An October of Dreams

Another autumn. Beavercreek, Ohio.

It's sleepy here, in this Midwest hamlet. A fact which may account for the ease into which one can slip into dreaming.


These somnambulist Beavercreekians have Indian Summers that stretch into Thanksgiving. They live in a place where days are passed among colored landscapes with hypnotizing beauty ... and the nights are slept effortlessly in the cool comfort of a fall chill.

Of dreams and imaginings, this is a kind of Neverland. A place where Orville and Wilbur shared a universe with Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. Perhaps that resonance never leaves this place. This Neverland.

On an afternoon just a few days ago, I was looking out my office window. October had neared its very end, and I wasn't surprised upon seeing the pale blue skies depart. Now, gray and purple billows could be seen pushing and rolling above the trees. With it, a wet wind was determined to strip every defiant Indian Summer leaf from every tree.

That wasn't easy here in Neverland. Some few trees were overcome and turned into branchy scarecrows, but most held on.

In its wake were low mists, hugging the ground, just as the clouds seemed to hover over the tops of the trees. Foggy and spooky, it couldn't have been painted any better.

As I watched the leaves tumble through the mist, a car emerged, seemingly from nowhere, slowing as it neared our house. It appeared to be a black Chrysler LeBaron.

And the top was down.

The old car slowed and idled patiently at the curb, as if waiting, uncertain of the address. Its driver, and lone occupant, was wearing a corduroy beret. His arm rested on the door atop the open window. The arm lifted, tweed jacket patched at the elbow, and a leather-gloved hand held up a scrap of paper, no doubt confirming an address.

Chill gusts of wind blew smoke from the man's pipe, which floated in swirls as the convertible turned and crept up the driveway. Its strange license plates read "Calumt Av." It stopped, and its cream-colored canvas roof began lifting in jerky, clunky movements.

It seemed normal to me. As if it was the most natural thing that dad would make his way here. Eventually.

I rushed out the door, shivering and meeting him at the LeBaron.

"Dad?" He nodded and pulled his beret tighter.

"Come in, it's freezing out here," I said, clutching his elbow. He looked youthful, no older than fifty, and his face was rosy and chapped, as if he'd been driving through the skies.

"No, no, I'm actually headed to Cincinnati. That's where they used to make Rookwood, you know. It's just an old warehouse now, but we wanted to explore it. James is already there. I can't stay long. But I wanted to see my great grandson, the boy, Rice."

"It's Rhys, dad. But none of us could get it right at first. Are you sure you won't stay?"

He shook his head, pointing a gloved hand down the driveway. It seemed normal, as if he was expected. Hmm, these dreams.

The LeBaron followed me, our two black cars drifting through strewn piles of leaves and under the low hanging grey clouds. We passed haystacks and pumpkin farms and nearly endless fields of dry Ohio cornstalks.

We turned past the church and pulled into the gravel driveway.

"What a beautiful house," my father said, stepping up and out of his convertible, rubbing his gloved hands together. "Just look at that porch," he pointed, up at the house. As always, admiring the craft of the builder.

"Yes, but it's not a mansion," I offered.

He started ahead of me toward the door, down the gravel drive. He approached the stairs, planted his brown leather shoe on the first step, and his image flickered. It was if the scene had skipped, just for a moment.

His next step was with a well-worn wing-tip shoe. Gone were the tweed jacket and the wool pants. The beret was also missing. This younger man had a flat-top buzz cut. His cheeks were taunt and rosy, with a slight blonde stubble. He wore a short sleeve white shirt, with several pens in the front pocket. He also wore a green patterned tie, clipped to the front of his shirt.

It was my father. But the younger, untroubled, and freely unfettered version. Under his arm, he carried several white squares of mat-board, which had appeared as if from nowhere.

"Katie, Katie!" He shouted, as he skipped up the last step, not waiting for me to follow.

"It's grandpa. Grandpa Jack."

I saw Katie in the window, with the baby over her shoulder. She peered through the curtains. She seemed not to recognize this man, the one with the crewcut, the low sideburns, and the rosy smile.

"It's me, Katie!" he said, beaming. The door was quickly opened and she looked upon the two of us. She looked at me first, her eyes searching mine. I nodded.

I looked older than him. And he, well he looked like Matthew, but with short hair and a slight shimmer.

She knew. Her head was soon upon his shoulder. "Grandpa, I've missed you so much." Her tears were happy. And sad.

Nothing else needed saying.

Katie didn't hesitate. "Look, grandpa, it's Rhys." She cradled him, turning his way, her eyes wet. "Rhys, this is your great grandpa Jack."

My father looked too young to be a great grandfather. But he smiled, put his supplies on the table, and lifted the 2-month old baby, looking into his blue eyes.

"Katie, he's so beautiful. Just like you." And then, "He's such a gift. Do you think he'd like a story?" he asked, nodding at the supplies on the table.

We all sat in the kitchen, in stools around the counter, while Katie propped up Rhys so he could listen. And watch. Soon, my father had his felt tip marker out - and he began the story.

Rhys was transfixed by the movement of the marker across the white boards - and by the magic of my father's voice - as he spoke of the Witch Sisters and drew their world. One board beheld the broom room. Another showed them flying across the dark October sky, with warty noses and long, flapping capes.

This continued for many minutes, longer than I would have thought the baby would stay interested. But all of us, including Rhys, felt entranced.

Dad stopped sketching when the baby opened his tiny hands, reached toward him, and made a squeak.

"Look at those fingers, they were meant for a piano or a paintbrush. Or maybe this," he smiled, holding the marker out to Rhys, who clutched it with his long pink fingers.

Rhys cooed. He smiled at his great grandfather. Then closed his eyes.

"He's off to another dream, perhaps," dad whispered. He began collecting his mats, lost in some thought.  

"Hey dad?" I asked, as he made to leave. "What's it like, I mean, in heaven?"

He smiled and scratched his sideburn. Katie picked up Rhys and again lay her head on Jack's shoulder.

Dad pointed at the table, at the mats, and at Katie and the baby. "It's beautiful, John. In fact, it's a lot like this."

And with that, he kissed Katie on the forehead. Rubbed the sleeping baby's blonde hair, and left through the kitchen door.

We watched as dad, now back in his tweed coat and beret, climbed back into the LeBaron.

The car reversed. Time reversed. Back into the mist.

Back into Neverland.

Listen to the music, vous serez enchanté

I had just said, "Eres Tu" to her, as the words popped into my mind.

"What?" She squinted.

"It means 'it is you.'" (Or, 'you are,' if used literally)

"Oh."

"It's supposed to be kinda romantic. Like, in the way I said it," I explained.

"Oh, that's nice."

Okay, I wasn't explaining it well. I wanted to say that there was a kind of poetic beauty in the way the words themselves were spoken, regardless of what they meant.

So I tried again. "It's more than that. It's the sound of the words themselves. It's... I don't know. It's like in that song."



"The song?" Shaking her head, her wavy hair flew about the car, from the open window, as if her medusa of curls were as confused as she was.

Oh, that's right. It was written when she was 4 years old, by the Spanish singer-songwriter Juan Carlos Calderon. I couldn't blame her.

The song was "Eres Tu," by Mocedades, in 1974. The lead was sung by Amaya Uranga. It was a musical era when now-immortal musical legends dominated US charts.

It was a Spanish-language song. No translations. No English. And how it found its way to #9 on 1974's Top 100 is telling. It needed no translation.

Apple Music found me another Amaya song. It was 'Tomame o Dejame'. Unlike 'Eres Tu,' it wasn't pop. With no translation (especially without it), it was emotionally and melodically stirring. Amaya Tomame o Dejame

Today, Spanish-language artists still perform covers of the timeless "Tomame of Dejame." Artists like Thalia. Thalia Cover.

And now, to the other point. I think I was unwittingly entranced by this stuff as a child; hypnotized in an old Victorian living room.

It was my father. I remember it now.

"John!" Dad's eyes would open wide, and he'd point to the stereo, the needle dancing across the vinyl, the sounds of violins and cellos and pianos filling the high-ceilinged living room, reaching a certain crescendo he'd been expecting. "Right here, right here!"

He'd point again, close his eyes, and sing the lyrics, along with an opera singer, like Maria Callas, as she finished the final stanza of Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, "Ah, reidi a mi..."

My father would be passionately singing, word for word, with the opera diva. But in Italian.

Then, he'd open his eyes and look for my reaction - or agreement - to the beauty of Bellini's masterpiece.

Well, I didn't speak Italian. And I'm absolutely sure he didn't. But he was my father, and he was sharing a kind of mystical musical joy with me, so what could I say?

"Ah, that was beautiful, dad."

While sometimes it was orchestral arrangements, it was mostly - and (at the time) painfully - opera.

I am now reasonably certain that, in the sixties and seventies, I was the only child within at least a few hundred miles who spent time listening, patiently, to hours-long piano concertos and full-length operas in languages I couldn't understand.

My father was hoping I could feel what he did, even if it was not just then. Not when I just wanted to go up to my room.

He had found bliss - in his ability to summon a kind of entangled, intuitive human resonance to harmonics, frequencies, and linguistic consonance - and become mesmerized in its poetry.

Looking back now, I'm sure he wanted to share this joy. Maybe teach it. Help me feel the magic that he did.

Now, I better understand that words carry way more than letters.

That sounds are words, that words are sounds. That music is language, that language is music.

Well, dad, it took me a while. But I'm glad you made me listen with you. Even if it was both sides of every album and even if it was more than one opera in a single night.

Tomame o Dejame. "Take me. Or leave Me."

Ahhh. "Dad, that's it! Right there."

Sweet summertime

Perfect song on the radio
Sing along 'cause it's one we know
It's a smile, it's a kiss
It's a sip of wine, it's summertime
Sweet summertime

We were in the car then, singing a country song, among the farms, up and down the rolling hills of Ohio. The wind rushing through the wide-open windows. The notes and key muted and perfect.

"Perrfecttt songgg on the radiOOOO..."

The warm and heady July air, scented with grass and wildflowers and pollen. By fields of hay and alfalfa. It carried memories of Sunday mornings, of old metal fans, of small church carnivals, of cabins and pontoon boats and tackle boxes. It was a thing to transcend time and lifetimes.

Of summer days so alive in the moment as to be tinged in loss and regret. In the knowing that its specialness was fleeting, and now almost gone. Like a hopeless crush, like a loss, like a goodbye at the airport. A promise.

She kicked off her sandals and put her feet on the dashboard, adding some authenticity to Kenny's summer ballad - especially since she was in cut-off jeans, her skin golden, her long legs covered by the merest of denim. All we needed was the yoo-hoo. The sips of wine.

An endless repetition of cornstalks blurred past us, marking time; summer afternoon time. Summer burned through its afternoons, it had its own priorities. It was bursting and ripe and not to be ignored. It demanded bare skin and sweat. It begged for Bikinis and flip-flops and belly buttons.

Summer always got what it wanted; its magic powerful. It could make us believe almost anything. In ice cold water, in naps, in freedom. In the carelessness of wasted afternoons. In the belief that rusted tractors were just about the best landscaping, ever. In the mystical beauty of barnwood. In bluegills and sunfish.

In the smell of citronella and fresh dill weed. In popsicles.

When it's hot, eat a root beer popsicle
Shut off the AC and roll the windows down
Let that summer sun shine
Don't take for granted the love this life gives you

Along the country roads, the cicadas had started their afternoon song, high up in the giant roadside oaks. The goliaths rustled their leaves as we drove past, and the cicada sounds would chase us, slowing receding until we reached the next oak.

Beyond each crested hill, there was another country visage, another summer painting, each splashed with the same green pigments. Another summer Kincaid.

"Remember when I told you about the girl I dated at sixteen?" I asked her, across the seats. I had agreed to be silent of past girlfriends, but this one seemed distant enough.

"Well, my favorite memory from that summer we dated is from a hot afternoon, falling asleep on the floor in front of a box fan," I explained. "It's still such a vivid memory."

Memories of that relationship have all faded, except for that one summer afternoon.

We have a kind of bargain with summer. It's a three-month one-night-stand. Summer is ours to consume - to get drunk, to get sunburned, to sail, to watch baseball, to love, to bare everything. In exchange, we give in to a relationship that we know won't last.

And I think it gets high on our love for it.

With summer, life is ripe, like fresh cantelope. Life is succulent and rich, like scarlet-red tomatoes.

Summer can make love seem easy.

And sometimes, it makes the world seem pretty cool.

Like just then, with her feet on the dashboard. Her hair swirling in the open window, blown about by the fragrant summer wind. The smell of her shampoo and of the Coppertone on her warm skin.

All glorius and wonderfully fractal layers of that summer's moment in time.

One she worries will be gone too soon.

"It's a smile, it's a kiss, it's a sip of wine. It's summertime."      

Sweet summertime.

Sunflowers

I know why the heart gets lonely

Every time you give your love away

And if you think that you are only

Flowers in the wind

Blowin' round the wind

You let somebody in they might fade away

"It's not me being negative," I explained, in my bro psychoanalysis. 

She peers into minds for a living, but I held my ground. 

"Maybe they'll have kids. But what they have now, as beautiful as it is, won't last." 

I can't remember if I was talking about the Duchess of Suffolk and her new husband or a more mundane coupling.

"You don't know that."

She believes in dreams and poetry and sunflower tattoos.

Like I did.

Their is a certain poetry in the summer Sunflower. A cadmium beauty that's almost gaudy; braggingly tall, proud, and dominant. Sharp against the ultramarine skies, they grow especially strong in late summer.

Young, royal, and always stretching toward the sun.

Then, their sinewy yellow-green stalks get snipped at the peak of their beauty. They're collected and placed into tall tapwatered vases.

They hold on, for a while, still sharing their late summer beauty, sometimes into the fall.

Of course, tapwater isn't enough. It never is. It wasn't last summer, or a hundred summers before that.

As they lose the richness of their beauty, the fading of summer comes with a longing. For brilliant skies and bathing suits and warm rain.

Sometimes, as their petals turn papery, they might still be cherised; pampered and prized as the air chills and the days shorten. They might still whisper of farmer's markets and dandelions and afternoon thunderstorms.

And sometimes, as they dry, their seeds hold the promise of another rich summer.

"Draw me a sunflower tattoo," she suggested.

Hmm, that one might last.

Maybe forever.

Dad vs. Joe Rogan

At breakfast on Sunday, my sons and I were at a hippie breakfast joint in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

It's a small Midwest town, with plans to build one of the largest Cannabis grow facilities in the state.

And thus the conversation with my twenty-somethings, of course, led to pot.

One son pointed to its medicinal uses, like treating anxiety and PTSD. I took that well; remembering articles about marijuana's evident ability to ease the symptoms of PTSD among veterans and other patients.

He informed us that Cannabis should be available to anyone, anywhere. That we should all be free to self-prescribe since it was harmless (and evidently multi-purpose). He was adamant that Cannabis could stack up against virtually anything Big Pharma might produce.

'Hmmm,' I thought. He must spend serious time on ResearchGate for that level of subject matter and pharmacological expertise. Or learned it all somewhere else. I think I knew where.

My other son disagreed. "Look, the only way to treat PTSD is through extensive one-on-one psychotherapy. Not drugs. Not if you want to completely cure it."

Here we go.

"And you heard that where?" I asked. Of course, I already knew the answer. Hint: he'd wear a Joe Rogan t-shirt, earbuds in, listening to his podcast constantly if his girlfriend would only allow it.

"Joe Rogan?" I offered.

"Well...yeah," he allowed. "He had a really well-known expert on PTSD on his show, a psychologist who said it's the only way to treat it successfully."

"So, this psychologist... He found that in peer-reviewed research studies... or in his practice?"

"Well, I think he said that's what he learned from his experience with patients. And he specializes in it." He added, "Dad, you can't always fix things with big pharma."

Oh, that again. Fair enough.

I actually like The Joe Rogan Experience. At times, it's incredibly informative. He's smart and disruptive and funny. He's the same guy who hosted the worm-eating reality TV show way back when. Rogan is a favorite UFC expert and color announcer at the big fights. He seems fair and intuitive in a bro-science way. And he's #7 on the top 10 most listened-to podcasts.


Obviously, the Joe Rogan Experience is captivating and informative. Beloved by millennials. But it's entertainment. Which means it's not research.

And at #7, millennials are listening and listening. Podcast demographics show that his audience is predominantly young men. Rogan reports that his 1-4 hour podcasts are downloaded 30 million times each month.

Back to breakfast.

I asked my boys, "So how do we help all the people, all the veterans, the first responders, the people in the community who can't - or won't - enroll in intensive one-on-one therapy? Would medications help them? Which meds? How do we address issues in the real world of PTSD and behavioral health? How do we slow the suicide rate of veterans?'

I asked them, "Have you thought about whether cannabis or therapy really is better? Or some other drug? It's an important question. A societal question. Because answers don't come from podcast guests."

"I'm just saying, drugs aren't always the answer." Fair enough.

I just want my sons to seek answers in literature. Science. In research studies. I want them to be their own critical thinkers. To reason for themselves. Not to just rationalize via download.

I don't know. Maybe you can't always fix things with pharma. But maybe you can't always help people with therapy. And maybe Cannabis isn't just medicinal.

But I do know this. You can't learn everything from a podcast.

Building a beautiful city

Out of the ruins and rubble
Out of the smoke
Out of our night of struggle
Can we see
a ray of hope
We can build 
A beautiful city
Yes we can 

Here I am, in Dayton, Ohio. One of my neighbors is a Baptist Church. The other is an elderly woman with a boat, a moldy motorhome, and a rusted, broken tractor and plow in her backyard. Across the street, there's a working farm.

This place is so alien, so far from where I've been over the past few years. Perhaps it's appropriate that there are actual aliens at the air force base just a few miles away.

It's a world away from the sun-streaked turquoise waters and blistering beaches of South Florida, where I used to walk in the baking sand, looking for seashells and hoping that I wouldn't get too sunburned. Where I rode my bicycle, alone, past the Dali Museum and the art deco hotels; pedaling past the volleyball games just beyond the Royal Palms that lined the beach.

Though I still have a few worrying freckles from the Florida sun, I wouldn't trade anything for my time spent there as a castaway. For that's how I felt. For a while, anyway.

In my castaway days, I loved the thunderstorms. They'd arrive in the afternoons as if they were a hurried response to urgent, sunburnt prayers. With blue-black skies and jagged lightning, they'd show up just before everything caught fire from the blazing tropical sun. Sometimes, I'd run across the street to the cafes, stand under the awnings, and listen to my playlist. Alone. And every song on it will forever smell like sunscreen and cocoanuts.

Dayton is also blessedly far from Chicago - a skyline of chaos embraced. Of protests, politics, and parking tickets. Where diversity is the adrenalin that fuels its hipsters and tourists like Adderall-laced energy drinks. It teeters forever on the edge of eruption; a high for the young, the brave, the cool - the ones who would gladly have three roommates just to be a part of its mesmerizing craziness and maybe take an Uber to Wrigley field once in a while.

Each place I've been, it's been so different. From watching the sun dip below the waves in the Gulf of Mexico every night to seeing it emerge from beneath the aquamarine edge of Lake Michigan every morning.

And just before Dayton, I'd lived as a castaway too, alone among 144 acres of cornstalks and soybeans. Near the river and the squirrels. I never tired of the whistle of the South Shore train as it raced past, carrying tourists to the station near The Stray Dog. It reminded me of my dad.

"You're moving where?"

My friends and colleagues were surprised. "Seriously?"

They'd wonder why I'd trade the ranch for Dayton. Just like they wondered why I'd moved from my condo high above the museum - overlooking the lake. Like they wondered why I'd ever left my castaway cabin just a few hundred feet from the beach. From my beloved thunderstorms.

I could never really explain why, though. Not in a way that they'd understand.

Because what I learned is that special places aren't special at all - without people you love. And each place, each city, eventually whispered that to me.

That you can be a castaway, even on the most beautiful beach, That, even in the tallest tower, you can't see far enough. That no matter how much corn grows around you, there is hunger.

Without a daughter's smile, a son's laugh - without family - there is no home. The scenery is only special to tourists. Beauty is built.

Maybe the lady next door will sell me her rusty tractor.

Citations:
Beautiful City - Godspell 2011 Revival
2011 Broadway 
Arranger: Mac Huff | Composer: Stephen Schwartz | Musical: Godspell

Cookies, Felt Stockings and Endless Love

Another Christmas begins as the snow falls here in Michigan. Across the fields, it swirls around the ranch in fine, powdery flurries. Soon, the cousins and siblings will arrive.

Besides the packages and presents and the food they'll carry in from their cars, they'll also bring the cherished memories of our family.

Of the love that we've shared. Of happiness and sadness. Of the new traditions we've started and the ones we keep in our memories.

My youngest sister met a stranger at work this week. The woman approached her, introduced herself and said she had an important message to share with her.

"Meg, your sister wanted me to tell you something important. She knows you'll all be together for Christmas Day this year - and she wants you to know she'll be there with you."

She told her other things too, of which only my youngest sister would know.

So I thought it would be a good day to tell this story again; one I wrote a few years ago.

@@@@

I think this rickety old house knows it will soon be sold, along with its quirks and antiques, its funny smells and its memories.

Today, Kellie visited the house for a final tour. As she walked past the dining room mirror, I could almost see Cathy on her arm, in bell-bottoms and a sweater. Just the way this place remembers her. And the way I do.

To Cathy, who left us last winter, Kellie was one of the inseparable few.  Like Sally and Bobbie, they seemed to be souls connected in early childhood - and maybe long before that.

And now, too often, the vacuum of Cathy's absence seems like an empty ocean that needs filling.

On a bitter and cold January night, I told Sally that we'd miss how Cathy helped each of us feel important. That who we are, that what we'd accomplished, who we were - in that moment in time - was special. She made our lives feel special because she believed in our goodness.

"I remember our first day in this house, before you moved in," Kellie said as we walked through the dining room.  "Cathy and I counted all the knobs in the kitchen because we'd never seen so many before. There were 57."  Just like Cathy to see wonder in every little thing, like the number of kitchen knobs.

I offered Kellie a laminated copy of Cathy's secret cookie recipe, which Meg found in the back of a cookbook in the kitchen.  She smiled, "She never wanted me to have this whole recipe; she'd just give me parts of it and leave me wondering why my cookies were never as good as hers," she said, laughing. "I won't take it now, but I will take a picture of it."

Just like Kellie to keep the joke rolling between heaven and earth.

As we passed through rooms and closets and different parts of the house, she'd recall what the two of them did there.  "Your mother asked us to make chocolate chip cookies so often in this kitchen that we used to time how fast we could finish a batch. I think our fastest time was eight and a half minutes."

She told us how they felt when they first saw the house, with dried fall leaves and dust covering the parquet floors. I'm sure we both thought of the transformation that would happen as we filled those same rooms with Simon and Garfunkel music, high school parties, and holidays.

Like Christmas.  When Cathy would decorate it with pieces of herself.

Every Christmas, from bolts of felt, Cathy would create Christmas stockings for each of us. With scissors and glue, she'd decorate each of them with illustrations.  They were her portraits of us - painting, cooking, our dolls, our music, our sports - us. They were her way of reminding us of how we were special. To her. And for us.

And we were.  Together, we were.

Of course, her green parrot, Charlie, was always portrayed on her stocking. Charlie, now an adopted member of Sally's family - spoiled and indestructible.

Last night, I received a text from my son Andrew. He was telling me how much he loved that Katie, his sister, was again making felt stockings for our family. About asking him for ideas for her boyfriend's family.

He said, "For a moment I was sad because it reminded me of how much I missed Cathy. But then I thought how cool it was that Cathy lived on through Katie."

Cathy lives on in so many different ways. In felt stockings, in turquoise Christmas ornament parties that her inseparable soul-mates host in her honor, in stories and smiles, and in much much more.

Even in Sally's new adopted parrot.

But mostly she lives on in us - as we find ways to remember that we are special and that our lives are wonderful - which we thought would be unimaginable without her.

Now, her lingering sweetness - and goodness - is part of us, all around us. It is an endless love.

@@@@

And we know Cathy will always be with us. Every day.

Every Christmas.

Especially this year.

The Sad Cowboy

"OK, my dad is a kind of a cowboy dude."

These words were written in a journal my son shared with me a few weeks ago. He had found it among his boxes of keepsakes somewhere. It was written when he was in the first grade.

Perhaps he wrote those words because I liked reading Louis L'Amour westerns - and he loved Hank the Cowdog books - especially when I read it to him in my cowboy drawl.

Or maybe he just thought I was cool, like a cowboy dude.

I was kinda cool.

I was the father who read bedtime stories in character voices. The one who played Barbies better than any cousin, better than any friend.

I coached so many baseball teams for the boys that I lost track. Little League, Pony League, and summer high school teams.

The huge murals that covered their bedroom walls were dad-painted. I was the pitcher, the catcher, and the goalie. The fort builder. The nature hike expert, snake hunter, and squirrel doctor.

And I was famous for being their favorite hapless one-man basketball opponent; while simultaneously announcing the games.

That's what I wanted their childhood memories to be - happy. Because I didn't want to be just a father. I wanted to be the father from whom they would learn happiness - laughter, fun, joy. That life was sweet. That it was a gift to be shared and treasured.

That it was meant to be lived together. And each of us would contribute to the happiness. 

When sadness entered our lives then, in 2012, it was sudden. It was a foreign thing to most of us, and an unsettling and uncertain future beckoned.

In the days ahead, my sadness grew with every new loss. With the deconstruction of each dream, each vision. I couldn't hide it, it was a cloak.

One rainy summer afternoon, I heard these words: "John, if you continue to be sad, you might as well place all of your unhappiness and heartache in a box. Wrap it up. Put a ribbon on it. Then give it to each of your children." And she was profoundly correct.

Because the sadness was erasing the happy moments of the past. All those moments that were so precious, swept away in a tsunami of bitterness.

Along the way, I was able to eventually dilute and erase sadness. Then find happiness again.

And what I've learned - and what I see with my own eyes every day - is that she was so right. That sadness can be unwittingly shared; an unwanted, sinister gift.

It's love in reverse. And it steals the past.

Now, I try to share my happiness. I remind them of our wonder years together and our shared, happy past.

And finally, I feel better. I feel like a cool dad again.

Almost like a cowboy dude. The one I was, all those years ago.

The Tears of our Angels

When she called me, she was crying.

I tried to make her feel better with my favorite saying with teenagers, "There's only one victim here, and it's not you. It's me."

Still, it was hard for her not to feel like a victim; like something had been lost - or stolen.

Like that night her teenager took the car.

On the phone; her voice was choked with sadness. She cried about the loss of sweetness, of innocence, of trust. The memories of that purity, the images of Barbie parties and dancing, of girls in their sleepover pajamas. Of the tender grasp of a tiny hand in hers ... they seemed like a painful loss.

They were the tears of an angel. And one day, for her teenage daughter, they'll matter; they'll have real meaning.

I know this rite of passage. It's so hard.

With my teens, there were so many of those moments. When I thought that the sweetness of youth was forever lost. That they had fled from the land of Belle and The Beast, of Harry and Hermione, to a place where belief in magic was forsaken for risk and thrill.

Pivotal, youthful epiphanies - when they began to believe it would be more fun to hitchhike than to sit in the middle seat of the minivan.

I remember a long-ago Christmas Eve when I found myself in a parking lot filled with the flashing lights of police cruisers and the teary eyes of my seventeen-year-old boy. Looking back, I think it was when I first learned that love was stronger than disappointment.

That it needed to be.

There are few days when I don't think about that night. I became a better man. I stood next to my wayward son, in front of the policemen. There was an unspoken understanding between us: we'll get through this - together. And we did.

In some ways, our moment that night, standing together among the flashing lights, was more powerful and meaningful than times of innocence and bliss shared in the many years before.

Before 16. Before 17.

And so, I've learned about the teenage soul. That sweetness and innocence aren't really lost. They're still there. In memories of baseball games and Pokemon cards, in memories of holding hands from the car seat.

In unconditional love, sometimes hidden, but always there.

I should tell her again. That she's not really a victim. She's an angel.

And she can fly.

Skinny Scarecrows and Illusions

Only Love is Real
Everything else illusion
I wish I had known what I know now
Maybe I could have spared you
Giving your youth to me
Only Love is Real
Everything else illusion

On a late fall afternoon in Michigan, I was reading. I'd look up, occasionally, and I'd see the rows of cornstalks in the distance, dancing in long shadows.

She loves the way the cornstalks move. She closes her eyes and listens to the crinkling sound they make.

They lean against each other like skinny scarecrows; skittering in the fall breeze. Row upon row, their leaves dried to pale Indian parchments.

They look like they're just waiting for the tractors, patiently, under the low clouds that stretch the sky in hues of purple and lilac.

It's what I see, too. Something to be shared. A connection, simple and fathomless.

A connection that seems different to me.

I gave my youth to a different connection. When she fled, she cast her new happiness into the seas of social media, in waves of conjured narratives.

I hadn't known that, until last night. When I saw it, my sadness was for the ghost that our past had become.

These narratives. These silly social media narratives about love and happiness. They're like movies spoiled by bad actors mumbling memorized lines.

We cannot will happiness into our lives. It didn't come from the religion and ritual of the baby boomer era and it can't be created from selfies and hashtags today.

The things people tell themselves - then tell others. Today it's as easy as quick-moving thumbs, flowing hands, fakery, and pretense. Social Media - Instagram and Facebook and likes and friends.

Illusions. When illusions blur reality, it can make your eyes water. That was last night.

This afternoon, looking at rows of cornstalks; listening to the rustle of fall leaves; watching the flocks of unhurried birds flow across the fall sky, I feel better. Connected.

I was reading a book called "AfterLife" by Marcus Sakey. In it, he describes a couple as they pass the decades in their shared experiences. And in the describing, he reminded me that there is no willing happiness into your life.


It unfolds itself through connections.  If only love is real - as cliche as that may seem - then our love cannot be from illusions. It's our shared experiences, our deep connections, our humanness - that wind the machine - the one that makes love real.

And everything else - they're really illusions.

Like convincing each other the rustling cornstalks are really skinny scarecrows.

Kinda like Instagram.

"He could see them, hand in hand, walking streets soft with snow and lit by Christmas lights. Speaking without words. Planning the life to come. Music on the stereo while they painted a new place, her elbow streaked with blue. Lazy weekend mornings, something braizing in the oven, the couch their universe, constellations of novels and the Sunday New York Times..."

youtu.be/39Fv6kGVarw

Sakey, Marcus. AFTERLIFE (p. 256). Thomas & Mercer. Kindle Edition.

Dad's Haunted House

If there was ever a perfectly spooky house, the house on Prospect was it.

For it was a leering, skulking old Victorian that brooded under the outstretched arms of gigantic oaks that surrounded it.

And my father bought it.

Thanks, dad.

He then filled it with the curiosities and antiques he'd been collecting since he was in his teens. Many of them of mysterious provenance, so much so that the house came to contain a sort of reliquary, like those of John Zaffas and Ed and Lorraine Warren .

Together, the creaky old house and its collection of antiquities and curios were probably unmatched anywhere. His collection included 17th and 18th-century harpsichords, dueling pistols, Mongol daggers, and old gaming boards.



From the civil war, there were collections of letters from long-dead soldiers. There were brass buttons and wicked-looking bayonets. Battlefield rifles from the period, along with used lead mini balls, perhaps fired and found on some grassy plain.

Perhaps most ominous (and sometimes dubious) was his small collection of Egyptian artifacts, said to be from the Valley of the Dead.

He bought the ghost house when I was ten.

It was on a tree-lined street, on the farthest outskirts of Chicago. It had been long-abandoned and looked like a tall, aging spinster that had somehow defied death, just barely on the edge of dignity; faded, wrinkled and ragged.

Somewhere, dad found tin-type photographs of the house from its earliest days. It sat alone with no other homes in sight, on a dirt road meant for horse and carriage. There were sparse and skinny trees dotting the monochrome landscape around it.

It looked like it belonged in a historical collection somewhere, along with photos of Lincoln and Grant and soldiers littering the gray fields of Gettysburg.

Yes, it was abandoned and broken; not even habitable. But my father was as fearless as he was in love with artifacts and architecture.

To add to the Hollywood creep factor, the house was built upon ground once populated by Native American Potawatomi, Miami, and Illinois tribes. The massive oak trees on the grounds were well over a hundred years old. Just a few blocks away, one of the oldest oak trees in Illinois still stood, famous for the Indian leaders that were said to gather beneath it.

That sure couldn't be good.

But dad probably imagined the voices from its former occupants, walking the same narrow, creaky wooden floors, speaking of Civil War battles and of lives long past. Of the whispering of slaves, hiding within his same house, in basement tunnels and secret rooms. There, in his station on the underground railroad.


The house also contained a collection of artifacts he had pulled from the rubble of the razed and ruined mansions of the famously rich - those who had rebuilt the city after the Great Fire. They included fireplace mantels, woodworkings, plaques, and other items.

In the grand living room, a massive, ten foot tall wooden candelabra stood in the corner. From a demolished church somewhere, it was so heavy that the floor had to be supported with beams in the basement.

See what I mean? Native Americans, rich barons, religious artifacts, and slaves. Stuff from Egyptian tombs. War relics and weapons.

We should have known.

Although my father loved it, the house didn’t look all that great to my siblings and me. We’d been hoping for a Brady Bunch kind of place – a split-level mid-century modern suburban one, with rust-colored shag carpeting and olive-green new appliances. What child cares about the wonders of lathe and plaster and 14-foot ceilings?

Yes, our new house looked pretty much like a place that could be silhouetted on a Halloween poster. Even if the location scouts didn’t see it.

Besides its size and history, the price was right - and we were a family of seven. Like all good haunted house stories, this one was priced so low that dad couldn’t resist. Umm, hello?

It was filled with leaves and dust and broken glass and rotting wire fixtures. The yard was overgrown with weeds. Layers of paint, decades old, were peeling from the exterior walls. Shingles were missing from the roof and some of the tall windows broken. Pipes were cracked and there was no water. The massive boiler in the basement didn’t work.

None of these obstacles bothered my parents one bit.

And so, my siblings and I explored while the handymen and contractors finished the minimum work so we could move in. I bet they thought it was creepy, too.

When we moved in, it was decided we would share bedrooms. That was fine, since no one wanted to sleep in one of the high-celling rooms by themselves.

It wasn’t long before we learned the house was as haunted as it looked. We didn’t talk about it much, but we all felt it and we all knew it. There were constant noises in the walls – scratching, thumping, bumping. There were often footsteps overhead.

“They’re just animals, probably raccoons,” my father would tell us. “They get inside the walls and they’re hard to get out. It’s normal in these old places.”

Sure, dad.

There was always a collection of mysterious noises past the ceiling, coming from the attic. The attic was an entire third floor. A high-ceilinged space that contained numerous secret rooms and passages outside its inner walls - hiding places of the underground railroad.

An unusually broad, tall window in the attic could be opened and the roof could be traversed in the night to the concealed rooftop rooms under the gables.

None of us – even as adults, would ever be brave enough to explore these hidden areas of the attic. Everyone was afraid of the attic. It didn’t matter if you were 10 years old or 30, it was frightening. Anyone who ventured up the unfinished steps would feel the presence. As if someone else was living up there and that you were uninvited.

Until the day the house was sold, that never changed.

No one wanted to be alone in the house either, especially at night.

Besides the odd noises, there were whispers. Words. Sometimes just beyond the edge of recognition. There were many times when I heard someone speaking to me, whispering, “John…” from over my shoulder. Eventually, I ignored it.

It was one those things you could get used to – if you weren’t alone. And in the 70’s and 80’s we filled the house with all kinds of activity – cats, dogs, friends, and neighbors. We had a green parrot who constantly squawked. There was music from pianos and harpsichords and record players.

In the chaos, the ghosts were probably overwhelmed. But at night, in the silence and darkness, they would return.

As I learn more about hauntings, I realize that what we often accepted as normal was anything but normal. Doors would open by themselves so often that we just ignored it. Items would disappear as if lost – keys, books, coins, and clothes. We accepted it as just another loss among the chaos - shoes, baseballs, and Barbies.

But then we’d find them, days or even years later, in the attic or on the floor of some closet. Or right where we’d thought we’d left them.

We didn’t know what cold spots were then, either. But they were there. In the attic, in the basement, and just passing through a room. We ignored the cold spots, too – the old house had just too many excuses.

Over time, our fear of the basement and attic grew profound. We’d run up or down the stairs, get what we needed, and run back.

We knew.

Once, when we took a flashlight into the far corner of the basement, there was a collection of sticks and rocks and canned food, next to the old coal chute; carefully arranged. It was terrifying to think of someone – or something – alone, in the darkness, arranging those things.

Sometimes, we’d think someone was living in our basement, in the dark. And we would often joke that the unfinished coach house, behind the house, also had someone hiding in residence.

At least that would explain some of the creep factor.

My dad knew more than he let on, though. We came to learn that the house was known, through some anecdotal or historical account, to be haunted.

Visiting with my father in early 2000, he told me that he had been contacted by someone writing a book about America’s most haunted places. He said they asked permission to take photographs of our attic, basement and coach house. He said he turned them down.

But he never said how those writers had come to know what we did.

Until I went to college, I didn’t realize how nice it was to feel safe going to sleep. Or to be alone at home. Because growing up in that old Victorian house, fear was always only a few rooms away.

When my father passed away a few years ago, the estate needed to be sold. So, I bravely moved in, by myself, to begin packing.  After a single night of unexplainable noises and whispers, I moved into a tiny bedroom in what we called the servants’ quarters.

At night, I locked the bedroom door. I had forgotten what it was to be afraid of a house. But when I came back alone, the house decided to remind me.

Day and night, the house tried to scare me. Doors would slam with angry force. On more than one night, I awoke to the slamming of cabinets in the kitchen, banging over and over.

Even in daylight, it kept up. There were sharp, loud smashing sounds in certain rooms. Noise like an entire china cabinet had toppled. Or that a stack of ceramic tiles had been dropped from the ceiling. I’d rush into the room - and everything would be normal.

Of course.

At times like that, I’d call my sister. “They’re at it again. It’s so annoying.”

“Seriously? Just tell them to stop,” she’d say.

Some nights, there would be a persistent knocking on my bedroom ceiling, which wasn’t even below the attic – but rather beneath the hidden rooms on the roof. I’d pop in my earbuds and listen to music, ignoring them.

But the whispering voices – they were the worst.

Just when I’d forget all about the creepiness and simply open a door, the voices would whisper. Not just one voice, but many. It wasn’t the swoosh of wind or a creaky hinge, but actual whispered voices. Though indiscernible, they sounded like a faint audio track of 10 people whispering at once.

On a few especially bad nights, I almost dialed 911.

Both times, the attic sounded like it was hosting a deathmatch event. There were crashes and muted voices. Loud bangs and thuds that sounded like people were wrestling. And it would go on and on. Once, I stood at the bottom of the attic stairs and recorded the sounds.

My sister and I decided that it was simply impossible that a fight was really happening in the attic. So, I would shout up at them from steps, demanding they stop. And they did.

But it was always something.

Like when I stepped out the back door to get something from my car, only to find that the back door had been locked – with a key – from the inside. I stood there, in the freezing winter air, cursing at them and wishing I was back in my safe apartment back in Florida.

On the last day before we moved out, my sister and I stood at the top of the front stairs. She suddenly turned her head asked me, “Did you change the tune of the doorbell?”

“What? Why would I do that? And I don’t think that’s even possible.”

“Shhh. Did you hear that?” She whispered. “It’s a piano.”

I didn’t hear anything. After a while, we resumed packing the box. A few minutes later, I heard it.  Someone was clearly playing a piano downstairs.

My sister and I knew there were no pianos in the house. They had long been moved.

I couldn’t wait to pack that last box and leave. When we walked out the door for the last time, we both wondered what stories the new owners would have to tell.

Just like I did, here today.