Mickey Hadick

My Deliverance — A Simple Fishing Story: Part III

2009-06-10T05:33:00.000-07:00

We had failed to purchase bait in our gathering of supplies. Considering that we had purchased the three Bs: Beer, Bread, and Baloney, we probably should have been reminded to get a fourth, but whatever. There was a Styrofoam tub of worms in the fridge.

We took up positions around the lake, attached hooks, bobbers, and bait; we cast out our lines. I could now see that the lake was surrounded by thick woods on all other sides, and that the shore near the house was groomed and carefully sloped. The driveway to the house extended as a gravel path along the lake and on into the woods beyond. A chilly fog sat upon the water. Dark mountain peaks ringed the area, and it was quiet. I could hear Mr. J. clearing his throat and settling himself, and Freddie casting out. So nice was this man-made, private haven that there were benches along the shore. I lay on one and promptly fell asleep.

Freddie woke me up a couple of hours later. We were going into town. "What about the lines?" I asked. "Don't worry about them."

We went first to check on the hunting cabin that actually belonged to Mr. J. A few miles from this nice, comfortable cabin, we drove through a gap in the woods along a two track, back along the dirt trail to a clearing. Built into the side of the hill was a sad and lonely building, really no more than a shed, its side worn, weathered and faded. The roof was of black shingles that were coated with green moss.

Inside there was a single light bulb suspended from the ceiling, and a wood burning stove. At one end was a table, and at the other were two sets of bunk beds. On a low table between the bunk beds was a considerable stack of girlie magazines, worn and weathered like the shed itself.

Mr. J. had merely wanted to check that the cabin was still standing, and that no critters had taken up residence, and so, as abruptly as we arrived, we departed once again.

Driving along these western Pennsylvania mountains, I didn't have the feeling of majesty or grandeur one might normally associate with mountains. I saw wooded hills along winding roads, and decrepit trailers in seldom home sites. At the juncture of two roads was a tavern called the Dew Drop Inn. This was "town".

It was, perhaps, eleven o'clock in the morning. Mr. J. settled himself at the bar, and Freddie and I played table-top shuffle board. Mr. J. was talking with the bartender, a woman who appeared to be older than him. Freddie suddenly had a brainstorm: he wanted to do shots. We sidled up to the bar next to Freddie's father, and Freddie asked. It turned out that Mr. J. didn't care. Somehow, that didn't surprise me.

Freddie wanted to do shots of Jack Daniels. I had never done such a thing (though I would soon enough do worse) so that sounded fine to me. The rest became a blur. I know we continued our ongoing, inane conversation of talking about how much beer we had consumed. (I must admit, I was surprised we had stayed up all night drinking beer.) But all that was now punctuated by the smack of an empty shot glass on the bar top, a blow delivered to free us from the shackles of adolescence. We delivered that blow repeatedly, each time thinking we were smarter, tougher, and more masculine than just a minute before.

At some point, Freddie realized he needed to go to the bathroom, but he fell off of the bar stool before he could gain his footing. It became surreal to me, talking with my friend one moment, and laughing at him on the floor the next. However, the look of desperation in his eyes got through to me, and I helped him into the bathroom.

He was sick. Not as sick as senior prom, but sick nonetheless. This displeased Mr. J. mightily, and I was instructed to get the son of a bitch into the car. Freddie was instructed to not vomit in the car, or he'd be walking back to Ohio. I believed him, and I also believe he'd have been walking back to Ohio with his father's shoe up his ass.

The drive back to the cottage was my time to listen to Mr. J. complain about what idiots we were for drinking that much. It was a life lesson of sorts, but, unfortunately, his son, passed out on the floor of the back seat, received no benefit.

At one point, we drove past a field of corn, and Mr. J. stopped the car. "Go get us some corn," he ordered, and out the door I went. This was a new experience for me, trespassing on a farmer's field to steal food. In my state, I didn't care much, and gathered an armload which I deposited on the floor of the car.

This domestic act, stealing food, seemed to mollify Mr. J. and we drove the remaining few miles to the cabin in silence. Once there, we drove past the cabin to the lake, and Mr. J. reclined his seat and went quickly to sleep. I was near comatose myself, but dragged myself back to the bench along the lake. It did not occur to me to check my line for a fish. Instead, I slept.

* NEXT UP: Part IV -- The Reckoning.

A Corn Hole Tournament

2009-05-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

A simple game of bean bag toss takes on a very different tone when you call it "Corn Hole", depending on where you live. This tournament took place in Ohio, and we knew exactly what was meant. Our friends in Wisconsin, when we offer to play corn hole with them, raise an eyebrow.

My Deliverance — A Simple Fishing Story: Part II

2009-05-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

The Ohio Turnpike is a major thoroughfare, but at one A.M. on a Friday, there's not a lot traffic. There are stretches of highway that are illuminated, but for the most part its a dark tunnel with your headlights and the stars to guide you. Once I-80 separates from the Turnpike, there are no more street lamps, and not a lot of civilization. We had been drinking quite a lot, and I needed to pee.

Mr. J. pulled over, and I marveled at the stars overhead while I urinated. Was I some kind of a rube that this was amazing and shocking to me? We had camped on numerous family vacations, and did I just not look up to pay attention? I think it was, perhaps, the thrill of being on a weird fishing trip and peeing on the side of the road at two in the morning. But those stars, the milky way methinks, were amazing.

Having peed once, I could not suppress the urge, and now every beer I drank was another stop to make. Mr. J. was annoyed, and he stopped drinking in protest. It was for the best, as we were soon in the foothills of Pennsylvania and, having left the expressway, the roads grew narrow and twisted against the landscape.

I had a general sense we were going East, but I had no clue whether we were closer to Erie or Pittsburgh. We kept climbing and twisting, and, looking back, I believe Mr. J. navigated with some innate sense, like salmon swimming upstream. Drunk salmon.

At four in the morning, we pulled off the road and drove along a two-track through the woods. We emerged from the cover into the yard of a two-story home surrounded by trees. I was under distress because we hadn't stopped to pee in quite a while, and once again I had a breathtaking view of the stars while I relieved myself.

We carried the beer inside, where we found a stylish home with all modern conveniences. I had been expecting a crude, bare cabin in the woods. The only thing missing was cable TV. At this hour, in this location, there was no broadcast programming. So we decided to play bumper pool.

I had only played bumper pool once before, and that was in the local Kmart when they made the mistake of putting a table out with sticks and balls while my brothers and I were in the store. It's really not fun, and I think bumper pool only persists because of a mistaken belief perpetuated by advertising funded by special interest groups, like other mistaken beliefs, such as: capitalism is democracy, any sex is good sex, and that Twinkies are food.

At dawn we decided to go fishing. What I couldn't see in the dark was that there was a small lake behind the house, and apparently the lake was stocked with fish. Because we had only unpacked the alcohol, we decided to drive the three hundred feet to the lake.

* NEXT UP: Part III -- We Actually Fish, But Not Really.

My Deliverance — A Simple Fishing Story: Part I

2009-05-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

The summer after I graduated from high school, I spent most of my evenings watching softball games at the city park. Unlike a lot of young people hanging out, I was actually watching the softball. I guess I was quiet. And shy. I didn't aggressively seek out adventure. Maybe I should have, but one night, the adventure sought me, instead.

One of my friends, I'll call him Freddie, found me at the softball fields and invited me to go fishing with him. I was probably his second or third choice (Marc would have had a date, and Charles would have been golfing early the next morning) but it fit my schedule just fine.

The plan was to drive during the night to a cottage on a lake in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and be ready to fish that lake early in the morning. It was seven-thirty when I heard all this, so we had a few hours to pack, gather supplies, and pick up his father for the trip. Freddie's father was on the local police force, and his shift ended at midnight. We'd be at the cottage by three A.M.

Freddie picked me up at about nine o'clock, and we first had to track down Melanie V., who had the most reliable fake I.D.. We went to a convenience store (so called convenience because they conveniently didn't wonder why our white friend's Driver's License said she was 34 and black) and bought a case and a half of beer, a pound of baloney, and a loaf of white bread. Oh, and some ice for the beer.

We drove around town to kill time, and picked up Freddie's father (I'll call him Mr. J.) from the police station at midnight. He drove. Our first stop was at the local tavern where Mr. J went in the back door and emerged with what turned out to be a brown paper bag with a fifth of gin, some plastic cups, and a bottle of tonic water.

I was in the back seat with the cooler and the gin. The first order of business was to fix a drink for Mr. J, who was driving, and couldn't be distracted by pouring gin into a cup (safety first!). I immediately revealed my ignorance for pouring too weak of a drink, and for not having purchased lime.

Freddie and I drank Stroh's. I don't remember what we talked about. It was one of the first times I had been around Mr. J, and I really didn't know him as anything other than the three hundred pound cop who happened to be my friend's father. I have to believe we talked about drinking beer. We were seventeen and had a limited view of the world, so talking about drinking beer while drinking beer is par for the course. Besides, I was kept pretty busy refilling Mr. J's cup.

* NEXT UP: Part II -- another of my flaws is revealed.

A Series of Mysterious Events

2009-04-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

Thursday evenings are trash night for me, meaning that I have to gather up trash from around the house and put the trash dumpster out on the curb. Trash is picked up on Friday mornings, and they claim the right to pickup starting at seven a.m., and you don't want to miss it.

In the past, these evenings--"trash night" as I call it--has been a moment of contemplative solitude for me. I am alone and performing an ordinary, rudimentary task, allowing my mind to wander a bit. It is not a form of meditation, but it is calming for me, marking the end of a week. I handle our trash with my hands, and I have a sense of the proportion of our activity. If we have had a party or friends staying for the weekend, there will be more trash than usual. If I have been in the mood to dispose of things (and there is much need for that mood) there will be large bags stuffed with now useless toys or household goods. It helps record in my mind what things have been like for me during the week.

On occasion, I've realized that there was not much in the dumpster, and so I've questioned myself what has happened that the amount of trash is down. I worry that I left the laundry room trash can unchecked, or that maybe there are things lingering in the corner of the garage that perhaps could be discarded.

The most interesting dumpster story happened many years ago, back when my Poobrador, Blue, was still alive (a Poobrador is a Poodle-Labrador mix--my own invented name). I was taking him for a walk late one trash night. I carried two bags of kitchen trash out to the dumpster and then continued on into the night with Blue on a leash.

When we returned, Blue began barking at the dumpster. He would not quiet down, and would not relent. He focused on the dumpster as if he were a drug-sniffing canine, and Scarface himself was in the dumpster.

I began to suspect there might be a rat inside. It was garbage, after all, and rats have to eat something and somewhere. I gathered my courage and flipped open the lid of the dumpster. A raccoon was inside the dumpster, and raised his head and stared at us. Sometime during our walk, he must have gotten inside, drawn by one of the bags. Blue, of course, went berserk.

This week, early in the evening of Trash Night, I noticed that one of our trash bags had been left out next to the garage, and the bag was shredded and our kitchen refuse, egg shells, wrappers, and spoiled food, was now scattered across our lawn. Whoever the culprit, they must have taken the bag with the intention of dropping it in the dumpster, but failed to complete the final three feet of the journey.

I did not rush to clean the mess; instead, I treated it as a crime scene.

My wife had no memory of carrying out a trash bag and leaving it short of its destination. But neither could she account for her whereabouts on Sunday evening which, by my examination of the refuse is when that bag made its way outside (there was a blueberry yogurt container amongst the mess, and I recalled eating blueberry yogurt Sunday morning). The easiest thing would have been for her to blame our son, but she didn't recall asking him to take out the trash.

I next interrogated my son. He claimed to have not taken any trash outside at all in several weeks. I believed him. For him to do anything resembling work, it requires an amount of nagging that makes it impossible to forget, and it is extremely unlikely that he would remove the trash from the kitchen and take it outside without being asked to do so.

Our daughter does not even know where the dumpster sits, such is her lot in life that she does not deal with garbage.

I was suspicious once again of my wife. Is it possible that she took the trash out with good intention, but was distracted in her task and left it in harm's way? I brought her to the scene of the crime, and pointed out in particular the yogurt container that suggested to me that this was trash brought out no earlier than Sunday, and likely no later than Monday (we generate about one bag each day). There was a wrapper from a Nestle Crunch bar, an empty cream cheese container, coffee grounds, apple cores, banana peels, school papers, plastic ware, and scraps of food, all of which scattered in the section of yard next to our garage. Our dogs had had a field day with this, I assumed, but there was the possibility of a raccoon making the mess during the night.

My wife clung to her story of not remembering having taken out the trash and leaving it in the yard. I was forced to let her go. As often happens on Law and Order, I did not have sufficient evidence to press charges. I put on work gloves and picked up the trash, bagging it in a new, fresh pull string bag.

There is, of course, the slim possibility that I left it there, but it is my habit to take trash directly to the dumpster, and not linger or explore. I hate to think I could do such a thing to myself, creating, indirectly a mess that I would have to clean. Truth be told, however, I couldn't account for my whereabouts on Sunday evening either.

Two Theories of Sleep

2009-04-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

The theory of circadian rhythms is that we have an observable pattern of behaviors we experience each day, the two most obvious of which are being awake and being asleep; being sleepy during your wakefulness is part of that, but not as obvious. There are also rhythms to our sleep: we go through, or attempt to go through, multiple three-hours cycles of dozing, light sleep, deeper sleep, R.E.M. sleep, and then back to light sleep. If you wake up in the middle of the night, you probably just came out of one of the cycles, and you'll repeat it if you allow yourself to fall back asleep.

I have recently been getting by with six hours, or less, of sleep. It's been going on for a while, and I'm not particularly sleepy during the day, so I believe it's enough for me. I've been able to put this to a more controlled test because I am traveling and sleeping in a comfortable bed without distractions, and I have consistently woken up before my alarm in under six hours and feeling awake and refreshed. I am also not waking up in the middle of the night.

But what if some internal alarm is awaking me, and I'm not consciously acknowledging it? What if I simply have to pee, and although I don't wake with a strong urge in place, my bladder is quietly signaling my brain that this is going to have to happen soon, and you may as well stop sleeping now, rather than go for a third cycle?

I'm in a hotel room. I have exact control of the room temperature, and it is comfortable--exactly the way I want it. I have a large, comfortable bed, and a pillow I would fight to keep. The room is dark (although I do leave the bathroom light on, and the door closed, so there is a small amount of light at the crack of the door along the floor; it's basically a night-light--I don't want to get scared). I requested an interior room away from street noise, and there are no obnoxious, drunk salesmen on the floor with prostitutes throwing parties (or if there are, I wasn't invited and they are quiet about it).

At home my sleep is assaulted by the following: my spouse using her laptop, her discomfort with the covers/pillow/temperature, the dogs moving about, the cat climbing on top of me, the dogs barking because a car drove past, the temperature out of whack because the kids adjusted the thermostat, or the kids themselves dealing with bad dreams by waking me up. For now, all of that is eliminated.

What's left is the reality that a few minutes after I wake up, I need to pee.

Well what of it? The only way I can imagine removing this from the list of possible interruptions is to insert a catheter and a drain bag. Those items can't be terribly expensive, but inserting the tube might be a trick (note to self: check YouTube for video on inserting catheter).

Even if I could eliminate the bladder issue, there are other, natural biological needs that might also signal the brain to wake me up because the inevitable is going to happen; as far as I know, there is no equivalent catheter for that. (Note to self: do not, I repeat, do NOT check YouTube for a video on that subject, because I'm sure it's there!)

I think I'm okay with six hours of sleep. I don't think I'm risking heart disease, and I'm not staggering into traffic, and my cognitive performance seems fine (but, then, how can I trust myself to judge that if my thinking is clouded?). My only dilemma now is sneaking the pillow out of this hotel.

Going Running

2009-04-04T05:45:00.000-07:00

I'm about to go running, which has been an important time for me to think about me things. I'm out of the house for twenty to thirty minutes, listening to music to which I want to listen, and I distract my conscious brain with the activity of running. This frees up other parts of my brain to roam a little more freely through the archives.

I think about my current life situation a lot--job, family, finances, and home. I think about possibilities, and what would make me happier. I think about stories I want to tell, and ways I might change my life. It's my thirty minutes of Forrest Gump style running.

There are quite a few things to think about, as there should be. Things for which to be grateful are family, health, a job, and not danging my prepositions when unnecessary (see previous sentence).

I tend to have fun, or at least laugh, with whatever I'm doing. I'm going to think about ways to have even more fun while improving myself on both a personal and professional level. And maybe, just maybe, I'll let myself dangle a preposition as I select the music I'm listening to.

Being Happy or Just Being There

2009-04-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

I was in a colleague's office and saw two things that gave me reason to pause and think. The first was a sign on his credenza that read "You probably wanted to do something cool with your life, but you never got that job." The sign made me sad, well not sad as much as distressed, so that during the meeting I kept staring at it and reading the words.

I asked him about it, and he laughed. This is a fellow of very good humor that always seems happy and quick to smile. He said, "That about sums up my life. Now I work in insurance."

The phrase was uttered by his son when discussing career choices at a school function. He seemed to have come to terms with his fate. I have not done so, yet. I'd like to think there is a cool job out there for me. But how to find it?

I should first consider why I haven't found it by now, because I'm certainly doing something wrong. When I was about to graduate from high school, I wanted to be a writer, or to work in television, or to be an actor, but mostly to be a writer. I think I've always enjoyed the way my brain feels when I think about words, and stringing them together to tell stories.

My father used all of his persuasion to convince me to get a degree in engineering, reasoning that it'd be nice to have a job while I learned to write, and that writing was something that I could always do, but which was hard to use as a source of income. Most of that is correct, in that I have always turned to writing in some form, resulting in these blog entries right here.

I like to imagine myself making a living as a writer, but that is quite a long shot. Still, the ultimate for me would be to rise early and exhaust my thoughts working on stories of some kind. Then spend a few hours on the business of writing. Finally, I'd spend the afternoon boating, swimming, or otherwise playing with family around the house. The evening would be spent in quiet repose, again with the family, discussing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I would drink coffee all day and wine at night.

It was the other thing I saw in his office that makes me wonder. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

Fishing Stories - Part 1: Not the First or the Last

2009-03-28T04:43:00.000-07:00

I once went fishing with my father. He wanted to put in at the Portage river, which is west of Sandusky, and try for walleye. It was to be a special day in that he was taking a day off of work, and pulling me out of high school, for the day. It was a bright, warm, spring day.

He was up before dawn to load the boat. I was being lazy, but no more lazy than usual, and didn't do much to help him. But, then, what was I going to do but stand around. He knew where he kept everything, and he knew where he wanted everything, and he only trusted himself to stow items properly in an open boat to be dragged along the highway behind his van.

He was a little upset with himself because we got a late start, but it was before six A.M. so I thought it was fine; he, however, was concerned with the feeding cycles of walleye, and the time it would take to get to the river (90 minutes?) and the extra time required to get to where he wanted to fish.

We drove west, and so dawn broke behind us. I don't remember much of that part of the drive. Being men, we wouldn't have chatted just for the sake of chatting, and my father was stoic with us anyway, and so we were both left to our own fantasies.

If I remember anything of how my thoughts ran at that time, I would have vacillated between doing something heroic to impress the girls I knew (this thought would have been truly sophomoric, but bordering on infantile, like a bad guy comes and threatens one of the girls upon whom I had a crush, and I thwart the bad guy, and then the girl and I reveal our mutual lust for each other) and doing something blatantly lustful, bypassing the need to impress the girl, and going straight for the fun part simply for the sake of fun. Yes, I am pretty sure I had nothing interesting to tell my father at that time.

He could have been worried about several things at that time. My oldest brother was in college. There would have been worries about his success there, the cost of college, and his choice of major. My other brother would soon go to college, and he didn't communicate very well with my father then, so that must have been on his mind at least a little. My father also was very dedicated to his job, and probably was thinking of about one of the many projects he had going. I'm not exactly sure what my father thought about my mother and their marriage; they were probably typical of the era, but they didn't do very many things together like play tennis or go for long, romantic walks; so maybe that worried him, but maybe it didn't.

My father probably didn't know at all what to make of me. I got good grades, but I wasn't as athletic as he probably hoped I'd be; and I was the baby, and treated like a baby, in the family, and was too quick to cry as a child, so maybe he was worried about what sort of man I'd turn out to be.

Maybe he was just worried about the fishing, and the bait, and the lures. At that time, walleye were active in Lake Erie near the Davis Besse nuclear power plant. They would move in and out of the Portage river, and would also feed in the warm waters that discharged from the cooling tower into the lake. Walleye, I've been told, like to feed where they can see, so they prefer gravel bottom waters unsullied by weed and silt and muck; there were geological features in that part of Erie that attracted them.

We passed Sandusky without incident, and crossed the Thomas Edison bridge which spans the Sandusky Bay where it joins Lake Erie. Now we were on the small peninsula that is home to Marblehead and Port Clinton. Just north of us, out on the lake, are Kelly's Island, and the Bass Islands, home of Put-In-Bay. Just west of Port Clinton is the Portage river. (You can see it all here.)

I believe his thoughts probably turned to the specifics of lures and bait. The rage then was to use a variation of the silver spinner called the "Erie Dearie". It came in a variety of colors and sizes. My father's trusted technique was to put a night crawler on the treble hook, but minnows were also a consideration. His long time, personal obsession, however was with Rapala, and he had a large collection. (Rapala are lures shaped like small Norther Pikes, and have hooks along their abdomen.) They were out of fashion here, though, in this part of Lake Erie, and any fisherman worth his two-cycle oil would tell you the same.

My father suddenly let loose an agonized groan. "Did you put the fishing rods in the boat?" he asked. I hadn't. I hadn't done a damn thing. He let loose a series of expletives, certain that he had forgotten. We exited the highway, and pulled into a parking lot in Port Clinton, and he ran to the boat, and confirmed what he knew in his heart to be true: he had forgotten the fishing rods.

The sun had arisen already, and some of the best time had already been squandered. Driving home for the equipment would take far too long. The only hope was that my uncles, his two brothers-in-law, had cottages on the Sandusky Bay just a few minutes from here, and maybe they had equipment, and maybe he could get into those cottages. It was something to try.

He walked around the cottages, probing for an entry point, but they were all locked up. He couldn't even be certain what equipment was there, if any, and what quality it might be, and, more important than anything, what sort of tackle would be available. So he ruled out breaking a window because the payoff was unknown.

Stores would not open for over an hour. Once they did, he would be faced with the dilemma of purchasing equipment he already had, and so he'd want only the cheapest items available, and would be second-guessing himself the entire time as to the quality of the equipment. He was completely crippled by this. We sat in the car and waited.

We waited until the stores opened, and then he did go shopping. This was before the era of WalMart, but there was a small department store there, near the highway entrance. He said that if there was a good sale on decent equipment, we'd buy it and still go fishing. Alas, there was no such sale.

There were sandwiches and drinks in the cooler, and I remember eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the drive home, and washing it down with a Coke.

It was a nice day, and the van got warm on the drive home. It would have been a hot day on the water. If we found fish, my father would have been delighted, and it could have been a great day. It's been said that a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work; but you have to actually fish to feel that way. It was not a good day for my father.

Boat Story - Part Five: The Sail Boats

2009-03-14T04:09:00.000-07:00

In all those early years of boating with my father, we never had fun with the boats, other than fishing. Fishing is fun for some, but it's boring and smelly and boring for others. Ultimately it's disappointing, too, because you rarely get all the fish you wanted to catch. The boats were a vehicle to transport us to fishing spots.

My father did, however, have a brief flirtation with boats that was strictly for pleasure. Shortly after he bought the cottage on the shores of Sandusky Bay, near Port Clinton, Ohio, he bought a Snark--pardon me, a Sea Snark--which is a small sail boat made out of the same polystyrene used to make coolers. It weighed 30 lbs., offered 45 sq. ft. of sail, and seated one uncomfortably (total capacity of 315 lbs.). It was 11 feet long, and had a 12 inch depth at center, and a 38 inch beam. It cost $299, on sale. I know the details because the Sears catalog entry for it is taped to the desk that my father used at the time he bought it, and I now use that desk.

It was actually a fun little boat. It was propelled by just the slightest whisper of a breeze, which, in fact, was the ideal condition. Being so light, it always seemed on the verge of capsizing, so we preferred quiet, calm times on the bay. The catalog picture shows a grown man sitting upright under full sail, but we could never achieve the dexterity for sitting; instead, we lay back flat and propped our heads with an orange life preserver in order to see.

This was just an appetizer for my father. After his retirement, he and my mother wintered in Tarpon Springs, Florida at a campground with access to a lake (Lake Tarpon?). There was a sailing club there and, sure as shit, Alfred bought a small sailboat. He dragged it to the lake nearly every day for a while, and gained a modicum of mastery over the techniques required. There were weekly races at the lake, and he entered once, failing to win, but satisfied that he completed the course.

Naturally, he was smitten by the idea of sailing. He owned a cottage on a bay and he was retired--it seemed to be a great idea. So he bought a second sail boat and towed it north with him in the spring. (He thought that would be simpler than dragging one boat back and forth across America.) But things did not go as he hoped.

There were a few minor mechanical problems with that boat--that was why he got it so cheaply. However, fixing those problems became just another item on his to-do list, and the to-do list grew long quickly. He had his main residence to care for, the cottage, his big fishing boat that needed attention, and the collection of smaller boats and outboard motors. The cottage was (and still is) susceptible to flooding, so periodically he spent the better part of a Saturday mopping and disinfecting.

That small sailboat has never gotten wet north of the Mason-Dixon line. It sits, to this day, in the garage, piled with the flotsam and jetsam from other projects.

My brothers and I bring up the question of what to do with the sailboat periodically. I like the idea of using it, as those brief moments on the Snark were peaceful and enjoyable. I am tempted by the allure of being out on a body of water, feeling like I am a part of nature. To sit out on open water, comfortably, confident of your ability to return to dry land, offers a form of solitude that is only equaled (I'm guessing) by ballooning or soaring. I think even boating with companions you get a shared sense of solitude (don't laugh, it's real) for all those on board.

Alas, the small sailboat still sits. We have inherited from our father a particularly pragmatic outlook on life that, I am coming to understand, inhibits certain forms of joy. We rarely did things just for the sake of having fun. The sports we played were turned into exercises to improve ourselves. The camping and fishing trips had their moments, but there was a discipline imposed to ensure duties and chores were performed. I don't think I ever really learned how to have fun, and now I'm afraid to allow myself to have fun like that. It seems foreign to me.

All of that is frustrated by the responsibilities of life. Debts pile up, careers seem questionable, and so it becomes more difficult to allow oneself to just have fun. I stare at the catalog picture of the healthy man sitting in the Snark on a pleasant body of water, seemingly enjoying himself, and wonder, "How did he learn to do that?"

I think I'd be a good candidate for having fun. I should put on my to-do list, "Learn to Have Fun"; I should put it right after "Stop Living Vicariously."

Maybe I'll drop that sailboat in the water this summer and see what happens. Maybe, if I don't drown, I'll learn something and have fun while I do it.

Still More Fun at the Pool

2009-02-26T17:25:00.000-08:00

Longtime readers know that I've been teaching myself to swim. This continues, and is improving. I almost feel like I can swim, now. But that's only part of the reason to go to the pool.

There was a life saving class underway this past weekend while I swam. Twenty teenagers were there for the lesson, and went through various exercises rescuing their instructor.

I happened to finish my training around the time that they finished. I went directly to the showers, while some of the young ladies in the class gathered in the hot tub.

Like so many gymnasiums and YMCAs, this facility has a gang shower that one must pass through in order to gain access to the pool. The idea is to encourage bathers to shower. (Is that ironic? No! Well, maybe.) Guys are coming and going all the time, some stay to shower, some keep moving. Some come naked, others undress while they soap up. Some guys bend over and irrigate their behinds like they are panning for gold. I thought I'd seen it all (a recurring theme) and then, this weekend, there was something new.

I was alone in the shower. While I shampooed my hair, one of the young ladies walked into the shower, mistaking the men's for the women's locker room. The poor girl, probably aged 15, covered her face, screamed "Oh my God!" and left the way she came.

The only other thing I can think of about the incident is that the poor thing would probably blog about it very, very different than the way I have.

What's in a Name?

2009-02-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

Or better still, what's behind a name? I have had a nickname that has been with me for quite a while. It's not a bad one, but lingers as an acronym of the original, so when an old friend mentions it in front of a new friend, it has to be explained. It's difficult to impart the full emotions that made the nickname attractive when given, and often the use of the nickname picks up additional meanings that have nothing to do with its origin; it takes on a life of its own.

Nickname The First
My first nickname, bestowed by my brother's friend, was "Cork". It was because, from behind, my husky build made we seem wide. This was not a nickname of grace or admiration. I assume it referred to an upside down cork, wider at the bottom. That name lasted through junior high.

Worse Than The First
In ninth grade, I made the junior varsity baseball team. I was not a great player, but I wasn't bad. I was proud to be on the team. One weekend, we had a tournament on Saturday after a Friday afternoon game. My mother worked late on Fridays, so I washed my uniform myself. I made the mistake of washing it with a pair of red shorts, and my white uniform turned pink.

I washed that uniform four more times that night, but I could not remove the pink. The next day, I was called "Pinkie". What could I say to deny that?

The One That Stuck
That same baseball season, we were playing at Cuyahoga Heights. They were something of an arch rival, and it was a game we all wanted to win. The field itself was memorable because it was in a stand of trees and had a very remote feel to it. No roads or building could be seen from the field, but an active train track ran along one side—it was possible to hit a foul ball on a passing train and never, ever see that baseball again.

I was not having a great day at the plate. I hit the ball in each of five at bats, but I hit four ground balls to the short stop, reaching first only once on what was ruled (unfairly) an error. On my fifth at bat ( a lot of at bats, by the way, for a seven inning game) I drilled a beautiful line drive into right field. The right fielder caught it on the first hop, and threw me out at first base. I had just barely left the batter's box when the umpire raised his fist.

Our lone fan, Larry Lowther, had a great chuckle at this. Larry, father of our shortstop Marc, was at all of our games, and was a well-liked man. So when he took a break from his laughter to shout, "Hey, Mick the Quick!" it was heard by all and with regard. Henceforth, I was known as Mick the Quick.

It was a far better name than "Pinkie", so, in a sense I am grateful. It is worth noting that the player who called me Pinkie that Saturday morning was none other than Larry's son Marc. A couple of funny guys if ever there were.

I'm All Wet

2009-01-31T10:20:00.000-08:00

My efforts with Total Immersion swimming are slowly paying off. The number of strokes it takes to go 50 yards is down by half, and I can actually feel the thrust, with little effort, when I get the mechanics correctly. People are still a little curious why I'm doing this now, at my age, and how it is I never learned to swim properly before if I had the interest. So a little background.

The Jungle That Is Our Youth

There were a few boys my age that were physical specimens starting in sixth grade. Their testosterone came early, or there was something in the water on their street, that gave them manly features while I still sported a pudgy belly and a double-chin. I ate a lot, and a lot of ice cream to boot, so I understood why I was the way I was. But two boys in particular, Terry B. and Danny V., had muscle definition and a chiseled physique. They were ripped. And it wasn't just being skinny, but there was muscle development.

One day in sixth grade, there was rain and so our recess was held downstairs, in the basement, and it was a crowded, raucous affair. At some point, Terry B. got a hold of an empty masking tape roll (i.e., just the cardboard ring) and slid that up his arm until it was snug on his bicep. He then flexed his muscle until that cardboard ring tore open. I was astounded. To this day I'm astounded.

Swimming with Sharks

The city pool was in the park directly behind our house, less than two hundred paces from our fence. We heard the shouts and screams of kids splashing in the water every day in summer. My mother was nervous about us venturing there, but we did go, and without ever taking a lesson, I could navigate the water fairly well. I stayed in the shallow end, but I could swim underwater, and was very comfortable, and splashed and played with the roughest of them.

There was a boy a year older than me, Jeff W., who had the same chiseled physique as the two my own age. He was something of a prick, and had a reputation for being tough, and so I generally avoided him. I was there, in the shallow end, with him one day in summer.

I was swimming under water, and apparently kicked him as I passed. When I came up for air, he jammed my head back under, and I took in a great gulp of water into my lungs. I still recall the feeling of panic vividly, and how I gripped at the edge desperately as I coughed it out.

I coughed and coughed until I spit blood. He was a little concerned, but mostly about what might happen to him. The life guard had him sit out of the pool until after the next Adult Swim. I made my way back home, shaken and unnerved.

The Best Revenge is Living Well

I did not return to that pool for five years, until I had learned to swim with my head above water. I don't like any kind of horseplay in the water, and I panic quickly as I lose air, or if water goes up my nose or in my mouth. I'm kind of a wreck.

But I am now, finally, gaining a bit more ease in the water. Breathing is my biggest problem.

You'd think I could have overcome all of this earlier, and without so much internal drama, but that is a kind of metaphor for my entire life. I'm trying to be a late bloomer, before it's all too late.

Oh, and that Jeff W. guy? Well, if he tries to befriend me on Facebook, I'm going to ignore it. So there.

Shower and Tell

2009-01-20T04:47:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd seen everything in the shower at the YMCA. In fact, I thought I could handle most anything in a gang shower because I've seen the HBO prison series "Oz", and, more importantly, I survived the hazings in the gang shower on the hockey team when I made varsity as a freshman.

You see all manner of body types in the shower at the local YMCA. It is strange what time does to the human body, and stranger still how some older men believe alternately sitting in the sauna and then showering is a form of a workout. They parade back and forth in complete nudity, apparently having made peace with their body.

I believe I've mentioned in the past that some men like to blow their nose in the shower. That really grosses me out. I saw a man without a single hair follicle anywhere on his body (but he was incredibly fit). I've seen a few things that are inappropriate even for this blog. I thought I had seen it all.

Yesterday, a gentleman walked into the shower after a basketball game fully clothed. He was barefoot, but had all of his clothes on--sweatshirt, t-shirt, sweat pants, shorts over the sweat pants, jock strap, and a do-rag. He stood under the water for several minutes getting soaked to the skin, and then, finally, disrobed. I'm not sure how he managed his wet laundry, as I decided to leave.

You say Galumpky, I say Kapusta

2009-01-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

The Polish of this world have made Galumpky almost synonymous with Cabbage Rolls, but I knew them as Kapusta, which is the Slovak word for the same thing. Of course the recipes might vary wildly. In my mother's Slovak World Congress cookbook, there were no less than six different recipes for cabbage rolls. The point is that wrapping meat in a sturdy, boiled leaf has broad appeal, and should not be claimed by any one ethnicity. No matter who made the cabbage roll, the gas you pass later on will smell just as bad as that produced by someone else's cabbage roll.

Possibly the greatest contribution ever made to the popularity of cabbage rolls was made by the Schmenge Brothers, the famous Leutonian Polka Band on SCTV. Stan and Yosh were both tireless and selfless in their gratitude for the cabbage rolls made by one of their loyal fans, and mentioned it in every episode. And the coffee.

On the other hand, cabbage rolls have never gone mainstream; if they had, you'd be able to get them at the county fair—deep fried and served on a stick—but cabbage rolls nevertheless.

Total Immersion Freestyle Swimming

2009-01-19T01:30:00.000-08:00

I am in the process of learning to swim. I taught myself to swim when I was 14, and did a very poor job of it. In fact, because of an incident at the city pool, I have a very strong aversion to getting my face in the water, and that has hampered me forever.

I swim by keeping my head above water, like a dog or a horse. So it exhausts me to swim, and I don't do it very often. I heard about this new technique for learning (well, not brand new, but new to me) from Tim Ferriss. So A week ago I began.

I first read the book. But not one of those nice, new ones from their store, but an old copy from the library. It's well written, but I couldn't quite figure it out. I then bought one of the DVDs, and that is definitely the way to go. The DVD breaks it down even more simply, and I am able to mimic their behaviors.

I have one thing to add to the great canon of learning about Total Immersion swimming. I followed Tim's advice to buy serious goggles and trunks. I bought the knee length Speedos, and love the feel of them in the water. Much better than baggy trunks. The goggles kept fogging up until today, when I remembered a trick I used in my youth. I spit in the goggles and rubbed that into the inside lens. For whatever reason, it prevents the fog.

The Revenge of the Cabbage Rolls

2009-01-18T18:13:00.001-08:00

I never got around to telling this story about the cabbage rolls and my father's intestines. As I've said earlier, for family events, my mother would prepare cabbage rolls by the dozen. It was usually a major production for her, but she never asked for help. She prepared it all herself, creating dozens of them at a time.

Great big bowls of ground meat were mixed with rice and paprika. A large pot boiled heads of cabbage to loosen the leaves. And an over-sized roaster sat waiting to accept the cabbage rolls. She usually do all of this in our basement, where we had a second kitchen. She'd descend for an afternoon or evening, and not surface again until it was complete.

I don't recall the specific occasion, but my father felt ill late at night, after the event. The next day he checked himself into a hospital. Back in those days, if you got into the hospital, they kept you a while to run tests. Now you spend far more time waiting in the Emergency Room lobby than you do in a hospital bed (if you're lucky), but back then, they admitted you to run tests, and strictly enforced the visiting room hours.

He was in there a couple of days, having complained about chest pains. He was in his late forties, so the assumption was a heart attack, and that's what the tests were trying to determine. But test after test came back negative, and so they reviewed other factors. The truth finally came out that he had consumed an inordinate amount of cabbage rolls; the doctor immediately went with a diagnosis of indigestion. He probably prescribed an enema, but I don't know if it was ever administered.

I never really worked with my mother on those cabbage rolls, and I don't know if I have the recipe, so I'll be trying various combinations until I hit on something pleasing to my taste buds and my memory. I just hope I don't kill myself trying.

Jerk, or My Passive Aggressive Road Rage

2009-01-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

While driving to work the other morning, a car raced past me and tried to merge into my lane in front of me. The driver, a woman, made the mistake of signaling before merging, as if asking my permission. I said no, and would not slow down to invite her in.

There was no room for her to merge. There was just barely a car length space between my car and the car in front of me. Here is the weird part: if she had just done it, merged dangerously in front of me without signaling, without there being enough room, and without even giving me a thank-you wave, I would have been fine; I would not have ever mentioned it again, because people do dumb things in their cars and I watch out and drive accordingly.

But to ask to be allowed to do something stupid is unforgivable. I simply won't allow it. So I did not back off at all, and the driver declined to merge. She did, however, speed up and tried to merge three cars ahead; however, there was even less space there, and so, with here blinker still blinking, she braked and tried to merge again in front of me.

This time she started to merge, but I closed the gap and braced for a collision. She blinked, and veered back into her lane. She waited a few seconds, and merged behind me. It turns out she wanted to get on the other side of me altogether, and was able to do this. Once there, she accelerated hard to race past me on the other side and blew her horn at me as she did.

Well the same to you, lady.

Cabbage Rolls

2008-12-23T04:22:00.000-08:00

Cabbage rolls are an ethnic dish. Very ethnic. Just the name evokes numerous cliches, and even sounds funny because of the "k" sound (which, according to Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, all funny words contain). To smell them is to know, immediately, what the word ethnic really means.

My mother used to make them, and we loved to eat them. A cabbage roll, if you're not familiar, is ground beef, ground pork, and rice mixed together, spiced up a bit, balled, and rolled inside a leaf of cabbage. Dozens of these are stacked up in a roaster, and then more cabbage and tomato juice is piled on top. These are cooked together, and the result is both an olfactory and culinary delight.

I've started making them myself. I'm shocked how easy it is to make a small batch--about 40 minutes of preparation, including the clean up. The crock pot has been going all night, and the house reeks.

Tomorrow I'll tell the story of how cabbage rolls damn near killed my father, and started a war.

Nintendo Wii For Sale

2008-12-19T20:43:00.000-08:00

I'm sure I'll have an interesting blog entry about this subject in the future, but, for now, just know that my son is trying to sell his Wii, and it may not go very well. I'd hoped to keep it in the family, but the forces of nature are not cooperating.

I have it gathered together, ready to pack and send. but the price better be right.

Poop, Poop, Vomit

2008-12-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

My neighbor made a mistake the other day, and I was happy to help the fix the problem. They went away on a Saturday morning with the intention of not returning until late Sunday. Their mistake was in forgetting about their dog, who was left alone in the house. When they called, I was happy to help.

I stopped by in the evening on Saturday night and again around midnight. In the morning, I returned. Each time the dog was thrilled to see me, wanted to play, but spent only a the minimal amount of time necessary to pee outside. Somehow, I thought the dog knew what he was doing.

I meant to return around 1 PM, but, feeling sick, had lain down for a moment and fell asleep. This almost made me late for my daughter's choir recital, so I did not have time to let Tucker, the dog, out until after the recital.

I returned around 4 PM, and discovered that the dog had pooped all over the front entranceway of the house. There was a massive pile right by the door, and then splatterings along the hall right into the kitchen. It took me half an hour to clean the mess, and it stunk to the high heavans while I did so.

Still, I felt good about the situation. I had mostly helped my neighbor, and hadn't stepped in the mess. I returned home disgusted, but somewhat satisfied.

My own two dogs were thrilled to see me. On my second step inside, however, the floor gave way. I looked down to discover that I had stepped in a pile of my dog's mess. A few inches from that was a pile of vomit, to go along with it. I'd like to think I could learn from my mistakes, but I think I was just snake-bit on this one.

Over-the-Counter Drugs and Good Health

2008-12-15T04:34:00.000-08:00

I spent this past weekend with a head cold, stuffed up sinuses, and sniffling and sneezing. What bothers me most about being sick is the lack of energy, and feeling tired, but not being able to sleep, but not being able to try because sometimes (most of the time) life goes on. I was at soccer games and music recitals, drove the kids to other appointments, and went visiting.

The "went visiting" part is probably the dumbest, because I've shared my germs with the world when, in that moment, I didn't need to do so.

The best part was the legitimate excuse to drink Dimetap elixr. It's the purple drink for children that is both anti-hystamine and decongestant. It works wonders for me, but makes me a little on the drowsy side. I love the taste. To me it's grape Kool Aid, and I believe it would be the perfect basis of a mixed drink, like the Flaming Moe.

However, I get very strange dreams when on it. I can't describe them, but suffice to say that I was overwhelmed with a creepy dread. It's funny that I'm surprised that pouring chemicals into my body might have an effect on my mind.

Back Online with Xmas Letters

2008-12-12T04:28:00.000-08:00

I am staging my return to blogging with a presentation of old Xmas letters. Back in 1996, we sent these short missives out with the Christmas cards, and I tried to be funny. Now, re-reading them, they are painfully moronic. My sign off messages are particularly sad. I think the author was an idiot.

Still, they were very popular with friends and family, and so I was encouraged to continue. I still write them, and will post them all for posterity sake. Perhaps some young family will read them some day and decide not to write any such Xmas letter of their own.

My style has changed over the years, and, once I have them all online, a careful reader may detect a particularly bad year. It was something of a bellwether for the writing.

Xmas Letters Part 1: The Idiot Years.

Cleaning House is not House Cleaning

2008-11-17T19:40:00.000-08:00

I just threw out a dozen sweaters, all of them too large for me. I recently lost weight, and I've had to change my wardrobe. Those sweaters were some of the last things to go.

I don't even wear sweaters that often but over the years I acquired them. Most of them were gifts from either my mother or my wife. The rest were purchases made by my wife for whatever reason. I probably didn't wear them for precisely the fact that I didn't buy them, and thus was not invested in them. Thirteen sweaters and I didn't buy a single one of them. What am I, a four year old?

So I've been cleaning house. It has accelerated since my weight loss, but had actually started a couple of years before, after my father died.

When he passed, and my mother left to go live with one of my brothers, my other brother and I cleaned out their home. Most of that was brutal, because there was so little left that was of significant value to be salvaged. We trashed great deal. I was shocked about how much miscellaneous stuff a closet can hold

After that ordeal, I was intent on not living with miscellaneous stuff any longer. I had many, many useless things in the basement, and I began a process of throwing away a bag of stuff every week. I did leave a few things that I intend on selling on eBay, but I haven't gotten around to that, either, and now I'm thinking I just need to trash that stuff too.

My daughter did a good thing this weekend in cleaning out her room. The one problem is that she piled the stuff she didn't want in the hallway, and it actually spread so far and wide that it blocked our doorway. So tonight I spent a few minutes putting all that stuff in a trash bag. My wife still wants to sort through it, but I'm all for trashing it.

More than once the past couple of years I have had the thought that what I need to do, that what would make me happy, is to throw away all the old stuff. I'm surrounded by clutter and chaos (still!) and it really bothers me.

At work I've been better about spending a little time each week cleaning off the piles of stuff and filing what is important and then trashing that which is not important.

At the moment I have no joy in this. I really want to look forward to when all the stuff (I don't want) is gone, and I can live an uncluttered life. In fact, at the moment, I'm just exhausted and falling asleep at the keyboard. With luck, I'll dream of that uncluttered life.

Throw-back Correspondence

2008-11-16T19:03:00.000-08:00

I had a nostalgic moment. I seem to have a lot of those, but this one was classic, or, rather, in the classical sense of nostalgia.

I play the accordion. I'm not very good at it, have only been playing for a little more than three years, and there's a lot to learn. I stopped taking lessons this year because it was just too traumatic to get to the lessons on time with the other demands on my time. I really thought I'd be better at studying on my own, and I have, but now I miss learning new things, other than the songs. So I began searching for books on how to play the accordion.

I've already bought most of the books on the subject, and there's quite a few at the beginner's end of the scale, a couple at the very highest end, but next to nothing in between. There are intermediate song books, but no explanation on how to play those songs.

I kept searching. Depending on the phrasing used, I'd get most of the same old stuff, or some links to what seemed to be very expensive DVD-based lessons of various styles. Today I stumbled on the right combination of search terms, and discovered a review of "Fingering the Accordion" by Robert L. Smith. I immediately ordered it.

Here's the interesting part: it seems to be self-published, and the only contact information was a name and address posted on the reviewer's web page. I did specific searches of the title and the author, thinking I could order it on Amazon.com, or eBay, or Half.com, or alibris.com, but there were no other traces of the book on the internet. Spooky, right?

I doubted the veracity only for an instant. I wrote out the check. addressed the envelope, and wrote a note by hand to explain my interest in the book. That was the cool part for me, writing a note and ordering something with a letter.

In fifth grade, our teacher (Mrs. Perkins) put us through some exercises in Social Studies wherein we would write letters to our Congressman, Senator, and the President to see what we would get back. It was a lot of fun, and, sure as hell, we got neatly typed letters in return on some serious weight stock.

I also was a big proponent of ordering dumb-ass things out of the back of comic books, or from cereal boxes. My greatest acquisition was probably a Quisp ray gun that actually shot a cloud of talcum powder, but looked really cool, or the Cap'n Crunch milkshake set, or maybe the Willie Wonka chocolate factory kit. Each of those involved the envelope, a small amount of money, and writing a letter to explain things, as my teacher taught me, to ensure it'd arrive safely, rather than relying on those tiny little order forms.

I got a real kick out of writing a letter, explaining what I wanted, and stuffing that into an envelope. In three days, the letter will arrive in California, and Mr. Smith will rip it open, see my check, and begin his order fulfillment process. Perhaps in ten days, I will have his book on accordion fingering techniques in my hands.

Because Mr. Smith does not have a web presence, it seemes doubtful that he is egomaniacal enough to constantly google himself. If he did, he might see this blog entry before my letter arrives, and so he might have my order prepared and just waiting for the check to arrive.