As December disappears

My soul asked for a story

about this long and tempest year

of the change and changing

as December disappears

But maybe best not worded

Said and yet not said

Typed with font that fades away

never to be read

With silver glass and diamond edge
moments glazed and jeweled
mirrors and reflections
joy and sadness pooled

Paired with a thesaurus
rhyming with white dress
Teenage hopes and college loves
one step from emptiness

Of garden dreams and picnic plates
plastic knives not meant for cutting
a geneology of apple trees
both lingering and rushing

Photographic blips on screens
electronic, captured swiftly
theatrics of the master plan
mapped out in the sixties

Of chemical experiments
breaking inner rings
one neutral, one electric
on nucleic wings

Promises and the promised
Feats real and envisioned
remembering and reminding
decisioned and divisioned

Of filters, fate, and purity
now needed for existence
the digital and the analog
numbers to be outdistanced

Violins and pianos
young strings rich and taut
the foundation of the orchestra
one performer and one taught

Barbie dolls and gypsy shows
with Starbucks in between
rainbow cones and pistachios
blonde and sweet sixteen

Of faux cowboys at Jackson hole
Boone and Buck and Starr
speckled trout and ice cold streams
recharged leyden jars

And the sisterhood, a tour de force
of storms and wind and thunder
our collection of raison d'être
a source of strength and wonder

And as this year passes by
iceberg deep and chill
we look ahead and breathe a breath
and thank God is with us still

Bee Ridge Bees

Benjamin McFadden
was a man who loved bees
But they didn't like New Jersey
with six months of deep freeze

So he stayed in his room
out on cold highway three
and by flashlight and candle
read his beloved books on Bees

He read and he dreamed,
through storms and through snow
bare blankets and blizzards,
the grey and the cold

On days the sun showed
which was really hardly never
it was frosty and thin
like no sun whatever

If I stay here, he thought,
I might get psychotic
Or run in to my neighbors
and need antibiotics

I'll freeze like a mole,
if I don't get out of here soon
By horse or by cart,
by foot or balloon

He was sick of the slush,
grey snow and salt powder
A New England world
with naught but clam chowder

He searched all his books
seeking locations
A prisoner escape
to a new destination

He found an old drawing
by a scribe named Mercator
A map of the tropics,
down near the equator

The Spanish had found it
el oro and more
With tall ships they landed
on sandy-beached shores

He saw a town on the map
named for the daughter
Of Soto, the soldier
in turquoise blue waters

And bees, oh the bees,
feasting for hours
on grapefruits and oranges
and lemon citrus flowers

So he bundled his books
into a sack
Blew out his candle and looked toward the tracks
fled out the door and never came back

He jumped from the train
near I-seventy-five
and started his search
for bees and bee hives

Under El Sol,
Benjamin's condition
healed and improved
in the Bee expedition

He worked and he toiled
And learned from the farmers
Of queens and their workers
And Conquistador armor

On the palmetto
across the savannah
Benji McFadden
soaked his bandana

In scrub and in sawgrass
he baked and he steamed
And he scrimped and he saved
for his bee dream

Now, high on a ridge,
overlooking a lake
With citrus and scrub
and sky blue opaque

Stands Benjamin with boxes,
vertical and dripping
With sweet sticky honey,
which he soon will be shipping

Back to the north,
a reverse of his trip
Back on the rails,
squeaky and slick

A black iron beast
A snow pirate ship
Would transport his honey
All in one trip

But he would stay here,
up on Bee Ridge
With his books and his bees
And his bright honey tins

And he'd thank them all here
Calusas and Spanish
for holding this paradise
without which he'd vanish

Then, on the soft citrus breeze
in the place of his dreams
he'd sit and he'd listen
to his beloved Bee Ridge bees

*****

Gus

The man and his wife sat at a wooden table in their kitchen, looking out toward the road, past the white face cows and lean brown horses.  Their 1000 acre farm was just off highway 4, near Salem Heights and Laporte. 

Ocassionally, tractor trailers thundered by, rattling the mailbox at the end of the gravel driveway.  Under the mailbox was a white plastic newspaper holder, printed with the words, "Herald Argus."

The white farm house was streaked with Indiana soil, eroded by Indiana wind.  A white oak tree planted near the house generations ago sheltered it from the sun, spreading its limbs across the yard and up over the roof, fanning lobed leaves and creating dappled shadows on the small patch of grass just outside the window. 

"Gus," the farmer's wife asked, "you expecting someone?"  She pointed down the drive as a station wagon slowly pulled in.

"Nope.  Probably just turning around."

They didn't.  Their Plymouth kept coming up the driveway and stopped near the house, under the tree.  As the two inside watched, the visitors began unloading from the car.  They excitedly hurried toward the cows, who gazed at them curiously from behind the barbed wire.

Gus pushed his chair back and made his way out the metal screen door of the kitchen, which squeaked and slammed shut behind him.  He squinted out into the sunshine, his face taunt and bronzed, lined from country sun and winter winds.  He saw a young man headed toward the door, wearing a white short sleeve shirt and knit pants.  His hair was cropped short and he had a pipe in his hand.  It was my father.

"Hi there," Gus said.  "Can I help you?"

"Yes," said the man, introducing himself.  "You see, we're out here for the weekend at our cottage.  But my wife wanted the kids to see a real farm.  Well, we were driving by yours and thought maybe we'd ask if we could see it."  My father must have been confident Gus couldn't say no.

"I'm Gus," said the farmer, looking at the gathering of children near the heifers.  "I guess it would be okay if they looked around some, but they need to be careful near them cows." 

When we met Gus, he was as pure and undistilled as any farmer ever was.  His dusty jeans were the real thing, unlike the dark blue ones my mother bought for us at Sears.  His shirt was denim.  And his cap was John Deere, back when John Deere wasn't cool. 

That was the first of many trips to Gus's farm. 

Back then, Gus was larger than life.  His world, up close, was much bigger than what we had imagined.   Frightening at first but, when we got used to it, exciting.  And everywhere on his farm, the air smelled of manure, made in the pens and moved out to the fields. 

It was work on Gus's farm that was often threatened as the fate to be earned for various misdeeds.  "You'll spend the summer working on Gus's farm, is that what you want?"  If it was that bad, we'd wonder, why did we always stop there on vacation?
 
We must have outgrown the farm experience, because ours visits stopped at some point.  For years, on any country road, we would look for the familiar farm and argue over real versus imagined sightings.  All it took was a white frame house and an oak tree, and it was Gus's place.

Perhaps fate steered our station wagon into that driveway on highway 4.   But my parents pulled into it, drawn by the future.  It's as if they knew Gus would be there - and that he would become part of our family's story, whether he was ready or not. 

Those trips gave us the chance to get right up to the fence, close enough to the horses and cows to smell their breath and look into their eyes.  To be unafraid and amazed. 

****

Uncommon Goodness

I was unpacking a Christmas gift this afternoon from a internet retailer and paused to think how closely connected we have all become in the on-line world. 

And yet, we are remarkably distant from each other.  From politics to families to human rights.

In the U.S., only about 7 of every 1000 children do not survive their first year.  In Afghanistan, the number is 157.  For every million children born there, 157,000 are lost to disease, lack of medical treatment, nutrition, hypothermia and other causes during their first year. 

The same high mortality numbers are found in Chad, Somalia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Iraq - throughout the developing world.

Nearly 20 million low birth weight babies are born each year, mostly in the developing world, and these babies are especially prone to hypothermia due to insufficient fat beneath the skin.  Many mothers won't even name their babies for several months, until they have lived past their most perilous period.

In 2008, a group of students from Stanford's Design Institute developed a warming device to address the problem of infant hypothermia.  For their work, they won the Stanford Social Entrepreneurship Challenge, an award given to companies with the power to create social change.  Distribution has started in India, and it is projected that by 2013, they will save more than 100,000 babies in that country and prevent illness in 800,000. 

But there are other crises yet unaddressed. 

Africa has over 14 million AIDS orphans.  In developing and transitional countries, 9.5 million people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 4 million (42%) are receiving the drugs. 

Inadequate sanitation is one of humanity's most urgent yet solvable crises, according to many scientists.  Haiti, like many third world countries, has no sewage treatment plants anywhere.  In many developing countries, raw sewage is taken to garbage dumps.  Ground water becomes contaminated. 

Malnutrition is spreading across the globe, primarily in children.  It affects one of every three children in developing countries and accounts for as many as five million deaths annually.  It magnifies the effect of every disease, including measles and malaria. 

Undernutrition is an underlying cause of death in diseases such as diarrhea (61%), malaria (57%), pneumonia (52%), and measles (45%) (Black 2003, Bryce 2005).

Malaria is the 5th leading cause of death from infectious diseases worldwide (after respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, diarrheal diseases, and tuberculosis) and the 2nd leading cause of death from infectious disease in Africa, after HIV/AIDS.

If we are all becoming so closely connected, such a global community, why is innovation and action to affect social change not more valued, more rewarded, and more expected?  Where are the other students - and sponsors - like the ones at Stanford - who will step forward to affect change?

If we can provide low-cost sewage treatment facilities the size of semi trailers - ones that also generate potable water - why aren't they found in Port Au Prince and Chad? 

If the world can buy 345 million smart phones this year, why can't we find ways to make HIV medicines available for those who are dying for them in Africa?

This Christmas, I wish we would all begin to have a closer connection to each other.  A greater awareness of why we need innovation and commitment.  If we place a social value on that, we'll begin to see change.  Safer drinking water, healthier babies, fewer orphans. 

Then, perhaps, we'll see an uncommon good become as common as it should be.

Please

Please come to Indy and live forever

Back to college life
and campus towns
And they’ve got lots of room

The snowfall lays out on the cornfields
And there’s miles and miles of prairies
As far as the eye can see

Please come to Indy
But she just said no, John, you come home to me

Camo Reflection

I really need to pull myself together. 

There I was, a few nights ago, at the Sarasota WalMart looking for light bulbs.  I had slipped into my cynical me, condesceding toward all things redneck. 

That particular version of me features a lot of head shaking and eye rolling.  At trucks, sub-woofing their way through the parking lot and nearly running down people in their pajamas and self-propelled shopping carts. At missing teeth. Muffin tops. At gaudy tattoos on backs and legs and necks.  Camo.

That me also specializes in mumbling things like "oh yeah, that's a nice outfit."  Or seeing an especially odd couple and saying "mm hmm," as I walk past them, which only I can traslate into "you two are perfect for each other."  I once said, "hot dogs are that way, lady."

The great thing about this attitude is that it reinforces that I am so above everyone else.  Never mind that I might be buying Toasted Almond bars and windshield wipers.   That's just a coincidence. 

That night, I eventually found my way into the sporting goods department, where I was condescendingly thinking about how much rednecks love guns.  Man, those hillbillies and their shotguns.  

As I was looking into the case, I noticed a typical Walmart shopper - a man with a goatee in a white t-shirt, grey cotton sweat pants, and a camo baseball cap.   A little overweight; shabby.

I turned, sensing he was too close.  No one. 

And then I realized the painful and surprising truth - it was me.  

Man, I need to pull myself together. 

Until then, I'm going out to my truck and eating one of these Toasted Almonds.

*****

Two Headlights and a Radio

In Turquoise Pencil country, there's a road unlike any other.  It's more than 80 miles of linnear oasis through the most dangerous and impenetrable terrain in the world - the Florida Everglades.

Like a flaming Seminole arrow, it points from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, its near-melting tar and gravel supported by centuries of seas shells and silt. 

Mile after mile, along every foot of tangled green palmetto, a chain link fence keeps the quiescent swamp creatures at bay, like the tall barriers of an endless prison yard. 

Beyond the fence, a canal parallels the road; a moat patrolled by leathery alligators and other indigineous reptiles.  Above, hawks and falcons circle the skies like carnivorous search parties.

It's know as "Alligator Alley."   It's a sanctuary of oddities, a steambath and furnace. 

It's not hard to imagine the difficulty engineers and laborers had forging through the cypress swamps.   The Everglades could only be breached using amphibious vehicles, helicopters, swamp-buggies, and airboats.  And even then, it was a Panama-canal like effort.  

On a sun-bleached wall, one worker wrote,  "Please Lord, I've been a good man.  So if I get cotton-mouth bit, or attacked by some of Oscar the Alligator's brothers, and if I get to that Big Job in the Sky, oh, please, Lord, let it be on dry land. Amen!"

The journey South on interstate 75 is one that everyone should make at least once in a lifetime.  South, because that destination holds bikinis and blue waves and beautiful people.   South, lured by the tropicana beat of Cuban music in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood.  

Pigments of pink, coral, ochre, are everywhere - colors indigenous to Brazil or Havana, the Spanish Main and the Carribean.   The sidewalks and strands filled with latin women strolling as if on fashion runways, captivating and beguiling; native.  Beaches covered in sugary sand.  

But the adventure is in the journey.  Open vistas like African savannahs reach as far across the horizon as the eye can see, with only the curvature of the earth limiting the view.  Each afternoon, anvil-like thunderheads gather in the distance, sometimes streaked with electric webs of lightning.  The clouds menacing.  Threatening - and promising - rain. 

The air smells of hot organic incense.  A Florida scent.

Alligator Alley is a menagerie of wildlife and a panorama of calm.  Great bald eagles soar in circles over the dried husks of towering pines.  Blue Herons and Cranes wander on stick-like legs through the shallows.  Cormorands sun themselves on rocks with outstretched wings.  And, on rare occasions, roseate spoonbills appear as if they had just stepped off a postcard.

On my return home, the sun set in ways described by untold writers, glorious and surreal.  But after the sunset, when darkness settled over I-75, my feelings changed.   I felt as if I was in Ohio or Kentucky - or anywhere.  The magic disappeared, blotted by night. 

I was back in a normal, mundane, non-Florida world.  It was just two headlights and a radio, even as the Everglades passed by me in the darkness.

*****

Second Chances and High School Dances

My sister and I were recalling the funny and politically incorrect movies we saw in high school – of headgear and pimples and double entendres and gawky teen actresses.

Of one actress, she teased, “You always had a big crush on her.”

“Me?  No I didn’t,” I denied. “But I bet she's even more beautiful now,” I offered, thinking that I might have a chance with the more mature and possibly washed-up version.

“Well, not really, she’s like, over fifty. I just saw her in a movie where she played the mother. I don’t think you’d be all that interested.”

In high school, I probably would have been interested.  Looking back, they were days spent in a sort of fog - one of self interest and experimentation.  What I remember seeps back in sensory waves – musty locker rooms and dance floors; classrooms and cafeterias, China Grove and the Doobie Brothers.  Pintos, Mavericks and Plymouths.

We didn’t think about the economy and Watergate and what was happening overseas. We were sealed in a blissful cocoon.  But we did think about girls.  A lot.  We were a thirsty bunch of Y-chromosomes, and girls were fountains of cold water in our testosterone desert. They stirred the fog and dizzied our senses.

Looking back, we didn’t choose them for their interests or intelligence – we liked them for their hair, their friends, our convenience.  Because of that, our relationships were destined to be fleeting.  Most of us can remember few moments today from those dates and dances and back seats.

I'm grateful now that we were able to experiment. We made simple choices because we were not complex individuals - after all, we liked Ford Pintos.   But we fantasized that those relationships were more profound than they really were; that all the drama and melodrama were the real thing.  They weren't, but it was a good dry run.

What mattered to us then were our friends, our image of ourselves, and our need for validation. Our role-playing dramas helped us grow. When they ended, we were stronger, like newly pruned trees waiting to grow stronger and taller next season.

We weren't looking very deeply, even though we convinced ourselves with certainty that we were.  If we knew someone who wanted to go Yale or Stanford, it didn't impress us much.  If they weren’t beautiful, accessible, or part of our group, they were probably bookworms.  And they were invisible.

We couldn’t see that someone’s values were perhaps richer, their visions perhaps deeper. Our brains weren’t growing in the right ways. We thought about Friday night.

But, had we not experimented, had our relationships not been simple and shallow and doomed, we might have chosen a life partner who didn’t have the vision or depth or connection important to us now - now that our brains have made the connections they lacked decades ago.

Yet not everyone has benefited from lessons learned in the fog of youth. Sometimes, the metamorphosis occurs later in life, beyond marriage, beyond children. Couples find themselves wondering about the depth of their love; the fulfillment of their life's promise.  And perhaps the person wearing the gold band sitting in the kitchen may not be the soulmate they need. 

That person may be the one who went to Stanford.

So, after my sister and I reminisced about Sixteen Candles and The Breakfeast Club, I dreamt - of Molly Ringwold.  Embarrassing but true.

In my dream, she told me she was available - but I told her I wasn’t interested.

Anymore.

******

Maverick, the immortal

Tennis balls.  They were always on his mind.  Tennis balls, soaring over a concourse of green fescue, stretching into infinity; arching across the sky like lemon suns.  He wanted to be chasing them, in great loping strides, as if he really was the thoroughbred he imagined himself to be, instead of a mere black lab.

Maverick was obsidian and tiffany, reckless and reliable, lovable and laughable.  Captured on thousands of megabytes - cd's, flash drives, hard drives, hearts.   A backdrop to the chronicles of our lives - of boyhood and brotherhood, happiness and hope, joy and grief. 

In recent years, Maverick spent long hours sleeping, whimpering and twitching as if he were trying to escape from his seat in the dream audience and move back on to the stage.   Majestic head supported on his front paws, he watched his adventures as they flickered on the screen behind his velvet eyes.

And they must have been glorious. Cascades of water filling the screen as he thrashed into a freezing trout stream or a summer lake.  Squirrels and birds flinging themselves into trees and sky, just out of reach of the great hunter, scurrying up giant oaks or shedding feathers in panic as they fled off camera for their lives. 

Proud and lean, muscled like an olympic athlete.  Loving and unafraid.

He’d lay there in the kitchen or near the piano, sometimes curled up with the cat.  Bathed in summer sun or long winter shadows, thinking of twisting airborne catches, gazelle-like turns, turf-tearing stops on all fours.  Quick snaps and over the shoulder catches.  Spittle flying, head shaking, eyes dancing.  All powered by an adonyus soul of limitless energy.

And oh, the food in those memories.  Apple pies and take-out packages mistakenly left on countertops. Christmas cookies, beautifully handcrafted with jellied centers and sprinkles and bright frosting, waiting for the cookie exchange.  Gourmet dinners left by friends during a nap.  And a cornucopic menu from the pantry - peanut butter, pasta, cereal, potato chips. And, occasionally, kitty litter.

Although Maverick was "rescued" from the shelter, he was really just waiting for Kirk to pick him up, for he was a soul born to be with us. 

One summer afternoon not so long ago, the boys and I took Maverick to the park where we grew up.  He dragged us down the hill with uncontrollable excitement; careening and flying as if we were a horse-drawn fire truck headed toward a blaze.  He tore through the carpet of dandelions and cactus-like weeds and across to the dusty baseball diamond.  We unleashed him and flung tennis balls across the summer sky until our arms hurt.  We laughed and high fived and hugged each other as we watched the magnificent Maverick in all his glory.  It was an unforgettable day.

The last time I saw Maverick, he was looking through the lower half of the screen door as I walked up to the house.  He was shifting from side to side, and I knew what he meant.  I always did.

On the next step of his journey, he had no leash, no collar.  He was taking great deep breaths and the muscles rippled under his shiny ebony coat as he strode toward the gates of heaven.  When the gates were flung open, welcoming him home, thousands of bright yellow tennis balls poured out, showering him with love and expectancy.

We'll miss you, Maverick.

*****

Thanksgiving redux

In the Turquoise Pencil world, a strange summer has morphed into an impossible autumn.  Here, soap opera scripts are played out daily. 

The most recent plot developments have our cast of characters scattered across distant locations, and the family lens is ready to flip back and forth between venues like a Discovery Channel Storm Chaser reality series. 

Our characters are emerging from their home grown storm-chasing mobiles, breathlessly marveling at their narrow escape. 

Here, the Thanksgiving winds have blown the sky into a wispy and transparent cerulean blue.  If there are clouds, they can only be seen by squinting into the distance.  

Ahead, there are new adventures and different challenges, no less exhilirating and rich.

I think perhaps our Edwardian and Victorian holidays may be receding into the past.  We've started to blend old traditions with new ones.   The emerging traditions, for now, seem to be more diverse - an ecclectic cocktail of palm trees and Manhattan taxis, Minnesota lakes and Indian Reservations.   The Batman Park and the Gulf of Mexico intercoastal waterways.

It feels good.  I think I'm ready.


*****

Pain

Across the street from the Loyola quadrangle, the familiar sounds from an endless procession of L trains could be heard even inside the classrooms.

The linked-up aluminum cars would brake and screech along the tracks and through the final turn before crawling and hissing into the Loyola station.  Echoes from almost inaudible announcements would bounce across the frozen pavement and against the campus buildings.

Even with a powdery new snowfall, it was a grey world – the platform, the trains, the lives.

At times, the trains seem suspended in the air just above the crumbling overpass. Ambulances would rush underneath, blaring and screaming, ricocheting north or south, destination heaven or hell. Against the broken curbs were a collection of trash and street sludge snow cones.

Beyond the stone buildings that bounded the campus like the walls of a keep, the city streets lurked. Faded billboards stalked Sheridan Road like zombies, with faceless ads about malt liquors or lawyers or paternity. And just a short walk from the holy cathedral of the Madonna, it was too dangerous to be alone, especially at night.

Inside the protected quadrangle, we didn't feel the threats or the taunts of the city.   Instead, we learned of neuroses.

The revelation was in theology (an appropriate place), which was required coursework when studying for the Jesuits.  The revelation was that a normal person is really not normal at all.  If they seem normal - and happy - then they are undoubtedly and successfully neurotic.  They have created a perception of reality that helps them to cope.  They hear sirens but can't feel the trauma. See the billboards but block the messages.

This mental faculty keeps us sane.  It’s like a vestigial sort of mental miracle.  On a daily basis, it softens the sharper edges of reality.  But when life’s pain becomes intense, it can carry us all by itself.  Without it, we might be unable to continue the lives we thought we had.  Without it, we might find ourselves atop a bridge and leaning out - with pain too great to bear.

Perhaps the Jesuits, at times, disguised this miraculous faculty as a Trojan Horse. 

But they know it's faith.  It's God, helping our souls carry burdens too heavy for us to lift by ourselves.

Maybe one day, you'll be riding the L train, feeling a pain you believe has changed you forever.  Hold on tightly as the train screeches and swerves, and nearly throws you from your seat. When the wheels grind to a halt, hurry off the train, down the stairs and across the street.

Step into the quadrangle.

Breathe deeply and feel the gentle snowflakes fall around you.  Listen to the muted sounds of the train as it fades into the distance.  Follow the warm pools of light that fall beneath the familiar buildings.  Feel the comfort of walking with other students toward your dorm and your friends and the life you have known.

Then, look across campus, toward the eaves of the church of the Madonna. 

Feel the pain fade.


*****

A Life Story

In our house on Esmond Street, my mother could be heard calling up the stairs, “Your father’s not going; he’s working on his book today.”

His book. My mother proudly told us that it was going to be a great work of literature, that it would make him rightfully famous. But knowing its ostensible title, the book drew little interest or awe from the group of us, preparing to go to church or the beach or the S&H greenstamps store.

We would leave my father standing in the doorway, his pipe clenched in his teeth and a box of papers under his arm.  A sacrifice for the book.

In the 1960’s, my father could have used the Olivetti from his office for the project, but he wasn’t a typist - he was an artist.  He used fountain pens and bics, legal pads and plain white paper.  

There on Esmond, work on the book had just begun, so we often saw him carrying his box of papers, busy and intent and energetic. Young, tall, and thin.  Unburdened and eagerly anticipating his future as an author and historian.

The box with the loose pages could be found in his studio, among other flotsam and jetsam carried along on his creative river of talent; oil pallettes and canvases, brilliant pools of watercolors drying in plastic pans, and delicately drawn outlines of Chicago homes waiting for the watery touch of his brush. 

His studio resonated with music and smell of Bond Street pipe tobacco.  Visiting his studio, we watched from playpens and highchairs, stools and swing-o-matics. 

We moved from Esmond Street to a tiny brick house on Longwood Drive in Blue Island, where work progressed.  Pipe smoke and inappropriately loud operatic music drifted up from the basement; certain clues that Chicago’s sepia history of barons and brothels and business tycoons was being transcribed.

As he penned those pages in the cramped basement, he was sifting through the rubble of a house on Prairie Avenue, or walking up a grand mahogany staircase with his friend and mentor, whom he told us was part of Lord Carnarvon’s excavation of King Tut’s tomb. John McCormack and Arthur Rubenstein deafened the sound of the babies crying upstairs. It must have seemed like heaven.

We lived in the Blue Island house during the Viet Nam war.  My mother would occasionally have “Viet Nam Dinner” nights for the children.  They featured only rice, odd vegetables, and water. 

We hated it then, but see if differently today.  Now with admiration.  Because now we know of the days my father would come home after selling just a few art supplies or hand-sketched note cards in his gallery.   We’d eat the budget-saving Viet Nam dinners and then my father would head downstairs to work on his book.

The book that would make him famous.

Then, during those tumultuous Blue Island years, history happened.  Men landed on the moon. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were shot.  Riots erupted across the city, and Daley’s canary blue police served up justice as the fires burned.  And the basement flooded.

Amid the floating boxes and submerged furniture, the pages of the book were saved. I remember seeing a box of rippled and streaked paper and wondering if the book project would survive.  Evidently it did.

Shortly after the flood, we moved into a new house and a new period in our lives. The house was not unlike those featured in the unfinished book. It was a peeling and dilapidated old Victorian, with broken pipes and windows. The high-ceiling rooms had piles of leaves from the oak trees that towered over its three stories. And it seemed like a perfect place to work on the book.  In this new space, our lives felt changed.  Our minds seemed to expand.

And we grew.  Teenagers started appearing.  Braces and new cars were needed.  Our friends gathered in the large kitchen in the house on Prospect Avenue, filling the place with noise and laughter and chaos. We were all swept into our own lives and personal dramas.

We had temporarily forgotten the image of my father standing by the door in our Esmond house, youthful and hopeful, clutching his box of paper.  For the moment, we'd forgotten those hand-written pages, water stained from the flood.

I lost track of the book.

But my father must have kept writing it.

He must have, because today his book, “Chicago's Old Homes - Legends and Lore,” is in its third edition from McGraw Hill.  It’s been sold on Amazon.com and E-Bay.  And I once saw it in a Barnes and Noble bookstore in Florida.

Maybe it didn’t make him a famous author. 

But in my eyes, he acheived fame from another work, yet unpublished but even longer in the making.

Upon endless pages, he has drawn the indelible characters of our family.  He penned each of us imperfectly and yet grandly.  Our minds as big and open and irrational as moving into a house filled with leaves and racoons.  Our souls bathed in the artistic and creative process. 

Thus we became philosophers and scientists, thinkers and writers, musicians and artists.

For this, my father shares the byline.

And now, we are busy writing our own books.

Thanks dad.


********

Corkie, Yorkie, and Cicadas

In Chicago, it was just early August but the dog days of summer had arrived many weeks too soon, along with weather from a Louisiana swamp. Windless and hot, time dragged as slowly as the few molecules of air that blew across the city.

Among the rows of bungalows in Beverly, sprinklers were working hard; spraying comb-teeth waves of water across the browning grass.  And, as afternoon inched forward, the shrill sounds of the cicadas would begin - a deafening backdrop of insect chatter from a million tiny voices that would mercifully drown out the sounds of the city - the sirens and traffic and planes.

This particular afternoon, it was hot.  And boring.

So we sat inside Meg's bungalow on Bell Street, where it was quieter and cooler.  My neice Eliza and my daughter Katie sat cross-legged in front of the sofa next to the coffee table.  Eliza's Barbies were scattered out across the floor.  Sponge Bob was talking to Gary in the background.  The fan pointed up at the ceiling where someone had probably kicked it.  So I curled up in front of it, near Eliza and Katie and the dolls.

Eliza knew about Elizabeth Freckly Dawn Ron, a Barbie from Katie's childhood that was legendary in the Simmerling family.  Dawn Ron was a creation of our imagination, a pretend teenager that overcame her challenges to become an overconfident olympic skater who won the gold medal (under dubious circumstances).  

"Why don't you guys play Barbies?" Meg asked, as Eliza stared in a zombie trance at the television.

"Me?" I asked, yawning.

"Yeah, you two can do a show or something," she said.  Meg probably remembered the dance contests and skating events Katie and I held with Dawn Ron and her friends on our own living room carpeting.  I was a grown man (I think), so it should have been kind of embarrassing.  But Eliza was now snapped out of her trance and latched onto the Barbie idea.

"I don't know, I'm kind of tired from working for the Bobs all day and everything," I said, stretching out and closing my eyes.

"Please, uncle John?"

"Yeah dad, come on, it will be fun," Katie conspired.

So we gathered all the dolls together to get them ready for an organized event, which involved a lot of pulling pants up and dresses down, and un-matting wild hair.  As we sat them in rows, stadium like, I wondered what we could come up with.   I needed some coffee. 

"How about a magic show?" I offered.  That seemed interesting, in a David Blaine kind of way. 

"Cool," Eliza agreed. 

So, as the seating arrangements continued, I asked for the names of the dolls.  While Katie had names for all of her Barbies growing up, Eliza's Barbies were virtually anonymous.  So we had to come up with some stage names.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I announced,  "I'd like to introduce Corkie and Yorkie!"  Picking two dolls (a Ken and Barbie) from the crowd, I dramtically held them up, "And they are starring in the Corkie and Yorkie Magic Show!" 

The names were pulled from nowhere, but oddly they had a certain gypsy-caravan kind of feeling.   And with the wild hair and outfits in the crowd, it seemed appropriate.

And with that, the Corkie and Yorkie magic show was born. 

The early acts of the show featured a flashy trick called "The Magic Kimono", where an assistant would be made to disappear from under a large silk robe, but only after the audience was told to close their eyes because of the danger from powerful magical rays.  The assistant would reappear after much backstage talking and arguing - but again only after the audience would obediently close their eyes. 

There was also the popular fortune-telling act (also gypsy-like), where an assistant named "Miss Magic" would answer audience questions about their future.  Unfortunately, the questions were too simple and the answers too vague. 

"What kind of car will I get when I am older?" 

"A fast car - thank you very much," Miss Magic would curtly answer.      

That first afternoon, after the acts had developed, we went into the backyard and cut pieces from a cardboard box, which we used to make props for the show.  As we cut and taped and painted, we laughed about the funny characters and the silly questions.  We made a booth for Miss Magic, which included a sign that read, "Magic Tricks and Good Advice."  Katie made a sign for the Barbie Minivan that said, "Going to the Corkie and Yorkie Magic Show." 

The Magic Show was a hit.  Eliza would do her best to re-create it for other family members, but Katie or I would need to add the bungling and innocent complexity (and humor) that made it so fun.  More props were added, and daily showtimes were posted on the side of the kiosks.

Late one night, I received a text message from Meg, telling me that the audience was now camping out in her living room, waiting to get tickets for the next day's show.  "All these teenagers are sleeping out in my living room," she wrote.  "And I think I smell someone smoking," she added in a later text. 

In daily conversations and texts, we would refer to the different Barbie characters, such as Brian, Chad, Miss Magic, Corkie, Yorkie, etc.  They would be late for work, headed to Great America, in the backyard sitting on the picnic table and smoking, looking for jobs, off at Starbucks, and all the other things teenagers do. 

We laughed about it late at night as we texted each other.  In the mornings, we would discuss the previous night's misbehaviors - how the carnies and the groupies were a bad influence on each other.  I'd drive over to the Gallery and Vicki would be laughing as I walked in - she'd ask for the latest on Corkie and the gang.  If you were in on it, you'd have to help build the story.  So the Magic Show misadventures were as creative as the show itself - and almost as funny.

Like the heat and humidty that hung over the city this summer, our emotions were pressed and twisted and tested in unpredictable ways every day.  But we were lucky, we had each other.  We relied upon each other, learned about each other, and I know we became closer than ever. 

But during those summer days, Corkie and Yorkie also gave us something that we didn't know we needed - an escape.

An escape, like the deafening but welcome sound of the summer cicadas.

**

Vicki and Katie

Creating centerpieces for the wedding tables

On the moon

You know I care for you
But pretend and lead me on, that's all you do
I try to still believe but now I'm through

And the only place I see
is calling out to me
It's the only place I know
It's the place where I must go

On the moon, that's where you'll find me soon.
I'll be alone again
That's okay, I must be on my own again.
I'll be waiting on the moon for you

I sit and reminisce for many hours
I miss the rain and all the pretty flowers
I dream of all the cities and their towers

And I hope you wonder why
I'm lying in the sky
I'll even let you in for free
If you come and visit me

On the moon, that's where you'll find me soon.
I'll be alone again
And all I'll do is to lie there till I die there
Waiting on the moon for you

Would you ever even dream
to go to the extreme?
And would you ever want to be
the one to rescue me?

On the moon, that's where you'll find me soon.
All alone again
Unwinding there and praying that you'll find me there
Waiting on the moon for you

On the moon, that's where you'll find me soon.
And still your face will be haunting me
So if you're ever wanting me
I'll be waiting on the moon for you

Citation credit - From Peter Cincotti
http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/peter-cincotti/id3695561

By any other name

The heat was rising in waves off the faded asphalt on his left and past the curb.  He pedaled his rickety beach cruiser bicycle along Macintosh Road, cruising the pebbled and sun-bleached sidewalk, weaving now and then to avoid the weeds growing like Southern corn stalks from between the cracks.  

It was not easy to tell his age, his skin being folded and wrinkled from the sun; brown like the cigarette stains on his hands.   His eyes were shaded under a gray baseball cap - a Walmart selection that had a #3 on the front bill.   Blue jeans hung loosely on his skinny frame, short and faded and sagging down in the back.   And for the dual purpose of keeping cool and looking cool, he had on a ribbed and sleeveless t-shirt.

Balanced on his handlebars was a boxed set of beer, twelve cans precariously perched; sliding from side to side as the bike tried to keep a straight line in the dizzying sun.    As if performed in a ring at the nearby Circus, the act featured a masterment of physics - the bicycle, the shifting and flimsy collection of cans, the weeds and the light poles, and the brilliant solar spot light.   Only Ringmaster Ned was missing.

It probably wasn't easy to keep those cool beers in their box.  Already the blue and white cardboard was becoming soft and loose with condensation.   And the effort expended to keep the whole complex process in motion was no doubt creating a gigantic thirst.  One way or the other, it appeared inevitable.

It wasn't long before the beach cruiser 's front tire met a crack in the pavement.   The end of the box popped open and several beers tumbled out to the ground.   As the man reached for the falling box, he lost his grip on the handlebars.   Bike, man and box all tumbled on to the hot concrete.

I muttured to myself, "Are you kidding me?"

I watched as the cans spun around on the pale concrete, their streaks of water instantly evaporating as they rolled..   The man stood up over his bicycle, took off his hat and waved #3 around in frustration.   He shook his fist at the cans lying there, cursing his bad luck and the cheap glue used at the Keystone factory.

The lights at the intersection changed and cars began to move.   I felt sorry for this man on his bike.   Ok, it was a little humorous, but I felt bad for being entertained at his expense.   And as much as I want to call him a redneck, I think it would be kind of mean, given his personal tragedy.

But come on, if not that, then what?

Your best day

It was a day that surprised all of us.  It snuck up like a treacherous thief, waiting behind a tree in the backyard; grabbing your bicycle and disappearing with a sneer.   A thief of innocence, too.

Some days in our lives can be so rare and significant that they endure; remembered with a permanence.  They linger through the years - though blurred and remembered perhaps only in bits and pieces.   Framing our lives.   This was a day like that.  

A day when character is tested.

That evening, I looked into the tearful and red eyes of my sister and knew she had one of those days.  My sister, who we remember cooing and kicking and rolling on her blanket when we were teenagers. The one whom we bathed in the kitchen sink as we sat laughing with our high school friends.   Little could we envision then that one day she would be there when we needed her most.

I told her that it was a day to remember; a difficult day by any measure.  But it was over now - passed by as one of her life’s great challenges.   But I also told her that I knew when she met God in heaven, he would say it was one of her best days ever.

It was.   And we love you Meg.

A mother's summer

Growing up, we always knew when summer was around the corner.   The window screens, chalky and grey, would appear from the basement, smelling musty and faintly of past summer storms.

Magnolia blossoms filled some of our backyard trees with their delicate pink petals; like soft, flushed skin.  Their perfume was a reminder, deeply felt, of the coming season.  The flowers were fleeting – they’d wilt with the first cold rain.

In circles around the trees, lime-green shoots pushed up through the litter of unraked leaves and brittle branches left from the fall.   Exotic plants, forgotten under the winter snow, also began to emerge.  They transformed overnight in the first warm days of May, a photoshopic change in hue from brown to deep green.

We’d escape outside with the new season, and we were filled with the same excited emotions as if we’d found a favorite toy that had been presumed lost forever.   It was back.

Out on our front sidewalk, next to a giant elm tree, there was a section of slab tilted up like a small step, where a root had lifted it.   Its surface pocked and pitted, it was several inches thick, heavy and immense and immovable.   None of us could lift it an inch - and we often tried.   Although the tree was eventually lost to Dutch elm disease, its roots left their mark long after it was cut down by city workers.

Summer also marked the beginning of my mother’s annual but unofficial camp program.  We all learned at an early age that the agenda for our summers wasn’t really ours.   It was all hers. 

Vacation Bible school was a frequent offering.  It wasn’t Catholic, but since they used the Bible and it kept us busy, it was just as good. Besides, our memories of the school are exclusively about the packages of ice cream they distributed - with their own wooden spoons.  Rarely did we remember what was said about the New Testament.

An important and imperial rule was about television.   There was strictly limited access.    Sometimes, my mother would make good on her threats – she really would cut off the cord to the television.   To her, it was “canned laughter” and crap, and not part of the summer program.   Now we agree.  But we didn’t think so at the time.

The campers liked sleep overs, but they were infrequently allowed.   When Meg would be allowed to sleep at a friend’s house, family legend has it that Marge would show up early the next morning to bring her home.   She’d arrive at the friend's front door and say, “Meg, time to come home, you have chores to do.”   Like we were Amish and worked on the family farm.

My mother registered all of us for swim lessons every year.   They were held at Memorial Park.   We rode our bikes there, and it was miles away (really).   Sessions began in early June, and started with students sitting lined on the edge of the pool, shivering and fearful.    The Park District somehow managed to get the water colder than actual tap water – which in Chicago was frigid.   Even by August, we all needed to “get used to it” before it was tolerable.  And that meant goose bumps and purple lips.  

“Get Meg out of the pool, her lips are blue,” my mother would announce to any nearby sibling.   Meg would be shivering, arms across her chest, but saying she was fine.   Mom knew.

Sports were encouraged.   We erected a basketball hoop against the coach house.   The backboard was held in place by two-by-fours, which needed to be re-nailed every year to keep the whole structure from swaying each time the ball hit the rim.   We’d compete for playing time on our own court with the neighborhood brothers, who taught me my wicked turn-around jumper - one that I can still hit even today.

As summer progressed and the days became hotter, the box fan would spend more days standing in the doorway, thrumming along with the cicadas.   We had spent the humid days doing chores, riding bikes, caring for infant siblings, and a thousand other things.    As the years progressed, my mother had us working various jobs (to which she had applied for us).   In high school and college, she had us enroll in volunteer programs in Central and South America, and our curriculum was advanced to a level none of us thought possible.  

One of my mother’s greatest legacies is her boundless and remarkable energy.   It was enough for everyone.   She created endless projects and endless opportunities to fill our days and our minds.   She was the principal, the teacher, the den mother, the head nurse, the groundskeeper, the game warden, the mother nun, the librarian, the counselor and the gym coach.   She could do it all – and she did.    And we followed.   Ok, we resisted much of the time.   But we learned to appreciate it - and we learned to love her for it.

Those summer months flashed by so quickly that many are lost to our memories.   But some moments are clearly remembered.   Like riding our bikes over the crack in the sidewalk that had been lifted by the giant tree, its branches reaching high over our street in a panoramic and protective arch.

The summers my mother created for us helped us build roots like those.   And today we push through life’s challenges as if they are the lightest of concrete blocks.

Each of us has been filled with energy and purpose - vividly so.   As artists, scientists, teachers, businessmen, or just especially good mothers and fathers, we can look back on our summers and, in part, understand why.   

And we’re glad she cut the cord to the TV.   Even if we didn't seem so at the time.

Hey Ghost

Hey ghost
you really don't fit in here
in that Victorian costume
of see-through, sepia design

It might have been cool once
Now it's not to wear drag
Clinton and Stephanie would both tell you
it's not for the ghost about town

Those pale ivory buttons on your brown shoes
are quite out of style unless you're name Ida
But they make for good thumping
up and down the front stairs
 
And the orb
yes, the orb that you sent to my room
How couldn't I notice that thing?
It scared my cat crazy - she scratched my right arm

Come on
I know you can talk
Basement and attic, you murmur and moan
So, "Meg...." in the white noise
won't really scare me
when I tune in my Sony TV

And don't think I'm psycho
No matter how much
you wish and you whisper
you won't get me anywhere near
The coachhouse upstairs

I'm happy and normal
with people from around here
I don't miss Ms. Jacobs or Riley or Gen
And don't want to talk to the girl they say jumped

Hey ghost
You are starting to really annoy me
I'm about ready to call
my friend Father Kret
And then who will be scared?

My green Scwhinn Varsity

From Memorial Park

On the fourth of July

To Beverly Bank

And hot August skies

Flinging on down

old Devil’s hill

Gripping green tape

And ready to spill

And I shouldn’t have left

my favorite 10 speed

My varsity bike

all shiny and green

On the Prospect back porch

unlocked for the night

Without a mean dog

or even a light

To keep out old Charlie,

Fulloflove indeed

My bike in exchange

for a bagful of weed

Jesse's Paint Shop

Out on the key

at a paint shop named Crow's

There's an artist named Jesse

With a pin through his nose

He sits on his stool

and works his designs

lost in his thoughts

to the tunes of Rammstein

At the beach and the bay

the dock and the pier

you see works by Jesse

everywhere here

Butterfly wings, looping and flowing

alien faces, teeth and eyes glowing

Dear mother Alice, in memory of

lost to the seaweed out in the gulf

Girlfriends and wives, now past their best

are recorded on forearms

and painted on chests

Now raising their babies

In Venice and Port Charlotte

The girls have tatts too,

from their days as beach harlots

Wanna be cowboys with testosterone threats

spelled out by Jesse

there on their necks

Crosses galore,
thorn rings and thorn roses

they're part of the band
on their bellies and noses

Jesse's own gallery, in stores and in shops

in high concentration

in the IHops

At the beach, in the sand,

in the sweat and the brine

the tattoo creations, they swim and they shine

There isn't some skin

no matter how teeny

that Jesse's not painted

in a bikini

In a black Scorpions tee shirt, his industry grows

and Jesse's the king - he makes it up as he goes

And Jesse's great helper, what makes it all run
is a sharp clear brown liquid
known around here as rum

As it flows through the crowd on the key and in bars
folks think of Jesse
and get into their cars

They come out to Crow's, open 24 hours
and start out with thoughts of a tiny red flower

Then they get almost naked and pass out on cue
and Jesse starts working
with greens and with blues

By the time they awake,
the confederate painter
has painted himself
a huge alligator

It's there on his calf,
right there on her thigh

It must have looked cool
When they were high

Wake up, my boy

Wake up, my boy

it's time you get started

the coffee pot's on

and the cat has departed

It was a long x-box night

dead cowboys and soldiers

dancing in death

at your wireless controllers

But now here's today

it's here, it's right now

the sun has come up

and so have the cows

And if I have to, I'll say it
on this morning so clear
the perfect alarm clock
"Hey, lookie here"

Tucker's hotel

Out on the highway
on the old Tucker place
Past the faded red barns
and the old missle base

There's a brand new hotel,
built just last year
And it's really not far,
but it's really not near

The Bobs looked at prices
and decided they needed
a place not too fancy
the lot not too weeded

So I drove my white rental
down the straight asphalt track
Past a barbed wire fence
and the weathered old shack

Past the tall skinny pines
and gnarled oak trees
And way past the sign
for the new Applebees

I looked out the window
at the browns and the grays
And the light yellow greens
soon to be maize

They flashed past the windows
in a blurred country scene
Complete with the cattle
and the pigs that looked mean

The black and white cows,
well they just didn't move
They stomped muddy hoofs
and they snorted and stewed

They stood and they stared,
and they chewed and they chewed
They stood in the grass
and they moo'd with their mood

I stepped from the car
and into the gravel
And cursed out Obama
for making me travel

Its healthcare reform and ARRA!
That has me out here for almost no pay...

The lot was deserted
and smelled like manure
which must drift across
from Tucker's, I'm sure

He sold a small corner
of his vast fields of green
Now he's got cows on both sides
and this hotel in between

It's a Holiday Inn,
no wait, it's not that
It some kind of new place,
generic and flat

With carpets and curtains all shipped in pre-made
They're flimsy but cheap, just the right grade

It's a Stay-Inn-Motel
it says on the sign
And when the Bobs saw the prices
they thought it'd be fine

It's not, after all, Miami or Spain
Just a little hick town, without even a train

The front desk was spartan,
one phone and one clerk
and she stood there and waited
and smiled with a smirk

The Stay-Inn was empty
she said it was growing
And that would help Tucker
cut back on his mowing

With my bag and my laptop
and a hope the key fit
I trudged up to my room
like it was the Ritz

It had little shampoos
a cheap plastic alarm
And a full view of Tucker's
his cows and his farm

I went to the window,
looked out it and sighed
They Bobs aren't just cheap,
they're also quite blind

I'd find a way out, get past all those rules
That had me out here, a country-bound fool

Then I saw the old man,
on top of his rig
A green John Deere Lexus,
really quite big

He leaned back and he smiled
and winked up my way
And he turned and he laughed,
and I knew right away

That Tucker had been out here
alone with the birds
With only his pigs
and the cows and the turds

And for just a few acres
of grass and of dirt
he bought off the Bobs
and the Stay-Inn white shirts

So I look out the window
and think, "ain't it a bitch?"
how that old farmer Tucker
got himself rich

There might be clouds

Stepping to the window in the morning, I know most people are cheered if they see the sun's radiance filling the sky.  Not me.  And I don't know why.

Maybe it's a gene scientists will eventually discover.  Until then, it's just a membership in an odd club of people who like stormy skies.  Cloudaphiles.   Neurotics who are inexplicably drawn to complex formations, threatening skies, and contrasting yellows and blues and greys. 

It's not that I don't like the sun.   But after a while, it burns me out, like a bright blue fabric sitting in some Arizona store window.  I become faded; pale blue and brittle.  

There's no background quite like a distant and low rumble that moves across the horizon and stretches back and forth across the low parts of the audible sound spectrum.

And I think the gene may have been passed on.  As we stood in the garage last week, Thomas and I watched a rare spring rain pound down upon the driveway and live oaks.   He suddenly peeled off his shoes and spun out into the maelstrom.   He splashed into the puddles along the curbs and swung in the backyard hammock.  

When he came in, he said, "Dad, isn't this AWESOME?"  What could I say?  Yep.  

So, when I wake up, I look at the window and think, "This might just be a good day.  There might be clouds."