Mom defending Dad (Copy of original)

Despite the fact that he chewed tobacco, everyone in the family agreed he was swell.

Her brothers had brought him home from the glass factory to meet their sister. That was twenty years earlier.

He was a thrifty, hard-working, unassuming, church-going man and so they married.

He was good to their boys and except for penny-ante poker, he didn’t gamble. There were no women. But it turned out he was a ‘complicated’ man — at least that’s how the doctors described him.

He had lost his mother at fourteen and was raised as an only child by aunts who scorned his father and his religion. He could be heard shouting back at them decades after they died. He couldn’t lay them to rest.

As newlyweds, they were familiar with alcohol.

The young woman had her first drink during Prohibition (her father gave dances and could pick up and bounce two drunks at a time). Her husband-to-be had ran bootleg whisky out of an elevator in a downtown hotel.

By the time their second boy came, the man’s diary described how he and his crew carried hip-flasks while sorting mail on train cars. There was a photo of him bleary eyed during a labor event. He kept a circuit of distant taverns to hide his habit.

Alcohol and undetected diabetes tricked the chemicals in his brain. His outbreaks led doctors to prescribe electric-shock therapy, and the courts signed off. There was a fall from grace – nobody knew what to say.

Don’t stop reading.

It turns out that the man was as canny in choosing a mate as she had been in choosing him.

She refused to see her good and decent man as a damaged soul. She never wavered. She made sure her boys appreciated that their father, despite his afflictions, gave them full bragging rights.

The family held.

The man outlived his wife by about a year. There was beer in the house after she was gone but now it was ice cream he turned to for comfort. He kept Eskimo Pies in the freezer.fingerprint4-only-final-40px

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Jacob at Brothers K (Copy of original)

Jacob-600pxThe most dynamic scholarship being done at the coffee shop today is by a newcomer named J-Bub.That man over there studies carbon in the Hydrosphere. The other one is researching the aftermath of China’s 1911 revolution. A woman in the corner is fleshing out a one-woman play.

But by far the most dynamic scholarship being done at the coffee shop today is by a newcomer named J-Bub. J-Bub’s field of inquiry is trucks, big trucks. He watches for them through the windows.

J-Bub is a man of few words but that’s changing quickly. He knows many more today than he did a month ago. Next year he’ll know a word for almost everything, including synonyms.

This is J-Bub’s second outing to the coffee shop with his Popi and he’s noticing things. The baristas give people something and the people give the baristas something. That’s interesting, isn’t it?

He reads context. Since there are no toys on the floor, this coffee shop isn’t really for people like him. At their next stop, at the neighborhood library, he owns the floor and everything on it.

He knows large from small, likes from dislikes, dos and don’ts, hellos and goodbyes. He is studying the exercise of power and the rewards of civil disobedience.

Two-year-olds start to put concepts together. J-Bub identified a “new toy.” He doesn’t know how to ask the why of things just yet, but he’ll start soon and he’ll never stop.

One thing that impresses us all about our new colleague is that he does all this intellectual heavy lifting without so much as a drop of caffeine.fingerprint4-only-final-40px

Photo by Roland Lieber
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Lost In The Woods (Copy of original)

Wolves happen to be especially dangerous because they dress like grandmothers and say things to throw you off guard.

Hungry grizzlies are just as bad. They see you coming and they start polishing up the silverware.

A few Octobers ago a Cub Scout troop descended on a campground just over the state line. The small wooded acreage brought in a little cash for a farmer who had worked at the GM plant until it closed.

Tents were pitched. A lady named Peggy grilled burgers and dogs. A bonfire was lit. The night had turned cold and various critters rustled around the tents causing some kids to climb into their parents’ sleeping bags — the older scouts wouldn’t have to know.

The air was pure oxygen the next morning and after a warm breakfast a party set out to explore the environs.

The troop leaders wanted to strike camp quickly because of the NFL game that afternoon so when the hikers got back, no one noticed one boy wasn’t with them. His father was policing the campground and didn’t realize his son was missing until everyone had driven off.

He squared his shoulders, squinted into the sun and ventured out alone.

He followed the trail that rolled to the right. Nothing. A child shorter than the undergrowth would be difficult to spot. He came to the loop where the paths intersected. Again, nothing.

He was well-aware that a nine-year-old carried away by the Chippewa would be initiated as a brave and end up on the warpath against the Great Chief in Washington, meaning that he would never be eligible for Federal Student Financial Assistance.

He tried to think what Liam Neeson would do.Tick, tick, tick.

Then on a rise worn bare by the wind, something yellow darted between the trees. The man ran to a clearing where he finally got a visual lock on his boy.

Hiding any trace of panic he approached and asked his son how he was doing.

“Can we get shakes on the way home?” the kid answered. Then he mentioned how much he liked being alone in the woods. He said it was awesome.

The dangers were imagined that Sunday morning, but the man’s fears were real. This was just the latest installment on the price of being a father. The man drove home knowing his account was current, its balance paid in full.

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Buttocks

Our son was born without buttocks.

The bone structure of his ilium was perfectly normal and his “gluts” were standard-issue. What he lacked was the meat most folks have on their coccyges. I’m sure I’m misusing these words but you get the picture.

The boy was unaware he was skin and bones until well into grade-school when he came to realize that certain boys commanded the playground. They got to choose the teams during recess and twist the rules however they wanted. They were invited to parties. Girls liked them.

For some reason my son got it into his head — do not laugh — that it was the fit of his pants that was holding him back from joining the alphas.

He became obsessed that the seats of his trousers were baggy. He studied himself in the 360-degree mirror in our back bedroom — something he’d never done before.

It so happens that I sew. Not to brag but I can rip a seam and take in a crotch with the best of them. I strapped on my wrist pin-cushion, grabbed my reading specs and performed miracles on the saddle of that boy’s pants.

Over time he shot up and put on a little flesh on his frame. His face cleared up nicely and he took to wearing contact lens.

During a Sunday supper just after he started a full-time job, he told our family an older woman at the office — she was twenty-two if she was a day — patted him on the bottom and told him she was “into” men with tight little tushes.

We still laugh about that from time to time. But the fact is that the memory of young woman’s come-on would come in handy when a bald spot began to show on the back of his head.

What’s a mother to do?

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Lost In The Woods

The forest is home to animals that want to eat you.

Wolves are especially dangerous because they dress like grandmothers and say things to throw you off guard. Grizzlies are just as bad. They see you and they start polishing the silverware.

A few Octobers ago a Cub Scout troop descended on a campground just over the state line. The small wooded acreage brought in a little cash for farmers who worked at the GM plant until it closed.

Tents were pitched. A lady named Peggy grilled burgers and dogs. A bonfire was lit. The night had turned cold and various critters rustled around the tents causing some kids to climb into their parents’ sleeping bags — the older scouts wouldn’t have to know.

The air was pure oxygen the next morning. After a warm breakfast a party set out to explore the environs. Everybody wanted to strike camp early because of the NFL game that afternoon so one of the fathers stayed behind to police the grounds.

When the hikers got back, his son wasn’t with them. No one seemed concerned about the missing boy — except his father of course.

The man squared his shoulders, squinted into the sun and ventured out alone.

He followed the trail that rolled to the right. Nothing. A child shorter than the undergrowth would be difficult to spot. He came to the loop where the paths intersected. Again, nothing.

He was well-aware that a nine-year-old carried away by the Chippewa would be initiated as a brave and end up on the warpath against the Great Chief in Washington, meaning that he would never be eligible for Federal Student Financial Assistance.

He tried to think what Liam Neeson would do.

Tick, tick, tick.

Then on a rise worn bare by the wind, something yellow darted between the trees. The man ran to a clearing where he finally got a visual lock on his boy.

Hiding any trace of panic he approached and asked his son how he was doing.

“Can we get shakes on the way home?” the kid answered. Then he mentioned how much he liked being alone in the woods. He said it was awesome.

The dangers were imagined that Sunday morning, but the fears were real. This was just the latest installment on the price of being a father. The man drove home knowing his account was current, its balance was paid in full.

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