Three Things That Guys Want for Valentine’s Day (...that don’t necessarily involve sex)

Can we tawk?
This post is directed exclusively to all the better halves out there. Today is Cupid’s Holiday, and while it may be unfair to generalize, but let’s face it, ladies, it IS all about you. I mean, can you actually think of a guy who has ever been genuinely upset about not receiving a gift from his lady on Valentine’s Day? However if the gender tables are turned in that scenario, you generally wind up with an incident registering somewhere between mild disappointment and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Like it or not, in today’s society a man’s response to Valentine’s Day has somehow become the litmus test for the depth to which he cares for his significant other. And to you ladies who actually come through for your man with a gesture in kind (and you can take that to mean anything your smutty little minds desire), bravo, bravo, bravo to you for your genuineness and sense of fair play. You are not necessarily in the minority, BTW, but with all due respect, it is far less expected of you to be the giver than the recipient of good things whenever the 14th day of February rolls around.

But while I know this story might appear to be leaning a little in the direction of a rant, I assure you that is the furthest of my intentions. I simply want to establish that whether or not you consider it purely a media-driven event, Valentine’s Day has become above all else the annual, culturally-imposed mandate for men to display some sort of significant outward gesture of honor and/or affection to their wives or girlfriends.

And surely there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just that the playing field isn’t exactly what one would call ‘level.’

Pompous Ass-claimer
Now if you know me and my blog, you know what’s coming next.

This is an opinion piece, based on the way my experience in life has shaped my view of the world in general, and of society in specific. I’ve been known to offer strong opinions on things, and for that I do not apologize. Such is the part of me that my wife Michelle often refers to as my ‘inner pompous ass.’

So I offer this standard disclaimer if in fact you agree with her regarding what I’ve said so far: I only call ‘em as I see ‘em. My opinion is mine alone and I mean no offense to anyone’s sensibilities, particularly with regard to the notion of honoring women. Hell, every day should be Valentine’s Day in my opinion.

But by the same token, every day should be Affirmation Day to everyone you love, should it not?

So all that to say, I believe that Valentine’s Day should be, if not completely reciprocal, at least loosely mutual; perhaps not to the point that the ladies should be showering their men with candy and jewelry; that’s not anything that even the man who has nothing really needs.

What a guy really wants are three things that he’ll likely never ask you for but needs desperately; down to the core of his soul: Dignity, Self-Respect, and Significance.

And ladies, the best part? You can give your man all three of these gifts every single day and it’ll never cost you a dime.

“Heh,” you say, “Aren’t we just being a little obvious here, AJ? I mean, doesn’t everybody need those things? And shouldn’t we all freely bestow them on our loved ones, regardless of gender or relationship?”

The answer to those questions is an obvious ‘yes.’ But the reality of whether or not we act upon that imperative is far from affirmative.

Dignity
Like it or not…and believe it or not, men and women are cut from different emotional cloths. I believe that above all else, a men craves dignity — dare I say, even above sex — to truly be happy and satisfied in life.

Ever heard the old saying, “at least he escaped with his dignity intact?” Well I don’t know about you, but what that phrase indicates to me is that a man’s dignity is so precious that it’s the last thing he would ever want to lose.

A man’s dignity is so close to the core of his being, it’s like his second skin. It’s what drives him; it’s what makes his strive to be more the sum of his parts. It’s so powerful a need that sometimes he’ll even sell his soul for it.

The root of the word, ‘dignity’ comes from the Latin, dignus, which means, ‘worthy.’ Webster defines it as the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed. A man needs to feel as though his life counts for something; to believe that it has ‘worth.’

Of all a man’s relationships, none so affects him as that with the love of his life. And for the sake of this argument, with no offense intended to those of other persuasions, I’m going to assume that love is a woman.

Ladies, you have the power — in more ways than one. With a word, you can make us feel worthy, or render us worthless. I don’t think I need to delve into the length and breadth of human relations to make my point here. Just understand that no matter how rough, tough, or detached we may try to appear on the outside; at our core we need your approval; we need your support; we need your love in order to love ourselves in return. ‘Nuff said.

Self-Respect
Respect is a hotly debated topic these days, isn’t it? In some social circles, there’s nothing so egregious for a man as to be ‘disrespected,’ It’s to the point that some people demand respect, regardless of whether or not they’ve done anything to deserve or earn it.

Again, I have no intention to plumb the depths of social stereotypes, or in this case, macho bullshit paradigms. However I will offer the following observation. I’ve rarely seen anyone who demonstrates the qualities of self-respect, in turn demand respect from others. I contend that the two concepts are polar opposites.

Can a man who demands to be respected actually respect himself? That’s a rhetorical question I cannot answer, but I can affirm its corollary: the man who respects himself has no need to demand the respect of others.

So then where does self-respect come from? Are some people just born with it while others are forced to beat it out of those around them? Hardly; self-respect a gift, given by those who love you; who nurture you; through whose interaction in your life you are granted dignity.

Oh yeah, did I mention? Self-respect is a product of dignity. It’s like a two-for-one deal. You grant one, and the other automatically comes with, like, for nothin.’ And when I say grant, I again return to the Latin; to its root word, credere, or, to believe.

When the woman he loves ‘believes in him,’ a man becomes empowered; dignified; he respects himself. But don’t confuse the aforementioned macho bullshit counterfeit version of self-respect — which merely attaches pride to tyranny — for the genuine article. True self-respect emerges from dignity, just as dignity emerges from love.

Significance
Finally, if dignity is the long underwear of a man’s soul, and self-respect that in which he is clothed before the world, the final layer in this trinity of a man’s character is significance.

Significance is perhaps the most elusive of the three gifts you ladies can give your man for Valentine’s Day because it, more than anything else, depends on your active participation to build it into the thick, warm coat of confidence that insulates him from even the most inhospitable of life’s circumstances. It’s the most external of the three; yet like the other two, it emerges from within.

Some people say that we men are pigs. I like to say we’re more like dogs. And in this dog-eat-dog world, in the words of Norm Peterson, we’re all walkin’ around in MilkBone underwear.

Significance means importance; but while self-importance is a mostly deplorable characteristic, true importance is truly honorable.

Feeling — and more importantly — being significant to a woman completes the foundation of confidence and inner-strength that every man needs to compete in this world — and YOU, ladies, likely hold the greatest power in building that strong foothold in your man’s life.

But this is where it can get a little dicey, not only to carry out but in my case, to explain as well.

Say WHAT?
See, I know what some of you ladies are thinking; you’re rolling your eyes and saying, “Sorry, AJ, this Tammy-Wynette-Stand-By-Your-Man business died out in the 60s; that isn’t how women operate these days, or perhaps you’ve never heard of gender equality.”

Well, hopefully you’re not saying that, but if you are, allow me to kindly note that you’re missing the point. If you really believe that men and women are exactly the same in every way, emotionally, I’m sorry, but you’re just wrong. The two sexes have distinct features that allow us to complement one another, not just mimic the other’s qualities.

Women are, predominantly by nature, nurturers; men in turn, are gatherer/providers. This is NOT to say that men are incapable of raising children, nor women incapable of bringin’ home the bacon. All it means is that we are who we are, speaking to the basic emotional differences between the sexes that must be addressed in a successful relationship.

A man’s significance, particularly in American culture, is often tied to what he does, with the problem being, that this status can change — sometimes quickly — in the case of losing his livelihood, suffering a disabling physical trauma, etc.

On the other hand, a woman’s significance — at least in the eyes of us guys — is much more about who she is. This is particularly true with regard to motherhood. Mom is always the most significant person in the home. No one needs to ascribe that significance to her; it’s the only office that has no term limits. A woman’s significance, for the most part, is built-in. A man’s significance must be constantly reinforced.

And of course I don’t dismiss the constant and rightful need for woman to be honored — on Valentine’s Day or any other day. The point that I seek to emphasize is that we men may act like we have it all together, but it’s mostly for show. We need you to make us whole; to make us feel loved.

Bottom line, ladies, I encourage you to simply be mindful of this, just as I would likewise hope that those of my gender would consider your needs and all that you do to make your relationships work.

Hear me now and believe me now (with apologies to Hans and Franz).
I’ll never claim to be an expert on relationships, and honestly I don’t really think that anyone can be. Although the sexes do indeed hold common, consistent emotional needs, we’re also different in many ways and each individual couple must determine which adjustments to make to successfully coexist with their life partner respectively. On the other hand however, I’m not going to deny the fact that being married to the same woman for just shy of 30 years gives me a little more perspective on the subject than the average person.

That being said, I hope this offers encouragement and hopefully, some insight into what makes men tick. I doubt that most guys have ever really thought about it on this deep of a level, but it’s something that I seem to devote a lot of time to pondering, for better or for worse.

So here’s wishing you and your man a wonderful Valentines Day. May you be pampered and celebrated for all that you do and mean to the relationship you’ve created together. And may you also celebrate your man the way that only you can, granting him an inner strength that allows him to be everything that he — and you — want him to be.


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Seven Things You Never Knew About Me

BetheMeme
I never cared all that much for playing ‘tag’ as a kid, mostly because I wasn’t very good at it. Then again, maybe it was just that I always ended up playing the game with the wrong kind of kids — namely, ones that were bigger and faster than I was. I never seemed to be able to get away from them; to avoid being tagged. It seemed as though I was always ‘it.’

Well it looks like one of the big kids got me again — and this time I had a 2000 mile head start.

I had the distinct pleasure to meet the lovely and talented Will, A.K.A. Be the Boy, and his lovelier and brilliant better half, The Slackmistress this past summer in Los Angeles at the wedding of mutual blog friends Michael and Randi.

So now Will has tagged me to participate in a meme whose theme is ‘Seven Things You Never Knew About Me,’ and as he himself indicated in his meme post, it may be kinda tough, seeing as how I too have been blogging for a long time, and have pretty much shot my wad with all the deep, dark secrets.

Seven things you never cared to know about AJ, and forgot to ask...
So if you don’t mind a little minutiae, I’ll see if I can come up with a few more items that hopefully might resemble information you’ll find interesting.

1. I am a distant relative (6th cousin to be exact) of a famous American war hero, one whose name is emblazoned upon numerous federal buildings and institutions across our great country. But history being the dying subject it is in our culture, I would say that you’d recognize his name if you heard it, however I find that it’s typically only folks my generation and older who have any sense of who this great man was or what he accomplished. But here’s a hint: An iconic Hollywood actor, whose name you WOULD recognize, in the 1940s portrayed him in a film about his extraordinary life.
2. You may know that I saw the Beatles in concert in 1964, but my elder brother Jack saw them three times; twice in ’64 and once in ’65. And though my first concert ever was indeed a memorable one, it would be thirteen years later before I’d attend my second: Electric Light Orchestra at The Forum in Los Angeles in 1977.
3. I came within one letter grade of flunking the 4th grade, but graduated high school with a 3.75 GPA. You can thank my stepmother, Maxine, for teaching (read: forcing) me to do my homework.
4. Although the bulk of my professional life has been spent as a graphic designer/web designer, I came out of college an illustrator. My limited success in that profession included illustrating the Masters of the Universe characters that were featured as ‘puffy stickers’ inside boxes of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies during the fall of 1983.
5. During the mid-90s, I was such a groupie for my favorite radio station, WRLT Lightning 100 in Nashville that I had a stretch of eleven consecutive months in which I was a ‘call-in’ winner of various on-air contests from 1995-96. During those years I was working from home and had the radio on all day long. I had a system.
   
   I won stereo equipment, concert tickets, and many, many CDs.
   
   I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that it was in the midst of that streak that the station first instituted their current policy of ‘a maximum of one win every 30 days’ in regard to their contests.
   
   Geeze Louise…I can’t hep it if I’m good…
6. This one’s not about me, but I’ve always thought it was waaaay cool: My father-in-law was one of the lead engineers for the Apollo program at Cape Canaveral, FL. He was actually the last person to leave the project after it closed shop in favor of the space shuttle program in the mid 1970s; he was charged with the responsibility of closing the books on the whole shebang.
   
   He followed that historic assignment with nearly a decade of work with the U.S. military in its top secret project of placing the satellites in orbit that now comprise the GPS network we all use on a daily basis, but which was one of those things at the time about which he’d joke, “I could tell you what I do, but then I’d have’ta kill ya.”
   
   He’s a great man, and I’m proud to know him.
7. Lastly, it’s probably not fair to talk about only the ‘cool’ facts about myself, so this is probably as good a place as any to offer a little nugget that I’m rather embarrassed to admit, but to which I can’t help but self-deprecate, ‘cuz it is kinda funny.
   
   My folks (well, let’s say, my Mom to be exact) wanted a little girl in the worst way, which is one reason there were five of us kids in my family — but all were boys. After my two eldest brothers’ came along, Mom & Dad just kept on tryin’ for the girl that would never come. Their next child was another boy (my brother Kenny); oh well. They decided to give it one more try, and out came AJ. Evidently, I was really supposed to be that girl (my younger brother Alex, four years later, was unplanned).
   
   Undaunted, when I was a toddler my mother would dress me up like a girl and just gush about how cute I was. They took pictures that I remember seeing when I was a kid, which I’m currently trying to find and destroy.
   
   Fortunately she never took me out in public dressed in drag, but I do remember well the teasing from my brothers. Oye.
   
   And then, as if by some cruel twist of fate, I turned out to be about the height of the average woman anyway. And as somewhat of a byproduct, I don’t have the deepest of speaking voices either.
   
   I often get telephone calls from solicitors and others who don’t know me, who routinely assume they’re speaking to ‘Missus’ rather than ‘Mister’ upon my answering the phone. It used to bug me — a lot — and I was always quick to curtly point out the error of their assumptions. However in recent years I’ve just learned to accept it (and to try and answer the phone in my best James Earl Jones whenever possible).
   
   But all things considered, I‘d rather talk like Michael Jackson than trade away the life I’ve been privileged to live.
   
   I have no complaints.

So there you have my seven things; let’s hear yours:

• Heidi (Dunhaven Place)
• Kim (Less Than Lucid)
• Brighton (Sweet Tea)
• Michael (Blood, Sweat, and Tedium: Confessions of a Hollywood Juicer)
• Victoria (Southern Discomfort)
• Newton (insert name here)
• Phoebe (That’s the Job)

The Rules:

• Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged.

Okay...You’re IT!

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So Long, Squirty

I wasn’t ready for this — not even a little bit.
I don't think one is ever prepared for the death of a family member — even if that family member has four spindly little legs and a bobbed tail.

However I have indeed been forced to say goodbye to a member of my family today and I'm in hell right now. I can barely function. But I know that if I don't get this written tonight, I may never write it.

So yeah, let's just get something out of the way right here and now. I'm gonna mourn here a little bit; I'm gonna probably end up bawling my eyes out before it's all over, and right now I don't give a rip about being macho, manly, or any of that 'maintaining-a-stiff-upper-lip' bullshit nonsense.

I’m really hurting right now, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

Earlier this evening we had the horrendously painful task of putting our little dog down. Squirty (previously referred to in my stories as 'Spotty') had cancer, and she’d been in a lot of pain for weeks. She was fifteen and a half years old — that’s 105+ years to us two-leggers — but she was always our baby.

Our four-legged kids
In one respect we think of them as our children; less than human of course, but every bit as vital and important as members of our family. In another respect, we acknowledge them for what they are: animals, whose life spans are but a fraction of our own, and whose existence in our lives is but a vapor.

Yet no matter how much we mentally acknowledge that we know they won't live forever, we're always surprised — even devastated — by the reality that they never do.

We call them 'pets, ' but they so far exceed the demeaning connotation of that moniker. They’re companions; reassuring friends making us feel loved and wanted. They give so much; asking so little in return.


There’s my dog! This is Squirty about a year and a half ago, September 29, 2007, during one of Michelle’s and my often daily visits to our new home construction site. The rich, golden-tan markings around her eyes and mouth had long since been replaced by the white hair of her old age, but she was always a happy dog. This is how I’ll remember her...smiling.

Squirty was a Toy Fox Terrier, the runt of the litter, and by far (in Michelle's and my opinion) the cutest one of the bunch. She was born June 3, 1993 in Dixon, Tennessee at a breeder specializing in pure bred Toy Fox Terriers (although the Westminster Kennel Club doesn't officially recognize them as a 'pure' breed — meh...whadda they know?).

She was the perfect addition to our family, joining us at the beginning of our journey to a new life in Tennessee. We got her about a year and a half after relocating here from the Los Angeles area, and just prior to purchasing our first new house.

She was smart, rambunctious, and as precocious as a dog could be, and soon had us wrapped around her tiny little paw.

Nonetheless at the time, I wasn't all that excited about the idea of getting a dog. Dogs were so much more high maintenance than cats, our heretofore pet of choice. We'd gotten a pair of kitties when we moved into our first house as a married couple, the one in Long Beach that we rented for 11 years prior to our Tennessee adventure. Now thirteen years later only one of those two litter-mates, a beautiful black, white and gray tabby named 'Tina,' was still around to make the trip to Tennessee, and we knew her remaining time was short.

Born on the 4th of July (well…close enough)
Michelle wanted a dog in the worst way. Her parents from Florida were looking to get one as well. They wanted a small dog, and were looking in the direction of Fox Terriers when they discovered this breeder in Dixon, a small town about twenty-five miles southwest of Nashville.

From the late 1980s and throughout the ’90s, Michelle’s parents spent their summers in east Tennessee, in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. So when we arrived in Nashville at the beginning of 1992, we understandably began seeing them on a more regular basis each summer, as they were now only four hours away rather than the usual twelve when they were back home in the FLA.

In 1993 they came to spend the Fourth of July holiday with us, arriving a couple days prior. While they were here they wanted to check out that breeder in Dixon. He was just about an hour's drive west of us. Michelle accompanied her folks but I stayed behind. We hadn’t even broached the subject of ‘us’ getting a puppy as well, but I can't say that I was surprised when Michelle returned home that afternoon, smitten. She insisted I come back out with them the next day, July 3rd, to see the pups for myself.

I felt as though it was slap in the whiskers to our elderly cat, Tina, but I finally relented and went along. Of course I too would be instantly mesmerized.

The litter had been born exactly one month earlier, and had it been any other breed, I may have been able to maintain my relatively hard-ass position. But as fate would have it, I actually had a built-in affinity for Fox Terriers; we had one as our family pet in Middletown, Indiana, the final four years we lived there prior to moving to California in 1969.

When it came down to selecting our puppies, it was only fair that Michelle's parents got the first shot. They chose one of the middle-of-the-litter pups, a larger and stockier female they would later name, 'Sugar.' My wife and I, delighted that they didn't glom onto our favorite, happily chose the runt, who may have been the smallest and most rambunctious, but who also was the most striking with her evenly black-spotted white coat and handsomely mottled black and tan head. Oh yeah; I too was smitten.

But so as not to appear a total pushover, I agreed to getting the dog under one condition — that I got to name it. I named her 'Squirt,' after the only family dog I really knew as a kid: the one we had in Middletown. He too was a Fox Terrier, and a small one — hence the name — but wasn’t of the ‘Toy’ variety. He was considerably larger, full grown, than our new puppy would be.

But the name fit. ‘Squirt’ she was to be — at least for the moment, anyway; apparently my ultimatums don’t carry a whole lotta weight. Within a week our puppy was re-dubbed, ‘Squirty,’ care of Michelle, who thought it a better suited variation for a girl dog. And of course, she was right.

Three’s Company
Squirty was indeed Michelle’s baby girl. I know the dog loved me too, but hey — she knew which side her bread was buttered on. She’d warm up to me eventually, but it took her a couple times of being shown ‘who’s was the boss’ before she stopped growling at me when I crawled into bed at night. Oh yeah, nothing says “welcome to bed” like your own dog bearing her teeth at you when you pull back the sheets.

But that didn’t last long. Meh…who knows, maybe she sensed that I still preferred the cat at that point…

Oh…did I mention that she slept with us?

From the second night on, Squirty was my personal hot water bottle. It started out as our only means of getting any sleep; doggie simply would not stop whining while she was in her own bed; she wanted to be in ours. And it quickly became a normal thing; whenever we were in the bed, Squirty was in the bed — even when we didn’t want her to be in the bed ifyaknowhatimean — which actually made for as many humorous moments as it did frustrating ones.

But all in all she was great. She was our joy in the face of a lot of trying times. She was always well-behaved and friendly; never snapped at a soul that I know of. And It was only in the last year — mostly just in the last month or so in fact — that she ever even soiled the floor inside our house. She was always so good to go to the door and let us know whenever she needed to go out and ‘do her business.’

And now in the end, thinking back, I suppose that should have been our first clue; her losing her way with her bodily functions should have told us that something wasn’t right. Maybe we actually did realize but just didn’t want to believe it.

The beginning of the End
About three weeks ago — but really it was more like five — Squirty really began losing her energy. Even in recent years ‘lethargic’ hadn’t even been in this dog’s zip code, yet we accepted it as we began noticing how much more she was sleeping lately; we simply chalked it up to old age. Then one morning, about a week ago, as was my custom while dressing for work, I reached down to pet my little dog as she sat nearby, watching me tie my shoes. As I wound my hand down from the top of her head and around her muzzle, I gently massaged the underside of her neck with my fingers. She’d always loved that; but not this time.

I nearly jumped out of my socks as she let out a yelp that would make one think I’d just stuck her with a straight pin. I returned to her and gently felt around the area on her neck and again she yelped in pain. I didn’t know what to think. Had she accidentally hit herself on the side of the coffee table or something?

I felt bewildered and sorry for Squirty, but didn’t put two-and-two together — none of us had at that point. I finished getting dressed and left for work.

When I returned home that evening, Michelle’s Mom informed me that Michelle had taken Squirty to the vet. During the day, her neck had swollen to twice its normal size. I was scared, but never assumed the worst. Maybe it was just a bad tooth that had caused the infection. Surely our dog would be okay, right?

Well, at least the vet thought so. He said that Squirty had refused to allow him to examine her throat, but he gave her a substantial infusion of antibiotics and was keeping her overnight for observation.

The next day the news was better. The antibiotics had indeed reduced the swelling, enough so that the vet felt good about going in for a better look, with Squirty under local anesthesia. Afterwards he said the x-rays he took detected a mass in her throat, but couldn’t reveal its nature. It could be more infection, but it could be something else. However he was encouraged by how well the antibiotics seemed to work on the swelling. He wanted to give things a week to see what course her condition would take. He seemed optimistic that it wasn’t life-threatening.

The next few days she did seem a lot better; not completely like her old self, but clearly headed in the right direction. She was scheduled to see the vet again today, Thursday afternoon, but on Wednesday, her neck began to become tender to the touch once again.

This morning, she looked like she was hiding a golf ball under her tongue.

Michelle dropped her off at the vet on her way into work, and we waited. The bad news came at 3:30 this afternoon. They biopsied the mass in her neck and found that indeed it was a carcinoma. It had started out deep in the salivary glands behind her left jaw, and grew like wildfire over the past two weeks.

The vet said there was nothing realistically that could be done; her entire salivary gland had become one huge cancer. There was no recourse. She couldn’t swallow; she couldn’t eat, and she was in constant, terrible pain.

Last Goodbye
When Michelle and I arrived at the vet’s office, we were taken into the exam room where they had our little dog wrapped in a towel and laying on her side on the stainless steel table. She was just beginning to come out of the anesthesia from the biopsy and examination.

The nurse told us that we could take as long as we needed to be with her; to say goodbye. Michelle and I were a mess. There was no way to hold back the tears even if we’d wanted to.

Squirty truly looked like death warmed over. Her shaved neck and the underside of her muzzle was horribly swollen and hardened by the edema surrounding the tumor deep within her neck. As we stood surrounding the table, Michelle and I took turns kneeling to get down close to her face. We wanted to look into her eyes; to let her to know that we were there with her.

Squirty’s breathing was heavy and labored; she shivered intermittently as she moaned a faint, high pitched squeal with each exhale, as if she were pleading with us for help as she lay there paralyzed in her partially anesthetized state.

It was grueling. Even after I had knocked on the door to indicate that we were ready for the doctor to come, we waited at least another 15-20 minutes before he finally appeared. However during that time, Squirty began to come to and at least a little bit of life returned to her faraway eyes. I kneeled down to make eye contact again and she looked right at me, weakly raising her head.

“There’s my dog!” I sobbed, “There’s my Squirters..”

It was only for those remaining five minutes or so that I believe Squirty knew Michelle and I were there. She stopped shivering, her breathing normalized and she made eye contact with each of us as we stroked, patted and loved on her, but never did she make any other significant attempt to move. I’m thankful for that. Either the sedation was still enough in place that she simply couldn’t move, or she just knew that it was no use.

She just lay there motionless until the doctor came in a few minutes later.

He asked if we wanted to be present and we both answered affirmatively. We just kept on stroking, sobbing and whispering our last goodbyes to our sweet doggy.

The vet shaved a small area on one of her hind legs and inserted an IV, to which Squirty gave a weak yelp. He then inserted the syringe needle into the IV and slowly depressed the plunger.

We said our final goodbyes. Thirty seconds later she was gone.

I don’t know if we’ll ever get another dog, but I’d be surprised if we don’t.

But not now; not for quite awhile, I’d say.

What Dreams May Become
I don’t know whether or not dogs have souls, but I know that they dream — at least mine did. On several occasions I had the pleasure of watching Squirty dreaming while she slept on our bed or on the couch: gyrating legs, flailing away; muffled barks; rapid eye movement — the whole nine yards.

She used to love to chase squirrels out of the back yard at our old house. Maybe that’s what she dreamed about. Maybe that’s what she’s doing right now.

Go get ‘em, Squirters!


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Somebody Must Be Tryin’ to Tell Me Something

At this rate, I’ll never get my introductory posts finished for my new blog launch! However this is something that happened to me just tonight, Tuesday evening. It had a pretty big impact on me, so I felt the need to share it.

* * * * * * * *

Rainy-Day Tuesdays
I mentioned earlier that this will be a busy week, and one of the activities occupying three nights of it is NHL Hockey.

I’ve been a season ticket holder of the Nashville Predators since the 2000-2001 NHL season. I’ve followed the Preds in that capacity from their third year of existence, watching them develop from expansion-team futility into one of only five teams to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs currently four seasons running.

Yet for all their apparent success, they’ve never made it out of the first playoff round, and that lack of ability to take the next step has hurt more than just the pride of an organization almost universally regarded as one of the best run in all the NHL. In addition to the obvious ‘so-close-yet-so-far’ frustration felt by everyone — especially the fans — it also seems to perpetuate the nagging cloud of doubt that has hovered over this team from the beginning: will Nashville support an NHL team in a city with a sports mentality dominated football and basketball?

Well, thankfully, this story isn’t gonna tackle that question. However it was necessary to bring it up in order to set the mood I was in tonight as I headed down to the Sommet Center to watch our team take on the visiting Colorado Avalanche.

This season has been especially frustrating, mostly because the Predators aren’t scoring like they have in years past. But I’m not even gonna talk about that, except to say that this current dearth of biscuits-in-the-basket had led directly to what going in to tonight’s game was a four game losing streak — three of which have been at home, where the team usually performs extremely well, even in bad years.

After becoming so used to all the successful home cookin’ the Preds have enjoyed the past three seasons, in which they’ve had the second-best home record in all the NHL, seeing that trend come to an apparent abrupt halt has been buggin’ the hell out of me.

It’s gotten to the point that tonight, while I should have been confident and excited in anticipation of seeing my team begin the turnaround of their recent woes, my attitude was much more ensconced in worrisome anticipation of what bad thing was going to happen next.

Add to that the fact that the weather was lousy: 40something degree temps in a steady, cold rain. Add again the fact that I was also going to the game alone, as Michelle had to run our dog, Spotty, to the vet because her neck had swollen to twice it’s normal size during the day today. Our doggie is fifteen and a half years old, so any kind of health problem at this point in her life could indeed be very serious.

So here I am, with all these things going on, already miserable, and walking the last of my typical six-block jaunt from where I usually parking for free, down to the arena.

As I approached the last crossing prior to my destination, there on the corner stood a young man, soaked to the skin in the rain. I was already late, so I really didn’t notice his behavior until I was but a few feet from him, near the crosswalk. I say this because I don’t know whether he was beckoning each and every person walking by for money or if it was just lucky ol’ me, but as I approached him, I knew the look in his eye. It was no surprise when he softly asked, “Sir, could you spare a dollar so I can go buy a cheeseburger?”

Now if the dude had been wearing a LOLCats t-shirt, I probably would have stopped and pulled out a buck or two just for the irony of the situation.

Just kidding; actually…I wouldn’t. And that’s the problem.

Divine Intervention
Again, I don’t pretend to assume that I know what anyone else would do in that situation. I know there are a lot of folks who would have had compassion on the guy and given him the money as asked, or more. I know there are some folks who would have even offered to take him to McDonald’s and buy him an entire meal. And I also know that are those who wouldn’t have even acknowledged his presence; their response would have been to just keep on walking.

As for me, while my polite nature wouldn’t allow me to completely ignore him, my hard heart didn’t exactly embrace his situation, either.

In response to his tentative entreaty I quickly replied, Nosir, I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you, today” and I continued on across the street, towards the arena.

Almost immediately I felt a pang of anguish stab me in the gut. I said to myself, “Man, I wish I hadn’t just done that!”

I continued my hurried pace toward the arena’s side entrance, still another 50 yards ahead, beating myself up more and more with every step. At least three times I thought, “why don’t you just turn around and go back and give the man a lousy dollar! That’s all he asked you for.”

But in response a thousand other voices in my head simultaneously shouted down the better angels of my nature, warning of everything from possibly being robbed at knife point to the cynical suggestion that dude would just go spend that dollar on crack or booze.

But no matter how much I tried to take solace in the cautions being justified by my conscious mind, my heart was making me miserable. I felt horrible.

My mind decided, “If he’s still standing there after the game, I’ll be sure to give him a few bucks.”

My heart shot right back, “He won’t BE THERE after the game, you idiot!”

Then…

Then something — or someone — intervened.

I was less than a few feet from the turn down to the arena side entrance when I spotted something. I really couldn’t believe my eyes.

There, lying on the wet sidewalk, still partially dry, was a one dollar bill — folded lengthwise and then again in half. From the second I spotted it, ten feet away, I knew what I had to do.

I reached down to snatch it off the sidewalk, did an about-face, and burst into a full sprint back to the corner, 50 yards up the street, to where the young man was still standing in the rain.

As I approached him, I’m not even sure if he recognized me as anyone with whom he’d already spoken.

I reached out my hand and said, “I swear to God, I just found this lying on the sidewalk. I think it was meant to be yours.” I handed him the twice-folded bill and began backpedaling across the street, again in the direction of the arena.

His countenance beamed as he realized what it was I’d placed in his palm.

“Hey! That’ll hellp!” He said with a big grin, “Thanks! And God bless you!”

“God bless you as well, Sir,” I called back and continued on to my hockey game.

Y’know, I didn’t once think about him spending that buck on anything illicit; it didn’t matter. Giving it to him was what had to be done. Besides, I’ve given money to panhandlers dozens of time before, and I think I know by how they receive it, just how much they need it, and whether it’s for something to make them better off or something to make them worse.

But the vibe/reaction from this guy told me all I needed to know.

This was one of the weirdest, most blatantly obvious divine interventions I’ve ever been involved with. And pardon me if you think that’s an idiotic way to look at it, but that’s my take-away from this thing.

Sure it could have been a coincidence, but I can tell you — I just don’t find money lying on the sidewalk all that often, do you? And given that the man had asked me for that exact amount? I mean, c’mon.

But the point of this whole thing isn’t about what a great benevolent human being AJ is. But rather, it’s just the opposite.

I hardened my heart to some one who asked me for a FREAKING DOLLAR, which I most certainly had to give him, but refused, and then tried to justify it by assuring myself that I’d done the right thing.

Nevertheless, someone needed to set me straight; almost as if to say, “Okay, if you don’t know how to do it, allow me to show you.”

This was an intervention, folks; a heart intervention for AJ.

So what does it mean, really? I haven’t a clue, except that I know somebody was trying to tell me something; something like, “it really doesn’t belong to you anyway — why not use it with a heart of compassion rather than one of stone?”

I also believe it means I need to start listening to that still, small voice — even when the big, loud ones are doing their level best to drown it out.

Maybe that should be my first New Year’s resolution for 2009.

The second? Hmmm…

Maybe I should just stop worrying about the Predators so much.

Meh…it’s a thought….

finis

A Little Toilet Humor

Okay...maybe one more.
Yeah, it certainly wouldn't be the first time I've underestimated the length of time it takes me to do something. As you may know from my previous post, I fully intended to have this blog converted to the shiny new look and feature set of the new updated template that I've been feverishly crafting since last Friday. But alas, the bugger took me all of the hours I had to devote to it this past weekend, leaving me no time to actually write the two or so new posts I wanted to coincide with its formal introduction.

So I'll have to beg your pardon on the timing, but It may be next weekend before I officially flip the switch, given how busy a week I have directly ahead of me.

So in the meantime, I've decided to offer up one final exit post to tide you over. Sorta like its author, it's a real stinker, but I hope you like it.

It's a Mad world
I've gotta warn you, if you're like a lot of reactionary, politically-correct people these days, you may find the subject matter of this story offensive, gross, and disgusting.

If you're like me, you'll just find it funny.

I don't know about you, but I often do some of my best thinking in one of the two places I spend time each and every day: standing in the shower, or ensconced upon the porcelain throne.

This morning I was engaged in the latter circumstance, here at The Company where I work, when the sound of activity from a stall several feet to my left triggered a memory that almost immediately brought a smile to my face.

You probably have to be at least close to my generation's age to remember this well, but back in the 60s, that veritable bastion of sophomoric humor, Mad magazine, offered numerous 'special' issues throughout the year, containing various bonus paraphernalia — things like pull-out posters and/or stickers with gummed or peel-off adhesive backing. Oh, the havoc wreaked upon the painted surfaces on which we kids used to slap those stickers! It surely must have driven more than a few parents to drink back then. Of course, I can appreciate this now, but as a pre-teen at the time I couldn't have cared less.

There was one Mad issue that I recall fondly, featuring a set of what collectors now refer to as 'trouble' stickers; ones printed with various humorous cautionary phrases that poked fun at everyday appliances, pop-cultural opinions and everyday events; just silly, ridiculous kids-stuff, as per the Mad tradition. The sentiments were usually pretty corny, but geared perfectly to the goofball sensibilities of adolescents like yours truly.

Phrases like, "Stomp out violence!", "Attention Burglars! It's OK to break into this house!", and "Caution! The Driver Of This Car May Be A Hazard To Your Health!" always tickled my funny bone. But then again, some of the jokes just went — swoosh — right over my head. And just like that proverbial guy who busts out laughing after finally 'getting' a joke he'd heard a week earlier, it wasn't until years later that one of those miniature handbills would quite ironically change my life — and most likely save me thousands in future plumbing bills.

♫ Teach, your children well...
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not not normally one who talks a lotta crap — or even dwells on taking one. However, I've often wondered about the aspect of 'closing the deal' on that (hopefully) most 'regular' of all bodily functions.

I mean, who really teaches us how to use toilet paper?

Obviously, the likely answer would be our parents, or someone who took care of us when we were little. But how many lessons did they offer? Did they take the time to actually demonstrate the finer points, or did they just show us the roll and let us figure things out on our own?

Now again, this isn't something to which I devote a lot of meditation, but it has crossed my mind from time to time. Maybe it's crossed yours too. And if it hadn't yet, well...you're welcome.

Anyway, back to the stickers...

So there I was this morning, sitting in the stall, when I hear the sudden, continual sound of a spinning toilet paper dispenser, echoing from about three stalls over, on the far port side of the men's room. It sort of reminded me of the sound that a roller skate wheel makes when you spin it with the tips of your fingers.

"RhhrrrrrRAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT...RhhrrrrrRAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT...and so on, probably 4-5 times in succession.

It took a second or two for the significance of the sound to register, but then it hit me; that dude was usin' some paper, yo.

And after an initial, brief burst of contempt, leveled at the guy for the potential environmental-impact of his apparently wanton waste of waste-paper, I caught myself and smiled, then flashed back to the days of my adolescent youth when I too was a roll-spinner.

♫ Can't touch this...
My childhood fear of touching my own grunt was such that my typical tee-pee torrent had to double-over at least 5-6 times on the floor beneath it to convince me that a sufficient buffer would then exist between my right hand and the toxic waste to be wiped from my cute little hiney. I'm quite sure that by the time I was ten I had single-handedly (pun intended) used enough of the stuff to represent the deforestation of half the state of Oregon.

Now don't judge; I'm innocent! You see, I don't recall ever having more than a single instructional session as to the proper use of bathroom tissue. No one that I can recall ever told me how much was too much; I just kept on spinnin' that roll until I had at least a half-an-inch of bulk from which to work. Multiply that by four or times per session, and it's no wonder that the toilets at my house were constantly stopped-up, although I never once had an inkling that I might have had something to do with that.

However, for as strange and classically 'childhood' as that anecdote is, it took the aforementioned adolescent humor magazine to get me to see the error of my environmentally-irresponsible ways.

♫ Let the Good Times Roll...
I can clearly remember excitedly examining the sticker insert included with the issue of Mad that one of my brothers brought home for me on a summer's day in the late-mid-1960s. As I scanned the two pages-worth of adhesive-backed beauties in various shapes and sizes, I came across one that particularly appealed to the abject grossness of my adolescent boy sensibilities.

The sticker read: "WARNING! This toilet tissue must be MULTIPLE-FOLDED to avoid break-through!"

"HAAAAA!" I thought. "This is great!" "They're talking about probably the grossest, sickest, grodiest, most disgusting thing that could ever happen to a human being in history, right? How funny! How gross! WOOOHOOO! I gotta go put this up in the bathroom!"

And so I did; slapping that sticker on the wall, just above the toilet paper dispenser, where I (and the rest of my family) would see it every time I did my bid'ness for the next two years. Of course, at that later date, when I had reached the mature age of eleven or twelve, I began to see things differently (...okay...not that much differently, but a little).

I do know that I began to see the sticker, and what it said, differently. Oh yeah, I'd always known it was a joke, I'd just never really understood the setup. I knew the concept was a goof; but then it began to occur to me that maybe — just maybe, there was actually something to be learned there. The sticker suggested something that I had never really even considered: the concept of actually folding toilet paper — as opposed to wadding it up in a huge ball — which had always been my M.O. — in order to create maximum cushion between digits and dung.

Following my established method, break-through was pretty much an impossibility. But could it be feasible to actually use less tee-pee, even...dare I say...multiple folded? Do people actually do this? How could anyone employ such a risky practice?

Nevertheless, the Environmental Movement was already firmly entrenched in the national consciousness by the late-60s, and was an important consideration at the time, even for a young boy such as myself. Killing trees unnecessarily was a big no-no, and the little ecological angel on my shoulder was beginning to assert herself in my decisions. I decided I would try and go folded, and thereby, hopefully go easier on the tee-pee.

It was one small step for a young boy; one giant leap for tree conservation.

And so to this day I continue, just tryin' to do my part for the planet. I considered using corncobs once, but thought better of it. Nope, I'll just keep on foldin.' Oh, I know it's not much, but it IS a little something that I can do-do to help save good ol' Mother Earth.

And now I once again pause to consider the plight of the roll-spinner over in the fourth stall, with whom I shared the restroom earlier today. All things considered, I feel kinda sorry for the poor sap, and sorrier for the planet. But maybe he's just oblivious to it all like I once was. Maybe he didn't have anyone to teach him the way of the multiple-fold when he was a boy.

Then again, maybe he just grew up without any decent bathroom reading material.


finis

Take a Good Look Around, ’Cuz This Ol’ House is Comin’ Down

AJ New-point-Oh is Coming this Weekend.
Pardon the dust — and when I say, ‘pardon the dust’ I don’t mean dust from construction, destruction, or reduction; I’m referring to the dust of stagnation that’s been collecting on this blog for the past three months or longer.

To many of my regular readers the theme has become more than familiar, it’s been my frickin’ mantra for the past 2-3 years: I need to post more often. Well, lately I’ve been doing some serious self-evaluating. I’ve been pondering whether or not I could even still consider myself an active blogger.

Had I lost my mojo?

Had I run out of things to say?

I mean, I have amassed some work in this space over the past four-and-a-half years. Problem is, 75% of it was done in the first two spins around the blog-sun, from 2004-2006. The past three years have been a blur, and that time-flies-when-yer-havin-fun circumstance hasn't exactly been spent blogging; life’s happened; changes; and happily, a lot of personal growth along the way.

Nevertheless, I didn't exactly want to move with the room. I frittered and fretted over my lack of activity and my steadily declining number of readers; I wasted a lot of energy over my receding-blog angst.

But just when it looked like I needed to hang up my keyboard, something new happened. And I'm extremely glad to announce that I’ve got a lot to say about it! Tune in this weekend to find out what it is.

AJ 2.0 is coming...

It isn’t a re-work; it’s more like a re-birth.

Bookmark me now; believe me later.

 

The Santa Connection

Blog Jogging
Special thanks to my friend, Will, whose recent blog post inspired this brief story. He was recalling the time in his childhood at which he discovered that Santa Claus wasn’t real. This sparked a memory that I think about every Holiday season — but it’s not about me; it’s about my brother Alex.

As for me, I suppose I first realized that Santa wasn’t real when I was about seven or eight years old; don’t remember how or why, just that I have very little recollection of ever really believing that anyone other than my Dad left our presents under the Christmas tree. At that time in my life, my mom was already in the advanced stages of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and my Dad was always working, so once the idea got into my head that Santa was make-believe, there really wasn’t anyone around to persuade me to the contrary.

However I on my own decided to help my brother Alex, who was four years my junior, to keep the fantasy alive, while leveraging that bit of grown-up knowledge for my own personal enjoyment at the same time.

I convinced him that I was Santa’s personal helper, assigned to our family, and that that St. Nick had asked me to help him out because he was just so very busy. I was assigned to keep an eye out as to whether or not Alex was being good, and to report any behavioral infractions to the North Pole immediately as I witnessed them — via mental telepathy, of course; except it wasn’t your garden-variety mental telepathy — it was vocal mental telepathy; and oh yeah, it was based upon two-way radio communications protocol, too. So in other words, I would ‘talk’ to Santa as if I were a WWII fighter pilot radioing in to base:

“AJ to Santa, AJ to Santa, come in Santa...Sorry to say, but Alex just set the cat’s tail on fire, over...”

Yeah, I was sort of a creep to do that, but oh, the power! If Alex ever dared cross me, I’d play the ol’ ‘AJ to Santa’ card, which would send him instantly screaming to my feet, pleading for mercy.

But don’t think I only used my power for evil. I spent a lot of time reassuring my little brother that he was indeed a good boy, which he was...most of the time. Our Mother’s illness was probably rougher on him than it was on me. He had no substantive memory of her at all, given that her AD onset had begun only a year after Alex was born.

It was a strange, almost surreal time. I may have teased him a little more than I should have, but I tried to protect him as much as my limited understanding of what was going on around us would allow. I loved him more than anything; we were each other’s support group and were extremely close the entire time we lived under the same roof.

In later years we’d kid each other about my little Santa rouse; usually someone would bring it up at a family Holiday gathering. We always laughed about it; Alex was never sore over my abuse. It was always understood as a older-versus-younger brother rite of passage; an example of how we tried to cope in our pre-teen years, growing up without a Mother.

But now, instead of smiles, it brings a pang to my heart every time I think about it; not out of guilt, but just in the sadness of realizing that my little brother will likely never remember that story again. Alex is now himself in the advanced throes of Alzheimer’s. He and my late elder brother David inherited the disease from our Mom. David passed away 12 years ago at the age of 46; Alex’s life however, through the new AD drugs Aracept and Namenda, has been extended beyond that of previous members of my family who’d succumbed to the disease.

He’s 48 years old, and is likely with the final 2-3 years of his life. I don’t know if he even realizes it’s Christmastime.

But I know that I love him; I know that I miss him; and regardless of what anyone else believes, I’d do anything within my power to change his fate.

Oh that I really could speak to Santa; I’d ask for my little brother to be whole, once again; not only for me, but for his family on whose lives his illness has taken the greatest toll of all.

I love you, bro. Merry Christmas.

finis

A Different Point-of-Hue: L.A. Stories 2008(Part VII)

Dad & Helen
I realize that to this point in the story I’ve hardly mentioned my Dad. However that neither means that I don’t have plenty to say about him or that we didn’t spend much time together on this trip. Actually I spent two days out in Hemet with my Pop and step Mom, Helen.

As always, it was a great time; however this visit had a decidedly more pronounced sense of sober circumstance than in past visits. My Dad, whose health has been stellar for a man 85 years of age, has finally experienced a blip on the physiological radar.

As you may recall from previous blogs I’ve written about him, my Dad suffered a heart attack back in 2001, but has in subsequent years turned his health around completely, losing 40 pounds, and becoming by all accounts healthier than most men 25 years his junior.

At the same time, almost as if by some cruel reversal of roles, as my Dad’s health flourished, Helen’s began to decline. She developed lower GI tract difficulties requiring surgery to remove a portion of her colon. And if that wasn’t bad enough, at the same time she was also experiencing difficulties with her legs and lower back, which rendered her nearly an invalid over the past two years.

The good news however came earlier this summer when a new physical therapy treatment — a spinal decompression therapy administered by Dad and Helen’s chiropractor — began to dramatically reverse Helen’s spinal disk degeneration. She went from barely being able to get around in a walker to walking around on her own after just a few weeks of treatment.

Happy days were here again, right? Um…no; the fickle finger of fate would beg to differ.

Right in the midst of my folks’ elation over Helen’s regained mobility, a routine cardiac checkup for my Dad found something going on with him that was equally, if not more disconcerting. In a routine ultrasound test that has become a regular part of his post-heart attack checkup regimen, the doctor discovered not one, but two small aneurysms in my Pop’s abdomen; one in his upper chest that they opined could simply be shunted to relieve the pressure, and the other, a much more serious aortic aneurysm that if not watched closely, could mean instantaneous death if it were to rupture.

Abdominal aortic aneurysms — as their name indicates — are located on the body’s largest blood vessel, the aorta, which proceeds south from the heart through the lower abdomen where it branches off to supply blood to other major internal organs and in turn, the body as a whole. An aneurysm is an enlargement in the vessel wall, caused by a weakening normally attributed to high blood pressure or heart disease (both of which my Dad has or has had in the past). The result is a ballooning of the affected area which typically increases over time. The wider the bulge becomes, the weaker the integrity of the vessel wall, usually causing the bubble to burst eventually. The result is nearly always fatal as the subsequent internal bleeding is usually too great for the victim to overcome, even with emergency surgery.

(For a nicely informative video explanation of the phenomenon from healthline.com, click here.)

Such an unfortunate turn of events would justifiably dampen the spirits of even the most optimistic of souls, but Dad and Helen have remained strong and upbeat, believing that God will not place any greater a burden on them then that which they can bear.

Well you can now add one more pebble to the pile.

I just spoke to Pop a couple days ago, and he told me the doctors have given him even more bad news. Living in sunny SoCal for the past forty years, and more specifically, in a desert area like Hemet, on and off for the past fifteen years can have its detractors. For one thing: skin cancer from the constant exposure to the relentless California sun.

Dad has in recent years battled more than one or two Basel Cell Carcinomas, on his lip, chin and now just recently, on his ear. The treatment is to basically cut it out before it spreads. Generally the subsequent scar left behind is minimal, depending on how large the cancerous spot was allowed to become.

And given the fact that the situation has become almost routine for my Dad, he once again is taking the Alfred E. Newman stance.

This man amazes me. For as much as he’s been through, and as many legit reasons he’s had to worry in his life, I’ve never seen fear in his eyes. His faith in God to work things out in his life has been an inspiration to me; you just can’t help but to be uplifted by his confidence.

So now allow me to return to being the worry-wart.

As I mentioned previously, about the aneurysm, the doctors are optimistic that it isn’t anything to be really concerned about. Dad’s otherwise good health make him an excellent candidate for surgery to repair the aneurysm. And for as serious a circumstance as this one, the procedure has about a 95% success rate.

So why hasn’t he had it yet? Good question — despite the fact that I already know (and don’t like) the answer.

Dad learned of his situation in August, a couple of weeks before making this trip to SoCal. At the time it had grown to a size (4.5 cm wide) just under the size recommended for surgery. Naturally he wanted to be proactive and head this sucker off at the pass, but his HMO put up the big stop sign saying that he had to wait until it reached that just-before-it-bursts/by-the-book established procedure size before they’d authorize the surgery.

So he waits; remaining upbeat and patient until his next checkup in a couple weeks to see what the bubble’s status is, and hoping that until then, that he doesn’t have a slip-and-fall or that nobody walks up and punches him in the gut.

But believe it or not, that’s really not what I intended to talk about in this post. So now, in making a complete left turn in subject matter, let’s talk about Angels; not the kind that have wings — the kind that swing bats.

Touched by Angels
I’m not sure exactly when his allegiances changed — probably sometime around the mid-to-late 1970s, but my Dad, somewhat gradually and rather unbeknownst to me, became a Halos fan. He was raised in the Midwest, so quite naturally his love for the National League teams in Cincinnati and Chicago — along with a healthy disdain for the Los Angeles Dodgers — followed him as he brought our family to California in 1969.

As for me, I was a newly-minted but dyed-in-the-wool New York Mets fan. I honestly didn’t even know who the then-California Angels were. I would continue to have little-to-no sense in that regard until the 1973 season when they acquired an up-and-coming Mets prospect who would go on to become one of the most dominant pitchers in Major League Baseball history — for both the Angels, and later, for The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers — Nolan Ryan.

As the decade of the 70s began to fade, so did my love for the Mets; however a curious affinity for the Angels had begun to materialize in its place. The Halos had been perennial losers from their beginnings in 1961, all the way up to the 1978 season when they finally fielded a competitive team. They narrowly missed the American League West division crown that season, but the buzz created by their strong finish created an excitement and expectancy of success in their fans like never before.

1979 brought the team’s first division championship in history and now all of a sudden there were actually two legitimate MLB teams in greater Los Angeles (although the Angels were still trapped in the Dodgers’ shadow, and would remain there, regardless of any subsequent success for many years to come). By this time I was now a rabid Angels fan. I would learn later that my Dad had followed suit, albeit in a somewhat less demonstrative fashion than his #4 son.

I suppose my Dad’s affinity for the Angels was a surprise, simply because we really didn’t hang out that much back then. I didn’t spend a lot of time with my folks those first few years after I moved out on my own, as I was involved in college life, working and doing my own thing for the most part. We still lived within five miles of each other, but I was a pretty busy guy, with my own friends and interests.

It’s a part of the latter-day season between father and son that I’m now sort of experiencing the opposite end of in my relationship with my own son, Shawn. We now often don’t see him for weeks at a time, despite the fact that he lives less than 10 miles away. It’s a guy thing, I suppose. It bugs Michelle a little bit more than me, but I can certainly understand it, so I know it’s certainly nothing personal.

So with that in mind, it did come as somewhat of a surprise that when my pop’s exclamations of, “Hey, how about our Angels?” began to emerge as a recurring theme in conversation.

Now I could never be cynical enough to suggest that my Dad’s love for the Angels was anything less than that of a lifelong baseball fan doing what comes naturally, but I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t admit that it has become a great source of the commonality that we’ve enjoyed in the years since — especially given the surprising dearth of true Angels fans I’ve actually ever known.

But like me, my Pop was seldom able to see the Halos play in person. I can’t say for certain, but I figure I averaged attending no more than 2-3 games a season at Anaheim Stadium in the years I lived in Southern California; my Dad, I’d guess, probably didn’t make it to half that many. Occasionally we as a family would receive game tickets from my sister’s boss, who owned a nice slot of box seats, both in Anaheim and at Dodger Stadium, but those times were few and far between.

Fast-forward to 2004 when I began my current run of regular visits to SoCal and discovered another close friend who just happened to be an Angels fan, and who also just happened to have access to box seat season tickets in Anaheim: my friend Cindy. And as the goodness of her heart would dictate, Cindy has made it a point to see to it that I had tickets to take my Dad to an Angels game each of the past three times I’ve been there, including this visit.


Next: More Etcetera: “Today, Ich bin ein Germaphobe”

Okay...I'll just say it.

Chill, people.
I generally avoid political discussions like the plague because, a.) they’re absolutely no fun, and b.) they make me sick.

I consider myself a classic fiscal-conservative-but-social-moderate, politically. I campaign for no one because I don’t fully agree with either party on a plethora of issues.

I’m basically apolitical, but am well-aware that I’m in the minority on this issue, so I’m sure most people won’t agree with my stance. However I’ve been through a bunch of Presidential elections in my 52+ years and have been a working adult for more than 30 of those, so I believe I can offer this little bit of perspective: Chill, people; this country will neither be saved nor spared by the results of this Presidential election.

The sun will rise and the sun will set; no one person is gonna change that. I just don’t get why people have to become so worked up about it all. I’ve come thisclose to dropping a few folks I follow on Twitter, not because of what they say, but because it seems like ALL they can talk, and grouse...AND talk, and grouse about is politics — with nearly every Tweet.

The fact is, next Tuesday will come and go and we’ll all still be here when it’s done, save for those who’ll be choosing to pack all their belongings into their cars and drive ’em into the ocean — or a choice that’s equally silly and worthless: allowing a presidential election to take their focus off of the only thing that really matters: living.

Y’see folks, we’re not electing a White Knight on November 4th; we’re electing a candidate to occupy the office of President of the United States. Will he be the single-most powerful man in the world? Maybe. Does that power give him the ability to single-handedly fix all of our country’s problems? No way, Joe(theplummer)-say.

And if you think I’m casting aspersions strictly on Barack Obama here, think again. I’m not putting any more stock in John McCain; I have no idea how much if any of the campaign promises either of them will be able to make good upon if elected, and quite frankly I couldn’t care less which one does. What I DO know is that it’s neither their job, nor their ability to make me happy and successful; it’s up to ME and ME ALONE to do get that task accomplished.

See, I’m the only person sitting in AJ’s Oval Office.

I could go on ad-infintum here, but I would instead challenge you — if you’re old enough — to recall the state of the U.S. economy at or near the end of the past three decades, which also just happened to have been in close proximity to Presidential elections.

• End of the 70s: a full-blown recession. Ronald Regan comes in and things get better.
• End of the 80s: Black Tuesday ushers in a mini-recession. Things were already getting better by 1992 when Bill Clinton came in and the economy really took off.
• Then in 2000-01 the very thing that sent Wall Street through the roof sends it crashing back to the ground; the dot-com bubble bursts and all hell breaks loose. Then 911; then Iraq.
• The years since have been a mixed bag, with things improving early-on, but the Iraq war pretty much keeping the economy at bay, before the mortgage-lending crisis finally pushes it off the cliff.

The point I’m trying to make is that since the 60s, there has never been more than a ten-year window in which the economy has been truly robust, and even when it has been, inflation has tempered overall economic success. And conversely, there hasn’t been more than a two-to-three year period in which we’ve witnessed the economy in any kind of sustained downturn. There have always been these cyclical mini-recessions and market adjustments that crop up, usually at the turn of the decade, often coinciding with the end of a Presidential term. Why that is, I do not know, but I’ve now seen it happen four times in my lifetime and I find it pretty unlikely to be a coincidence. To me, it all has to do with confidence — the consumer variety, that is.

Jimmy Carter wasn’t a bad person, but history now agrees that he was one of the worst presidents of our era. The reason? He didn’t respond to the things that really mattered. He mothballed the U.S. military, and in response, the Soviet Union shifted theirs into overdrive, making our Cold War position with them incredibly tenuous for a number of years, and emboldening the Soviet-supported Iranian jihadists to take the U.S. Embassy in Tehran hostage.

And though he never threw any kind of switch, the helplessness we as a country felt over the Iranian hostage crisis paralyzed us, sucking our confidence dry. And no matter who’s to blame, whenever something like that happens, it’s always a bad thing for a market-driven economy that runs on consumer confidence.

I truly believe that no matter who wins next Tuesday, America will regain its confidence sooner, rather than later; if not for any reason other than the fact that somebody new will be in the White House, like it or not.

The sun’ll come out tomorrow, kids; bet’cher bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun.

Howz about us getting back to living our lives, being responsible with our finances, conserving, planning and saving for rainy days, rather than weighing all our hopes and dreams on things or people that really don’t matter?

Howz about us leaving the vitriol behind and starting to show some love and respect for those with dissenting views? It goes both ways, y’know.

I am the only person ultimately responsible for me; you are the only person ultimately responsible for you.

I choose to concentrate on making sure that I, myself am getting the job done right, first and foremost. I don’t need to worry about the guy in the White House. Whomever it ends up being, he’s gonna have enough problems of his own to deal with.

 

finis

A Different Point-of-Hue: L.A. Stories 2008(Part VI)

Et Cetera ’08 (continued): Landmarks Lost (and Found)
Continuing the sunshine…nah…jest fudgin.’ From the last installment I know you’re probably thinking this trip to California was just this side of a root canal for yours truly. Nothing could be further from the truth.

By now you realize that the gist of the series’ subtitle is about seeing things differently and as such this most recent trip truly brought about an adjustment in my perception of the only place my entire adult life that I’ve ever really thought of as ‘home.’ It was honestly the first time in all my years of visiting SoCal since moving to Nashville in 1992 that the idea of maybe…possibly someday returning to L.A. seemed, if not impossible, at least more than a little bit distasteful.

So why is that such a big deal, you ask? After all, I’m the one who left. Why should I care if I don’t live there anymore?

But ya see, that’s the problem — in a way, I never did leave SoCal. And I really never gave up on the idea of going back.

Of course I’ve never made any kind of plans to that end, given that such a circumstance would require my doing so without my wife, as Michelle would never go along with such an idea. Her insistence that we get the hell outta Dodge was the primary reason I considered relocating to Tennessee in the first place.

No, this is more like a fantasy I’ve always had, silly as it is. I mean, after all, Nashville has been extremely good to us — on a scale of magnitude better than SoCal was. But a lot of factors could be attributed to both sides of that argument, which really never has been an argument or even a discussed issue in our marriage.

This is just me, myself, and my gut talkin’ here.

There’s a part of me that mourns, longs for that feeling; a feeling of which only a counterfeit facsimile or two each spring and/or fall here in Tennessee manages to find its way into my thirsty soul; a feeling that can only be rendered by a 70 degree day wrapped in a blindingly clear, blue sky and cool Pacific Ocean breeze. Every once in awhile, the millibars of atmospheric pressure will align in such a way that those conditions, so plentiful and common in SoCal, but so rare and foreign to the rest of the country, will make a fleeting appearance here in this huge bowl of pollen, violent winds, and humidity they call the Tennessee Valley, and my soul will dance in celebration at the occsasion of ‘California weather’ in Tennessee, as Michelle and I dubbed it years ago.

It may last a week, or just a day, but it never lasts. Inevitably, the often blustery days of spring, which generate a bipolar mix of warm, rainy, and even bitterly cold days, are never stable. Likewise in the fall, temperatures vary wildly, often staying unseasonably warm well into October. But generally speaking, if we see any semblance of SoCal-type climate here, it’s generally woven into the days between Labor Day and Halloween, before the rainy season kicks into high gear and soon thereafter gives way to the cold, icy and occasionally snowy days of winter.

But what about summer, you ask? Well, as Joey Bag-a-donuts would say — fuggedaboudit. Summer is the practical joke nobody ever told me about before we moved here. If they had, I might not have been so willing to pull up stakes.

Well maybe it’s not that bad, but it certainly isn’t all that good either. I guess it’s all about what you’re used to, and had I grown up in the freaking Amazon I suppose the searing heat and 90-plus-percent humidity every day in July and August would probably feel like…normal. Well I’ve been here now for sixteen years and it still doesn’t feel normal.

So sue me for being intolerant of weather that sucks, but I jest cain’t hep it; I’m a Southern California boy living on the surface of planet Mercury — or at least that’s how it feels by comparison; and I’m sorry, but it really does suck.

The bottom line is this: I love Nashville — I really do, but it will never replace SoCal in that unattainable little bit of gray matter in my head where its specialness in my life is defined and will live forever. As iffy as I may be on the summertime weather here, that’s still no slam on Music City. It’s just that the further removed I get from my time growing up in L.A., the more I realize just what an indelible mark that the SoCal climate made on my psyche.

To borrow a phrase, Nashville’s fine, but it ain’t home; L.A’s home, but it ain’t mine no more…*

*...with all due apologies to Neil Diamond

The indicators are innumerous in affirming that I am now in a better place — in every sense of the word. It’s unfortunate that I actually had to leave Southern California to really start living, but I guess that’s the give-and-take of life in paradise. If it were possible to combine SoCal’s weather with Nashville’s lifestyle options and more favorable cost-of-living, well, you’d probably have far worse chaos than exists in L.A. now, ‘cuz not only would everyone want to live there, everyone could.

Nevertheless I do try to be realistic. I can still visit the old homestead, and do so fairly cheaply (I spent less than $600.00 including airfare and rental car during my recent nine-day trip); so as long as my Dad and other friends are still around for me to come see, I always will — for as long as I’m able.

But upon returning to Music City, I always know there’s something that I’ve left behind; a tune that all thirteen hundred and fifty-two guitar pickers in Nashville** couldn’t play quite the same way I’ve heard it all my life. And as welcome as they are to me, those occasional ‘California weather’ days — those brief meteorological reminders of a state of being in which I can no longer reside — they’re only fool’s gold. I have long accepted the fact that they just don’t make that kinda weather consistently anywhere else but Southern California.

**Begging John Sebastian's forgivness, as well.

Well the Times (as Well as the Places), They Are’a Changin’
With two lengthy preambles of melancholy machination now established, perhaps it’s time I got to some of those ‘anecdotal’ entries I intentioned back at the beginning of the previous post.

Given all the changes I witnessed and have noted — whether or not they were actually all that recent — my eyes were opened even more throughout the week as I made various and sundried pilgrimages in and around my former hometown of Long Beach, especially in the area of my old high school.

Woodrow Wilson High lay at the physical epicenter of three distinct residential areas bordering it. Affluent, blue-collar, and inner-city neighborhoods surrounded the school and, in a manner of speaking, were held together by the linchpin that was my alma mater’s rich and diverse socio-economic makeup. But as is usually the case, urban blight generally spreads in an osmosis-like fashion into areas that were once more affluent, becoming increasingly less so. And as such, the areas adjacent to my old school have fallen upon increasingly seedy times: a continuing sign of the difficult financial climate weighing upon the families and businesses in the area.

One such local business located just a few blocks from Wilson really surprised me with the completeness of its demise: good ol’ Mickey D’s.

In thinking back now, I suppose I already knew that the old McDonald's was no longer, having been sold and augmented into a rather nondescript Mom ’N Pop type of drive-in restaurant sometime back in the 80s, well before I moved my family to Tennessee. And while sad, it was okay to me, as the place was still a restaurant and better still, a new McDonald’s was built to fill the void just a little ways up the street.

Wilson’s students would suffer however, as the new McDonald's, while still nearby, yet was now far enough away to no longer be a practical lunch destination on foot.

The original Mickey D’s was just off the corner of Anaheim Street and Ximeno Avenue; two and a half blocks from school and very near to the respective locations of my initial two money-earning endeavors: ‘Big Jeff’s Car Wash’ (1972-73), and just two blocks west of that: a grocery store that has changed brands at least five times since the 80s, which was my primary employer from the beginning of my senior year of high school through my early thirties (1973-1986).

Needless to say, with all three venues: my high school and my first two places of employment within a two-mile radius of each other, I was heavily invested in the area to say the least; and it has saddened me deeply to realize how far the neighborhood has fallen.

Anaheim Street, the east/west thoroughfare on which the street addresses of the old McDonald's, Big Jeff's, and the Grocery Store are ascribed, has in my opinion become the biggest loser over the course of time — and I don’t mean that in a good way.*** Its businesses were old-looking way back in the 70s, and certainly don’t look any younger today.

***Oh, and to Jillian Michaels & Bob Harper…um, yeah…sorry…

On the other hand, Wilson actually looks great today — and that’s actually news. I'm of the opinion that either through municipal government authority or even the private funds of concerned alumni, somebody stepped up to do something to reverse the increasingly downward trend that my old school seemed to be locked into just a few years ago. I can clearly recall back in 1994, while in town for my twentieth high school reunion, noticing that the old campus was taking on more the look of a max security prison than a high school. The previously wide open campus had been fitted with foreboding iron gates all about the school’s perimeter, with matching bars across each and every exterior window. Graffiti marred the outside of the once-impeccably kept institution. It was a truly depressing site. However now, four years later, it appears that a great deal of effort has gone into the restoration of both my old school as well as its immediate surroundings.

Gone is the graffiti, as well as the hardware on the windows. The school's curb appeal is just as I remembered it, if not better. And perhaps as significantly — if not more so — all of the real estate on the west side of Ximeno Avenue (Wilson resides on the eastern side of the street) has been completely turned over and is now being used by the school.

Gone is the unsightly parking lot opposite the school's main entrance on Ximeno and 10th, replaced by soccer and athletic fields from 10th Street all the way down to the school’s terminus at 7th Street adjacent to the football field. Years ago, that real estate was occupied by a klatch of modest-to-run-down businesses and an apartment building, directly across the street from the school’s the gymnasium and football field complex.

There was a ‘Pup ‘N Taco’ fast food joint on the corner, directly across from the football field. It’s gone as well, now replaced by the green grass of a soccer field. Besides, with all the cases down through the years of people needing a quick fix of Pepto Bismol soon after eating those P&T chilidogs, I’m surprised the place wasn’t plowed under years ago.

The Scene of the Crime
I have LOTS of memories of that apartment building,s — too many to share right now, but this is something I know now that I must write about soon. One of my best friends my junior and senior years at Wilson lived in that apartment building, so I knew it quite well. Unfortunately that familiarity led to a pretty scary event back in October of 1975. One fateful Friday night the narrow alleyway between the apartments and the building next door became a location in which I was the wrong place at definitely the wrong time. I was mugged by a half-dozen kids I encountered heading up the alley just as I was heading down from the opposite direction, toward the street. There were a number of factors contributing to why I came away from the situation with nothing worse than the seat of my left pants leg being torn down to the back of my knee, but as I said, it’s another story for another time.

Obviously it was one of the more tense moments in my young life to that point. Fortunately, I can almost laugh about it now, but the bottom line is that the alley no longer exists, and the neighborhood is better for it.

It's no surprise that the city finally did something about the bad circumstance that group of buildings was creating. The neighborhood was getting rougher by the year and those apartments along with the few other old, unsightly buildings didn't do much for the property value, let alone the safety of the kids who attended Wilson in those years as the neighborhood was taking a rapid dive.

But having that solid-block buffer of school-controlled real estate in between the campus-proper and the decaying neighborhood to its immediate west seemed to change everything; it’s still not what I would call a 'great' area, but it’s a helluva lot nicer around the school now than it was just a few short years ago.

Meanwhile on Anaheim Street, the old McDonald's location isn't faring quite as well. It’s no longer a restaurant at all, but has been completely razed and replaced by a strip mall — and not a very nice one at that.

Unfortunately this trip I never had a chance to look in on the site of my first job, ‘Big Jeff’s Car Wash,’ about nine blocks further on up the street. I know that as of 2004 it was still operating, and I’d aasume that it’s still going strong today.

I did have the occasion however to briefly pass by the former ‘Market Basket’ supermarket, a place where I was employed just shy of thirteen years. It’s a ‘Ralph’s’ market now, and the place looked as busy as ever.

The newer McDonald’s (heir apparent to its aforementioned predecessor down the street) still stands in the corner of the Ralph’s parking lot, an area in which we employees were once instructed to park our cars back in the day, to allow first dibs at the prime spots in front of the store for the customers.

If I'd had the time I could have gone further down Anaheim to check out ‘Joe Jost’s’ — everyone’s favorite neighborhood tavern both then and now, as I hear its still going strong.

It Was Stupid, But it Made Me Happy
There were several other venues of interest in the area I took note of during my wanderings that week.

About a mile and a half northeast of the market still stands Community Hospital, where I spent the night in the Children’s ICU with my daughter Amy, following her accidental electrocution on the night of August 18, 1987. A couple blocks east of that, just past the traffic circle, is the place where the ‘Circle Drive-in’ movie theater’ once stood, where my roomie Mo and I one night in 1975 snuck into see Young Frankenstein.

The drive-in has been replaced with a huge condo complex and an impressive-looking glass office building on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Ximeno Ave.

About another mile and a half due east, in perhaps the saddest change carried by the winds of circumstance that I witnessed on this trip, the Laundromat on Clark Avenue that inspired perhaps my favorite blog story ever, is now some kind of asian meat market. Can ya believe it?

There were more changes in the local landscape of my middle-youth-to early-adulthood, but I’ll stop there. It’s safe to say that the times have changed a lot in my old stompin’ grounds, and that change was a sober reminder of how fast time — and life — is passing by for me.


Next: More Etcetera: “Dad & Helen”