Back in the band

 "July, July, July, you never seemed so strange..." ~ The Decemberists

The kids are back in school.  Luke was invited to join the gifted program.  We accepted for him.  July flew by in a blaze of 95+ degree days that left even the most skeptical global warming deniers rethinking their views.

Fourth of July weekend found the Bone family making the familiar, if arduous, trek to Mrs. B's homeland.  The land of cheese and roundabouts.  Unfortunately, over half this drive is spent in the catatonia-inducing state of Illinois, which I believe is derived from a French word meaning "flat and filled with corn, windmills, and state troopers."  Don't quote me on that.

Mrs. B's mom decided that would be a good weekend to be transported to the hospital with a heart rate of 220.  After a four-day, three-night staycation in the cardiac care unit, she was sent home with a shiny new heart monitor.

The whole holiday seemed a bit off this year.  Even thought we rode in the 4th of July parade, I didn't get the patriotic warm fuzzies at all.  America right now feels surreal.  Military troops in the streets.  Things I saw on the news growing up that only happened in other countries are now happening here.  

Maybe that was always inevitable.  Or maybe they've always happened and I just ignored them.  This line of thinking is probably best left mired in the eight-lane roundabout of my brain.

We also slipped away last month to Cincinnati for an overnight trip to take in a Reds game.  It's been heart-warming to see Luke inherit the Reds as his favorite team, though I know the many heartaches that rooting for a small-market baseball team will bring him over the next 60-80 years.

Speaking of Luke, he has rediscovered his love of music/Imagine Dragons recently.  He's dug out his mic stand, amplifier, and electric drum set, which means I have had to dust off my self-taught drum skills.  So now we're apparently in the market for a used drum kit.

Harper is seven going on seventeen.  She loves her second grade teacher, has more confidence than twenty supermodels, and I hope she keeps it for always.  Her fashion sense is impeccable and must have skipped several generations before her.

I was asked at my last job interview what I would consider to be my biggest accomplishment.  I replied, being a dad.

Their kindness and innocence gives me hope for the future. God knows I need it.

So what have we learned today?  Avoid roundabouts at all costs -- the real ones and those in your brain.

But especially the real ones.

Kinlock

Deep southern boondocks
Out just past nowhere
Road turns to dust
Almost not quite there

Slidin' down falls
Climbin' up ropes
Jumpin' off cliffs
Swimmin' in hope

Pine perfumed breeze
Green-eyed sun glint
Feel of the forest
Floor on your skin

Think of a girl
Think of another
Think of a friend
Last words you uttered

Wherever you're goin' 
That river keeps flowin'
Thru the back of your mind
And the holes in your soul
Refillin', remindin'
Sometimes sends you pinin'
For a life that was lived
A lifetime ago

Some days it's a trickle
Some days it's a flood
Memories preserved
By Alabama mud

There's still a falls
And cliffs you can dive
But back then's a place
You cannot drive

So leap when you're young
Soon you'll be old
You'll stand on that cliff
Afraid to let go

Dimmed-eyed and tired
A sad smile appears
Not for this place
But those headlong years

Wherever you're goin' 
That river keeps flowin'
Thru the back of your mind
And the holes in your soul
Refillin', remindin'
Sometimes sends you pinin'
For a life that was lived
A lifetime ago

Deep southern boondocks
Out just past nowhere
Time turns to dust
You can’t get back there

In a summer swelter

The title seemed familiar, so I searched my blogchives.  Yup.  June 19, 2010, fifteen years ago to the day, I published a post with this exact title.  All that to say, I'm obviously out of ideas.

Either way, it fits.  Though summer hasn't quite officially started, it's been here for weeks.  No part of June should have ever been considered spring anyway.  Besides that, my other title ideas -- "Helter Skelter" and "The birds flew off with a fallout shelter" -- just didn't make much sense.  

One of the best things my wife has implemented this summer (or ever) is having the kids do twenty minutes of reading every day.  She calls it free reading time.  I call it peace, sweet peace. 

This led to the kids going to the library.  Luke wanted to check out a book that his second grade teacher had read to them from this year.  Unbeknownst to us, the book had been banned in Alabama for anyone under 18.

As I began to research, I found that the original complaint about the book was that the main character - a tree -- had both male and female flowers.  (As many trees are wont to have, if you believe the fake news, or you know, science.)

The only thing I could infer from this is that the clear goal of this book is to indoctrinate children.  There is also a little Muslim girl in the book who experiences bullying, but I'm sure that had nothing to do with the restriction.  

Indeed, the book seemed to be fraught with pernicious themes of acceptance, diversity, and kindness.  Think, "Lennon read a book of (Cultural) Marx(ism)."  So Mrs. B promptly bought it online for Luke.  We're all about indoctrination around here.

This all made me really thankful for Luke's teacher, and teachers in general.  We put a lot on them, what with the active shooter drills and fighting fascism and what not.  Sometimes it seems they may be our last, best hope.

For Father's Day, Mrs. Bone booked a room in Muscle Shoals, kids in tow.  She allowed me to come along, as well.  The interior of the hotel had been remodeled since we were last there, highlighting even more the town's prolific music history.

As usual, the pool and poolside bar were a huge hit.  Though the slide was closed a couple of times for no apparent reason.  While closed the second time, I saw Harper and some other little girl sneak under the rope and slide down.  It was one of those I-should-probably-get-on-to-her-but-I-was-kind-of-proud-so-I-didn't moments.  (Sticking with the theme: "I saw the kids laughing with delight, the day... they closed... the slide.")

The evening ended with Mrs. B having an old fashioned delivered to the room for me.  A perfect ending to a perfect Father's Day.

Well, almost.

For "In the sheets, the children screamed.  Their mother sighed as their father dreamed..."

Hope to be here in fifteen more years for another sweltering summer post.  Of course by then, my children will likely be annoyingly kind and accepting young adults.  Perhaps I shall use the coming decade and a half to see how I could work in "Eight miles high and fading fast" as a title.  

Or who knows, maybe even come up with an original idea of my own.  

Yeah, that'll be the day!

What the h***?

Luke said a bad word today.  Mrs. B texted me at work to inform me.

I was shocked.  Disappointed.  Angry.  Crushed.

I spent the next few hours at work trying to figure out how to deal with his transgression.  Where did he even hear something like that?  Probably from one of the boys at school, I figured.  I had to punish him.  Didn't I?

I had stopped by the grocery store on the way home.  Three bags.  Sixty-seven dollars.  He came outside.  Possibly to gauge my mood.

"Do you have anything to tell me?"  I asked.

"Um... I'm sorry?" he offered.

"For what?"

"For saying a bad word."

"Did you know it was bad?"

"No.  A girl in my class said it, and she said it was okay to say."  

Tears were welling in his eyes.  I softened.

"Well, we don't say that, ok?"

"OK."

"And if you're not sure if something is ok to say in the future, just ask me, okay?"

"OK."

Mrs. B informed me that he was worried I was going to be mad at him.  I know from long ago experience that was punishment enough. And I believed him that he didn't know it was something he wasn't supposed to say.  This is a kid that very recently still admonished anyone who said, "Oh my gosh," with a quick, "We don't say that."

He is eight-and-a-half.  Four-foot-six.  His life filled with chicken nuggets, football, basketball, YouTube videos, and questions I rarely know the answers to.

His sister is six.  Three weeks from turning seven.  Going on fourteen.  Her world full of Barbies and Disney princesses and possibilities.

Almost every day, I find moments to simply sit and watch them.  To take in their cuteness and innocence. 

I try to appreciate these moments, these days.  And yet, I can feel them slowly walking from me.

Time was I had a vice grip on them.  Times when they were completely dependent – for food, milk, diaper changes, to simply hold their head up, survival.  

I think what I was most sad about when I received the text from Mrs. B was that inevitable loss of innocence.

But as I spoke calmly to him this afternoon, even as it broke my heart to see him on the verge of tears, it also provided comfort in some strange way.

I saw a scared little boy, so afraid of disappointing his dad.

I saw innocence.  If only for a little while longer.  And I hugged him.  Tightly.  

And maybe a little longer than normal.

johnny

Used to steal my pencils in second grade
Made fun of him for always missing school
Sometimes he'd be out a week at a time
Come back laughing like everything was cool

His old man sold rebel flags and t-shirts
From the back of an old truck, side of the road
We all just thought Johnny was a bully
But he knew a devil that we didn't know

Johnny found his voice when he was thirteen
Cried as he talked about what he'd been thru
The old man would get drunk and beat his mother
When she'd had enough he'd beat Johnny, too

I read somewhere remember everybody
Hasn't had the same advantages as you
I thank God that I never and I pray for
The souls who know the devil Johnny knew

It's easy to lose track after high school
Everyone kinda follows their own road
Years later I heard Johnny had a nice car
And a brand new devil he had come to know

These days he makes his living off the users
And the sheriff always leaves him alone
But he don't hit his wife or his children
So who am I to judge what's right or wrong

Why did no one help him while they still could
When he was still a scared and long-haired kid
How does God decide who has to endure
The awful real-life nightmares Johnny did

I read somewhere remember everybody
Hasn't had the same advantages as you
I thank God that I never and I pray for
The souls who know the devil Johnny knew

Used to steal my pencils in second grade
Made fun of him for always missing school

B HAPY

It was Friday morning.  It was going to be a good day.  And I needed it, after Thursday afternoon's Four O'Clock 400 turned into the 24 hours of Le Mans when the interstate closed due a motorcyclist crashing.  OK, it was only two hours, but work with me here.

As I merged from my first interstate to my second, I found myself following a navy blue Nissan Murano who was happily plodding along, in the fast lane, at approximately 72.5 miles per hour.  (I was going to use kilometers here, but 116 did not seem to convey the tortoise-like pace I was going for.)

Did I mention this was all going on in the fast lane?

As we plodded along, I had plenty of time to notice the Nissan's vanity plates: B HAPY.

Hmm, I thought, and so I will.  Pulling into the middle lane, I gassed it up to 137 --. kilometers, relax!  But my 'hapyness' did not last long.  No sooner had I cleared Mister Life in the Fast Lane (or Miss, I don't like to make eye contact) when lines of brake lights caused me to come to a stand still.

Over the next hour and five miles, I lost track of the navy blue Murano, as I alternated between zero, three and, on the rare occasion, eight miles an hour.

As I looked at the fellow drivers around me and screamed indiscriminately, I thought to myself, this is where we are as a city.  As a society.  Just complete gridlock virtually every morning and afternoon.  And yet we all just accept it.

Watching a handful of extremely sensible and intelligent drivers jet back and forth from lane to lane, risking life and limb, all to gain one or two positions in traffic, I was reminded of one of my better entrepreneurial ideas.

You may want to sit down for this.

Turn signals and brake lights that have the ability to display a scoreboard-like message to fellow drivers.  

Think about it.  For starters, the thank you wave has become virtually indistinguishable from the I'm sorry wave.  So you could pre-program commonly used messages such as these for quick access.

This would help clear up any communication issues that may arise between drivers.  For example, now when someone honks at me I have no idea if it's someone I know, if I cut them off, or if they have seen my "Honk if you love binary numbers -- that makes 10 of us!" bumper sticker.

To be safe, I usually just assume it's the bumper sticker.

Message lights would clear everything up!  No more silly "Sorry I shot you, I mistook your peace sign for a one-finger salute" misunderstandings.

These highway hellos could range from the life-changing ("Will you marry me?") to the life-saving (Help! I'm being kidnapped.). The possibilities are endless.

I could have used a brake light message system on Friday morning.  

As traffic cleared and I began to accelerate, I once again found myself in the fast lane.  Approaching the slower vehicle in front of me, I blinked my eyes to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.

Could it be?  Surely not.

But it was.

The familiar navy blue color.  Squatty shape of the Murano.  With the tag that now seemed to be taunting me:  B HAPY.

Good one, universe.

I accelerated to eighty-five and smiled the rest of the way to work.  

If only my vehicle was equipped with message lights, I could typed, "Move Over!"  

Or any of a variety of other two-word phrases drivers sometimes like to use as freeway greetings.

Uphill, both ways

As a child, my father walked five miles to and from school every day of his life. In the snow. Uphill both ways. I know this because he told me. Many times.

Whatever hardships I faced as a youngster could never compare to his chain-gang-like days of yore.  Likewise, nothing my children will experience will ever match or exceed (in my mind) the travails of my youth.

I walked home from school, sometimes.  But the elevation changes were fairly modest.  And there was never any snow.  

My kids will likely never walk to school and probably only see the inside of a school bus on field trips.  Or in some transportation museum.

These thoughts crossed my mind following Luke's last soccer game.  After yelling at him for the better part of the hour to hustle, be more aggressive, help out his goalie, scoot back, etc. I watched as each child received what basically amounted to a gift basket from the designated Snack Mom of the week.  These baskets typically feature a couple of snacks, a drink, page of stickers, commemorative Stanley, and the like.

I exaggerate.  Barely.

Of course, being a member of Generation Participation Trophy, they receive these parting gifts win or lose.  Now on this particular night they happened to win, so I didn't rip Luke's from his arms and make him cry by telling him he didn't deserve it.  But it caused me to hearken back to my schoolboy days.

First of all, it was BYOS  -- bring your own snacks, in my day.  That normally consisted of a pack of Big League Chew or M&Ms.  If we won, we got to ride in the open bed of a pickup truck driven by our chain-smoking coach to the Sonic where coach would buy us a small milkshake or slush.  Second-hand smoke from an unfiltered Marlboro mixed with mosquito truck spray.  If you've not experienced that, have you even lived?

Guess what we got if we lost.  A big, fat hunk of nothing.  Other than a few disappointing glances from my mother.

This all got me thinking, what will my uphill both ways be to my kids?

Perhaps it will be having to listen to the radio with no control over what song it will play.  Or putting a quarter in the jukebox hoping to hear Def Leppard only to find out Bart already put in twenty bucks because he and Leigh Ann just got back together yet again, so you'll be listening Lady in Red for the rest of the night.

Not being able to pause, or rewind, or fast forward through whatever you're watching on TV.  Having to go to the bathroom or make snack runs only during commercial breaks.  Or worse yet, sitting through an entire commercial break.

Up until a few weeks ago, the extent of my kids' knowledge about commercials were the ads they skip after five seconds on YouTube.  I forget what it was we were watching, but a commercial came on.  After a few seconds, I hear, "Daddy.  Skip ad."

And I realize they almost never have to sit through a single commercial.  So we had to have "the talk."  No, not that talk.  Pretty sure I'll keep pushing that one down the road to some nebulous faraway day.  

I had to explain to them about commercials and advertising and how TV and radio stations make money.  And that daddy used to work in radio and if it weren't for commercials he wouldn't have had a job.  And about how Clear Channel and Sirius have destroyed local radio which is why you hear the same twelve songs over and over on many stations, and.... well, I could tell I was losing their interest at this point.

Perhaps my uphill both ways story will be how we used to have to use a big, heavy book to look up someone's phone number, then carefully dial the number on a rotary dial phone, which would take like forty-five seconds.  And God forbid you misdial a number and have to go back and start the long, arduous process all over.  

Although we did get the now-extinct pleasure of slamming down the phone and hanging up on someone, which today has devolved into an unsatisfying click which no one knows if it's accidental, on purpose, coverage just dropped or what.  It's not the same.

Or maybe it will be how we used bar soap, shared with other family members, to clean our nether regions.  Yep, that’s probably the one.

Pay phones .  55 mile per hour speed limits.  Texting on a flip phone with no qwerty keyboard.  Getting paddled at school and whipped with a belt at home.  My choices are pretty much endless.  

And don't get me started on dial-up internet.  EEEEEE-AAAAAAHHHHHH-SHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

So yeah, enjoy it kid.  Because while the proliferation of natural disasters, shrinking middle class, and resurgence of fascism may seem (air quotes) "hard," just be thankful you never had to use a pair of pliers to twist the TV knob from channel 13 all the way down to 2 on the ol' carpal tunnel special Zenith.

Or learn to program a VCR and then subsequently have to program it every single time your parents wanted to record a show up until and beyond the day you moved out of the house.

Or worst of all, had to try and correct a mistake on a manual typewriter.  I can already see how that conversation would go:

"What's a typewriter, Daddy?"

"Uh, it's like a keyboard that clicked and dinged.  And didn't have internet access."

"Like they used back in the 1900's."

Sigh.

"Yes.  In the 1900's.  Back when kids regularly scalded their legs on metal slides and jumped on trampolines with no net.  And got 12 cassettes for a penny from Columbia house hoping they would have no legal recourse against a 10-year-old when you didn't purchase four more of your choice at full price.  And made rad mixtapes."

"Daddy, what are you talking about?"

"The good old days, Junior.  When you had to go to an arcade to play video games, the news was a thirty-minute program that came on twice a day, roundabouts only existed in the mind of some deranged engineer, and daddy still had hopes and dreams, and spare time."

"Uh, Daddy, can we watch Barbie?"

"Sure.  What's it on?"

"Disney Plus."

Sigh.  

Sometimes I miss when TVs weren't so smart.

Changing tides

Remember when beach trips were incredibly relaxing?

Lying by the ocean for hours, listening to the symphony of the waves, entirely relaxed.  Feeling somehow closer to heaven.  At peace, even with hundreds of people all around.  Kicking the worries of melanoma down the road.

Relaxing is not a word I would use to describe taking your 6-year-old and 8-year-old to the beach.  Because now those peaceful waves that once lulled you to sleep have become danger-ridden death traps.  And those other people?  The ones you once could pretend were a million miles away?  Any one of them could be a child-snatcher.  Or even worse, someone who wants to radicalize kids into being kind and tolerant.  You must be vigilant! 

And lying by the ocean for hours?  Don't make me laugh -- or, cry. (Hang on, I need a moment.)

There's no time for that.  For now, we must build sandcastles -- or, at least, serve as an errand boy and waddle your aging rear down to the water to collect pailfuls for those who do build.  

We must also play football.  Yes, football.  American football.  Not only that, we must make a football field in the sand, with goalposts and yard lines and yard line numbers.  And if it should get washed away by the waves or destroyed by footprints, well we must make it again the very next day.  Thus says the gospel according to Lucas: Year 8, Month 4.

But you find joy in other things.  Not physical joy, but nonetheless.

It comes as you watch them run towards the chilly waves before screaming and turning to run away as the uprush gushes over their feet and ankles.

As you see your son's excitement over seeing a shark.  (Or maybe a dolphin.  There was some debate on the sand.)  And again when he piles up little balls of wet sand so you ask what he's doing, and he answers almost breathlessly, "This is shark bait.  The shark is gonna look up here and see it and think it's food, and he will swim towards shore so we can get a better look at him."

But friends, I feel the tide beginning to change, so to speak.

Last October, we slipped away to Perdido for a four-day weekend while the kids had fall break, staying with my uncle and his partner, whom I shall henceforth refer to as "the uncles."

Our first day on the beach Mrs. B and I found ourselves in the water when a most unexpected event occurred.  Were we approached by a hungry bullshark?  Swarmed by a school of stingrays?  Pulled into peril by a fierce riptide?

No, not this trip.  What happened that day was even more unlikely.  An occurrence so rare that it hadn't happened in over eight years.  Many thought it would never be seen again.

We found ourselves alone.  Together.  In the ocean.

It was so inconceivable that it took ten or fifteen minutes before we even realized it.  Looking coastward we saw both kids playing contentedly with the uncles.  

So this is what freedom feels like.

This March, we returned for spring break.  The emancipation of the dependents continued to progress.  The uncles kept the kids while Mrs. B and I got not one night out to dinner, but two.

The kids have gone from only wanting to play in the sand and not even go near the water, to only going in the water if one of us is holding them, to running into the waves with reckless abandon while giving Dad multiple near heart attacks.

To have a child is to re-experience life, to re-experience the world anew.  It's as if your heart has exited your body and is forever traveling with them wherever they go, always on the verge of breaking, or leaping.

Relaxing, it is not.

Rewarding?  More than I could have ever imagined.