I’ve been slacking on blog posts lately because I’m on vacation, so I’m slacking on everything that doesn’t involve a beach. But I do want to pay tribute to the mighty minivan that has taken us on our annual summer trip (or trips, depending on the year) since 2003.
Odyssey is an apt name for our van, because it’s been to Florida, Alabama, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, South Carolina, Louisiana… anywhere the Dubbatrubba six-pack of people needs to go for summer fun. Last year the alternator died on our return trip, but other than that it’s been smooth sailing. We’ve been through so much together that I’m really going to miss ol’ Blue when he’s gone.
This year we brought a cousin along for our trip, so we took two cars. Usually we have the hard-shell luggage carrier (we call it “the turtle”) on top of the minivan, crammed to the gills with all manner of boogie boards, beach chairs and sun canopies. But with two cars we had more storage space, and I was able to take our kayaks instead. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to put those kayaks to good use…
Happy Summer! June 21 is the Summer Solstice, the official start of summer and the longest day of the year. It’s also the wedding anniversary for my lovely bride and me. That’s not a coincidence. I had to pick a day that I’d remember, and I love Summer so June 21st made sense. (It also helped that the church was available on that date.) I tease Tina all the time that “the longest day of the year” was also “the longest day of my life” – but really we both know it was the luckiest day of my life.
This year is our 20th anniversary. Two full decades. A “score” in Abraham Lincoln’s parlance. 1997 seems like a long time ago (4 kids will do that to you) but it also seems like just yesterday in many ways.
My man John Hiatt captures the daily adventures of married life quite well in this pretty little ditty. It has some great lines, like “I always thought our house was haunted ’cause nobody said boo to me” and
“Now I’m in my car I got the radio on I’m yellin’ at the kids in the back seat ‘Cause they’re bangin’ like Charlie Watts”
But my favorite lines are here:
Time is short and here’s the damn thing about it You’re gonna die, gonna die for sure And you can learn to life with love or without it But there ain’t no cure
While we’re on an Americana jaunt, let’s keep the momentum going with a great duet from Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams.
Last weekend I went back to Arkansas for the first time in nearly 30 years, for a high school reunion. While I was there, I just had to drive past my childhood home in Hagarville, Arkansas (population: 129). I hadn’t seen it since 1985.
It’s changed a bit.
You can barely see the front of the house from the road in front of it.
And there’s cattle fencing all around the house. Because my dad sold the house to the farmer next door, and when my dad moved out (circa 1999) to live with my older sister in Brooklyn, Farmer Ocil just extended the cow pasture that used to be next to our yard, and used the house to store feed and supplies. Ocil died in 2012, and whoever took over is just letting the place go to seed. So the house is abandoned, and falling down. I had to peek through the overgrowth by the fence line on one side of the house just to try to snap a few photos.
Did it make me sad to see my old childhood home in such a sorry state? Sure. But then again, it was never a showpiece, even in its prime. And in an “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” way, it’s fine. That house served its purpose for many years – as a safe harbor for Herb and his four young kids after his wife died. The yard was a place for us to play football, and basketball, and baseball, and catch frogs (and run from snakes), and feed persimmons to the horses next door. But we outgrew it, went to college in Boston and and Omaha and Cincinnati, and really never looked back.
Who cares if cows (and bulls) are now roaming our old stomping grounds?
The house can fall, but the home lives on. And that’s no b.s.
May 30th was my dad’s birthday. A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about him on Father’s Day. Since only 2 people knew of this blog’s existence back then, I’m doing a “rerun”:
I think of my own father, Herbert, who also was the father of four. His wife died at age 33, of leukemia, just a few months after the diagnosis. Dad was left to raise four children under the age of 7 all by his lonesome. How do you survive that gut punch, that heartbreak, that total meltdown of your world? In many ways, my dad never did fully recover. But he did the best he could. We moved from Jersey City, NJ to Hagarville, Arkansas – from the big city to the tiniest speck on the map in the foothills of the Ozarks. “Culture shock” doesn’t do it justice. However, it was a great place for us to grow up with a single parent, and has made my life experiences richer.
We were dirt poor, but our dad bestowed gifts upon us that were priceless: kindness, integrity, compassion.
Herb passed away in 2010. I miss him every day. To anyone who has lost a father, this beautiful song by Billy Bragg is for you.
And to add a bit of “bonus footage” to the rerun, there’s another great song about missing your old man below. My friend Tim Condron (check out his Second Takes blog) lost his father, a Norwood, Ohio firefighter, while we were in college together. His dad contracted Hepatitis B on the job, while coming to the aid of an overdose patient.
(You can read the entire article Tim wrote for Cincinnati Magazinehere.) Tim and I took several classes together at Xavier, as we were both communications majors. Shortly after his father passed away, Tim put together a video of still photos of his father with this song as the soundtrack. It was one of the most moving pieces I’ve ever seen.
Here’s to you, Herb and Jim, and all the other good dads who are no longer here, yet always present.
Three of our kids wrapped up their school year yesterday. Our daughter Leah has a Latin exam today (sounds like fun!) and will be finished before noon. That means I’ll have three glorious months of no kiddie wake-up duty.
And if you’ve never tried to wake up a teenager, I suggest you go poke a rattlesnake nest with your bare hands, it’ll be less painful.
Oh sure, I’ll still get up at the crack of dawn. I’m a 52-year-old guy… nature calls early and often for me. But it’ll be nice to have just a few minutes to spare.
Now that the kiddies are ready to sleep in, I just need to work on the kitties
Our youngest child, Andrew, turned 12 this past Thursday.
Older sister Leah is not impressed.
A week from today, he’ll wrap up 6th grade at Sands Montessori, the same school his three older siblings attended (and the first public Montessori school in the United States!).
We’ve had kids there since 2005, and have made great friends with fellow parents over the years. It’s hard to believe that a week from now, we won’t be “Sands parents” anymore. It’s the end of an era, the closing of another chapter in our lives.
I work from home most Tuesdays, and drop Andrew off at Sands in the morning. I won’t miss the school drop-off line – for some inexplicable reason I fully expect preschoolers and grade schoolers to disgorge from their parents’ cars with the swiftness of WWII GIs leaving their Higgins boat during the D-Day invasion… a sure recipe for frustration.
But I’ll really miss my time with Andrew in the morning – waking him at 8 (I call him “Lieutenant Lazybones”), serving him a nutritious breakfast of… whatever sugar-laden cereal happens to be handy…
… listening to music on our three-minute ride to school, giving color commentary on the other cars in line (“look at this one, stopping only halfway through the circle… c’mon, your snowflake can walk an extra 20 feet!”)…
… sending him on his merry way with a quick “love you!”… and getting back a “love you too” because he’s not a jaded teenager yet.
Come August, he’ll be getting on a bus with two of his older siblings, headed to Walnut Hills. He’ll still be my boy, he’ll still be our baby… but baby boy has left the building. And I really miss him.
Kevin Sullivan on 43-3=1,001: “Reading while listening to Keith Jarrett, “Guess I’ll Hang Out My Tears To Dry”, good good stuff Damian, thanks.” Oct 3, 09:29
Thomas Kuhl on We did it!: “Well done! Good and Honorable man!” Sep 29, 01:29
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