myself was going to get hurt, hurt bad or even worse.

I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach knowing that what hadn’t happened had nothing to do with me or anything I’d done or not done that morning. But what might have come to pass out there on east bound Bell Road had everything to do with me and would have been laid rightfully so squarely at my feet. I was responsible for not checking up on myself and what I’d done. I was responsible for not having followed through on something I’d started. And so as I stood there looking at that wheel I gave thanks to the powers that may be or to fate or luck or whatever else there might be that things had turned out the way they had and not how they might have been…


There were lights at each end of that dam, the kind that gave no concern to telescopes looking for the faintest light of the most distant stars in the vastness of space, which lit the boy standing above the middle spillway mere feet away from the Lemonweir River rushing over and away, always away. Some nights he would be there with his black and white Beagle mix friend but most often very much alone. It was always such a solitary place for him, a place where he was as alone as he could make himself even though the town stood mostly silently off to his right no more than a small gravel parking lot away.

Though he had no concept of the word in those days the journey to the dam, to stand there in the dark in the minutes before he would have to race home and through the front door before the ten o’clock siren had finished blowing, became his pilgrimage to a sort of holy place within his mind. The one place within the boundaries of his world where he could look and know that there was something more if only because he watched the water of that river flowing away, always away from where he stood above it.

The ritual had begun in the time when she’d decided he wasn’t worth the trouble any more. She’d had to deal with a stupid boy trying to impress her with his bike and then trying to sit beside him at a time when he’d been so sick no one knew what was going to happen and his mother was making it painfully obvious that she was not welcome. She’d had enough and she’d moved on. Trouble was he wouldn’t or maybe couldn’t. So if you happened to see a teenage boy standing in the middle of the dam on most any night there in that little town it was almost certainly him. Be quiet, walk softly and get a bit closer, close enough to him that the water falling over the spillways isn’t the only sound you’ll hear and there’s more to learn about this solitary soul. You’ll hear him singing a song that seemed to tell the story of his life thus far and perhaps a precursor to the rest of it…


The headlights flashed behind him there on the street just a couple houses past Dawn’s place. He had no idea who’d be flashing lights at him especially here and now and so all he could think was that it was maybe Mauston’s finest wanting to talk with him about God only knew what. As he sat there trying to figure out what he’d done wrong the door on the car behind him swung open and he realized beyond the glare of the headlights that it wasn’t the police at all.

The small talk ended with him being invited back to her place for a cup of coffee. He followed her to a farmhouse where for the first time in his life he would be served a cup of Cowboy Coffee. Years later there would be more from others and a time or two he’d even make his own but none would ever match that cup that evening.

In the end the letters came less often until he knew that things had changed and changed significantly. There was nothing he could do as his days past on that warship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Nothing to hold on to and nothing but the hope of a mail call and a letter from her, a letter that said she still loved him. Half a world away from her he knew without being told that his world had changed and the anger that raged inside him was because he had no way of fighting what was happening in a world far removed from the one he now had to endure.

As he drove away from that farmhouse the sound of the gravel underneath the tires told him he would never pass this way again. He’d come to this place hoping and praying that all would be well. And now he was leaving with the words of their final conversation ringing in his ears and cursing his reality for ever.

“I’m getting married,” she said to him.

A combination of blind stupidity and faith that would make a saint weep brought the words to his lips and out of his mouth, “I know you are, to me.”

She looked at him with those eyes of blue that he would have done anything and everything for and said, “No, you don’t understand. I’m getting married to someone else.”


I looked at that wheel with only the two studs still intact and considered my options. The remaining studs were across from each other and so that was likely the best scenario for what I had in mind. It was some seven miles back to the west from where I was right now. Seven miles just might be doable if I took it slow and easy, stayed in the far right lane and found the nearest place to bail off the road if I felt anything. I wasn’t happy with my options but then again when had I ever been? And so I rationalized that sometimes you have to believe that what you’re choosing to do is worth the risk. This time I’d know the threat and at the first sign I’d make sure I did whatever I needed to do to make certain everything and everyone would be alright, including me.
As I drove back to the west on Bell Road the smell of cowboy coffee seemed to fill the inside of that old truck cab and I could swear I heard a kid singing “Fools Rush In”.

Memories by Sound

In moments when all there is is the silence and the mind has its’ way the memories and visions of long ago times often find their way back into view. Mostly they’re the memories of times that were good or at the very least not so very bad when viewed from the perspective of time and distance. Even the memory of lying on my back on the football field and Dale Dalke’s knee landing in a spot on my anatomy that caused me to lose all sense of place and purpose doesn’t seem even remotely as bad today as it did on that afternoon when as a freshman I did my very best to keep from going into that kaleidoscope of color that was bursting out inside my head while distant voices asked if I was alright. I wasn’t alright and they wouldn’t have been either had it happened to them but as with so many things in life that moment lives within my memories today not as either a bad or a good thing but simply as a remembrance of a time and a place.
There are, however, memories that hold even more significance within my personal history; memories that do bring a sense of pain, a brush with sadness or a brief flash of ecstasy or almost unbearable joy. The pallet is filled with the emotions of living a life sometimes poorly spent and others rather well lived, a life perhaps not lived to its’ fullest but lived none the less. And with those memories often times come sounds…

I seem to remember hearing once that the tenor saxophone is the closest instrument of all to the human voice. I don’t know if that’s accurate or not but I do know that there was a time when if you were going to record a song you could almost bet that one of the prominent sounds in that band backing you up was going to be a tenor sax. The sound was everywhere and especially in the popular music of the day. Today I doubt anyone would think of putting out an instrumental song with the hopes of cracking the charts but in another time instrumentals weren’t uncommon and more than a few of them went way up the charts.
Thinking about those songs there’s still one or two that always seem to demand my attention. In 1961 Percy Faith’s “The Theme From A Summer Place” had been a big hit. Al Hirt and his trumpet cracked the top 10 in 1964 with a song titled “Java” and actually ended up number four on Billboard that year. “A Walk in the Black Forest” by Horst Jankowski hit number one in 1965 on the popular charts and twelve on Billboards Top One Hundred. But in 1963 a single was released by Boots Randolph that to this day I hear as well as any, a song titled “Yakety Sax”.
Today I don’t remember how it all came to be but I suspect that it all went something along the lines of I wanted to play an instrument, well something other than the accordion in those days that is, and maybe someone decided I should play sax. In fact I can’t honestly say I never understood how any of us ended up playing whatever it was we played in high school. Why was it that Jim played a tuba, Ed percussion, Bob a trombone and Wanda a trumpet? I don’t think I ever gave it much thought back then; it was just how it was suppose to be I guess. And I don’t recall if at some point I might have played an alto sax or not but I do know that there was an instant bond between that beautiful golden Conn tenor sax with its’ white mouthpiece inside that grey case with the brilliant royal blue lining and me. It became a part of me and who I was. In fact for a while it seemed to almost be me.
I’m sure there were those that merely tolerated the instrument they played. Their folks had put out hard earned money for that clarinet or maybe a French horn and now they were expected to be in the band and play the thing. And of course it was always obvious that some worked at least a bit more at learning the art of playing their instrument than others did. But for me practice was never a problem. In thinking back on all of it I have the older brother of one of my best friends to thank for that. Bob Yarroch and I were good friends and Bob had an older brother by the name of Bill who played first chair tenor sax. There were times when Bob and I would be goofing around at his place and Bill would be sitting there practicing. One day it struck me that I wanted to be that good or maybe even better. And so I practiced. Looking back on everything it didn’t hurt that in my freshman year of band Roxanne Hutchinson sat on one side of me and Mary Jo Gilberts sat on the other. Mary Jo had been the reason I’d fallen out of my seat in sixth grade when she walked through the door into Mrs. Nichols classroom and Roxanne though older than me was just plain gorgeous. Having inspiration like that on both sides of a fourteen year old boy could only mean he was going to try his very best to get noticed.
For whatever reason music was an important part of high school for a rather large percentage of us; in my first year there was no less than twenty percent of the student body participating in the band and likely a slightly higher number taking part in vocal music. I’m not sure what it was, I doubt the uniforms drew many though I have to say I loved the gals with their batons, but something or possibly someone drew many of us. For me it seemed that being there in that room with all those other guys and girls made as much sense, or maybe even more, than being out chasing a ball of one sort or another. It was for me a place where I belonged, where I found meaning and where I found passion.

I will always believe you cannot have music and be a part of music without passion. It has to mean something to you; it has to touch a place inside you that moves you from the space where you are bordering on numbness to a place where you feel. And when music means something to you you want it to mean something to others as well. If you’re not a selfish person then you want them to “feel” it within their very being no less than you feel it within yourself. Because it means something to you you insist that it mean something to others. You want others to hear and feel the things you do when the music plays.

Most people enjoy music and even make it a part of their life in one way or another but few find their being in music. I found it in those little yellow and red 45’s that I played over and over until they were worn through when I was five and six. And then I found it in that tenor sax and playing it with a high school band surrounding me because in the end, whether they realized it or not, those fifty some others playing their instruments were merely backing me up. Perhaps for that very reason they would say that my future lay in becoming the first full time tenor saxophone player in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. They were wrong.

For the most part I can’t tell you what music we played. Nothing comes to mind and I doubt that even if someone were to tell me the names of most of the songs we performed I’d not recall them. There is one though that I’ve never forgotten. I remember it as the carrot that was dangled in front of us as a reward for the rest of the practice session.
He may very well have been the reason many of us were there sitting in those chairs, holding those instruments and waiting for him to raise his arms and then bring them down to give us permission to create the sounds that made the music. In my case I could have been no other place but he made it all so much better in so many ways. He actually seemed to like us, he certainly liked music, what he did wasn’t just a job and he wanted to share his love with us. He did that in a way that never deterred me or my love, even when I got “the look” from time to time there was never anything that he would do or say to cause me to do anything other than try to become just a little bit better the next time.

And now band practice is just about to end and the bell will be ringing for the next class. We’ve gone through all the other “stuff” and the trumpets or the clarinets or the percussion have been run through their paces on one section or another of some piece we’ll be performing. We’ve worked on things that needed working on, maybe not enough but we’ve done what’s been asked of us once again and still there’s time for one more song.
It got to where he didn’t really have to say anything. It was a collective consciousness sort of thing when we’d finish that last thing we were working on and he would fold up his score. He’d reach down under everything else and you’d hear all of us reaching in the back of our folders without being told. We would never do the piece in a fashion worthy of performance but it was our reward for having done good enough or better on the rest of the things that we needed to work on.
And then the leader of this group of want to be musicians would once more assume the position of conductor. Mr. Ronald LeRoy would spread his score out before him, look out over the fifty plus teenage faces looking back at him, smile, raise his arms and as that baton came swiftly down we would all once more do our very best to try and make it sound right.
Never will I ever think of or hear the theme to “The Magnificent Seven” and not think of a very special person in my life. Thank you Mr. LeRoy. From the depths of my soul thank you.