broken

My seventh grade daughter was in kindergarten when my grandmother died; to remember the year, I have to count back, do the math. Every time, the answer is a surprise. And so are the feelings that welled up when the handle of that depression glass plate snapped off as it slid off the loveseat and hit a stool on the way to the floor. That's what we get for dusting.

"That was my gradma's," I said more quietly than the girl frozen with "Am I gonna get it?" expected. I may not have replied to her meaningful, "Oh," though I managed to laugh at an offer to get scotch tape that may or may not have been an attempt at comic relief. But I could cry, easily and right now, for no reason at all. Except one.

It's not as if I picked out that tray as a token; my aunt sent it over with the companion bowl that I keep filled with napkins on the kitchen table. They aren't rare pieces, far as I know, and, once glued, that plate will still serve as well as it ever did as a candy dish, or tray, or collector of end-table detritus. It's not as if I'd ever sell it. And it's not as if she'd have cared, either, about its new flaw, especially one caused by her only great grandkid. It's just that once upon a time, long before the Alzheimer's that really took her away years before she died, my grandma filled it up with Christmas fudge and that awful fondant and set it out on that antiqued green buffet and, I've been reminded, I miss her.

as a picture

The outfit was merely the era: some polyester print--wagon wheels, maybe?--blouse with a blue spread collar that matched the skirt. It's the countryside background, hands posed on a rail "fence", and the unfocused expression that make the photo unmistakably a school picture. That and the bangs climbing across my forehead at a steep though unsteady angle-- an unfortunate home haircut (not by me, but my mother) that would never otherwise have been recorded. For years I cringed at that portrait, hid the christmas ornament on which it was pasted on the back of the tree, but at least it clearly showed a moment in time.

My soon-to-be-seventh-grade daughter has had her share of "We paid for this?" pictures; I expect nothing different tomorrow. I will not, for one thing, be ponying up twelve extra dollars for Premium Retouching, or even eight for Basic-- yes, there are two levels of photoshop available for the middle school set. And again I say, "Seriously?" According to the graphic on the flier, Basic will remove what appear to be felt-tip pen spots added to the sample picture, while Premium "whitens teeth, evens skin tone, and removes blemishes, scars, and fly-away hair." And again I say, "Good grief." It's almost tempting, though. If the cleaned up packages weren't all near fifty bucks, I might buy one just to see if I recognize what I bet more closely resembles her future, post-middle school self.

another pair

Scuffed rubber toes of red canvas Keds, one in front of the other on a gum-splattered sidewalk: that's the image in my mind. My feet, age five. The dirt path across the field that separated our subdivison from the shopping center, that wide plaza sidewalk that we strolled every day to the dime store-- McCrory's, not P.N. Hirsch--to buy candy bars or toy gunpowder caps or short-lived fish, the mosaic threshold of the Kinney's Shoes store a bit further down: it's all my recollection of a trip to the store to buy big kid shoes, white leather with suede racing stripes of red or blue, maybe green. As if I could run. As if all the pictures that I see with my mind's eye were gathered in that one day, or that one shopping trip. Could be. Either that, or my memory has conjured the visuals that accompany the story that I know is true. Could be. I remember sprinting down the carpeted store aisle to see how fast they would make me run.

A lifetime later, I sit next to two pairs of running shoes. Real running shoes, from a real running shoe store. One pair is months old and nearly worn out-- a first for me, ever. The other pair sits new in the box, laced and ready. My miles for today are already complete, but the little kid, or, maybe, the runner in me is tempted.

more like it

It's the phone ring, the door bell, the in and out, the up and down. It's the door standing wide open. It's shouted good-byes and, "Will you please take us?" and a flip-flopped walk down a hilly half-mile that no longer seems too long. It's swimming and skating and long, convoluted stories that don't mean anything to anyone else. Pit stops for frozen custard or tacos. It's conversations that start in the middle; it's notes left in the mailbox. It's showing up uninvited but not unwelcome, it's ten hours later and then, "See ya tomorrow." It's summer, suddenly, with a friend in the neighborhood, finally. The girl is happy, and so is her mom.

kids today

I first noticed him out of the corner of my eye as he rode lazy circles out close to the highway. And then again, one hill ahead of me, standing as he pedaled to the crest. Two thoughts: the first a kind of wordless satisfaction that the climb took the kid some effort, and then, as we both left the neighborhood and crossed through the new subdivision to the blacktop behind:

"Does your mother know where you are?"

Not that I knew where he'd come from or where he was headed or even that, really, he was going that far. I guess I've been brainwashed, too, as I had to remind myself that roaming around was once a vacation birthright, and still a good thing to do. Because I never see any kids out, despite summer, despite beautiful days. And I know they live here. I see the swingsets and free-standing basketball hoops drug out to the curb. I've waited behind school buses delivering from door to door to door-- one even stops at my house. And now and then, she'll walk to her friend's, or they'll hang out on the docks, or go down to the park. Even go for a walk with me. But more often than not, she's in while I'm out, and it's just me and the landscape crews traveling the too-quiet streets, except for that one day and that one kid who somehow discovered the right idea.

My Father's Day

Twenty dollar bills and oil change reminders. Dire warnings about, oh, everything. A paralysis of worry over what might and who could and what will. Sentimental tears and shouted impatience. A certain family resemblance in the lines of my face or the edge of my temper. That's what I think of, when I think of my dad. That and talents rarely used but always perfected; pride in accomplishment. That and a laugh at the kitchen table. That and money being no object even when it was. The best was all he ever wanted. Sometimes, he'd tell ya, he got it.

dialogue

She does not, shall we say, tread lightly.

And being a mother, I seem pre-programmed to shout over the rattle and the thump of the stairs as I wonder if it actually matters:

"You sound like a herd of buffalo!"

She leaps off the last step and peers in the laundry room door: "At least you didn't say elephants this time."

"This time?" I think, despite instantaneous evidence. "Do I really have a mom-speak repetoire?"

"Elephants," she grins, already pleased with herself, "are significantly larger than buffalo."

Score one for the girl.

the morning after

The house is quiet, finally.  I choose to believe they're finally asleep. They being the half-dozen 12 and 13 year-old girls who are under my roof, still. I don't hear the TV or the video camera or the desktop; I'm taking the silence at its face. Because at four a.m. they were steadfastly awake and even a caffeinated sugar high runs out eventually-- doesn't it? 

But better-far-to be self-sufficiently oblivious to the clock than to be caught in some don't-wanna-be-here-can't-get-home-crying-vomiting-loop of exhaustion with some woman who is not your mother! 

I'm pretty sure the newly minted 12 year old--mine--assumes her birthday present was the iPod. Little does she know.

A First

"Only Madison," I say as we walk through the doors, and the band director laughs and shrugs. His expression says, "You have a point," and I think, "At least he knows her."

But my assertion is not true. This gym and the halls and the classrooms turned competition rooms are filled with dozens of kids who could have just as easily clutched a sheet protector without realizing that the solo music had slipped out. It's just that it happened to her, more evidence that she lately seems charged like the polar ends of a magnet, repelling any and every thing of value. It must be some hormonal byproduct.

But today the search party adrenaline slips out of my system as she is rescued by a copier, and we make our way to the designated room. Her accompanist is there and no one else's is, so she plays early, without waiting, for the judge and me and a few other bundles of pubescent nerves. She plays easily and well, coming through when it matters. We applaud. I exhale.

In the minutes that we wait for her rating, we laugh at her band parent-concession stand breakfast of champions as she tells me of the check she may or may not have delivered and the thank you card she forgot to make. I question, but manage not to scold. And then we walk back to confirm what seems a given and see the "I" by her name for ourselves. This year she did it, and we are both proud.

12/24

The family has come and gone, the dinner has been eaten. The kitchen is more-or-less clean, the living room cluttered with the first round of gifts. It's twenty-four minutes to Christmas-- and I have nothing much to do. No train track to snake around the bottom of the tree, no plastic bits to assemble and sticker, no doll house to arrange. No milk to drink or cookies to crumble-- no Santa, finally, for the very first time. (The girl is six months past eleven.) I wonder if she forgot, or if, until now, she truly did choose to believe. It's possible, as is anything. Apparently she was lately recounting a story of how she had once awoken to the sound of hooves over her head, and when her fellow sixth graders responded that "it was [her] parents," her firm rejoinder was that her parents would never get on the roof (no kidding), so therefore her memory must have been real. Oh goodness. Score another one for her campaign to be thought of as weird. Or just herself, which she so firmly is. To think I was so anxious for her to let go, for her to stop playing the extended bonus rounds of the Santa game. Don't know what I was thinking.

Kid gloves

It never ceases to amaze me how two children born of the same parents can be so different. Not good and bad, although both have been each at one time or another, just different. It's taken me all of 15 1/2 years -- give or take -- to learn you can't parent them the same way either. Also, I recently discovered, my "tough love" approach worked for neither.

So I'm experimenting with a "kid glove" approach. Ignoring the fact that I communicated via e-mail, only because I worked late and they were asleep when I got home, how did I do on report card day?

First, the straight-A sixth-grader:

Way to go! I was so proud and impressed when I looked at your report card tonight. Of course, I wasn't surprised after seeing your continued stellar ITBS scores. Your mathematics total equates to a student in your brother's grade! And your problem solving and data interpretation scores are off the chart. Maybe you will be president some day -- or a detective like Nancy Drew.

Anyway, congratulations. You've done very well. Now keep it up.

Your reward? I don't believe in paying for grades and, though we set up a plan for Zach, it wasn't until he was in high school. (So far, it hasn't provided him much incentive anyway.) But we should discuss an appropriate reward for your accomplishment. What do you think? I'm sure you have ideas. Let's talk about it.

Meanwhile, remember I love you no matter what. And at the moment, you've made me
very, very proud.

Now, the underachieving 10th-grader:

Don't worry. I'm not going to yell at you. I've learned that doesn't accomplish the intended goal. I'm trying to look at the positives and I have to say, you kept your word about getting your geometry grade up. Good job! Unfortunately, it seems to have come at the expense of your Spanish grade. Not exactly what we're looking for.

I hope you will take Mrs. Stiles comment to heart and "report for extra help."

Your GPA of 2.715 isn't horrible. But 3.0 is well within your reach, and I hope
you'll strive for that this trimester.

The C+ in driver's ed kind of surprised me. I guess you should have taken it pass/fail. Regardless, it's good to have it out of the way. Now you won't have it to distract you from your other studies. You need to find out the procedures for getting a school permit and we'll get that done. I still don't know what we'll do for a vehicle, but we'll work on it.

Financially, here's how the payout works (PE and Driver's ed do not count). $10 for each A that isn't canceled by a D. $5 for each B that isn't canceled out by a C. Obviously, straight A's or A's and B's is not applicable. So your A- in Biology is canceled by the D+ in Spanish, or you'd have earned $10. The B+ in LA (though I'm really proud of you improvement in this class) is canceled by the C- in Geometry. That leaves a B- in world history, for which you've earned a grand total of $5. I think you can easily see how eliminating the D's and reducing/eliminating the C's would be much more profitable.

I would like for us to meet with your counselor to discuss your educational goals. If you'd rather meet with her alone, that is fine, as long as you do it. Please let me know how you'd like to proceed.

Keep working hard, buddy, and don't slack off between now and Christmas break. You've learned how hard it is to make up ground when you've fallen behind. And please, please, please make sure you turn in all of your assignments.

Don't be afraid to ask for help, whether from your teachers, your classmates or even your parents. We love you and only want the best for you.

Parenting for dummies

Oh, how I wish someone would write this book. Maybe I should. It seems I'm qualified.

I don't know quite when I got so dumb, though the transition to high school seems logical. Once best buddies, our relationship seems to have deteriorated to angry dad and brooding son.

"Why can't you just let me figure it out on my own?" he said for the second year in a row as grades that started out so promising continued their downward spiral as the trimester quickly draws to a close. If only you gave me some reason to think you could.

Much as I appreciate e-mail progress reports from teachers, they only add fuel to the fire. Less-than stellar grades I can accept. Missing assignments I can't.

"You yell too much." Guilty as charged. My intentions are pure, even if my methods are flawed.

"Sounds like a normal kid," said the youth pastor we consulted today. Also, "does he understand consequences?"

Yes and no.

Serious consequences like throwing away a free education or accomplishing a dream of playing college baseball don't seem to resonate. But trivial consequences like the threat of missing a high school football playoff game as a spectator? That's enough, apparently, to prompt the suggestion that he might just quit baseball.

He didn't mean it, I hope. He just knows how to get my goat.

Maybe I went too far with the academic contract, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

--Meet with your teachers to discuss strategies for improving grades and/or submitting missing assignments.
--Meet with geometry or Spanish teachers after school for extra help, or attend study table.
--Spend 20 minutes each without distraction studying geometry and Spanish each night.
--Begin using your planner so you don't miss any more assignments.

Is that really so unreasonable?

Failure to comply results in grounding, including loss of cell phone, computer, television, IPod and video game privileges. Most of those things didn't exist when I was his age, so maybe I don't understand how dire the consequences are.

Or maybe I just don't understand teenagers.

Much as I'd love to have my buddy back, my first responsibility is to be your dad. Admittedly, I have much room for improvement. But so do you. What do you say we work on that?

Mr. Rosenthal

"And YOU are THERE!"

I'll never forget that booming phrase jarring a classroom full of wandering 8th grade minds. I'm sure we rolled our eyes. But we, or I, did not forget. I think back on those days, and him, fondly. I remember what he taught.

He was a character. The kind of teacher they don't make anymore, the one in bad ties and, occasionally, I swear, unfortunately colored saddle shoes. To a thirteen-year old he didn't look smart, but he was. He was also my friend's father. And last night, as we waited to attend history, we spoke of him and what he might have thought. We couldn't ask him, couldn't know how he'd voted. He had dropped dead on a golf course one day.

I wasn't in touch with my friend when that happened a couple of years back, but when I heard that awful news, I mourned some for myself. Through the magic of the Internets, she and I reconnected this year. We chatted, and we played games, and we smarted off, just like old times. Nothing serious. But when I told her that I remembered him, that I thought of him often, that I was sorry for her loss, that's when we again became friends. Friends enough that I could say, "Hey, wanna go?" and, "Hey, got a couch?" Friends enough to share an adventure.

So I went to Chicago. So we went to see hope and change and promise come to life. It was something no one had ever experienced before. And WE were THERE.

Homecoming

Tonight is the high school homecoming dance and my son has taken an interest, in his second year. He's got a date, even, from a cross-town school, just like dear old dad way back when.

So I'm a nervous parent, after all, I was once his age. But I'm really not concerned. Zach may not always live up to his dad's impossible expectations, but he never let's me down. Besides, he's got a game tomorrow.

color commentary from nowhere

I live in an imaginary place. This according to my friend who has been displaced out of New York twice as long as she ever lived there. At my urging, she scribbled out a U.S. map that doesn't even include anywhere to fly over between Jersey and Denver, save, as I recall, for Chicago. Whatever. Given that even the air here is solid--humidity, don't you know--I'm confident that I'm somewhere that exists. And, you know, we're supposed to be all hale and hearty. How real.

This morning I'm amused by these Greenwich, CT teenagers who built themselves a wiffleball field in the shape of Fenway. Of course, they built it on a $1.25 million city lot and, being the sons of privilege that I presume they are--Greenwich, CT--they went straight to the media and the government all the way up to the lieutenant governor when the neighbors started screaming. But, teenagers who still play wiffleball and made the effort to build a field-- I have to kinda love them a little.

The Times drags out the Field of Dreams references and implies that they'd have been better off building their ballpark in Iowa. I don't disagree--since the Midwest does not exist apparently neither do property values or irritable neighbors--but I think they forget the story. Even his fellow Iowans thought Ray Kinsella was nuts until they saw the games . Those boys shouldn't be fighting the neighbors, to follow the plot of that book, they should be inviting them to play.

Leavin' on a jet plane

Only appropriate to wedge a John Denver song right into your head as I get ready--well, pretty soon I'll get ready--to fly out of Colorado. Last big trip we took was Florida, during a which a recovery week at Siesta Key was preceded by a planned-to-the-minute week at Disney (but did we stand in any lines during the jammed-packed height of the season? NO!), so this time it feels as if we've done nothing much, which is what vacation should be. On the other hand, we've seen a Rockies game, the state capitol and history museum, albeit accidentally, some friends, Casa Bonita, the Museum of Nature and Science (also with friends, which made it better), a movie or dim sum, Elitch Gardens amusement park, Mile High stadium (or whatever the corporate sponsor calls it), most of the shops in Manitou Springs and some in Old Colorado City, the motel pool, the penny arcade, the penny arcade, the penny arcade, Pikes Peak on the cog railway, the Olympic Training Center, the Garden of the Gods, the Flying W Ranch (nostalgia trip, part II. see Casa Bonita), Royal Gorge from the bridge and the train to the bottom and the aerial tram, an awesomely scenic drive on the way back from the gorge through the gambling wasteland of Cripple Creek because gas is free here, though we never found anywhere to pan for gold that was not basically in a strip mall, and something else but I forget. Ah yes, the lithium water. Oh, to take some home.

When asked to name her favorite part, my daughter ran through that whole list, starting with meeting a new friend, and declared it all equally awesome. I'm glad. I'm also glad to have vacation stories to torture her with for the rest of her life, that being part of my job. There's a ton we didn't do, but considering our pace this morning, I'm assured we'll leave the Bataan Death March of Vacation to the tour groups that we kept running into in between our naps and our trips to the penny arcade.

For the love of the game

This won’t win me any parenting awards, not that I’d have any use for them, but I’ll spend six hours on the road Friday – 400 miles total – driving my son and his two-team teammate to Ankeny for the opening game of the Iowa USSSA baseball tournament and back to Cedar Rapids for an evening double header with the sophomore squad from the cross-town rival school and back to Ankeny, where action resumes at 8 a.m. Saturday.

Six hours of driving for six hours of baseball doesn’t leave much time for anything but sleep. I guess I’ll leave the bike at home.

Scheduling just happened to work out to make this insane adventure possible. It needs a name, perhaps the Ethanol 400?

With gas prices approaching $4 a gallon, I’d probably come out ahead by renting a Prius. Except it wouldn’t hold the traveling circus of bat bags, lawn chairs, coolers, canopies and various other equipment that goes with baseball players and their parents. Add 200 miles on the (second) return trip home Sunday, and my Jeep Grand Cherokee will burn through 40 gallons this weekend.

Add the cost of the hotel, meals and concession stand Gatorade and I don’t even want to do the math. After buying the golden boy a $300 bat for his birthday (not to mention a $200 phone and subsequent $60 repair bill), it’s clear that money is no object when it comes to baseball – or my son.

Maybe someday he’ll appreciate it. But even if not, I will have these memories of this special time. To me, that’s priceless.

see ya

"You know, if you walk down that street for a block or two, you'll be at the library."

We're on a shady bench at the frozen custard place, middle of the afternoon. She's made it through lunch and now a sundae and probably all the eavesdropping on my conversation she can stand.

"You could go, if you want."

She is newly eleven, and she is intrigued. Anywhere worth getting is too far from our unwalkable lake drive, so she has missed out on much roaming around the town.

So she goes to the edge of the parking lot, peers down the alley, and leaves.

I turn to my friend and cheer.

I am not such a fan of all the changes time and hormones have wrought. Frankly, I liked it better when she believed everything I said, but apparently one of the entrance requirements for middle school is to place all credibility in print and Google and remove all from one's mother. I find myself, suddenly, entirely too often, saying things like, "But I have more life experience than you," or, "I just told you that,"after she confirms something with her own eyes. Which I should want her to trust, I know. But for eleven years I was the fount of all knowledge. It's going to take me some time to adjust.

So thank goodness for space, though that's not why I was happy to be left behind with my dripping chocolate cone. Later, after her tiny, cellphone-tethered adventure, she told me it had been exciting to go out on her own. She was glad to be ready to go, and I was glad to be ready to let her.

the next day

"So apparently fast reading runs in the family," she says, and I look up from the new David Sedaris that I'm a quarter of the way through. I start to ask what else she doesn't know about her mother, but she's already down another aisle, intent on finding something to trade in on birthday gift cards. And then before I can shoplift another chapter she's chosen books with appeal that escapes me and after a few minutes of the regret that a black car with black upholstery always brings in the first real heat of summer, we're home.

Home to where wrapping paper and gift bags and homemade cards litter the living room and the breakfast spread left for the slumber party girls still hasn't been cleared from the table. Perhaps if someone would take out the trash. It has been a perfectly lazy day, aftermath to a perfectly fun party that stretched way past the wee hours. It would probably have made a better impression for me to have been awakened by something other than a doorbell rung by a porch-full of mothers, but for now I'll throw my lot with the house-full of girls who were on the other side of the door, doing whatever they wanted in a perfectly innocent way. Just having fun with their friends, unconcerned with appearance. Perhaps even by the time my car cools off things will have changed. I know these carefree days are numbered. But we're not to zero yet.

56 games hath June

It's practically a doubleheader a day, except the 1st, 3rd, 7-8, 12th, 19th, 22nd, 24th and 26th are actually baseball/softball free -- not counting practice. This is revision #184 of the composite schedules of my daughter's softball team and my son's baseball teams.

The latest revision is the result of my high school freshman son's apparent promotion to the sophomore squad. He more-than filled in tonight -- playing second and short while holding his own at the plate throughout the double-header sweep in Dubuque. I missed most of the first game and left my camera and scorecard behind, but saw all of the nightcap and was within earshot of the postgame chat when Coach told Zach and Jordy "you're with us."

What an ego boost! I wonder how Zach felt. My only regret is he probably won't pitch much, but he's still got USSSA baseball for that. He also plays on the high school feeder program's 14U team by virtue of not turning 15 until June.

So for the next month or so, he'll alternate between overage little leaguer and underage high school baseball player. This is indeed a rare point in time that I know he's going to seize.

I can't say that I've seen him go to lift weights at 6:30 EVERY weekday morning because I'm always asleep, but I know he did it. And I've watched him evolve from a chubby, plodding kid who loved the game into a chiseled, hustling competitor who hates losing.

I'd like to think I've helped -- financially, if nothing else -- but the work was all his. I couldn't be prouder, son. Go for it!