Ports and Payots

I have to keep reminding myself that my neighbor is sick.

He has cancer. It's a cancer that he has been battling and which initially gets knocked back by the medicines his care team offers; but then the disease becomes smarter and stealthier and the medicines need tweaking so that they can once again sneak up on it by surprise and trounce it into a prolonged chokehold.  

I wonder how my neighbor, who is the same age as my father (a survivor of the same cancer, thanks be to God) keeps the faith in a situation where either the cancer or the treatment has to win and there isn't an odds maker in Vegas that would be able to give you a smidgen of reassurance which'd make you want to take the action on this. 

Today, I was pulling dead flowers out of my front garden when he came driving up in his car, fresh from a two hour treatment, zipping up his Patriots windbreaker over top of a gleaming white gauze pad which sits over top of the port in his chest. The port, for those of you who haven't taken Cancer 101, is where the chemo goes in. 

Chuckling, he flipped back his ball cap to show me and my other neighbor, both of us outside on a good weather day for yard work, how he had just become a new member of the 'bald head club', popular with guys of a certain age on our street. He explained how his hair was tumbling out, not by choice, and how he was in style now; his normally thick and healthy white follicles gone in favor of a shiny baby pink crown which he kept touching, self-consciously.

He speaks, we laugh, we listen. His countenance is so jolly it shames me. It shames me because today is my first full day off the couch since September 8. I've been sick myself, but with something that I will eventually overcome. It just takes me a while because I am compromised in multiple ways these days...and I'm a bit of a dweller...and I'm completely strung out on anxiety. But alas, I am me. 

As I sprawled out on my living room couch this past month, watching the best and brightest days of Autumn pass me by sunrise after sunset like my Fiddler on the Roof record stuck in a bad groove, I have been watching my neighbor in his Patriots windbreaker maneuver his lawn tractor, week after week, cutting and bagging his leaves and grass. From my vantage point I spy him carefully assembling his Halloween decorations, filling his birdfeeder, and piloting his car on daily errands with his wife. But me? I mostly sat, ordering things online that I don't require but which amuse me during my prolonged downtime: new storm cloud colored walking sneakers; a vintage oxblood Aigner leather clutch that reminds me of 8th grade; and clearance priced tank tops from Duluth Trading Company for next summer or southern travel, because, heavy on the spandex, they girdle my middle aged belly better than any other brand at the moment. Even deeply discounted they are too expensive but I don't care. As our left side couch cushion becomes permanently imprinted with my ass, an extra few dollars to cradle my guts seems inconsequential. 

But every package that arrives is proof that I cannot drive, cannot shop in a store like other normal (albeit masked because of the pandemic) folks, cannot walk without assistance, all due to an unforeseen complication from a recent medical procedure. The typical high that one might get from the receipt of a package has, for me, turned into more of an exercise in despair; and all the while I convalesce I repeatedly spot the neighbor, far sicker than I, going about his business.

His hair immediately brings to mind my Aunt and her fight with multiple myeloma which, I am sorry to say, she did not win. Let me just pause to affirm that "sorry to say" sounds like the weakest, most inept way to convey how the hole that she has left in our collective family's heart and lives has changed us all, and not for the better but I don't know how else to impart it properly without taking thirty paragraphs to do so. 

My Aunt Rene (pronounced REE KNEE) lost her hair in the same way that my neighbor is losing his, from treatments which were meant to kill the rapidly growing cancer cells that ailed her, but which also killed the rapidly growing hair on her head and caused her confused scalp to sigh and willingly release all of her long gray-streaked locks in clumps. Rene used to have a particular way of tucking her hair behind her ears. Having had surgeries as a little girl in the 1950s, she had small patches of scar tissue both in front of and behind her ears and I don't know if was purely habit or a purposeful move for vanity's sake, but she used to leave a wisp of hair in front of each ear as she tucked the majority of her tresses behind her for an easy, casual look. As her hair started falling out, those wide front of the ear pieces, almost like the side locks on the most devout of Jews, stayed stubborn and strong, while she started finding their wooly sisters and brothers on her pillowcase, on the back of the couch, and blocking the drain of the bathtub. She called me the day of our family reunion and asked me to bring down clippers and a scarf. I knew what was coming, and I did what she asked. 

That day I shaved her head. As our family gathered and milled about outdoors, we sat on my Uncle's couch and I tried my best to make her comfortable by telling her things like how perfectly her noggin was shaped and how she absolutely did not need to cover it with a scratchy wig or some sort of soft bandana, and how it looked nothing like Darth Vader's dome when we got that spooky peek of his giant, soft, peachy head sans-helmet in one of the Star Wars movies. She giggled wearily and played along, as we both tried to make one another feel less awkward about the fact that I was shearing off the last pieces of her pre-cancer identity. Upon finishing, I flicked hair off the couch onto the floor where someone would sweep it up later and as she rummaged her hands about her head, we looked at each other with a sense of relief. However, the humid August air hung with an atmosphere of collective sadness for having shared the experience. Eventually, the hair went in the trash. The more that I think about it now, I wish we'd saved it, like the soft precious pieces folded away in our baby books. 

Anyway, today's experience got me blogging again. I hadn't the energy nor the enthusiasm for it in the last 6 weeks but seeing my neighbor up close sparked something in me and I swear as I hacked at and pulled the dead grass from the ground level of my stella d'oro day lilies, I felt just like I was pulling hair from the scalp of the earth. I could hear my Aunt whispering, in my ear, with my hair style so similar to hers; a big hunk of silvery gray hanging down in front as I pulled my garden gloves off and tucked the rest of my very long argentate fall behind my shoulders, "you'd better start to write again."

And I did.  

 "Payot": Hebrew word for sideburns.  

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Harley Rendezvous

I miss large social gatherings. I miss weddings and graduation parties and concerts and movies and I miss going to the 3 day Harley Rendezvous in Pattersonville, NY. To be clear, I haven't been to this Harley Rendezvous in about three decades but it still ranks up there as far as compelling memories go.

My college boyfriend played bass guitar in a band which was faithfully hired to play at the yearly biker rally. On this sunny late summer morning, something about the air and the atmosphere brings the playlist for those events to the forefront, thrumming through my mind. Perhaps you can join me for a trip down memory lane. Strap on your helmet, sidle up and ride along.

I had the privilege of introducing the band. This was a time in my life when my weekend attire consisted of denim mid-thigh skirts, concert t-shirts and studded cowboy boots made of black ox hide and alligator so I was the perfect two minute frontwoman. Stepping up to the mic, I'd hold it with my right hand and holding my clear cup of domestic beer by the rim with my other hand, dangle it casually down my left leg. When the wolf whistles stopped (more ceremonial than intimidating), I'd welcome everyone and do my best "Ladies and Gentlemen..." intro. I'm not saying it was perfect but it was effective. I got the attention I asked for.

The opening song was always "Call Me the Breeze" by Lynyrd Skynyrd and I was primed and ready to jump off and dance with whatever biker chicks were already out on the floor. They were the ones swathed across the stagefront chirping to the guys while they set up their amps and instruments. They were the ones who would hip check me hard at the bathroom sink so they could apply layer after layer of fairy tale pink lipstick to their wanton mouths. They were the ones who the lead guitar player's wife wanted to kill, show after show, and the reason why she'd come to only the very occasional outing.

A minute into The Breeze, a few long limbed bikers would join us on the floor. Usually the chaps, so proudly and boldly worn up until that moment, would be shed in an effort to move more freely. In my mind I see crimson colored do-rag bandanas, inky black tshirts rolled up north of the bicep, boxes of Marlboro Reds tucked safely within those rolls or visible dangling just above the stitching of the front tshirt pocket, well worn jeans ripped and thin in all the right places, and boots of every variety being lifted and lowered in time to the music, some remarkably alight despite their lugged heft.

You can tell a lot about a biker based purely on boot selection. 

Most of the guys that I knew wore electrician boots. These boots were waterproof, shock proof, steel toed, oily leather. They were also skid and slip proof, with 2 inch rubber soles, so they weren't the easiest to dance in, but the guys who wore them were usually so bone-weary and dog-tired from working five twelves one sleep prior to their Saturday rides that they didn't shimmy a lot anyway.  They were more or less standing in place, singing loudly, lifting their plastic cups in overhead drippy gestures of respect, and letting their necks loll side to side in a deliberate motion of loosening and slackening, shrugging off the stress of the week. 

The guys who wore classic coal colored, engineer-style, pewter buckled riding boots were typically well groomed with nice leather jackets and newer black Levis. When speaking with them I would detect a hint of cologne which was in stark contrast to the majority of the guys who smelled of hard work and sweat and oil and electricity and maybe even something burning. The engineer boot wearers' jackets were blank tabula rasa style smooth cowhide, also dissimilar to the motorcycle gang artwork adorning many of the backs of the others in attendance. I loved the decorated garments and would spend a lot of time studying them, memorizing their allegiances and, often, pictures suggesting pain. Running my hands over the tapestry of painted, stitched and patched jackets left draped over the seats of barstools, I could feel the stories of these men animatedly sparking in my palms.

Chiseled jaws, facial scars, eye patches, gloves, and shots of whiskey instead of plastic cups of beer belonged to the denim jacketed guys. Some had sleeves, many did not. The denim dudes rarely made eye contact with me despite my attempts. Their combat wounded veteran patches helped me sense what might belie their shifty eyed silences. Sometimes their hands and gills would tremble in the beginning of the first set while they stood alone and I anonymously bought them shots, but later in the night when I crept by again and stole a glimpse, I'd see a pack of heads pitched together, a cohesive powwow of blue jeaned GIs, and the fingers were pond water calm. 

The guys with the cowboy boots were usually the dancers, tripping the light fantastic. Their smooth soles allowed for scooting and sliding and I liked their assortment of T-shirts, emblazoned with the latest concert, or an American made automobile logo, or checkered flags and STP, or even the occasional Bart Simpson. The band's second song was usually Honky Tonk Woman by the Rolling Stones and the cowboys would ball up their fists and close their eyes and hoist their shoulders up a few inches toward their ears sloping their hips forward, knees bent, while the front row ladies cavorted and spun and mingled about giving them giving them giving them the honky tonk blues. 

Songs three through eight were always a nod to the late sixties and early seventies when many of the festival patrons came up in the world. Louie Louie by the Kingsman, Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham, Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf, a trifecta of Run For the Jungle, Bad Moon Rising and Green River by Creedence Clearwater Revival; then they'd take it down with the Allman Brothers Midnight Rider. 

Jimi Hendrix's version of the Star Spangled Banner followed (and I almost always heard the first three minutes from the bathroom because I knew this was the song right before their first break and I tried to get in there before everyone else did).  I'd catch the end, exiting while wiping my hands on my skirt and bearing witness to every person in the crowd standing at attention, some hands on hearts, some lifting salutes, all listening to the lead guitarist share his powerfully metallic patriotism, full of reverb and whammy, eventually down on his knees, back arching and fingers cramping from the dichotomy of the notes; a whirling swirl of red, white and blue spiritualism tinged with hope, backdropped by grungy strings squealing in protest and anger.

After the break, with the front row ladies tipsy and sparkling with sweat laying claim to their prominent positions on the floor, the band opened back up with Greg Allman's I'm No Angel. This would invariably draw a huge crowd. I never thought the song was the best in the set, but it spoke to the people, well seasoned and unwound, hanging loose and trolleyed by the music and liquid courage. 

"So I might steal your diamonds. I'll bring you back some gold. I'm no angel." 

Elvis, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, George Thorogood, Bruce Springsteen, Marshall Tucker, Molly Hatchet, Little Feat and the Georgia Satellites peppered the second set. Dancing ensued. Drinking ensued. The revving of engines and smoking of cigarettes and noisy peel outs ensued. Break time after set two was usually around ten thirty at night. 

Since my friend's group began as a Skynyrd tribute band, set three was almost exclusively Florida swamp rock. The flooring trembled underfoot while a hundred or more gamy, euphorically carefree bikers, bathed in the sweat of a good time, hoofed it without reserve for another hour. The drummer looked like he'd emerged from a nearby lake, mullet plastered to the sides and back of his thick neck. This time of night was my favorite because we all became one sticky ball of black tar, oozing and swelling and dragging on each other. Shoulder hanging-on was common; holding one another up was routine. Differences were overlooked. Kindness was the rule. Kinship through music and back slapping and heat and drink made us all sailors on the same boat in the same sea. We were all worshipping at the same altar. The greatest of friends for an evening; ready to defend someone you met an hour ago within a heartbeat of your life, we fit together like the shingles of a roof. 

We did a lot of car sleeping back then. Tired and too drunk to drive, we would recline the bucket seats and catch a few hours of awkwardly positioned, mosquito-bit rest before getting up and making our way home. The early morning grounds around this out of the way farmtown premises would be festooned with the dancers, some in tents, others curled in balls on Mexican blankets next to their motorcycles, some single, some spooned in the mauve colored light. It was like a battlefield scene, and I'd walk silently among them as I waited for my boyfriend to shake off the night and start the car. 

They slept, some peacefully childlike, some contorted in the clutches of a bad dream or a sour stomach, but mostly puddled softly in the light; jumped and jived out, spent like an ultra marathon runner at the finish, it was, for me, the best morning-after buzz. 

http://www.harleyrendezvous.com/index.php

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Hemingway and Me

If given a choice, I think I'd like to be beach bound with countless cats, drunk and writing all the live long day.

Like Hemingway.

Now don't get me wrong and for God's sake, untwist those English major panties, please. I am not comparing literary styles. I am not suggesting that I am the next great American novelist. I'm simply drawn to a few of the finer ingredients in what should have been Hemi's 1930s lifestyle cookbook. 

Namely:

1. Beach.

2. Cats.

3. Booze. 

4. Writing.

Having lived a more structured life for the last 33 years I think I am ready to exchange it for a few dozen, God willing, preponderantly Havanian-flavored seasons. 

The recent events of 2020 have shaken me like Scrooge after coin-eyed Marley grabbed him, double fisted, by the nightgown. I'm floating around in a similar dream state, examining what I thought were the most productive years of my life and wondering: Should I have done something else? Been something else? 

And with everything so berserk and ferocious and frenzied, I ponder the idea...am I living my truth? Am I listening and learning? What is the universe telling me?

Lots of my friends are searching and probing as the world twists off its axis. I receive their distress signals via text every day; and although the lot of us are on very different paths, we seem to have one solid sentiment in common: 

Screw all this. 

I feel we are each primed for personal upheaval. 

Lately, like Hemi, I've engaged in a little day drinking. It's not a regular occurrence, but I cannot deny the sensuously gentle touch of alcohol in the belly right around 3 pm. It makes my brain fog seem like cotton candy clouds festooned in tinsel and doused with glitter and gloss. I haven't decided whether this is a perfectly legitimate form of lubrication which allows for unbridled written self expression or whether I might eventually need an intervention, but today, because I am a realist I say fuck it. Pass me another hard kombucha.

At this moment, I can see Hubs and me packing our bags to live among the Key West outlaws where I can loudly profess what I love right out down in the street; where I can help usher the sea turtles into the ocean; where the sun can bespeckle my nose with caramel-colored stipples; where the Ron Centauro rum flows unreservedly; and where I can stroke the warm fur of lazy genetically freakish multiple-toed cats whenever the hell I please. 

And where I can write about it. All the live long day. 

Roll out the turquoise carpet. I've had enough.

Fun Fact: Ernie claimed to have written mostly when sober, a notion upon which I call "bullshit".

And, just for giggles: here is the Hemingway cat cam: https://www.hemingwayhome.com/cams/cat/

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God Wink #5: Bob Ovitt

Hubs and I host a weekly gathering which could be called " Revisiting The Good Old Days". 

We and our regular guests, including my father and a friend of ours from church, routinely do a temperature check on the status of at least one issue or current event plaguing our country and then we invariably launch into a few light hearted stories about "the way things used to be". We love spinning yarns about the stark contrast between "way back when" and today. As you can probably guess, "way back when" usually wins in terms of quality of life, the joy with which we experienced the stories we tell, and the overall successes that resulted from lives well led and time well spent. 

My Dad's birthday was this week so Hubs and I took him out for dinner last evening and along those lines, we conversed about the latest news involving teachers, students, the pandemic, and all that is expected from everyone who works in and around school buildings as September encroaches. Opinions were shared about what is being done right and a few criticisms were launched about what is being done wrong; and after we'd had enough of today, we shifted to telling stories about simpler days spent in the schools of our youth.

Taking a trip down memory lane, I recounted being a 4th grader, responsible for 26 kindergarteners during the teacher's lunch hour. Back in 1979, this was known as "Kindergarten Duty". 

Let me preface the details by telling you nothing went sideways and we never lost a kid. Everyone came through to the other side of the hour with nary a scratch. 

So stop holding your breath. 

It's all good. 

You see, the teacher needed a lunch break and kindergarten was a half day event back in the 1970s so when the morning class had been sent home, another responsible elementary school student and I would make our way down to the kindergarten classroom to usher in all of the afternoon kiddos and entertain them for an hour while the teacher left the room (and most oftentimes, the building) to eat. In the event of an emergency we were instructed to locate the school custodian, Bob Ovitt. 

We were on a first name basis with Bob, even as 9 year olds. He didn't seem to mind at all.  

I think back to the level of responsibility we were given and cackle like hell about it by today's helicopter parent standards, but back then, we had an hour of laughter and a bit of learning with those kids every afternoon and I welcomed the "job" three years running, through my time in 4th, 5th and 6th grade. Those five hours per week were one of the highlights of elementary school. We played top 40 records, carefully planned and brought from home (no swear words, no weirdness). We illuminated the little ones with step by step disco dance lessons. On quieter days we read books aloud, holding them aloft and turning the pages once every small fry seated in the big half circle had a good look at the pictures. On noisier days we had singalongs, with the best piano accompaniment we could manage as two non-piano playing children, certainly with more flourish than skill. The one task we were asked to accomplish each day was, in an order only the creators of the program understood, to present the Letter People and teach their individual abilities and quirks to the wee ones so that they could recognize whatever Letter Person was held up (we had inflatable plastic blow up Letter People) and shout out their attributes...for example "Mr. H! Horrible Hair!"  "Mr T! Tall Teeth!" 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_People. 

We also created and prepared an end of the year series of skits with the kids, all natural performers at that age, and put on a theatrical style show for the kindergarten teacher during the last week of school. There were simple costume changes, dances, songs, and, without fail, a bemused look of surprise on the teacher's face and a standing ovation when it was over. I think she was repeatedly shocked by the amount of forethought on our parts and the amount of competence with which the children pulled it off. 

In addition to my Kindergarten Duty job, I was also a part of the Safety Patrol. All the "SP"s were early arrivers, sporting white belts and ushering children across crosswalks, keeping them corralled in single file lines and offering problem solving solutions when fights broke out before we were let into the building in the morning. As an aside...the "solutions" were simply a suggestion that the brawlers take it over to the Circle of Doom after school in front of an audience. And before you hold your breath again, the "Circle of Doom" was a big patch of nicely mown grass about three houses down from school. A few times a year we were treated to a big ol' slugfest there around 2:40 pm, you know, back in the glory days where kids fought it out one afternoon and shared a tuna sandwich on soggy white bread at lunch the next day with busted lips and dime sized bald patches where hair was yanked. 

So, as you can probably guess, there were no teachers to find if things went awry during morning line ups. We were told to "find Bob Ovitt" if we needed help before first bell. 

Hubs, Dad and I all agreed that Bob Ovitt was a gosh darn hero. School custodian and maintenance man by trade, he was literally charged with the management of dozens of students every time there wasn't anyone else who could be available for us. We ran for Bob fairly regularly in the morning, interrupting him as he attempted to prepare for the day, making him stop shoveling so that he could put an end to nasty snowball fights where some of the bigger boys would resort to packing snow around broken icicle bits before launching them, or imploring him to grab a first aid kit so that we could put After Bite on a five year old's bee sting after he picked a flower for the teacher and then realized it had an angry wasp on its stem, stinging his palm repeatedly. Bob Ovitt was everyone's go-to and he liked delivering a strict yet somehow comforting message about our collective conduct. 

When Bob Ovitt spoke, you listened.   

My 6th grade class spent a week in the Springtime preparing for some Bob Ovitt-themed occasion. I can't remember if he was retiring, or being promoted, or moving to another school, or maybe it was his birthday...but the important part of the story is we honored him as an entire school. Each class either made a dessert or magic marker'd a banner or rendered a song, or bought a gift. Our class in particular wrote an original ditty about all that he did for us and at the end we used the letters of his name to spell out his special qualities. We all screamed "BOB OVITT" at the top of our lungs following the final T (which was probably for TIMELY because the man was never, as I recall, late for anything).

At the end of my elementary school stories, I said, "I need to see if Bob still lives around here. It might be fun to share these stories with him." Nodding, we agreed. 

Then this morning, less than 12 hours later, I opened up our local newspaper and found this:

https://poststar.com/lifestyles/announcements/obituaries/robert-bob-e-ovitt/article_08394d23-943c-5ba4-90cf-20b82475851f.html

It's Bob Ovitt's obituary, plain as day.

Weird, right? I think the Godwink is that, intuitively, I seem to have been prompted to have something prepared in his honor; some little tribute for him at the ready, even though last evening I didn't quite know why, and I honestly hadn't really thought about Bob in a good many years. 

So, here it is. My hat is off to Bob Ovitt and I am happy to reminisce in his honor. 

I'm truly sorry I didn't get to chat with him personally, although maybe he heard us last night, somehow. 

#mushroomtumbler

New Old Radio

I have been on the hunt on eBay and other auction sights for an old radio; a Panasonic RX 1230, just like the one given to me on Christmas day 1981 by my parents. One of my most favorite gifts ever, I don't know what happened to it after I went to college and left it in my Dad and step mom's bathroom for proper shower-time entertainment. 

I wish I still had it. I wish that about a lot of my early 1980s treasures.

I found written tributes to the radio on antique radio pages, and postings for parts for sale here and there but I hadn't been able to find one in good working order, so, reluctantly I broke down and bought myself a new retro style cassette player this past week instead. Admittedly, my new Crosley is beautiful and has Bluetooth which seems like cheating somehow, but I am sure I will find that feature useful at some point. 

Hubs and I went to CVS and bought some chubby D batteries - the expensive ones so they don't die after one long afternoon. Lucky for me they were buy one pack get one 50% off since this monster uses 6 of them at once. I loaded them in according to the instructions and slid my new prize into my oversized 24 year old LL Bean boat 'n' tote bag branded with my former monogram in heavy duty purple thread. Randomly grabbing a handful of cassettes from our basement understorage, where they've sat undisturbed in a huge bin since we moved into this house nearly 15 years ago, I tossed them into the tote and we, along with the min pin, set off on our Saturday afternoon adventure. 

After hubs and I arrived at our lakeside destination for the day and set up our two low lying beach chairs, I grabbed the radio and the tapes, plunked down, and with the min pin on her leash between us, cranked cassette after cassette. Honestly, it was pure bliss. Between the bright sunshine, the beautiful breeze, and fortunate proximity to water on such a warm day, we were all feeling pleased. Plus, rediscovering the arbitrary assortment of songs was like throwing open a door to the past, having grasped its handle for 25 years. 

Don't get me wrong. Having more than 15,000 songs on my iPod makes for some very interesting and eclectic tuneage at the ready/on demand, and I willingly exalt the inventor of my most favorite musical storehouse but listening to a single cassette, first one side and then the other; the act of flipping and pushing play...it's all delightfully deliberate, old school, and oh so satisfying. 

It's like you can't rush a cassette. Really, you can't. Not wanting to waste batteries by rewinding or fast forwarding, and certainly not risking or compromising the structural integrity of these tapes, most of which were easily over 30 years old, we just popped them in and settled down beside the emanation of their gifts. 

First, I queued Led Zeppelin IV. I was really happy to see it among my unplanned snag. I never tire of it. But this little one didn't have a case, and the plastic was covered in smudges of brown fingerprints. It looked more than a little rough. Dusty and dirty from having been naked in the basement, the sound quality surely would be crappy...but in it went. Three songs later on side one, Robert Plant began sounding more like he was involved in incantation than singing so before the tape got stuck, I swiftly snatched it out and we moved on to Loverboy's "Get Lucky". 

This album was crisp, clean and fantastic. (If you've never Googled the story behind those red leather pants, and the crossed finger imagery, do yourself a favor and get on it. I, too, thought that was Mike Reno's tight Canadian bum until about a year ago when I heard Alan Hunter do a piece about the cover photo on Sirius XM radio.)  

Listening to Loverboy brings me back to the days when I used to be a trim and fit runner; the kind of person who just leaves the house in pursuit of a quick three miles, you know... for fun. Leaning back in my sand chair hearing those songs made me want to lace up my old Nike Pegasus shoes and hit the trails. It's amazing what the brain and body remember when prompted by old queues. Transported to the time I went to Loverboy's concert on a Tuesday night in August 1983 under a canopy of pouring rain, I swear I can smell a combination of old shoes, sweat and dirty water when I hear the opening synthesized notes of "When It's Over". I can feel my bandana undeniably soaked, tight and dank across my forehead (we all wore them...it was a fashion statement) and the acrid tang of my pink can of hairspray burns my top lip.  

When the Loverboy album was spent, I moved trancelike and purposefully. It was time for Black Sabbath "Paranoid". Raise the horns! You'd think a good Catholic girl who goes to mass every weekend might have a problem with Black Sabbath but they are, for keeps, woven into the fabric of my life. My cousin Dootz and I listened to this cassette ad nauseum for an entire summer at our campground back in the day. We carried it around in a two foot long boom box everywhere we went: to the beach where we scared the bejeezus out of anyone over the age of 55; the game room where we used it as unflappable background music for our 8-ball billiard games; and the nightly family-friendly campfire where we turned it up as loud as we could before my Moo Moo admonished us with a stern, "NOT THIS. Turn it DOWN." 

Concentrating on the eerie, witchy lyrics being lifted over the haunting sounds of Tony Iommi's guitar, I pictured my cousin in his white leather high top Converse, unlaced and scuffing beneath his heels; his layered hair messy under his painter's hat with the "Grab a Hiney" Heineken logo a tad bit askew due to the shaky hands of an attractive but inexperienced clerk at the helm of the heat transfer machine in our mall's tshirt shop. I recall us running beneath a sky full of stars, tripping and laughing over uneven terrain in a desperate attempt to get back to our campers by curfew without running into any bears so that we could do it all again tomorrow. As we sprinted our tails off, Ozzy would bang against my leg bawling about death and destruction. We might not have had the best understanding of exactly what War Pigs was all about but conscience told us that killing people was unsavory and evil and knowing all the words, we thought we were the coolest 11 year olds ever...we may have been.

Hubs and I listened to Billy Squier, ZZ Top and the Cars before packing up to return home. We also raised the impressively tall antenna and found the best local radio station around, which was a shock since we couldn't even get consistent cell reception up yonder.  

My new/old radio makes me feel young and gives me a bit of permission to slow down. 

I look forward to rummaging through the basement container to see what other auditory gems await. 

#mushroomtumbler

 

I'll Save These Letters For Myself

Emotionally assaulted. 

Turned inside out.

Snapped in half like a 7 iron before it's flung into the water hazard. 

I haven't felt this whipped, this filleted, this beat up through no fault of my own since high school when nearly all of my friends conspired against me and I collapsed alone in a whirlpool vortex of 

she said 

    she said 

        she said 

            she said.

Drowning.

Bloated.

Sunk.

No matter where I gaze online these last couple of days there is a seemingly unlimited supply of gobbledygook, of bilge, of amphigory working to eradicate my happy countenance and it's a struggle to stay afloat.

I breathe. I ohm. I try to visualize myself as a daisy but I end up a yellow bellied perennial who throws her head back just in time to see a metallic tonnage of train cars derailing and taking flight; subsequently squashing her and all those surrounding...trackside sown and grown daisies, just swaying here minding our own business and facing the sun with our little daisy arms held aloft.

Tonight, I listen to the Foo Fighters song "See You" incessantly, on repeat. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRQwH76oxKY

 

I want this ditty rife with sadness in a candy coated shell to help me dance in the kitchen with a glass of wine alternately held aloft and then snuggled at my side like a six gun but right now it just makes me miss everyone I haven't seen in the last 5 months, or 15 or 30 years...really, it's all feeling about the same at this moment. 

I fall inside the song where I crawl about, searching. My worming leads me over top of slivers and nails, right about at "you oooh oooh." Dave's voice closes my eyes and I melt into maudlin. 

But, as the garishly painted and rainbowed rock I found while walking the dog reminded me today, this too shall pass.

On more than a few occasions this week I've thought I'm still here. 

Disaster and recovery, calamity and recuperation, strife and calm, cataclysm and rebirth. 

Worldly hurt and anger and insolence, survival without permanent fracture, and overwhelming pain isn't easy. Neither is righting and soothing and caring for a patch of accidentally mown daisies....but I'll do it over and over. 

I'm going to hear this song in my head all night. 

 

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Street Fish

Every day, Hubs, the min pin and I walk in the town where I grew up. A couple mile walk generally takes well over an hour because I stop and I talk to at least a dozen people each time we venture out. 

I see my regulars, like Kristin with her delicate body art and long black lashes who raps with me as I'm pouring my Stewarts coffee and auburn-haired Rachel who calls me "my dear" and offers the min pin her highly anticipated complimentary dog biscuit. We grouse with bicycle riding Peter, in his bulky white knee brace. A long distance runner since the 1970s, he's got arthritis now and exercises every morning to keep that joint from stiffening up permanently. We wave to Mike, making time to enlighten the female coffee klatch, ever-present at their red picnic table, with his updates from his children, physicians who know more than we do about Covid-19. The advice, not his fault, changes daily. 

We see Daisy the black lab mix and her owner who she yanks like George Jetson on the treadmill, with his legs flying out of control. We see the tousle haired elementary aged boys who tent on the front lawn, only about a foot from the road, and their mother who seems unconcerned and happy, delivering their Sunny D and Styrofoam cups. We see the gentleman wearing oxygen on his front porch, waving high and proud from his wheelchair despite seeming to be in a seriously compromised position. Cat on lap. Wife inside window.

I see the parents of old friends with whom I reminisce. Know how to make a person feel amazing? Remark on what a great job (s)he did raising their children. Remind them of how instrumental they were in your own childhood. Tell them about how their welcoming nature reminds you, to this day, of being six years old, running down the street with a melting fudgesicle, coming for their daughter and her enormous collection of Barbies. Smiles and hugs abound when I share my tales of the old days, but I have to keep them short and sweet because usually Hubs and the min pin have left me behind and are three blocks down the street by the time I'm tipping my coffee cup in a good-bye gesture. I have two favorites. One is a purple and very expensive Yeti, a 50th birthday gift from a friend. The other is cheap and orange and has Halloween witches all over it. As I strut toward my husband, waiting, I think...this is a great mug and I'll see these good folks again...probably tomorrow. 

Some of the Barbie-playing friends, in-class friends, and friends with whom I played sports are still living in town. A few are even retired or working part time after several decades-long stints as police officers, firefighters, military personnel, or teachers. I stop at their homes when they are out front. We marvel about how fast life flies by, how they're sprucing up the place now that the kids are moved out for good, how they saw in the paper that someone we knew and cared about had passed away, and how the swimming pool has seen better days but there isn't any money in the budget for a new heater and liner...nope, not this year. Then I tip my cup and if it's been more than 10 minutes, I amble to catch up to Hubs and, you guessed it, the min pin. 

We occasionally pick up things on the side of the road during our travels but I have agreed to limit my curbside finds to two very distinct items. Number one: hostas that have been dug up and discarded, because part of my backyard is a shade garden with room for more hostas (and it breaks me to see them shriveled up on the roadside) and number two: "street wood". We have a cauldron, big and black and fit for a sorcerer with punched out stars and moons. Outside fires with friends are one of our favorite summertime social activities. Long ago, we paid good money for wood deliveries but once we started paying attention to all the trees in my old town, hacked down and left for the taking, it's become a sort of game for us. 

"Look! Street wood!" 

"Ack!"

Hubs is a good man. Without complaint, he loads up the permanently-tarped-for-such-occasions back of his Prius and we sail on down the road, trippy and happy to have found the filthy, sappy freebie before the city public works truck sidled up and chipped it into mulch. 

Street wood is such a commodity for us that our fireside friends call us when they see it too. 

(Phone rings.)

Me: "Hello?"

FF: "Street wood on Horicon Avenue! Near the entrance to the park! OMG it might be BIRCH!"

Me: "Ok, we're on it! Thanks!"

Then we harness the min pin and off we go. 

So, it should really come as no surprise that today we were gifted with street fish. 

Yes, you read that correctly.

Street fish. 

We park in front of a sweet white bungalow with a welcome sign on the door and a worn but majestic wooden stockade fence when we drive the ten minute ride in from the suburbs. It's right next to where I get coffee and it's close to the first elementary school I ever attended up here, so as we stroll I can tell Hubs, for the millionth time, the stories of the water feature in my kindergarten classroom and the stuffy bomb closet in which we hid from the Russians when the Commie alarm clanged. The guy who owns the bungalow is a hard working, affable, Irish looking chap named Danny. A chatty type, like me, he seems to understand that he is adding immeasurably to my life by letting us park there for our daily walks and I totally understand that I am much obliged because of his kind gesture so I willingly and happily exchange pleasantries whenever we see him...which is a lot. Over time he has deemed the front of his house our "special reserve spot" which is hilarious and I love him for it.  

So, today we saw Danny as we were done walking and about to get back into the hybrid. We spoke of his job, which is taxing, tough, essential mill work, and how he's been putting in more hours than usual, not by choice. When he has a day off, which isn't very often, he fishes. He can't wait to throw the pole in the SUV and drive north for a few hours of aqueous peace and quiet. 

And that is how we were blessed even more than usual on this day. 

After telling Hubs and I about his 6 fish day trip, with 2 swimmers big enough to bring home, he smiled broadly, told us he'd be right back, and came out of the house with a baggie of frozen perch. He also shared three of his favorite go-to recipe ideas. You might not think that this is a big deal, worthy of a blog post, but to me this is the essence of hometown living. Danny, whose space we invade on a daily basis, thinks enough of us to offer us a portion of his catch. I held the baggie to the sunlight and teared up a little on the way home because gestures like this mean everything to me.

I love living here. 

I love the people. 

I love our daily walks. 

I love everything about this place. 

A friend of mine who moved away to Florida 30 years ago once said to me, sadly, "It was always home...right up until it wasn't" but this will always be home to me. 

My heart is here. 

My home is here. 

My people are here. 

And I have street fish to prove it.  

 

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