Baseball and still learning life lessons

Last night Eva and I went to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox beat the San Diego Padres.  Despite the $8.50 Budweiser’s we had a wonderful time. The threat of rain held off and it was a perfecto summer night of baseball at Fenway.

So you would think at age 55 and having been taking advantage of numerous times that I would learn the warning signs before it happens. Well…I’m not there yet. We drove in to Boston looking to park in one of the lots around Fenway. There he was standing in front of the Howard Johnson Inn on Boylston Street, rotating his right hand like a softball pitcher and pointing into the parking lot.  There was the official sign attached to the fence which read: Parking for $45. I pulled up, rolled down my window and asked how much?  He said $40…little warning bell number one went off in the back of my head (why $5 less?). I replied $40 in an “are you kidding me voice” and he replied smoothly, yes most of the other lots will charge you $60. As I’m about to hand him the $40 I asked don’t I get a parking pass for my window? He said no, no pass needed just pull into the right. With little warning bell number two now ringing in my head I looked him square in the eye and asked “Are you legit?” He firmly replied Yes, I work for this organization pointing to Howard Johnson’s.  Minus the uniform he looked the part.  At this very moment as the warning bells in my head were getting louder I was also feeling the pressure of blocking traffic on Boylston Street with the back end of my car and pedestrians on the sidewalk with the front end. So I handed him the $40, the bells now very loud in my head, but he stops the pedestrians on the sidewalk and guides me in.  As I’m driving down to the back of the lot I’m looking at my side view mirror to see him walk across the sidewalk and disappear into the streets of Boston.  I said Damn it Eva….we just got screwed.  I was pissed at myself for not reading my gut quick enough. 

So now what? Well we parked the car in the spot I paid for and walked to the Citizens Public House for a very tasty burger before the game. After the game we walked back to the car expecting A) a boot on the wheel, B) it towed away, or C) a $200 ticket.  The car was still there so option B was dismissed. There was no boot on the wheel so option A was dismissed but there was something sticking in behind the wiper blade. It seemed like option C was going to be the answer but when we pulled out the paper from behind the blade it was only a warning notice from Howard Johnson’s saying the lot was for Authorized Guests Only and that all violators will be towed at their own expense.  The baseball gods were with us.  We didn’t get towed or ticketed and even saved $5 on the price of parking.  Another lesson learned.  Can I be done now? Let’s Go Red Sox.

A Letter to Smoke Alarm Manufacturers

Dear Smoke Alarm Manufacturer,

I would like to pass along a suggestion.  This suggestion could even set you apart from your competitor and help increase your sales if you implement it first.  My suggestion is: would you please design a smoke alarm that when the battery level gets low it only chirps between the hours of 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM.  For the past 30 years my smoke alarms only begin to do the low battery chirp usually between 1:00 and 4:00 AM.   Last night at 2:08 AM one of my First Alert smoke detectors began to chirp.  It woke me out of my sound sleep.  I was hoping it would not chirp again but then every five minutes…chirp…chirp.  I have five smoke alarms and one carbon monoxide alarm of which I try to change the batteries every year.  I even write the date that I install the new battery on masking tape and stick it on the back side of the detector.  Even with these efforts the low battery chirp seems to find me in my peaceful slumber usually about twice a year and usually on the coldest nights during the winter.  I really don’t enjoy leaving my warm comfy bed at 2:00 AM to stand in the middle of a cold room waiting for the next chirp to determine which smoke alarm I need to address.  Last night I picked the right alarm the first time and removed the battery but then I had a very hard time falling back to sleep.  Once I removed batteries from three different smoke alarms before I picked the right detector.

I do understand that this does not appear to be a problem for everyone.  For example my wife slept through this whole ordeal quite well, right next to me.  She never heard the chirping, never heard me get up, and never heard me drag the chair over so I could stand on it to reach the alarm.  But she is a member of the “sleep elite” who can sleep undisturbed by such noises as car alarms, passing trains, and police sirens.  

If you were to implement this new design suggestion I would gladly pay one to maybe two dollars more per smoke alarm for this feature.  Think about that.  I believe you might be able to increase your bottom line by millions of dollars with this new design feature.  Let’s do the math.  I have six detectors in my home but let’s say each home has minimum of just three detectors.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html there was 131,704,730 housing units in the United States in 2010. So 131,704,730 X 3 = 395,114,190 alarm units.  Now I understand that a number of homes are “hard wired” to the electrical system which do not require batteries.  So let’s just use some round numbers.  We’ll take a potential of 400 million smoke alarms and divide it in half to allow for hard wired systems and people who can sleep through air raids.  That leaves 200 million units in the U.S.   If you can charge one dollar more for this feature, which I think you can, then you have 200 million dollars to put in your bank account.  So please think about this and if you feel the need to pay me some sort of royalty for this suggestion then leave me a comment below and I will gladly give you instructions on where to send the funds.  Sweet Dreams….Peter

TURBULENT WATER

Most of our friends and family know by now that on March 17^th Lauren had her left kidney removed after a trip to the emergency room and a CT scan showed a tumor growth in the kidney. The bad news was it was cancerous but the good news is it appears that it was limited just to the kidney. All the lymph nodes around it came back negative. A follow up visit we had with an oncologist last Friday was good. No further treatment such as chemotherapy was recommended, just follow up CT scans in the months to come to see if there have been any changes.

This was turbulent water that we had not expected and like many unexpected things it was scary. Would everything be okay once the kidney was removed? Three weeks later and looking back it seems so far, so good. We were both impressed by the quality of care, the professionalism, and the kindness Lauren received from the nurses and doctors at Stephen’s Memorial Hospital in Norway and at Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Family and friends rallied around us although it happened so fast we didn’t have a chance to get the word out to everyone. It turned out to be another family event however and some were able to visit while Lauren was recovering at the hospital. I know this pleased her a lot and made the healing process all the more easier. Lauren is doing great right now. Thanks to everyone for your love and support.

Peter

We Are Wabi-Sabi

Thanks to my brother Erik and the subscription he gave me to the Mother Earth News I have just discovered something that makes me enjoy life even more. I can now find contentment and peace in everything I have and everything that surrounds me by engaging in Wabi-Sabi. What is Wabi-Sabi? I had never heard of this until I read an article in the current issue of the Mother Earth News last night written by Robyn Griggs Lawrence titled Wabi-Sabi: Finding the Beauty and Peace in Ordinary Things. To quote from the article “Wabi-Sabi is the Japanese philosophy of appreciating things that are imperfect, primitive and incomplete.” “It’s slow and uncluttered and regards authenticity above all.” “It finds beauty in cracks and crevices and all the marks that time, weather and use leave behind.” Well if that is the definition then I live in a Wabi-Sabi Mansion and the photos you see here may make you extremely envious.

Think for a moment of one of your favorite objects, a well worn but oh so comfortable sweater with holes, a piece of pottery or drawing your child gave you long ago, or a piece of furniture passed down from your grandparents with a few ding s and a knob or two missing. Dwell on it. It’s comfortable, it was made by someone you love, or it has history told by the scratches, water marks and a missing knob. You probably will never get this same feeling of appreciation by going to Wal-Mart or Target or wherever and buying a mass produced product fresh out of the perfectly packaged cardboard box. Wabi-Sabi is about appreciating old and used items, appreciating hand-made items, appreciating the imperfections that are life.

If you read the article on Wabi-Sabi in the Mother Earth News you’ll find a list of 12 Ways to Wabi-Sabi. It’s all good in my book and I do encourage you to read it because then you may find that you can accept things as-is, as good, just as they are right now and feel content about it.

Sure…I have plaster missing from my walls and ceiling…but it looks kind of neat and it has a certain warmth to it….and it makes me think of who actually did that work….and what it was like back then. I can get lost in the beauty of the imperfection and I believe that is what Wabi-Sabi is trying to say. Now I just have to convince Lauren.

Objects Found

Every now and then I try to imagine who may have lived in this old house before us.  I know some of the answers thanks to the neighbors and the Bethel Historical Society but I certainly don’t know them all.  The other night I was sitting in the guest bedroom, which is now the nicest room in the house, and is also the oldest part of this house.  I can tell it’s the oldest by the Post and Beam construction, hand hewn beams, and the wide pine boards, some over 20 inches wide.  It would have been a cabin when it was first built, basically a living area and kitchen on the first level and the sleeping room above it.  There was most likely an outhouse somewhere nearby. I tried to picture how many people lived here way back at the beginning. Were there a bunch of children? What did they do to survive? This lot of land is only ¾ of an acre now but was it once a larger parcel that they had cleared to farm?  Did they cut timber?  Did they work at one of the original mills across the street on Mill Brook making staves or grinding grain?  What did they eat most of the time? What did they wear?  With no electricity what did they do at the end of the day and what time did they go to sleep?  My imagination was reeling so vividly that I felt like I could almost see them and feel them in the room. 

So now and then I find an interesting object(s) that get me thinking and here’s a sampling so far:

Do they think I'm the 19th hole?

I know the story here; bad golfers.  Living across the street from the second tee of the Bethel Inn and Country Club a severe slice will many times end up in my yard.  I haven’t been hit yet by a golf ball but I did see one land 6 feet in front of me a month ago.  I also noticed that the golfers don’t yell “fore” when they head my direction like they do when they can actually see someone that their ball may hit.  I’m thinking if I ever do get beaned by a ball and don’t hear “fore” maybe I should unload the contents of one these boxes back in their direction one by one every second and when the box is empty I’ll yell “fore”.  Well that would be mean, but funny if you could see their reaction.

Cut Nails

Cut Nails. They’re very cool and I did not think they were manufactured any longer but they are.  The Tremont Nail Company in Mansfield, MA http://www.tremontnail.com/    makes them just like they did 190 years ago.  It looks like you can buy a pound of these (approximately 165 nails) for $7.15.  That seems like a bargain.

Moosehead Padlock

An old padlock with a moose head engraving.  I found this tucked away between some rafters in the unfinished loft area. I wonder what they used the lock for?   I wonder where the key is?  I wonder if Antiques Road Show would tell me it’s worth $20,000?

Porcelain doll arm - Broken pottery

The pottery chunks I found in the house and I can’t tell if they’re kind of old or really old.  The arm is like porcelain and would be from a small doll.  I found this out in the yard a few weeks ago when I was raking. I imagine a young girl named Lisa was out in the yard playing with her doll one day when her brother came over and teasing her, grabbed the doll and then tossed it where upon the arm broke off.  The girl ran into the house crying to mother that Eddie had broken her doll.  Mother yelled “Eddie… come - here – right - now.”   Although Eddie tried to say it was an accident he couldn’t pull one over on mother who spanked him, gave him extra chores to do, and then sent him to his bedroom for the rest of the day.  The doll arm remained right where it broke off all these many years covered by dirt and leaves just waiting for me to pick it up and write this blog.

Turmoil

This last item is really the most interesting.  I found it near the padlock under a loose board and a bunch of dirt in the loft.  I began to read… “Lord, when doubts fill my mind, when my heart is in turmoil…” and then I really couldn’t make out much of the rest of it.  My thoughts were wow, this was written by a tortured soul and could this be a suicide note?  It was a creepy feeling.  I didn’t realize it was a Psalm until I Googled the part I could read and lo and behold it brought me right to Psalm 94:19 which in full reads:

"Lord, when doubts fill my mind, when my heart is in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer."

I feel a little better knowing this person was asking for renewed hope and cheer but this is the kind of stuff when you find it that really gives you a sense of what at least one person was feeling who lived here. 

FREE

During the past few weeks we have gone swimming in two glorious lakes. The first picture is of Roxbury Pond in Andover which I had mentioned in an earlier post and it is a nice shallow yet good size lake with warmish water. It’s warmer than the ocean and most of the rivers anyway. The second picture is of Virginia Lake in Stoneham and this happens to be part of the White Mountain National Forest. This lake is a little more difficult to get too but equally warm and beautiful. The next pictures are of the blackberries we picked and the tasty blackberry pie that Lauren baked…mmmmYum! All of these things are free and fun. Sure, if you want to get technical we spent a little gas money to get to these places and the pie crust cost something but it’s close enough, so I’m calling it free. Did I ever tell you I Love Summer?

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Today is Lauren’s Birthday and one these pictures is of the fancy homemade card which took me hours to make and which greeted her this morning when she went downstairs. The other picture is a creation of art and love and symbolizes what Lauren is all about. To the untrained eye it’s just some pine boughs and a pine cone stuck in a crock pot. But to those who know Lauren it is a carefully thought out creation of caring. You see Lauren knew Amber and Tommie were coming up last week for a visit and although we lack quite a few items of comfort right now she wanted to make the room they were going to sleep in feel homey despite the lack of a bed and crazy green walls. So the week before when we were at the transfer station a.k.a. The Dump, Lauren noticed that white crock pot vase with blue flowers and pine bough motif sitting in the “free stuff” section. So she brought it home, cleaned it up and just before Amber and Tommie arrived she went out to the yard and picked some of the pine boughs I had already started to cut down, found a nice pine cone and made this beautiful, simple, loving, and free arrangement to put on the window sill in that bedroom.

This really does symbolize what Lauren is about and that’s what I love about her. Thanks Lauren for making the small stuff count and making the house a home.

Desire Moves

I think life is as simple as this. We all move to what we desire most. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. The stronger we desire something or someone we focus more of our thoughts and actions toward that and our body and minds move in the direction of that desire. Sometimes or perhaps many times our actions may not seem to make rational sense that they will in fact lead us to the desired goal but in a magical and spiritual way they do.

Lauren and I are celebrating the achievement of a common (thank goodness) goal we’ve had for a few years. We just bought a house which we will soon call home in the area where we’ve been taking summer vacations beginning about five years ago. Bethel, Maine is a small and beautiful mountain village located in the western mountains of the State. We originally came upon it by accident as we searched for Kezar Lake and stayed for a few nights at the Sudbury Inn. It was love at first sight and since then we’ve been trying to figure out how we could buy a place and spend more time there. Originally we thought we would buy a place to spend summers and then rent the home in winter which is the busy season because of the great skiing they have at Sunday River and Mt. Abram. We looked at many homes in the area and made offers on a couple of places over the past two years but we either lost out or never came to an agreement. But desire moves in mysterious ways. Lauren noticed a new listing come up on the MLS in November which we both had never seen before. The location looked good, close to town like we wanted and the price looked really good.

We made an offer on the place even before we saw it. We flew out from San Diego within the week and after seeing the place adjusted our offer and finally came to an agreement with the sellers. The closing took place on December 11th, 2009 and now Lauren and I are preparing to pack up our apartment and move back east in the next few weeks.

Looking back on my first blog posting less than one year ago http://androscogginbloggin.blogspot.com/2009/01/page-one_18.html is yet more proof that desire moves.

We have a lot of work ahead of us. The place needs broken pipes fixed and then a new heating system put in and then the water turned on and then the list goes on….but all this will give me material to blog about. So stay tune for more stories about “This Old Old House” or “The Money Pit North”. These will be adventures and challenges and at times we’ll ask ourselves, did we desire this? And the answer is YES we did, this is how Desire Moves.

A TRIBUTE TO DAUGHTERS

I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend but one of the things that I’m most thankful for is my daughters.

Amber and Eva, they are beautiful in so many ways. What I’m thankful for is that at ages 26 and 22 they are both taking control of living their lives as they want to live them. Amber and Eva are very different even though they have the same parents and grew up in the same neighborhood. During those first few years of life Amber was the loud one and Eva was the quiet one but then it flip-flopped and Amber became the quiet one while Eva roared to life.

Amber was academic, organized, and diligently doing her homework saw mostly A’s on her report card. Her bedroom was a showpiece of neatness and order. Eva was social and it seemed to me that maybe she thought the purpose of school was to meet and talk with your friends. Her homework usually got lost under some mound of clothes on her bed or the floor.

As time went on the differences became clearer and I realized they were being true to themselves. Nowadays Amber will drive an hour to hear a poetry reading while Eva will travel to a local pub to belt out a song on Karaoke. Amber reads Edith Wharton while Eva listens to Lady GaGa.

Impossible as it is for me to be unbiased, let me say that Amber is a wonderful writer and poet. I hope she continues to write more. Amber who is very careful in her decision making process decided she wanted to move back to New England last May. So both her and her boyfriend Tommie quit their jobs in San Diego with no prospect of a job in their pockets and put themselves where they wanted to be. Amber has already said no to jobs that don’t match her desires. She’s picking, choosing and trying out things that interest her. Right now she’s working at a place where she meets with different artists every day. I know if these jobs don’t remain interesting and fun she’ll move on. I love that she’s making those scary and unknown choices and testing the world to see what’s best. I know she will find a very comfortable balance in her life.

Eva is a wonderful teacher and karaoke singer. For years she’s been known in the family as a kid magnet…they gravitate to her. Now she has her own preschool class of 3 to 5 year olds that she handles 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. She does projects with the kids, she nurtures them, she loves them and they love her. Eva says she’s never going to leave San Diego. She loves the glitter, the glam, and the pop culture. She loves her gay neighborhood of Hillcrest with all it has to offer. She has good friends and good times. I’m thankful that she’s independent and in a good place in her life.

So there sisters….this blog’s for you. Keep following your dreams and desires.

Love,
Dad

The Big Butt Van: Bringing Neighbors Together One Last Time

Well there it is…the Big Butt Van mortally wounded, ready to exit our lives. She’s been a good van, a classic soccer mom van, a workhorse performing all sorts of hauling expeditions. Hauling Kayaks all over New England, kids to soccer games and cross country meets, work mates to Fenway Park, Amber’s stuff to and from Wheaton College each year and multiple furniture moves in San Diego. But at 5:15 am on October 10th her number came up. A driver who one may “presume” was DUI smashed the rear corner pushing it up over the curb of the sidewalk and plowing it into our neighbor’s bushes. As quickly as they hit it they managed to regain their bearings and take off before anyone had a chance to see their car.
Although the bang woke me up I didn’t recognize it as a crash like our neighbors above us did and who knocked on our door two minutes later and said “Pete…Lauren’s car was just hit and it’s bad.” After a quick survey we called 911 and our insurance company to get the ball rolling. The police officer who came out to inspect it was very nice. His name was Officer Troy Gess and my wife would best describe him as a “cutie-pa-tootie”. So naturally at the end of his investigation when he asked if we had any other questions, Lauren asked if he had any friends like him for her 22 year old daughter? She had already found out Troy was married.
As the sun began to brighten up the day and we waited for the tow truck to arrive neighbors began to appear. Many of these neighbors we have never met or said more than a passing hello during the 14 months we have lived here. Lauren was beginning to enjoy it. Meeting the neighbors. Friendly conversation. We first officially met Robert (and later his girlfriend Maya) who as a postman was leaving early for work but stopped to tell us he may have some video surveillance from his house to the street. That might be handy. We then met Erica and Alex and some of their kids. She’s from Barnstable, MA so she and Lauren could exchange some Mass stories. We met David who I think is retired and may be the longest living resident on the street. He was here before the street was paved and before it extended down the hill or what was a canyon. We spoke to Cathy and John who we had spoken to before. Occasionally we see John come out in a kilt with a set of bagpipes to play at some event. I met Rob and Becca and their two young kids. They’re Birders and were curious what the Mass Audubon sticker on the van was all about with its Kingfisher or Tern logo. We talked again to Danny, Ryan and Christine, a young group renting the house next door and sort of like a Three’s Company in reverse. Danny and Ryan both sell shoes at Niemen-Marcus; I’m not sure what Christine does. We met Gloria a talkative neighbor a few doors up who now works full time as a pet-sitter. She used to work for AT&T until that world changed. She also happens to be house watching for Jose and Nancy who own the house next door which was the ending spot for the front end of the van as it sat not-so-gracefully lodged in their front bushes. They happen to be in Spain for a while. I think the final neighbor we met was Christy who I would say slept late and was calling the police around 11:00 AM to report a car in the neighbor’s bushes. Her dad use to play for the Baltimore Orioles.
The moral of the story should be obvious…if you want to meet your neighbors plan something dramatic to happen in your neighborhood. It’s a guarantee they’ll come out and say hello.

So Tomorrow October Begins

Let’s see…the first day of autumn was eight days ago and it’s October 1st tomorrow. There’s not much here that’s tipping me off to this change of season. Sure the days are shorter now than they were in mid-summer and the shadows cast during the day are longer but it’s a comfortable 73 degrees right now at 11:30 AM and nothing around here is changing color. I know in my mind that the maple trees of New England should be beginning to turn all shades of red, yellow and orange, crimson and vibrant, a regular palette of beautiful shades that even the most color blind of us has to notice. Next weekend bus loads of Leaf-peepers will be all over the country side in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Western Massachusetts for the Columbus Day weekend. This is usually considered the peak week for this area and the annual tradition of color lovers driving around taking pictures of yet another beautiful scene is unstoppable. And why not, it is breathtakingly beautiful.
Many years ago when Lauren and I first met we decided to just hop in the car and drive through New Hampshire to Vermont to leaf peep and find a place to stay for the night. The colors were wonderful, we were still a new couple, and everything was going perfect until we tried to find a place to stay for the night. There wasn’t a single hotel room available in the whole State of Vermont. We called up the State Chamber of Commerce or something like that and they said the only thing available was rooms’ people were renting out in their house. Not wanting to leave we decided to call on one of these people nearby. They had a bedroom available and would even feed us breakfast in the morning. We arrived to a perfectly nice, clean, and well kept ranch style home. The Mrs. showed us our bedroom which was cleaner than most of the rooms I slept in during my life. The problem was it was just too personal. We were across the three foot wide hallway from their bedroom door and the house was really quiet and well…we kind of wanted to make some noise. Did I mention we were a new couple, before kids? We made it through the night okay and had a wonderful pancake and bacon breakfast the next morning. We bid our host farewell hoping we could somehow find a more private place to lodge this next evening. We spent the day driving, eating, and photo-shooting and as dusk began to near we turned our search for a new bed to sleep in. Many places we did try and many places said goodbye. Sometime around 7 to 8 pm we stopped at an Inn somewhere to try one last place. It was a Victorian style home and the host who had been playing an old upright piano gave us a hearty greeting. I remember him laughing when we asked the question. We sensed he wished he did have the room. He offered us a glass of wine which we accepted and we sat on the couch in his lobby while he played the piano and I could tell Lauren was really enjoying it. We were probably sitting there for 15 minutes listening to the music when another older gentleman stepped inside the front door to ask to be laughed at. The host, whose back was turned away from us, didn’t immediately stop playing the piano although I’m sure he knew this person had entered because we had greeted each other. Instead he kept playing…and at a point where it sounded like he may stop…he didn’t…he moved right into another verse or stanza or whatever you call it. The gentleman at the door was a very patient person…standing…listening…waiting. The wine and atmosphere had Lauren in good spirits and when the host lit into another song instead of turning around to acknowledge the gentleman at the door this struck her as funny and she let out a loud chuckle. The scene was funny and sort of reminded me of the old Bob Newhart show for those of you old enough to remember that.
The host finally stopped and informed the patient gentleman that he too was out of luck and offered him a drink but the gentleman needed to move on and find his resting place. The host said to us…Don’t you know anybody who lives in Vermont? It got me thinking that in fact I did know someone. About two years earlier I had been fishing on a scallop boat based out of New London, CT and the oldest guy on the boat was our chief engineer who we affectionately referred to as “Chiefy”. He was a family guy working on a boat with a bunch of mostly young and single guys like me. He would often talk about his house in Bethel, Vermont and what he was working on and how much he loved it. So I relayed my story to the host who said well call him…what do you have to lose? After getting his number from information I called and was greeted by his wife who I had never met or spoken with before. I explained our predicament and was hoping Chiefy might be able to help a fishing buddy. She told me that he was not there and in fact was out fishing but to drive on over because she had a place we could stay for the night in their house. We had successfully found a place to stay for the night and bid the host of the Inn a fond farewell. We met Chiefy’s wife and family, had a comfortable place to sleep, got to see the house he so fondly spoke of and had a nice breakfast the next morning. I sent Chiefy a thank you letter the next week but never had any more contact with him. Life works like this I’ve realized. For now I’ll look out over the cactus plants off my deck and dream of the colors I’m missing right now back east. I’ll probably dig up some old photos, browse through some Down East and Yankee magazines and imagine I am there.

YOUR WIFE CAN CHANGE

Sometimes or most times I think people won’t really change much. I mean when you describe a character you’re describing what that person looks like, says and does most every day of their life. Most democrats will remain democrats (with the exception of Joe Lieberman) and republicans will remain republicans. Those who regularly watch Glenn Beck on Fox will likely agree with him and think he is so right and those who watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC will likely agree with him and think he is so left. You can TRY to change the opinion or habit of someone else but it’s not likely an easy or possible thing to achieve.
I tend to accept others (those who don’t view the world like me) “as is”. If they think Obama is ruining the nation I know I am not going to get them to think otherwise. If I point out that the report card on George W. Bush for the past 8 years looks like the typewriter got stuck of the letter F and that the first big government bailouts a.k.a. the TARP monies were conceived by and given out by the Bush administration because the system in place had failed so badly, well I would likely get an answer like the one I received a month ago… “George W. Bush was never really a Republican, he was just a Democrat on the Republican ticket.” Once you realize the person who said this actually means it you know that there is a screw loose and you need to a) change the topic, b) avoid that person, or c) laugh and have a beer. I believe I chose all three options that night.Back to my main point…although it’s not usual to see someone change their beliefs or habits, every now and then it does happen. Case in point; my wife. Lauren has many, many wonderful traits like patience (mostly with me), she’s a good cook, caring mother and although I know she would appreciate a complete listing here, I’m stopping just to mention that she has never really ever been “into” sports. You know football, baseball, who’s who, how many games are the Red Sox behind the Yankees in the American League East (7.5) or why is a field goal sometimes worth 3 points and at other times only 1 point? Now to be fair…I’m not a big who’s who guy in sports like many of my male counterparts, but I do enjoy watching a ballgame every now and then. So “knowing” she would rather watch the latest episode on HGTV I was surprised when I walked into our bedroom last Thursday to find her watching the Pittsburgh/Tennessee game and further amazed when she was cheering the Steelers as they were marching down the field in the last two minutes of the game and then moaning as they fumbled a turnover with only 63 seconds left? What is going on here? This is so unlike her? Fast forward to today, Sunday September 13th, 2009 and we just came back home from shopping at the Farmer’s Market in Hillcrest and Lauren flips on the TV to… the football games? She was actually bummed that the Redskins were behind the Giants 0-17 in the 2nd Quarter? I’m at the computer and turn around to look…..who is this woman? 28 years of marriage and she’s never been so interested in football. Does she have a new boyfriend who loves football? Nope…Well, I don’t think so anyway. The answer is she joined a football pool at her office for $2.00 to pick the winners of all the games for this week (She thought this list was for the whole season originally). She likes to win and she would get a big thrill in beating most of the “the guys” in her office because they know football and she doesn’t and I get that. It just seems so weird to see Lauren on the couch with her list, pen and yellow highlighter in hand watching the games. The Packers are playing the Bears right now and if Green Bay beats Chicago she’ll be 7 wins and 7 losses, so 50%. What’s next…will she be drinking Bud Light? Your wife can change.

The Last Days of Summer 2009

Here it is the last Friday in August and the summer of 2009 is nearing a close. We’re having record breaking heat here in San Diego where it’s 97 degrees at the coast and if you go inland you can find your way to 120 degrees, that is if you can make it that far before shriveling up to something resembling a Fig Newton. According to the weather map my sister Anna is enjoying a nice sunny 66 degree day back in Cape Elizabeth (Portland) Maine. Speaking of Maine I feel the need to recap our wonderful 3 week vacation back in New England. It was glorious. The weather was perfect, even the small amount of rain we had which Lauren and I had been missing. We got to hang out with Amber, Tommie, Maya and the Bo and the Dee (Lauren’s parents) for a while in Magnolia. One of the first orders of business was to EAT LOBSTER! We succeeded by hooking up with local Gloucester Lobsterman Chuck Parisi at his boat just as he came in after hauling his traps. We bought ten alive and kick’ in beauties, rushed them home and popped them in the pot. Mmmm….two lobsters each with melted butter, corn of the cob and some Ipswich Ale IPA….I was in heaven. We took a few sunset walks around Shore Road. I walked up to Dunkin Donuts every morning for a cup of coffee and kept running into people I haven’t seen for years and we just picked up where we left off. We saw our dear friends Doug and Ellen Guidry, had a cookout and sang songs around a wood fire accompanied by guitar, mandolin, a newly Doug-built washtub string base and a “boom-box” instrument that Jonathan Phalen’s dad bought about 20 years ago at FAO Schwartz. We went swimming at Black Beach at low tide, caught crabs and dug clams out of the sand for fun and then let them go and we went swimming at Half Moon Beach. Lauren went out with her friends sometimes while I just went out with Amber and Tommie or just met the locals. We walked in Ravenswood Park. We danced at the Cruise port Terminal on a Tuesday night with a cast of many friends and even an old flame of Lauren’s to the music of Bob Cooney and Mike McNair…..Aimee…what you going to do?.....I think…I could stay with you….for a while maybe longer…if I dooo…..
The next phase of the trip was to head Down East to the easternmost point in the United States…Lubec, Maine where my youngest brother, Basil III was getting married to Kelly. This was a good time to see and hang out with a large chunk of my family all at once. In addition to seeing my mother, brother, sisters and all my beautiful nieces and nephews I was able to spend time with my Aunt Helen and Cousin Susan. It was the first time I had seen Helen since my Uncle Don had passed away last December. The day before the wedding Helen, Susan, Tommie, Maya, Lauren and myself went over to Campobello Island, Canada and took a tour of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s summer home, inspected the beauty of the island and yes, ate more seafood. At the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding there was yet another campfire where many of us older adults sang impromptu campfire songs and show tunes while the kids ran around the field chasing and scaring each other in the dark. The wedding went off with the appropriate “hitch”. Have a blast Basil and Kelly and thanks for everything.
Now we were heading to the mountains of Maine near the New Hampshire border and there are no quick and easy roads that go east and west in Maine, but that’s okay because I’m on vacation and I do not want quick or even easy. I love the curvy, windy, wooded two lane road and if it’s dirt, all the better. Our first stop though was to stop in and visit my sister Lily and the army of Deans. They live in Orono near Bangor which is on the way westward. My sister Lily and her husband Artie are a prolific couple and have 9 children. When we arrived they were all there and so we were lucky enough to see everyone and spend a couple of hours together. It was short but so sweet. Lily’s kids are so well mannered it scares me. I would joke with Amber and Eva occasionally that we should have shipped them up to spend a summer with Lily. The kids offered and brought us out coffee, tea and water. I was able to order a special espresso with mine. Then they just hung out while we sat in the garden they built for Lily while she was recovering from her breast cancer. They participated in our conversation right down to the youngest. Some are talented musicians, others like art, all of them are loving.
Later that night we made it to our destination of Bethel, Maine. Not that long ago my Aunt Helen informed me that this was where Uncle Don’s mother grew up as a child. We rented a nice house in the village after spending the first night in a B&B. Lauren went swimming in Howard Pond, we had chicken fried steak at the Funky Red Barn and because Lauren was worn out I went by myself to “Hoot-Nite” at Suds Pub where every Thursday the local talent plays live music and yes the locals are talented. On another fine evening we had some Korean Food at Cho-Sun with our friends Cynthia and Paul Handlen. We took in the pace of Bethel which is mellow and slow. How slow? Well one morning I went to talk a walk down by the Androscoggin River and as I was headed down Main Street Paul Handlen noticed me and stopped his jeep in the middle of the street while we chatted for a minute or so. No worries, no traffic, no rush....when I compare that scene with what happens when I head out around here in San Diego I realize I am at the very opposite end of the spectrum.
After five nights in Bethel we stopped in to visit my brother Erik and Amy, Logan and Rachel. They bought a house last year in Saco, Maine and it’s a really nice home in a really nice neighborhood. I’m happy for them. This too was too short a visit. We then made it back to Gloucester that night so that early the next morning Amber, Tommie and me could help out long time friend and coach J.D. MacEachern in the first ever Gloucester Triathlon. Our job was to help direct runners at a critical intersection where on the first lap they had to take a left and on the second lap they had to go straight to the finish line. Because faster athletes tend to pass the slower ones some runners at this point would need to go different directions and despite our bullhorn instructions, signs, flags and others yelling out the same instruction we realized many of these participants were in pain. They had already swum 1/3 mile in the harbor, biked 15 miles and were now finishing up a 2.9 mile run. I’m sure their bodies were trying to pump as much oxygen to their leg muscles and all their ears could hear was…wha,wha,wha,wha,left,,,wha,wha,wha,straight. So a few went straight when they should have gone left but overall it went well. I can’t recall how many times we met up with friends and acquaintances or how much seafood we ate on this vacation but I can tell you it was all good and on the one to ten scale of enjoyment this summer vacation of 2009 was voted a big 10 by both judges.

A BARN IN NEW ENGLAND by Joseph Monninger and other Barn Thoughts

Every now and then I read a book that draws me in deep. A Barn in New England has done just that. It put me right at the location and the experiences that author Joseph Monninger writes about. From the very first moment he and Wendy view the barn in the dead of a snowy winter day, where I could smell the cold, to the longer summer days and nights of installing a fence, planting gardens and renovating the barn with insulation, new beams, and a new kitchen I felt as if I was right there, helping with all of these tasks. To be honest the reason it was so easy for me to relate to this story is because Lauren and I have been talking and dreaming about doing something quite similar in nearby Maine. We’ve looked at a number of houses over the past two years with barns and haven’t quite figured out how to make it all work but we are still trying. Lauren gave this book to me as a Father’s Day gift and it has proved to be one of my all time favorites.

Being in an old Post and Beam Barn to me is perhaps what many feel when they step into a church. It’s a spiritual experience, Nirvana. One of my first experiences as a 7 to 10 year old was visiting the horse barn of the Ames Estate in North Easton, MA where I would bring my bike to the caretaker Paul Simmons who would fix my broken chain or flat tire. I can still conjure up the smell of the hay, the wood and the leather from the tack shop. It was so quiet and peaceful. With the nearby tall mature shade trees it was also nice and cool on a hot summer day.

A few years later my family moved to Lakeville, MA and I was lucky enough to get a job during the summer as a 12 to 13 year old working on Wilkes Dairy Farm earning $1.30 an hour. My job was to weed the vegetable garden and sometimes feed the cows in the barn when they came in for milking but my favorite job was haying. Picking up bales of hay in the field which weighed probably between 40 and 80 pounds depending on moisture content and where they were cut and throwing them up to another person on a flatbed truck as it rolled slowly up and down the field. The higher the stack of hay got on the truck the higher I would have to throw that bale. Boy did I build some muscle back then. The afternoons were usually sunny, hot and humid so we would sweat hard and the chafe from the hay would stick to our sweaty arms, face, and neck. Then we had to take the truck to the barn and unload the bales in the hayloft. Like an attic the hayloft was often hot as you stagger stacked the bales so they would tie in together much like cinder blocks. At the end of an exhausting day it was down to the coolest part of the barn in the shade where we would chomp on big juicy pieces of pink watermelon where the juice would run down your chin, chest, and on to your arms. I was one sweaty, dirty, juicy and tired farmhand but it felt so…oh good.

In my late teens I rented a house near Freedom, Maine where a local neighbor raised chickens and ducks on a commercial scale. Big three story barns with a thousand chickens and lots of chicken shit and wood shavings to clean out once the chickens were hauled off to market. As you can imagine it could be considered a nasty job but with a dust mask and appropriately timed breaks to drink Old Milwaukee beer we seemed to happily get the job done in amazingly quick fashion.
So perhaps because of my fond memories of the smells and good feelings found in a good old barn I long to have one now of my very own. One I can bang a big nail in the beam and not feel like I am doing damage to anything. One where I can hang my poster of Farrah Fawcett (may you rest in peace, Farrah) that Amber and Tommie gave to me as a birthday gift a few years ago because they knew I wanted one for my barn dream. One where I can have my own workshop and build things out of wood; guitars, furniture, anything I want. One where I can invite friends and family over and drink Old Milwaukee beer. One where I can find Nirvana.

THE COMPASS by Tammy Kling and John Spencer Ellis

How many summers or falls do you have left?
This is just one of the many profound questions and statements found in this easy to read story. Jonathan found himself in an unfathomable tragedy and he could not comprehend what to do about it, how to live within it. So he started walking away from it. On this journey he begins to meet people who have or have had hardships of their own and all of them have wisdom and a lifestyle they share with Jonathan. Each person who teaches Jonathan a lesson also teaches you a lesson as you read this book. This book is very inspirational.
So how many summers or falls do you have left? At age 51 I could say twenty or thirty reasonably but it is possible that this is the last one. I know… what a morbid thought. But it’s also a true realization. There are no guarantees in life. So what do I do? Live it like it’s the last one seems like a good idea.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow

What do you do when you know you’re going to die? Before your time. You have three young children, a loving wife, a good job, and you’re in the prime of your life, but without a doubt you have less than a year to live and there is no cure. In the case of Randy Pausch, who many people know his story, you make the most of each and every remaining day and you leave a message with a lesson, or many lessons. Randy Pausch who was dying of terminal pancreatic cancer left us a video and a book titled “The Last Lecture.” In his book you’ll find that he is an optimist and a goal achiever. One way or another he managed to achieve many of his childhood dreams. The best take away line from the book in talking about setbacks or roadblocks to ones goal was “The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.” This book should make you think, cry, and appreciate what you have and what is possible while you are alive.

Thanks you Thief

Thanks Mr. or Ms. Robber Man. I went out to my car last Thursday morning and realized someone else had been in it. My CD’s, papers and crap I keep in the center console was thrown around the passenger seat and the glove compartment was open. My next door neighbor had just told me a week before his truck was broken into and they took his I-Pod. I opened the door and looked around, no damage…and as I started organizing my stuff I couldn’t see anything that I recall missing. He left all my CD’s so obviously didn’t like my music and I had some keys on a keychain he left. Then I thought he may have taken my Speedpass key that you can use at the Mobil/Exxon gas station and buy gas and whatever else they sell there without entering a PIN number. That would not be good. So I came back into the apartment and found that I still had my Speedpass. He didn’t take the jacket, jumper cables or even the $5.00 in quarters I had in the ashtray type coin holder. So should I thank him for this? Maybe, but what I really want to say thank you for is for fixing the Radio/CD player which hasn’t worked for about two months now. I don’t know how you did it and I should be upset because you violated my space however you’re the best auto/radio mechanic I’ve had…so thanks and I’m glad you don’t like James Taylor.