Source: Grandma’s Lemonade
Big League Dreams
I’m up. The still chilly morning air delivers the distinctive scent of slaughterhouses in the vicinity. Hourly freight trains rumbling under my motel bed springs punctuated a typically sleepless night. Waze initially predicted a relatively painless 90-minute trip from San Francisco yesterday, but mercilessly stretched us out towards the business end of a four-hour slog. “Rick,” our broad-smiling server at last night’s chain restaurant steakhouse, evidently has never actually tasted the uncooperative “signature steak.” Nor recognized a flat beer with the telltale, physics-defying meniscus.
I’m sacrificing another weekend to the Gods of travel baseball. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’m under no illusion that the ironically and iconically-named “Big League Dreams Park” will make any such dreams come true. Perhaps that hasn’t always been the case, but now five or so years into this, I’ve come to realize why I’m here and what’s important. In the early days of my kids’ travel ball journey, I would eagerly press my ass into a green plastic seat for hours, cheering madly, clapping ’til my hands stung, and occasionally groaning about this umpire’s call or that opposing team coach’s strategem. I would text my wife between pitches, updating her when one of my sons inhaled. Then exhaled. Then inhaled again. And oh, look, another inhale! And I admit to letting my mind wander to high school, college and even beyond. It all hangs on this next pitch, this next ground ball, this next secondary lead.
Now I pull my collapsible canvas chair aside the outfield fence. And I watch as if I were home watching TV. Clapping occasionally, but in a way that springs from some pleasure I am experiencing in the moment. Not really as a way of communicating with my son out there or with the other players.
I’ve realized it’s not about “big league dreams.” It’s about my little guys and I listening to a long book on tape during an otherwise weary drive (“The Martian” last night). It’s about seeing a genuine, shit-eating grin from the other side of the table (pictured above). No matter that given the cuisine at-hand, that smile has never been more literally descriptive. It’s about the new James Bond movie we’ll catch this afternoon, taking pleasure in sharing fistfuls of butter-greased movie popcorn. There might be some baseball along the way, but I’m here to soak in the little joys of being a dad to a boy enjoying the last couple weeks before double digits.
Though I may still send a text or two when he inhales. Or exhales.
Thanks for reading.
In the Land of Giants.
Too good a memory not to reblog today. Source: In the Land of Giants.
Is It Too Soon for Fog Machines?
It’s heeeere. Halloween Month. Round about mid-September, I start mentally zeroing in on the location of last year’s Halloween decorations cache. The previous November, it’s just “get this shit boxed up and downstairs ASAP before ours is the sole remaining cobwebbed front door on the block.” Thanksgiving and Christmas involves a similar routine; layers of holiday decorations boxed and rotated. Easter doesn’t really figure into the equation.
Come late Summer, after the Cape’s Great Whites, memories of apple cider, orange fallen leaves, and scaring the bejesus out of my childhood buddies move to the fore of my consciousness. The group texting banter picks up in earnest, each of us reminding the other of the time this one soiled his pants, the other one fell out of a tree, two of us locked eyes in a “this is it” moment while a haunted house actor gave chase with a buzzing chainsaw. The chainsaw had no chain. I think we knew that. But it didn’t matter.
These odd traditions slowly jog my recollection as to where in the dusty garage I might find the Halloween paraphernalia. The accumulated boxes grow each year. Of course we need those hanging ghouls with the blinking red eyeballs. Might as well grab a half-dozen styrofoam tomb stones. Strobe light? Is it green? Hell yes, throw that into the cart as well. Damn right we need a couple more bags of cobwebs. If the postman is able to penetrate the front gate to leave our junk mail, we just haven’t done our job. I half expect to find our man spun into a faux-silk cocoon, helpless, mouth open and pepper spray canister unsheathed and useless. That’s the goal at least.
I know this may sound completely over-the-top. My long-suffering wife would likely agree with that sentiment. Particularly in that awkward era between marriage and having kids old enough to appreciate Dad’s Madness this time of year every year. Sort of hard to justify setting up a terrifying porch with Jack O’Lantern heads balanced on scarecrow bodies, all triggered for jump scares, while my little ones sit idly by puckering on their pacifiers. Too young to appreciate my artistry. Possibly a little freaked out, even, that Daddy is wearing a short skirt, dangly earrings, and deep red lipstick. Isn’t that Mommy’s dress? Nothing that can’t be worked out down the line on a therapist’s couch, I tell myself.
One day, I hope, they will catch up with me.
Fast forward several years and a couple fistfuls of baby teeth. Earlier this week, I walked my 4th grader to the morning bus stop, passing by our tiny plot of bushes and bark chips that serves as a makeshift graveyard once a year. My little man paused and said, “Dad, isn’t it about time to get the fog machine out?” Indeed it is, Evie. Indeed it is.
Thanks for reading.
Procyon Lotor Is a Friend of Mine.
Or at least I thought he was. Now I am not so sure.
Look, this is city living, I get it. We have them in our backyard, though I’ve never actually seen them there with mine own eyes. Our dog goes wild, on occasion, and bolts out to chase after something. Or somethings. I would like to think Wailea’s rabid dog routine keeps the critters at bay. I also see them slinking around the neighborhood, hopping from curb to street, typically when all of our plastic Recology bins are lined up ready for their contents to be composted, recycled or land-filled. I’m OK with this, too. Hey, they’ve got to eat, right? They’ve got to feed their little critter families. That’s almost cute, if you think about it. Like a gaggle of Disney characters.
But I’m far less OK with what I experienced this morning. I was shuffling across the Marina Green with my neighborhood buddies to hop in the Bay for a swim. As we approached the water’s edge in the pre-dawn light, I spied an arch-backed lemur poised and staring. He or she stood right at the top of the steps we use to slip into the Bay, unmoving. He or she looked, well, pissed. They’re supposed to run, right? I heard myself say aloud, “So, what are we supposed to do now? Run serpentine? Play dead? Stand up straight, puff out our chests and look big?”
One of my friends stopped short and cut a comically wide line around the piqued raccoon (not a lemur at all). He reminded me that a woman and her dog had been “mauled” a few months ago in a local park a couple blocks from where we live. This seemed silly to me, but then I looked back at the raccoon and saw that he or she hadn’t blinked or budged. And I think he might even have bared his teeth. My friend maintained eye contact with the beast as he continued his cautious tiptoed routine. Alas, we are on a tight timeline here, things to do today. We did not budget time for a Mexican standoff with the local fauna.
If our wetsuits were better made, I’d feel good about our chances in an attempted mauling. But given the number of times I’ve inadvertently pushed my own fingernail through the cheaply-made neoprene, I doubt very much that these suits are raccoon-proof. Not even racoon-resistant, really. And while I could fault the manufacturer for poor workmanship when it comes to degraded necklines and armpits, I don’t think my complaints about being ripped to shreds by a raccoon would be well-received.
In the midst of the parade of horribles twisting in my mind, fortunately for us, several other racoons join our nemesis at the top step. The happy little family scampers off, suddenly Disney-like again. We follow their movements until we know for sure they are gone. It would be very awkward to find ourselves pinned down on the slick cobblestone staircase at the water’s edge by these little bastards. Too shallow to dive in. And too expensive to call in a Coast Guard chopper rescue. Plus the chopper rescue would likely be captured by a local news crew. And I don’t think we could stand the embarrassment. Still, it would be better than being gnawed to death by a family of cuddly raccoons. While I’m calculating the math involved with a helicopter rescue bill split three ways, we descend the steps and slide into the Bay.
I float on my back, nervously sculling with my hands pulling away from the staircase on shore, my neck craned back towards land, eyes darting around to confirm the coast is, literally, clear. Trying to remember, too, whether raccoons hate the water or love the water. And if the latter, how fast can they swim? And do I even know how to swim “serpentine,” assuming that is what is called for?
We manage to get off a great swim, though admittedly I swung wide, well away from hugging the shore. Willing to be subject to the current’s vagaries rather than feed a family of rodents. Ultimately, we survived the encounter. Until we meet again this Friday….
Thanks for reading.
Grandma’s Lemonade: Reposting in honor of her birthday today.
You Don’t Tug on Superman’s Cape.
Or maybe you do. Maybe you have superpowers yourself. Maybe Superman shouldn’t be tugging on your cape. Maybe.
Let’s say your superpower has to do with crossing your eyes. While sucking the life out of your 15th morsel of high fructose corn syrup over the last 45 minutes. After a month of sleeping in a hot little log cabin. And by “sleeping,” I mean not really sleeping at all. Mostly scratching non-stop at the scabs left by the armies of mosquitoes that view you as their own personal high fructose corn syrup morsel. Perhaps this sleepless, scratching, sugar overdose bears a causal relationship to the cross-eyed superpower. Admittedly, we’ve gotten a bit circular. Perhaps a bit off-piste.
But “on-piste” here on a Massachusetts highway means an all out, space cushion-popping, steering wheel-gripping battle with, oh, about 25 million other drivers. So I wish we knew an alternative, off-piste route to get where we are going. Waze is no help. The bodiless voice keeps us entranced, laser focused on the bumper too close in front, a little buzzed from huffing on what smells like diesel fumes.
Once the cross-eyed wunderkind awakes from his coma-like backseat nap of a thousand years, he will use his newfound powers to speed along our drive. Clear a path. Add a little rocket fuel. Goose the engine. Something. Anything. At this point I’d settle for a quick and fleeting hit off that sticky lollipop, if I’m being totally honest.
Then again, that might constitute tugging on the aforementioned cape. And you don’t do that.
Thanks for reading.
The Best Surfer in the World….
Yesterday was one of those days I won’t soon forget. And hopefully one that my younger son, Everett, won’t soon forget, either. I think everyone remembers the first time they stood up on a surfboard. Mine was December 5, 1995. I recall the moment like it was yesterday. Freezing water. About the most north-westerly point of the continental US. I think we actually parked on the beach, and it may have been an indian reservation where we unloaded the truck. In the water, I was basically totally hung out to dry by a couple good buddies of mine from undergrad. Left to my own devices. Actually pretty dangerous, in retrospect, once I sort of wandered out beyond fooling around in the whitewater. My leash wrapped around a car-sized, partially submerged rock, pulling my face beneath the water when the waves surged in. Surreal, as I watched my buddies off in the distance a hundred yards further out. They would never have any idea what had happened to me.
Afterwards, I don’t think I ever even mentioned my little brush with immortality to them, though. Because the lingering euphoria I felt after that session from standing up for the first time was overpowering. The flirting-with-drowning-thing was well worth it.
June 24, 2015: Nine year-old Everett’s first wave was presumably less dramatic, but hopefully no less memorable. As a kid who grew up in the middle of New York State, I am frequently envious of my sons’ ongoing experience of growing up on the California coast. I would have killed to begin surfing when I was 9 years-old, as both of my sons have. They don’t have to kill anyone or anything for the opportunity.
And unlike most of the amazing things these boys experience every day, the surfing thing is not one that either of them takes for granted. The looks on their red faces after they first stood up — I recognize that look and that underlying feeling very clearly. I witnessed that expression play across Everett’s face for the first time yesterday; I see it broaden Max’s smile every time we get in the water. And I felt it on my own cold face nearly 20 years ago.
People say the best surfer is the one who is having the most fun. I think that’s probably true. In no parallel universe would I be anything other than the worst surfer in the world. But nothing brings me more joy and makes me happier than seeing my boys experience the ocean like we did yesterday. I wonder what it would feel like to see their kids (my grandkids) surf for the first time? I hope I’m around for that, that likely would make me the best surfer in the world.
Thanks for reading.
The Times, They Are A Changin’….
My boys are getting older. I don’t see it as much with my own eyes, until I look at photos I’ve taken. Like the one above from the bleachers at yesterday’s Giants game. I can’t help but dart from one boy’s eyes to the other’s, trying to absorb what they are thinking. What they are feeling. Who they are. Maybe even get a glimpse of who they will become.
Hard to believe I “caught” both of these little humans, like slippery fish, the moment they came into the world. I am reminded of that fresh fish market in Seattle where the apron-clad workers sling giant stripers and such around the pier like wet rugby balls. Seems like yesterday. Also seems like about 20 years ago. Then again, 20 years ago, we didn’t have kids. That seems unfathomable now. What was life like before kids? No idea; I can’t remember. And increasingly, I’m fairly certain it doesn’t matter.
Both boys are headed off to sleep-away camp on the East Coast in, oh, about 9 days. This is Max’s third trip, and Everett’s first. They will be essentially off the grid for 4 weeks — no iPhones, no Internet, no email, no phone calls home, and probably not much in the way of old school letter-writing either. Their bedrooms here at home will lie dormant for weeks. Silent and sterile. Little museums memorializing their lives circa June 26, 2015. Frozen in time. Chocked with autographed baseballs, dog-eared books, mismatched socks dyed every color of the rainbow, candy wrappers strewn about as evidence of verboten activities. Full, but empty.
The empty part once left me breathless when Max first left home for camp 4 summers ago. I could barely bring myself to glance into his bedroom knowing he wasn’t in there, and wouldn’t be in there, for several weeks. Strangely, I find that I am not experiencing these same lonely pangs this time around. This despite the fact that both of my sons will be out of my grasp for nearly a month, 3,000 miles away.
I guess their sleep-away camp has also been a sleep-away camp, of sorts, for me. Training wheels for all of us. As much as I struggled with my emotions the first time around, I find myself at ease, more or less, a few years farther out. Even the thought of college (suddenly not that far off now), is not as terrifying and gut-wrenching as it once was. I now know that my boys and I will arrive at the same point of “mutual readiness” when the time comes for that particular chapter. I’m looking forward to seeing the photos I take a few years and several such chapters from now.
The times, they are a changin’. And as it turns out, I’m cool with that.
Thanks for reading.
The Lemonade Chronicles 