WE WANT WHAT WE WANT

I was driving through the old neighborhood with my friend Kim last night.
“Hey , you remember the Gibsons Department Store that used to be there?”
“Yeah, what was next to it?”
“Man, I don’t remember. Oh yeah, a Myers 5&10 Store”
“Right, I bought my first record there. A 45 of “Incense and Peppermints”. I was 12 and the Cashier was 16 and she said “Great Song” as she put it in the bag for me and I thought maybe she might want me, like as a lover after that and I would go in there a lot to buy records. After a while, she never said anything about my choices and I lost interest.”

“Probably because you weren’t buying good records” says Kim.
She knows how to hurt a guy.

“No, “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron” was a classic. So was “A Boy Named Sue” and “Theme from Hawaii 5-0. Maybe I shoulda gone with "The Rain the Park and Other things”.
“Right, Steve” as she rolled her eyes.

Anyway, that was back in the day before Strip Centers and Malls. Gibsons was the early day equivalent of Walmart and it was the only place in town you could go and buy everything from Underwear to Fishin’ poles to Car tires and appliances.

Kim says:
‘Yeah my Dad bought me my first bike there. It was pink, with little pink and white streamers from the handlebars, sparkly wheels, and a decal of Barbie on the frame. It had a little bell you rang with your thumb that went "Ka-ching".

I looked at it and frowned.”
“I hate it” I told my Dad
‘Why honey? He asked.
“Because it doesn’t have a Banana Seat” and I started to cry.
Mama snatched me up and spanked my butt. I tried to cover up with my hands but she was really mad.

Mama said
“Your Daddy worked extra hours to get you that bike, its not Christmas and its not your birthday and you better be glad to have it.

We ain’t exactly the Got-rocks you know.”

So I asked Kim if she ever got to liking that bike.
“No, I still hate it.” She said.

My experience was kinda the same. I saved my money up mowing yards one summer and the day before Dove Hunting Season, Mom took me to Gibsons where I bought a Double-Barreled Shotgun for $60.
I could hardly wait for Dad to get home to see it. It was a big Side-by-Side 12 gauge and had some scroll work on it and I loved the way I might look trudging through a field with it.

Dad got home and at supper I pulled it out.
“Look what I got Dad!”
Dad took one look at it and we loaded up the car and went back to Gibsons where he added $120 to the kitty and we exchanged my Double-Barrel for a 12 Gauge Remington 1100 Semi-Automatic.

It was a major upgrade from a cheap scattergun to a Top-of-the Line Firearm any Sportsman would be proud of.

“There’s what you need boy” and Dad grinned down at me.
All I could do was frown and bite my lip.

God, how I wanted that side-by side 12 gauge Double –Barreled Shotgun.

I still have that Remington Model 1100.

I haven’t fired it in 20 years.

I wouldn’t trade it for all the money in the world, but I might trade it for that big Double-Barrel.

THE CHILLS

Last week I posted a revision of the story of the Thankgiving morning that my Dad died.
In the last two days I have happened upon a few sites with their own stories of loved ones with Alzheimers.
And last night in one of my Court sessions, I had occasion to tell a very condensed version of the year I buried a lot of people. The poor little counselor, a pretty 22 year-old Blonde, never saw it coming.
Water Baby saysI tell these stories way better than I actually write them, and the writing of them has only improved the way I tell them.
So as I closed my story yesterday evening with the words
"I like to think Dad stopped by for a two week visit before he went home"
I looked up and there were tears just running down this poor girls face.
As she reached for a tissue, she showed me her arm.
"That story gives me the chills" she said.

Anyway, scoot on down to the next post, "Smarter Than the Worm" for a bit of a happier REPOST from my long, long story.
Its a small, pleasant memory that came out of a big emotional story and there is something about it I like...and I plan to finish soon...
After all, its the little things that keep us going, yes?

Oh, that little Counselor Girl?
After listening to my shit it wouldn't surprise me if she resigned today!

SMARTER THAN THE WORM

"The pleasantist' thing in Angling is to see the fish on Golden Oar shoot through the silver stream and greedily devour the treacherous bait"
Shakespeare

"Out of the blue and into the black..."
Neil Young

PART 3
1959
Dad absolutely loved to fish.
My first memory that I can put a date to was after my sister Lisa was born; I would have been two and a half years old or so. Mom had been home from the hospital for a week or two and was laying in bed nursing Lisa. Dad had asked if she were OK and if he and I could go out to Grapevine Lake for the afternoon.
I assume permission had been granted as he and I walked out the garage Door.
I remember asking very soberly if "Mother" was going to be okay with us gone.
We climbed into a big ol' Oldsmobile, a 1958 punked out with Jet Fighter Wings and a motherlode of Chrome, and within 10 minutes we were hopelessly stuck in a muddy field. It was a short cut Dad had been using to get onto the Blacktop from the house.

To think that moments before I had been concerned about "Mothers" welfare.
"Ahab, beware of Ahab."
This is my first memory.

We spent the whole afternoon trying to get unstuck. We did not make it to the lake that day.
I think it explains a lot about why Mom was always a little concerned for us, outside of just being a Mom. I'm sure that she was relieved that day, with us close by in the field.

1964
One evening in Detroit, Dad shakes me out from in front of the TV.
"Come along here boy, I need some help."
He is grinnin' like a Butchers dog, has an empty Coffee can, and also his Headlight-Flashlight on. Its the business end of a flashlight attached to a headband that you wear on your head, a separate battery pack that clipped to the hip; it was manufactured in the 1940's and would be worth a lot of money now.
No, probably it wouldn't be worth much to anyone but me.
Dad kept it with all his Camping and Fishing gear in his Sea Chest.

Down the street we go in the dark, Dad looking like some kind of spelunker that has lost his cave. I have no idea what this one is about, but Dad always had some kind of project/adventure going. We get to Mr. Bowles house. Dads illuminating gaze is directed down, down into Mr. Bowles flower bed and laying on top of the ground are the Biggest worms that I have ever seen.
They are almost a foot long, as big around as a pencil, and you can see the big blue vein though the Opaque reddish and tan wormskin.
There must be hundreds of em'!
"Wow, thats cool Dad... what are they?"
"Night Crawlers"
"Night Crawlers?"
"Yes, and we are going to use them to fish with"
"Okay"
'Now that one there, where the light is shining, get him."

I take a step towards the bed and drop to my knees. As soon as I hit the ground, all the Night Crawlers, quick as lightning, zip into their holes. I had no idea that a worm could move that fast.
"Out of the Blue..."
"You have to creep up on em' nice and easy" Dad explained. "They feel the vibratiions."
"...and into the Black"

We move down the bed to where there are more laying undisturbed. Stealthily, I go to my knees and crawl up to where I can reach one.
"You're going to have be fast..."
"Yeah, Dad I get it!" and I try to grab the first one.
Not only do you have to be fast, you have to choose the right end of the worm to grab; you have to grab the end that goes back into the hole. Otherwise, all you get is mud. The worm is no dummy, and never comes all the way out of the hole, and stands ready to go below to safety.
You have to be smarter than the worm.

I got pretty good at it. The Coffee can would be full of worms. A fishing trip would follow the next day, and what fish we caught with our worms!!! We did not sit on a dock, catching Bluegill...no... Dad rigged the live worms to where we could troll them from the boat, and we caught Walleye, Pike and I even took a 4 foot Musky one day!
But the time spent simply gathering bait, being outwitted and outrun by a worm that was faster and smarter than us... I would laugh, and Dad would chuckle... and... during the 4 tears we spent there...Mr Bowles never seemed to miss his worms!

I didn't know then that one day I would be in charge of gathering the bait, planning the trip, packing the tackle and gear and even setting up and baiting Dads rod on what would be his last Fishing trip.

"Theres more to the picture
Than meets the eye
Hey hey, my my"

"TIME IS THE ECHO OF AN AXE WITHIN A WOOD"

Yoodood pointed out a while back that sometimes in the telling of the story we can lose sight of the truth and begin to believe the way we tell the story as being true.
This happened to me.
I am not traumatized by it but I don’t want to remember things that aren’t right and true. I started to address this a few months back, but this week seems more appropriate for it.
It concerns the death of my father and the very lengthy 7 Part Series I wrote about his battle with Alzheimers.
Dad died on Thanksgiving morning, 1987. I closed the story this way:

"Its Thanksgiving morning.
I checked the Turkey; lookin’ good.
I checked Orion and he was where he should be at 5:00A.M.
The phone rang.
Who could that be?
Its LaDora Lodge.
"Mr. Bulletholes, I am sorry to be calling at this hour, but I thought you would want to know your father has passed away”
I like to think that Dad stopped by for a two week visit on his way Home."


Well, that is not entirely correct.
What the nursing home said when I picked up the phone was that Dad was very sick with a Urinary Infection.
After reading this story my sister informed me of the truth of the matter.
She recalls that the Nursing Home called again several hours later wondering why no one had come to see Dad and help.
She and my niece both went the two blocks to the Home and spent an hour cooling Dad’s fever with a washcloth before he finally expired.
While I slept after smoking a Turkey all night long.

I have to question why I would leave out that part of the story.
I have to question why, over the years, I managed to revise the truth to make the facts more comfortable for myself.
I have to wonder in what other ways I have avoided the true facts, and deferred to my own imagination for the sake of the story.
For the sake of my own self.

But I also know that the questions die away.
They die away with or without the intrigue of the answers.
They die away in the face of a higher power, real or imagined as that may be.
The Truth is tiny compared to the things we have to do.
In the end all we really have is each other.
I am thankful for all the people I know, even you whom I have never met.

I suppose this will require a Part 8.....

"ANYBODY I CAN"

My Dad was probably the biggest ‘Square” born into this world. That is to say that he was a very good man. He was in Sales and Public Relations and everyone that knew him liked him.
He had a subtle dry sense of humor. He was very personable and had a big belly laugh that he handed down to me.
Unlike me, Dad was never raucous. I think that things like the Great Depression and WWII tend to keep a raucous soul at bay.
It also makes a man a bit tight lipped.
Dad never said how lucky I was to not have had to grow up in those times, but there were times I could see it in his eyes.
I wish I had been able to ask Dad the kinds of questions that I would ask him these days.
One thing I would ask him is about something he would say on occasion.
He would run into a colleague who would ask Dad
“How you doin’ Jack?”
And Dad would reply very good-naturedly
“Anybody I can”
And they would both laugh.I always wonder what Dad meant by that because it wasn’t something I would expect him to say.

THE HANDSHAKE

Dad told me to use my right hand to shake hands. I was two years old, maybe three, and I never could remember which one to use.
Then one day I was playing in the garage and I found a razor blade and nearly cut my left thumb off. I’m not sure how long the bandage was on there, but I shook the hands of at least three men during that period.
"That boy of yours sure knows how to shake hands" my Dads's pals would say.
Dad would just beam!

This is how I learned which hand to use when shaking hands.

MY DADS BEST FRIEND

Hey Bruce!
Good to see you up and running again! You sent me something last year that I have hanging on my bulletin board about an old man getting a room at a Nursing home and he thinks its just marvelous….one of his little sayings is ‘Give More-Expect less” and I like that a lot.
I’ve told you before that I can hardly think about Dad without thinking about you, and vice-versa.
Dad used to say something on occasion that I didn’t quite know what it meant when I was a Kid; these days while I think I know what it means, it does not sound like something Dad would say…it goes like this…

Someone would ask Dad “So how are you doing, Jack”
and Dad would reply back ‘Oh anyone I can!”…

Bruce, this just doesn’t sound like something my Dad would say, but I heard him say it a lot!

FATHERS DAY

The second of two poems I found in my fathers belongings...the first was Barefoot Boy...
This one works very well for Fathers Day and I have passed it on to my son, the Rip.

If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

RUDYARD KIPLING

A LIE WITH A HALO

To this day there is a question the X will ask me from time to time., and I don’t even remember the question until I hear it...and to this day I still remember what my lie is in answer to the question...and every time we have that Q&A session, she says “You are good” meaning I am a good liar.
One of these days, when she asks that question, I am going to tell her the truth, if I can still remember what the truth is.


They say the first lie we tell is in the crib and everything is OK, but we know if we cry, someone will come ...so we cry.

The first lie I can remember telling;
I was about 3 years old and Dad had some kind of Construction Project going in the backyard. When no one was lookin’, I cut my finger on a Razor Blade I knew I shiould’nt be playing with. I took Dad on a tour of the entire backyard except for the Construction area to find where I had cut my finger. Finallly, he led me over to where the razor blades were and asked if this was where I had cut my finger. With my best 3 year-old poker face on I said "I don't remember."

The second lie I remember I was 4.
I had knocked over a glass jar in the Garage that had nails in it. It shattered on the floor and dad came out, asking what had happened to the jar of nails. I pointed out the open Garage door and claimed that a little Black boy had run through here and knocked it over. Dad could not resist a bit of a laugh before he spanked my bottom.

The third lie I remember I was 5. It was the worst one.
My older friend Don had taken my little sisters Baby Chick, which she received on Easter morning, and cut its head off on Easter Afternoon. We buried the poor bird in the front yard, which my Dad was in the procees of re-sodding. When it was noticed the Chick was missing that night, I claimed to have no knowledge of its whereabouts. The next morning, Dad discovered the headless body while he was using his rototiller in the front yard. I fessed up, but Don was not around to help absorb the punishment I took for it or to verify it had been his doing.
Dad wore me out that day.
I cried, but not nearly as hard as my sister did when that chick went missing.

I got to be a pretty good liar over the years...someone told me one time that I could tell a white lie with a halo wrapped around it.
I don't lie so much anymore.
These things will happen in time.

FATHERS AND SONS AND ALZHEIMERS

This is a very lengthy post that consists of the "Six Part" posts that chronicled my Dads battle with Alzheimers. to see the beautiful comments I received during the writing of this series, click on any of the Chapter titles in blue for the original and comments. also, on the Chapter called "We were all Problems" click on that title for a great picture of my Brother Don. It was in making the caption for that picture that I finally broke down over this story.
My Dads best friend, Bruce, was Hospitalized back in December. It was this event that prompted me to write these pieces. More stories of Bruce can be viewed by clicking the label at the end of this post.


A ROY-TAN CIGAR
"O Father! - chiefly known to me by Thy rod - mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing; I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?"
Father Marple - Moby Dick
Part 1
1981
I pulled into the VA Hospital parking lot in Waco , Texas . It was a 100 mile drive from my home in Fort Worth . I was there to see my father, an Alzheimers patient. Four years ago I had never heard of Alzheimers. He had been here for two years now and this was my third visit. That’s not very many.
I should mention that for the years dad spent at the VA hospital he received outstanding care. Normally I would see him in the visitors area on the first floor. I don't recall ever seeing his room exactly.
Today Bill, the male nurse, ushered me to the second floor and the exercise area where Dad is on a treadmill.



"Jack" says Bill" "your son is here".
"Hmmm?" Dad grunts over the top of his glasses.
"Hey Pop, its me, Steve" I offer.
He is still treading away and...
'What's that?" Dad asks.
Its your son , Jack" Bill talking… "You have a visitor"
'Hi, Dad"
"Its your son, Jack"
"Whose what?"
"I'm right here Dad, in front of you" and touch his hand that clutches the treadmill handlebars.

Dad laughs his fake belly laugh (it’s a coping mechanism, I have it too) and says
"Bill, theres someone here to see you from Chicago ".

I know that he can see me but you wouldn't know it by his expression. Of course Dad can hear us fine, but we are getting louder.
The problem is not his ears ; that would be too easy. Its further in.
Still, you can't help but get louder.
Finally after about ten minutes of this verbal escalation, and the foggy, blank stare that the Alzheimers patient has where they are not quite looking at you, not quite looking through you and not quite looking past you, but a sort of Brainsquinting thing where they are doing all three, Dad bursts out with amazing focus and clarity:

"THATS MY DAMN SON"
Damn right!
He is looking me right in the eye.
"Man to Man, its a Roy-Tan*, Dad" as I hand him his cigar.

There won't be any matches, there haven't been any matches for a while.
His belly laugh has changed to the genuine one. He could see the nit on the nut of a gnat now.

There was nothing here that could explain the swiftness of the degenerative process that I had seen for the last 4 years. And there was nothing here that could prepare me for the sharp moments of greater clarity that my father would summon from somewhere within in the next few years, even after the further erosion of his faculties.

to be continued…

*As an addendum and for those of you born later than 1970;
Dad smoked big Cigars- Stogies they called them and they were not namby-pamby cigars- they were big and thick and puffed great clouds of smoke. In the 60's Tobacco was advertised freely on the Television; hell, you could light a smoke while doing your Grocery shopping- and there was a hugely successful commercial for Roy-tan Cigars.
The commercials all followed the same story line, but the one I remember best was a little be-spectacled fellow, Pee-Wee, hitting a large truck with his car. He gets out of his vehicle to survey the damage as the Truck-Driver, Bruno , a huge hairy man gruffly removes himself from his truck to do the same. Just as it looks as though Bruno is going to snap Pee-Wee in half, Pee-Wee produces a Mammoth Roy-Tan from his pocket and Bruno, delighted, lets him off the hook. The announcer says "Man to man it’s a Roy-Tan" and all is well as Pee-Wee and Bruno light up, huge clouds of smoke, and slapping each other on the back.






THE POTENTIAL POSSIBILITIES
"Now take my hand and hold it tight.
I will not fail you here tonight.
For failing you, I fail myself
And place my soul upon a shelf"
The Book of Counted Sorrows

Part 2
1977 (continued from previous post)
I don't remember the real reason I moved back home.
My best friend and I had an Apartment for the last two years. The sign over our front door read in rustic script on a weatherbeaten board "Little Hoss Ranch".

"Ranch" was right and we entertained nightly.
Every week my mother would call and I was generally so stoned that I could not speak.

I held a good job at the time as 1st Cook for a gourmet Restaurant making the whopping sum of 3.15 an hour. I didn't know it then, but I had yet to grasp any real Culinary Fundamentals.
I did not know that within the year my father would be in a VA Hospital and that these would be the last days that our relationship would be domestic... that this would be the last time to fix his breakfast and have him tell stories about coffee so hot that it had to be "Saucered and Blowed" several times before it was drinkable.
A stack of pancakes and a frosty glass of milk goes a long ways towards relaxed conversations and the turning of dusty pages. So does the Psuedo Welsh Rarebit I used to fix that he enjopyed immensly.
More so, so much more so, than the words
"You have a Visitor, Jack" .I

It would be the last chance to have him wax about the Steaks he had eaten in Chicago at Northwestern in the years before his time in North Africa, as he wolfed the ones I had prepared in the backyard. I still think those were the best steaks I have ever cooked. And I did not realize at the time just how much my mother was relieved to have both her boys at home, or how much help I was in taking care of an early onset Alzheimers patient*.
To think that I cried a sorrowful cry the day that I finished moving back home, with the 3 Lisa's that had helped me move saying 'Living at home won't be so bad".

Dad and I , it seems to me now, were equally handicapped.
Dad used to tell me the Doctors were wrong.
Dad used to tell me he could "beat this thing".
We would be heading out the back door to look at the beat up Alaskan Freight Canoe that we had bought. We were going to cover it with an Epoxy resin Dad knew about. She was was in bad shape, this vessel, and a real concern for my Mom.
Mom would whisper to me in hushed tones
"You and he both try to fix things with gum wrappers and soda straws, you will never get that thing afloat!"
Looking back I know that she was right, but at the time I thought she was kind of poisoning our well. All we ever really did was look at it and discuss the potential possibilities.

Dad would say 'These Doctors dont know what they are talking about. I can beat this thing. I can see... the nit... on the nut... of a gnat."
His is voice would crack with something torn between a rage and a will and a fear.
"Sure you can, Pop... if anyone can , it will be you."
And we both would enjoy a somewhat disingenuous Belly laugh.
His ice blue eyes would dance and look straight into mine for moment.
He would turn and ask
"Now wheres that doorknob?"
He knew the door was there but the knob always eluded him.
"I got it Dad"
Now the laughs came real. With his quick wit, the irony never eluded him. Laughter always trumps sorrow.

And it reminds me of just how quick and observant you have to be to catch a Night Crawler, much more dceptive a creature than one would imagine, and the importance of gathering bait.
To be continued.....

Another addendum
*You can google Early Onset Alzheimers for the Medicos on it so I will refuse leaving the link. I can put it into a bit of a personal perpective for you... you hears about folks in their 60's and 70's that are Alzheimers victims... my Dad became completely disabled at the ripe old age of 58 and unable to work...I was barely out of High School...and the story you just read was but 2 years later, Dad being 60.I won't try to tell you that these were the best days of my life, but I will say that there has been much fruit and treasure;
still today there remains both of these, unimagined, yet to be fully realized...
so many potential possibilities...

YOU HAVE TO BE SMARTER THAN THE WORM
"The pleasantist' thing in Angling
is to see the fish on Golden Oar
shoot through the silver stream
and greedily devour
the treacherous bait"
Shakespeare"

"Out of the blue and into the black..."
Neil Young

PART 3
1959
Dad absolutely loved to fish.
My first memory that I can put a date to was after my sister Lisa was born; I would have been 27 months or 2 and 1/4 years old. Mom had been home from the hospital for a week or two and was laying in bed nursing Lisa. Dad had asked if she were OK and if he and I could go out to Grapevine Lake for the afternoon. I assume permission had been granted and as he and I walked out the garage Door.
I remember asking very soberly if "Mother" was going to be okay with us gone.
We climbed into a big ol' Oldsmobile, a 1958 punked out with Jet Fighter Wings and a motherlode of Chrome, and within 10 minutes we were hopelessly stuck in a muddy field. It was a short cut Dad had been using to get onto the Blacktop from the house.
To think that moments before I had been concerned about "Mothers" welfare.
"Ahab, beware of Ahab."
This is my first memory.
We spent the whole afternoon trying to get unstuck. We did not make it to the lake that day.I think it explains a lot about why Mom was always a little concerned for us, outside of just being a Mom. I'm sure that she was relieved that day, with us close by in the field.

1964
One evening in Detroit, Dad shakes me out from in front of the TV.
"Come along here boy, I need some help."
He is grinnin' like a Butchers dog, has an empty Coffee can, and also his Headlight-Flashlight on. Its the business end of a flashlight attached to a headband that you wear on your head, a separate battery pack that clipped to the hip; it was manufactured in the 1940's and would be worth a lot of money now.
No, probably it wouldn't be worth much to anyone but me.
Dad kept it with all his Camping and Fishing gear in his Sea Chest.

Down the street we go in the dark, Dad looking like some kind of spelunker that has lost his cave. I have no idea what this one is about, but Dad always had some kind of project/adventure going. We get to Mr. Bowles house. Dads illuminating gaze is directed down, down into Mr. Bowles flower bed and laying on top of the ground are the Biggest worms that I have ever seen. They are almost a foot long, as big around as a pencil, and you can see the big blue vein though the Opaque reddish and tan wormskin. There must be hundreds of em'!
"Wow, thats cool Dad... what are they?"
"Night Crawlers"
"Night Crawlers?"
"Yes, and we are going to use them to fish with"
"Okay"
'Now that one there, where the light is shining, get him."
I take a step towards the bed and drop to my knees. As soon as I hit the ground, all the Night Crawlers, quick as lightning, zip into their holes. I had no idea that a worm could move that fast

"Out of the Blue..."
"You have to creep up on em' nice and easy" Dad explained. "They feel the vibratiions."
"...and into the Black"

We move down the bed to where there are more laying undisturbed.
Stealthily, I go to my knees and crawl up to where I can reach one.
"You're going to have be fast..."
"Yeah, Dad I get it!" and I try to grab the first one.

Not only do you have to be fast, you have to choose the right end of the worm to grab; you have to grab the end that goes back into the hole. Otherwise, all you get is mud. The worm is no dummy, and never comes all the way out of the hole, and stands ready to go below to safety.
You have to be smarter than the worm.
I got pretty good at it.
The Coffee can would be full of worms. A fishing trip would follow the next day, and what fish we caught with our worms!!!
We did not sit on a dock, catching Bluegill...no... Dad rigged the live worms to where we could troll them from the boat, and we caught Walleye, Pike and I even took a 4 foot Musky one day
...my my, hey hey...
But the time spent simply gathering bait, being outwitted and outrun by a worm that was faster and smarter than us...
I would laugh, and Dad would chuckle...
and...
during the 5 years we spent there...
Mr Bowles never seemed to miss his worms!

I didn't know then that one day I would be in charge of gathering the bait, planning the trip, packing the tackle and gear and even setting up and baiting Dads rod on what would be his last Fishing trip.

"Theres more to the picture
Than meets the eye
Hey hey, my my"



We Were All A Problem
There's an old magic Eight Ball
Right next to my plate
When I ask it a question
Regarding my fate
It says "reply hazy, please try again"
It wont say where I'm going
It don't know where I've been ….
but I'm right here now…
james mcmurtry

PART 4, 1975
I have heard it said that the bond between a Father and Son is a fragile bond, full of mistrust and fears and failures on both sides. By the time I graduated High School, the bond between Dad and I had been severely tested.

On Friday nights as I prepared to go "carousing" around, Dad would give me $10, and say
"Don't spend it all in one place!"
Every week the same conversation would ensue.
"Right Dad"
"What are you getting into tonight?" '
"Nuthin' I can't handle Dad"
"Well, just remember… that Wisdom… is the greater part… of Valor."
"Fer shure' Dad"
and within the hour I would have a $10 bag of trouble, which would greatly enhance my other vain pursuits, chiefly Sex and Rock and Roll. I didn't realize back then that Dad was really being kinda cool about the whole thing.

Those mornings years later, when we would talk as we ate breakfast, he referred to them as my "Wild Bill Cody" days. I definitely had the hair for it.
It took a some years, after the Diagnoses, after considering the years he spent severed from hiis family, splintered from even himself, living an unimaginable existence that could not be foreseen, that I came to realize what a problem I must have been.
Dad was a man of few words. He told good natured stories, clean bone dry jokes and used the ever present cigar for punctuation. He had a slow and steady cadence to his pattern of speech that allowed every word to sink in.
He met and married my Mother after returning from WWII. She had a 4 year old son, Don Lynn, and Dad legally adopted him, giving Don his name and his love.
Don told me a story about the first time that Dad was going to discipline him, and give him a spanking. Don could not recall what the infraction was, but this he vividly remembered:

"Mother, not wanting her child spanked, jumped to my defense.
'You are not going to spank my Boy!'
Dad turns and faces Mother and in his slow methodical way, says softly but firmly;
'We are going...to start…right now. You are my wife…and this is MY son…and ..I am going to…to raise him as best… as best as I know how"

My first memory of Don was the day he snatched me off the front porch as I was taking a piss… Don came out all right…he graduated from West Point in 1964.

In 1982, Mom had a stroke. After a few weeks she seemed to be making progress, and I had been keeping Don advised, but he was able to come home from his station in Saudi and I was glad to have him there. During a late night conversation , I expressed regret at having been such a problem for Mom and Dad through the years. You know what he said?
"Steve, we were all problems."">

Pretty smart, my brother.
Sunday, February 18, 2007

















RECEPTION TO FOLLOW

Ya' know that old trees just grow stronger,
And old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day.
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say,
"Hello in there, hello.
"john prine

1984 Part 5

"He probably won't know what we are here for, or what has happened, but I'm glad for you to meet him just the same."
"Oh I can't wait, I know I'll like him"
"He's a great guy"
My new Wife just looked at me with that soft look that says "Of course he is. He must be".
The first year...anything associated with me must be great. Its just a shame that she will never really know, about dad I mean, but I don't say that. For now we can pretend that everything is the same as it ever was.
I was never sure what to talk to Dad about when I came and I wondered what Mrs. Bulletholes and he would find to discuss. I'm just hoping he will know who I am. We are almost to the VA Hospital, when new Wife says"How does this look?"
I glance over and she has unwrapped one of the cigars meant for Dad; she has stuck it into her mouth. It looks like a giant Gobstopper and her eyes are flashing blue as she shakes her shoulders, removes the Stogie and blows imaginary Smoke rings at me.
"Thats real nice Babe, he's going to like you a lot."

"JACK, YOU HAVE A VISITOR"
He is led into the visiting Lounge, he sees me and I see the recognition in his face, then he spies the New Wife and I see a little confusion.
"Dad, its me- Steve!"
"Steve? My son? Well, Ill be damned!"
I give a hug and motion to Wife...
"Dad, I want you to meet someone. I found an Angel Girl and I got married and she wants to meet you."
She steps forward with her hug and says her name.
Dad used to tell me when I was a boy that when I got married he would decorate my Car with cans tied to the back and honk his horn as we drove down the street. That was nothing compared to what he would give us today.You could see the wheels spinning as he tried to make all the connections... but it really didn't take that long for this weary mind to grasp the moment.
He looked at me then back to her and pulls her back for another hug.
"Well, let me welcome you into the family. You are a Bullethole now; you are my Daughter."
Mrs. Bulletholes cannot believe it. But she never missed a beat.
"Is it OK if I call you 'Dad" Dad?"
'"Sure. Do we have any Scotch?"
"Scotch?"
'They took my Scotch or we could have a Toast"
"No, but we've got these" and holds up a fistful of cigars.
Big chuckle from dad as he says "Now theres a good girl"

She has heard the stories and the warnings about how far gone this man is. The expectations are that we are going to confuse Dad, and in that confusion there will be a sadness and a sense of loss. Instead there is a sense of place and ...Redemption for all the years of waiting for a "Hello" and paying double for a line that has been disconnected.
Nothing could have prepared me for his sudden lucidity.
Had he been saving it, hidden in reserve for the moment he would need it?
Are we not all Psychic, with our brains operating like Time Machines, where information from the future influences events of the past?
I was so proud of him that day.
I always wonder if he knew how good he had done. Certainly he had recognized something significant.
Years ahead he would have another great day...
We sat, and as he talked, the Cigar was used to great effect. At times it was a Baton and he was the Maestro. As he and his new Daughter discussed her career in Sales, it became a Pen writing a new customer a letter of introduction. Then it was his Crystal Ball, as he gazed into it and declared that someday, somehow, he would "beat this thing" and find a way to move closer to us.
His family.
I wonder if he knew he had met a Hero that day.
His Hero, and mine.(to be continued)

Sunday, February 25, 2007




AMAZING GRACE
I heard newborn babies wailin'Like a Mournin' Dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without Love
Do I understand your question, Man
Is it Hopeless and Forlorn
"Come in" she said "I'll give ya
Shelter from the Storm"
bob dylan

Part 6
1986
On December 1st, my Mother died at home. She had battled Emphysema and Cancer for several years. On her birthday in 1982 she had had a Major stroke; after months in the hospital, she recovered enough to go home and from there her capabilities improved to where she could drive and be fairly independent.
She had tried to take care of my father in the year or two that he was in the beginning stages, she had tried to be able to keep him at home, but the effects of Alzheimers demand much more care than what she could provide. Putting her Husband into a VA hospital just must have been gut wrenching for her.
I remember a Christmas where she had gone down and brought him home. It must have been about 1980 or so. When I came over the next day, she had already taken him back. I got the feeling that she wasn't able to handle him being there emotionally and she had already taken him back to the VA Hospital, 100 miles from home.
She never tried that again.
Gut wrenching stuff.
In 1984 I married and the girl I married was an Angel. You have already read how she and Dad had gotten along and I want you to now that she probably added a year and much happiness to my mothers life as well.
The Xmrs B'holes spent a lot of time with my Mother.
The only wish or hope that my Mother really had, except for the hope that she would live to see some little Bulletholes, was that she die before Dad. If she had had to bury Dad, that just would have been too much.

We spent Thanksgiving '86 and the following weekend with Mom. She had begun to take Morphine to help ease the pain she was in from the Cancer, but we had a good Weekend.On Monday she started to fare badly, and that evening the Lungs just gave out.
I had to call the Police and Fire Departments, the Funeral Home and then began the task of calling family and friends.Finally I had to call work and it was my friend Jeff that answered the phone. Thats when I lost it. I could barely speak.
I can't begin to tell you what a blessing it was that Mom should go first.

March, 1987
We brought my grandmother home from a Nursing Home, hired a Nurse, set her up in the guest bedroom and hung Family Pictures all over the Walls. She had been in the Nursing home so long that she was like Dad, maybe worse. But after a few weeks, she began to come back; there were moments that she seemed to recognise us, and had become quite fond it seemed of certain pictures on the walls that we moved closer to her. Mostly it was the Pictures of my Grandfather, her husband. After about 3 months, she died. You can't imagine how good it felt to have brought her home to spend her last days with us.

A few months in the future, the VA Administration would move Dad from the VA hospital into a Private Nursing Home, setting the stage for the last part of this story.




ALL ABOUT COMING HOME
"time is the echo of an axe within a wood"
philip larkin

Part 7
1987 The Conclusion

There were a lot of ways for this story to end, but they all really end the same, don't they?I think, all things considered, I could not ask for a better one.

November 1987
The night before Thanksgiving I was up all night , smoking a Turkey on the Grill outside.
I thought about how Mom had died less than a year before, in the room right in there.
I thought about how we brought Grandma home, and put her in the room right in there, and how when she died, we were right there with her.
We did not get a call from a nursing home 100 miles away... we were right there.
And as I watched my old friend Orion rising in small hours of the morning, I thought about the last 4 weeks, and what they had brought...

I had quit my job with a large Hotel.
I’d had enough.
While I served out my 2 weeks notice, my wife had gone to check on my father at a Nursing Home. The VA had had to move him to a Private Facility, and though they still picked up the tab, it put him another 50 miles further from home, and if we were to move him, they no longer would pay.
What my wife found on her visit set her already Red hair ablaze. The care at the VA had been spectacular. Now she found that within 4 weeks of being at this Private facility, he had bedsores and according to her ‘smelled like an outhouse with fecal material and urine on his bed and person”.
I want you to know that when the xmrs B’Holes gets her blood up, the shit will hit the fan. I can only imagine the coals that she raked those folks at that Nursing Home over that day.When she got back to town, we decided on this:
With Mom and Grandma no longer in need of Dads money and Estate, we would move him to the Nursing Home that was 2 blocks from our house.
To hell with the expense.
We entertained the notion of bringing him all the way home, like we did with Grandma, but that had been hard on us.So the next week, the day after my last day of work, I drove the 150 miles and removed Dad from the Nursing home from Hell, and brought him home, to the Nursing Home around the corner called the LaDora Lodge.
I had a Van, and laid the seats out in back with him on them. I straddled his chest, taping paper over the windows to keep the sun off him and as I looked down into those Ice blue eyes I said
“Are you ready to go home, Pop?”
His face came alive with knowing.... his eyes flashed and I knew he understood. It had been a long time since he had spoken, and he did not speak now ...instead he gave me his big belly laugh and a tear rolled from the corner of his eye.
After all we had been through I can tell you I would not trade that moment for anything in the World.
We were going home.
We got him to his new home and we visited and had visited everyday for the last two weeks. I also want you to know that the Xmrs B’Holes can talk the ears off a Wooden Indian and she talked to Dad like he had always been right there.
She is like a Superhero to me....

Its Thanksgiving morning.
I checked the Turkey; lookin’ good.
I checked Orion and he was where he should be at 5:00A.M.
The phone rang. Who could that be?
Its LaDora Lodge.
‘Mr. Bulletholes, I am sorry to be calling at this hour, but I thought you would want to know your father has passed away”

I like to think that Dad stopped by for a two week visit on his way Home.

ALL ABOUT COMING HOME

"time is the echo of an axe within a wood"
philip larkin

Part 6
1987
The Conclusion
There were a lot of ways for this story to end, but they all really end the same, don't they?
I think, all things considered, I could not ask for a better one.

The night before Thanksgiving I was up all night , smoking a Turkey on the Grill outside.
I thought about how Mom had died less than a year before, in the room right in there.
I thought about how we brought Grandma home, and put her in the room right in there, and how when she died, we were right there with her. We did not get a call from a nursing home 100 miles away... we were right there.
And as I watched my old friend Orion rising in small hours of the morning, I thought about the last 4 weeks, and what they had brought...

I had quit my job with a large Hotel. I’d had enough. While I served out my 2 weeks notice, my wife had gone to check on my father at a Nursing Home. The VA had had to move him to a Private Facility, and though they still picked up the tab, it put him another 50 miles further from home, and if we were to move him, they no longer would pay.
What my wife found on her visit set her already Red hair ablaze. The care at the VA had been spectacular. Now she found that within 4 weeks of being at this Private facility, he had bedsores and according to her ‘smelled like an outhouse with fecal material and urine on his bed and person”. I want you to know that when the xmrs B’Holes gets her blood up, the shit will hit the fan. I can only imagine the coals that she raked those folks at that Nursing Home over that day.
When she got back to town, we decided on this:
With Mom and Grandma no longer in need of Dads money and Estate, we would move him to the Nursing Home that was 2 blocks from our house. To hell with the expense. We entertained the notion of bringing him all the way home, like we did with Grandma, but that had been hard on us.

So the next week, the day after my last day of work, I drove the 150 miles and removed Dad from the Nursing home from Hell, and brought him home, to the Nursing Home around the corner called the LaDora Lodge.
I had a Van, and laid the seats out in back with him on them. I straddled his chest, taping paper over the windows to keep the sun off him and as I looked down into those Ice blue eyes I said
“Are you ready to go home, Pop?”
His face came alive with knowing.... his eyes flashed and I knew he understood. It had been a long time since he had spoken, and he did not speak now ...instead he gave me his big belly laugh and a tear rolled from the corner of his eye.
After all we had been through I can tell you I would not trade that moment for anything in the World.
We were going home.

We got him to his new home and we visited and had visited everyday for the last two weeks. I also want you to know that the Xmrs B’Holes can talk the ears off a Wooden Indian and she talked to Dad like he had always been right there.
She is like a Superhero to me.

...Its Thanksgiving morning.
I checked the Turkey; lookin’ good.
I checked Orion and he was where he should be at 5:00A.M.
The phone rang. Who could that be?
Its LaDora Lodge.
‘Mr. Bulletholes, I am sorry to be calling at this hour, but I thought you would want to know your father has passed away”

I like to think that Dad stopped by for a two week visit on his way Home.

AMAZING GRACE

I heard newborn babies wailin'
Like a Mournin' Dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without Love
Do I understand your question, Man
Is it Hopeless and Forlorn
"Come in" she said "I'll give ya Shelter from the Storm"
bob dylan



Part 5
1986
On December 1st, my Mother died at home. She had battled Emphysema and Cancer for several years. On her birthday in 1982 she had had a Major stroke; after months in the hospital, she recovered enough to go home and from there her capabilities improved to where she could drive and be fairly independent.
She had tried to take care of my father in the year or two that he was in the beginning stages, she had tried to be able to keep him at home, but the effects of Alzheimers demand much more care than what she could provide. Putting her Husband into a VA hospital just must have been gut wrenching for her.
I remember a Christmas where she had gone down and brought him home. It must have been about 1980 or so. When I came over the next day, she had already taken him back. I got the feeling that she wasn't able to handle him being there emotionally and she had already taken him back to the VA Hospital, 100 miles from home. She never tried that again.
Gut wrenching stuff.
In 1984 I married and the girl I married was an Angel. you have already read how she and Dad had gotten along and I want you to now that she probably added a year and much happiness to my mothers life as well. The Xmrs B'holes spent a lot of time with my Mother.
The only wish or hope that my Mother really had, except for the hope that she would live to see some little Bulletholes, was that she die before Dad. If she had had to bury Dad, that just would have been too much.
We spent Thanksgiving '86 and the following weekend with Mom. She had begun to take Morphine to help ease the pain she was in from the Cancer, but we had a good Weekend.
On Monday she started to fare badly, and that evening the Lungs just gave out. I had to call the Police and Fire Departments, the Funeral Home and then began the task of calling family and friends.
Finally I had to call work and it was my friend Jeff that answered the phone. Thats when I lost it. I could barely speak.
I can't begin to tell you what a blessing it was that Mom should go first.

March, 1987
We brought my grandmother home from a Nursing Home, hired a Nurse, set her up in the guest bedroom and hung Family Pictures all over the Walls. She had been in the Nursing home so long that she was like Dad, maybe worse. But after a few weeks, she began to come back; there were moments that she seemed to recognise us, and had become quite fond it seemed of certain pictures on the walls that we moved closer to her. Mostly it was the Pictures of my Grandfather, her husband. After about 3 months, she died. You can't imagine how good it felt to have brought her home to spend her last days with us.

A few months in the future, the VA Administration would move Dad from the VA hospital into a Private Nursing Home, setting the stage for the last part of this story.

RECEPTION TO FOLLOW

Ya' know that old trees just grow stronger,
And old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day.
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say,
"Hello in there, hello."
john prine

1984 Part 4

"He probably won't know what we are here for, or what has happened, but I'm glad for you to meet him just the same."
"Oh I can't wait, I know I'll like him"
"He's a great guy"


My new Wife just looked at me with that soft look that says "Of course he is. He must be". The first year...anything associated with me must be great. Its just a shame that she will never really know, about dad I mean, but I don't say that. For now we can pretend that everything is the same as it ever was. I was never sure what to talk to Dad about when I came and I wondered what Mrs. Bulletholes and he would find to discuss. I'm just hoping he will know who I am.

We are almost to the VA Hospital, when new Wife says
"How does this look?"
I glance over and she has unwrapped one of the cigars meant for Dad; she has stuck it into her mouth. It looks like a giant Gobstopper and her eyes are flashing blue as she shakes her shoulders, removes the Stogie and blows imaginary Smoke rings at me.
"Thats real nice Babe, he's going to like you a lot."


"JACK, YOU HAVE A VISITOR"
He is led into the visiting Lounge, he sees me and I see the recognition in his face, then he spies the New Wife and I see a little confusion.
Dad, its me- Steve!"
"Steve? My son? Well, Ill be damned!"
I give a hug and motion to Wife..."Dad, I want you to meet someone. I found an Angel Girl and I got married and she wants to meet you."
She steps forward with her hug and says her name.

Dad used to tell me when I was a boy that when I got married he would decorate my Car with cans tied to the back and honk his horn as we drove down the street. That was nothing compared to what he would give us today.

You could see the wheels spinning as he tried to make all the connections... but it really didn't take that long for this weary mind to grasp the moment.
He looked at me then back to her and pulls her back for another hug.

"Well, let me welcome you into the family. You are a Bullethole now; you are my Daughter."

Mrs. Bulletholes cannot believe it. But she never missed a beat.
"Is it OK if i call you 'Dad" Dad?"
'"Sure. Do we have any Scotch?"
"Scotch?"
'They took my Scotch or we could have a Toast"
"No, but we've got these" andn holds up a fistful of cigars.
Big chuckle from dad as he says "Now theres a good girl"

She has heard the stories and the warnings about how far gone this man is. The expectations are that we are going to confuse Dad, and in that confusion there will be a sadness and a sense of loss. Instead there is a sense of place and ...Redemption for all the years of waiting for a "Hello" and paying double for a line that has been disconnected.

Nothing could have prepared me for his sudden lucidity.

Had he been saving it, hidden in reserve for the moment he would need it?

Are we not all Psychic, with our brains operating like Time Machines, where information from the future influences events of the past?

I was so proud of him that day. I always wonder if he knew how good he had done. Certainly he had recognized something significant.

Years ahead he would have another great day...

We sat, and as he talked, the Cigar was used to great effect. At times it was a Baton and he was the Maestro. As he and his new Daughter discussed her career in Sales, it became a Pen writing a new customer a letter of introduction. Then it was his Crystal Ball, as he gazed into it and declared that someday, somehow, he would "beat this thing" and find a way to move closer to us.

His family.

I wonder if he knew he had met a Hero that day.

His Hero, and mine.

I wonder did he know he spoke as a Prophet that day?
Do you close your eyes to see miracles?
Do you raise your face to kiss the Angels?
Do you bow your head to hear Oracles?(to be continued)

(to be continued)

We Were All A Problem

There's an old magic Eight Ball

Right next to my plate

When I ask it a question

Regarding my fate

It says "reply hazy, please try again"

It wont say where I'm going

It don't know where I've been

….but I'm right here now…

james mcmurtry

I have heard it said that the bond between a Father and Son is a fragile bond, full of mistrust and fears and failures on both sides. By the time I graduated High School, the bond between Dad and I had been severely tested.

On Friday nights as I prepared to go "carousing" around, Dad would give me $10, and say "Don't spend it all in one place!"

Every week the same conversation would ensue.

"Right Dad"

"What are you getting into tonight?"

'Nuthin' I can't handle Dad"

"Well, just remember… that Wisdom… is the greater part… of Valor."

"Fer shure' Dad" and within the hour I would have a $10 bag of trouble, which would greatly enhance my other pursuits, chiefly Sex and Rock and Roll.

I didn't realize back then that Dad was really being kinda cool about the whole thing. Those mornings years later, when we would talk as we ate breakfast, he referred to them as my "Wild Bill Cody" days. I definitely had the hair for it.

It took a some years, after the Diagnoses, after considering the years he spent severed from hiis family, splintered from even himself, living an unimaginable existence that could not be foreseen, that I came to realize what a problem I must have been.

Dad was a man of few words. He told good natured stories, clean bone dry jokesand used the ever present cigar for punctuation. He had a slow and steady cadence to his pattern of speech that allowed every word to sink in.

He met and married my Mother after returning from WWII.

She had a 4 year old son, Don Lynn, and Dad legally adopted him, giving Don his name and his love.

Don told me a story about the first time that Dad was going to discipline him, and give him a spanking. Don could not recall what the infraction was, but this he vividly remembered:

"Mother, not wanting her child spanked, jumped to my defense.

'You are not going to spank my Boy!'

Dad turns and faces Mother and in his slow methodical way, says softly but firmly;

'We are going...to start…right now. You are my wife…and this is MY son…and ..I am going to…to raise him as best… as best as I know how"

My first memory of Don was the day he snatched me off the front porch as I was taking a piss…

Don came out all right…he graduated from West Point in 1964.

In 1982, Mom had a stroke. After a few weeks she seemed to be making progress, and I had been keeping Don advised, but he was able to come home from his station in Saudi and I was glad to have him there.

During a late night conversation , I expressed regret at having been such a problem for Mom and Dad through the years.

You know what he said?

"Steve, we were all problems."

Pretty smart, my brother.

YOU HAVE TO BE SMARTER THAN THE WORM

"The pleasantist' thing in Angling
is to see the fish on Golden Oar
shoot through the silver stream
and greedily devour
the treacherous bait"
Shakespeare


"Out of the blue and into the black..."
Neil Young


PART 3
1959
Dad absolutely loved to fish. My first memory that I can put a date to was after my sister Lisa was born; I would have been 27 months or 2 and 1/4 years old. Mom had been home from the hospital for a week or two and was laying in bed nursing Lisa. Dad had asked if she were OK and if he and I could go out to Grapevine Lake for the afternoon. I assume permission had been granted and as he and I walked out the garage Door. I remember asking very soberly if "Mother" was going to be okay with us gone.

We climbed into a big ol' Oldsmobile, a 1958 punked out with Jet Fighter Wings and a motherlode of Chrome, and within 10 minutes we were hopelessly stuck in a muddy field. It was a short cut Dad had been using to get onto the Blacktop from the house. To think that moments before I had been concerned about "Mothers" welfare.
"Ahab, beware of Ahab."
This is my first memory. We spent the whole afternoon trying to get unstuck. We did not make it to the lake that day.
I think it explains a lot about why Mom was always a little concerned for us, outside of just being a Mom. I'm sure that she was relieved that day, with us close by in the field.

1964
One evening in Detroit, Dad shakes me out from in front of the TV.
"Come along here boy, I need some help."
He is grinnin' like a Butchers dog, has an empty Coffee can, and also his Headlight-Flashlight on. Its the business end of a flashlight attached to a headband that you wear on your head, a separate battery pack that clipped to the hip; it was manufactured in the 1940's and would be worth a lot of money now. No, probably it wouldn't be worth much to anyone but me. Dad kept it with all his Camping and Fishing gear in his Sea Chest.

Down the street we go in the dark, Dad looking like some kind of spelunker that has lost his cave. I have no idea what this one is about, but Dad always had some kind of project/adventure going. We get to Mr. Bowles house. Dads illuminating gaze is directed down, down into Mr. Bowles flower bed and laying on top of the ground are the Biggest worms that I have ever seen. They are almost a foot long, as big around as a pencil, and you can see the big blue vein though the Opaque reddish and tan wormskin. There must be hundreds of em'!

"Wow, thats cool Dad... what are they?"
"Night Crawlers"
"Night Crawlers?"
"Yes, and we are going to use them to fish with"
"Okay"
'Now that one there, where the light is shining, get him."
I take a step towards the bed and drop to my knees. As soon as I hit the ground, all the Night Crawlers, quick as lightning, zip into their holes. I had no idea that a worm could move that fast.
"Out of the Blue..."
"You have to creep up on em' nice and easy" Dad explained. "They feel the vibratiions."
"...and into the Black"

We move down the bed to where there are more laying undisturbed. Stealthily, I go to my knees and crawl up to where I can reach one.
"You're going to have be fast..."
Yeah, Dad I get it!" and I try to grab the first one.

Not only do you have to be fast, you have to choose the right end of the worm to grab; you have to grab the end that goes back into the hole. Otherwise, all you get is mud. The worm is no dummy, and never comes all the way out of the hole, and stands ready to go below to safety.
You have to be smarter than the worm.

I got pretty good at it. The Coffee can would be full of worms. A fishing trip would follow the next day, and what fish we caught with our worms!!! We did not sit on a dock, catching Bluegill...no... Dad rigged the live worms to where we could troll them from the boat, and we caught Walleye, Pike and I even took a 4 foot Musky one day ...my my, hey hey...

But the time spent simply gathering bait, being outwitted and outrun by a worm that was faster and smarter than us... I would laugh, and Dad would chuckle... and... during the 4 tears we spent there...
Mr Bowles never seemed to miss his worms!

I didn't know then that one day I would be in charge of gathering the bait, planning the trip, packing the tackle and gear and even setting up and baiting Dads rod on what would be his last Fishing trip.

Theres more to the picture
Than meets the eye
Hey hey, my my

THE POTENTIAL POSSIBILITIES

"Now take my hand and hold it tight.
I will not fail you here tonight.
For failing you, I fail myself
And place my soul upon a shelf"
The Book of Counted Sorrows

Part 2
1977 (continued from previous post)
I don't remember the real reason I moved back home. My best friend and I had an Apartment for the last two years. The sign over our front door read in rustic script on a weatherbeaten board "Little Hoss Ranch" .
'Ranch" was right and we entertained nightly.

Every week my mother would call and I was generally so stoned that I could not speak.

I held a good job at the time as 1st Cook for a gourmet Restaurant making the whopping sum of 3.15 an hour. I didn't know it then, but I had yet to grasp any real Culinary Fundamentals.

I did not know that within the year my father would be in a VA Hospital and that these would be the last days that our relationship would be domestic...that this would be the last time to fix his breakfast and have him tell stories about coffee so hot that it had to be "Saucered and Blowed" several times before it was drinkable. A stack of pancakes and a frosty glass of milk goes a long ways towards relaxed conversations and the turning of dusty pages. So does the Psuedo Welsh Rarebit I used to fix that he enjopyed immensly.

More so, so much more so, than the words "You have a Visitor, Jack".

It would be the last chance to have him wax about the Steaks he had eaten in Chicago at Northwestern in the years before his time in North Africa, as he wolfed the ones I had prepared in the backyard. I still think those were the best steaks I have ever cooked.

And I did not realize at the time just how much my mother was relieved to have both her boys at home, or how much help I was in taking care of an early onset Alzheimers patient*. To think that I cried a sorrowful cry the day that I finished moving back home, with the 3 Lisa's that had helped me move saying 'Living at home won't be so bad".

Dad and I , it seems to me now, were equally handicapped.

Dad used to tell me the Doctors were wrong. Dad used to tell me he could "beat this thing". We would be heading out the back door to look at the Alaskan Freight Canoe that we had bought. We were going to cover it with an Epoxy resin Dad knew about. She was was in bad shape, this vessel, and a real concern for my Mom.
Mom would whisper to me in hushed tones "You and he both try to fix things with gum wrappers and soda straws, you will never get that thing afloat!" Looking back I know that she was right, but at the time I thought she was kind of poisoning our well. All we ever really did was look at it and discuss the potential possibilities.

Dad would say 'These Doctors dont know what they are talking about. I can beat this thing. I can see... the nit... on the nut... of a gnat." His is voice would crack with something torn between a rage and a will and a fear.
"Sure you can, Pop... if anyone can , it will be you."
And we both would enjoy a somewhat disingenuous Belly laugh.
His ice blue eyes would dance and look straight into mine for moment. Then he would turn and ask
"Now wheres that doorknob?" He knew the door was there but the knob always eluded him.
"I got it Dad"
Now the laughs came real. With his quick wit, the irony never eluded him.
Laughter always trumps sorrow.

And it reminds me of just how quick and observant you have to be to catch a Night Crawler, much more dceptive a creature tham one would imagine, and the importance of gathering bait. To be continued.....

Another addendum*
You can google Early Onset Alzheimers for the Medicos on it so I will refuse leaving the link. I can put it into a bit of a personal perpective for you... you hears about folks in their 60's and 70's that are Alzheimers victims... my Dad became completely disabled at the ripe old age of 58 and unable to work...I was barely out of High School...and the story you just read was but 2 years later, Dad being 60.

I won't try to tell you that these were the best days of my life, but I will say that there has been much fruit and treasure; still today there remains both of these, unimagined, yet to be fully realized... so many potential possibilities...

A ROY-TAN CIGAR

"O Father! - chiefly known to me by Thy rod - mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing; I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?"
Father Marple - Moby Dick

Part 1
1981
I pulled into the VA Hospital parking lot in Waco , Texas . It was a 100 mile drive from my home in Fort Worth . I was there to see my father, an Alzheimers patient. Four years ago I had never heard of Alzheimers. He had been here for two years now and this was my third visit. That’s not very many.
I should mention that for the years dad spent at the VA hospital he received outstanding care. Normally I would see him in the visitors area on the first floor. I don't recall ever seeing his room exactly.
Today Bill, the male nurse, ushered me to the second floor and the exercise area where Dad is on a treadmill.

"Jack" says Bill" "your son is here".
"Hmmm?" Dad grunts over the top of his glasses.
"Hey Pop, its me, Steve" I offer.
He is still treading away and...
'What's that?" Dad asks.
Its your son , Jack" Bill talking… "You have a visitor"
'Hi, Dad"
"Its your son, Jack"
"Whose what?"
"I'm right here Dad, in front of you" and touch his hand that clutches the treadmill handlebars.

Dad laughs his fake belly laugh (it’s a coping mechanism, I have it too) and says
"Bill, theres someone here to see you from Chicago ".

I know that he can see me but you wouldn't know it by his expression. Of course Dad can hear us fine, but we are getting louder.
The problem is not his ears ; that would be too easy. Its further in.
Still, you can't help but get louder.
Finally after about ten minutes of this verbal escalation, and the foggy, blank stare that the Alzheimers patient has where they are not quite looking at you, not quite looking through you and not quite looking past you, but a sort of Brainsquinting thing where they are doing all three, Dad bursts out with amazing focus and clarity:

"THATS MY DAMN SON"
Damn right!
He is looking me right in the eye.
"Man to Man, its a Roy-Tan*, Dad" as I hand him his cigar.

There won't be any matches, there haven't been any matches for a while.
His belly laugh has changed to the genuine one.
There was nothing here that could explain the swiftness of the degenerative process that I had seen for the last 4 years. And there was nothing here that could prepare me for the sharp moments of greater clarity that my father would summon from somewhere within in the next few years, even after the further erosion of his faculties.

to be continued…

*As an addendum and for those of you born later than 1970;
Dad smoked big Cigars- Stogies they called them and they were not namby-pamby cigars- they were big and thick and puffed great clouds of smoke. In the 60's Tobacco was advertised freely on the Television; hell, you could light a smoke while doing your Grocery shopping- and there was a hugely successful commercial for Roy-tan Cigars.
The commercials all followed the same story line, but the one I remember best was a little be-spectacled fellow, Pee-Wee, hitting a large truck with his car. He gets out of his vehicle to survey the damage as the Truck-Driver, Bruno , a huge hairy man gruffly removes himself from his truck to do the same. Just as it looks as though Bruno is going to snap Pee-Wee in half, Pee-Wee produces a Mammoth Roy-Tan from his pocket and Bruno, delighted, lets him off the hook. The announcer says "Man to man it’s a Roy-Tan" and all is well as Pee-Wee and Bruno light up, huge clouds of smoke, and slapping each other on the back.

The Priority vs. Whats Important

ANOTHER WISE MAN
Allow me to direct you to David, and a poem that he posted a few days ago. Funny how you can hear a song for years and like it but never quite get it completely, then one day you hear it and 'Grok' it fully; usually because a life experience has widened your persective, I suppose.
Maybe its just the week I have had, or the fact that there are some close to me that have crept closer to Mortality, and brought me closer as well...
Maybe its the State of the Planet right now as we and our leaders seem to be so concerned about "everything" while making progress on nothing...this poem speaks hugely to me right now. See also"Doing the Right Thing".
GoGoGoGo.. now! I mean really see it! You must!
It also reminds me of what I learned from years of being a Chef...you know that you are in trouble when you are working on the priority instead of what is important...

Thanks David, very nice!!!

THREE WISE MEN

Throw a penny into the Indian Ocean

You jump right in

Three Wise men in the Indian Ocean

And you jump right in

Sometimes it doesn't take throwin it all away

To find out what you’ve got

Sometimes it doesn't take a good friend to say

Its more than time that you lost

Alejandro Escovedo

You may remember Bruce from "Gullywampus", "Ghosts in the Fire" and the continuation 'Man Overboard". There is more to Bruce than that.

When I lived in Detroit, Bruce came to see us. Dad met him at the Airport. It was in January of, let's say, 1967. On the way home Dad and Bruce stopped for Bruce to see something not too many Texans ever see…. The three foot thick sheet of Ice that covers even the Great Lakes during Winter in that part of the country. I know that it gets that thick for two reasons;(1) I have seen the chunks of Ice the icebreaker Ships throw up to allow the Ore boats passage and (2) I have been huddled over a small hole in the Ice trying to catch a poor frozen and starving little fish. Let me assure you it is cold out there, with not so much as a Barb-Wire fence to break the wind.

Back to Dad and Bruce- apparently they stopped at a local pier in the dead of night and in the middle of winter to inspect the Ice. Clambering down the ladder to the ice at the Pier must have been a trick, but not nearly the trick it would be getting back up.

Especially after Bruce and his 300 pound frame had slipped and fallen on the Ice resulting in a shattered wrist and forearm. No one besides Bruce and my Dad will ever know how much panic there was or how much danger they must have both been in as Dad tried to help Bruce get back up the 10 rungs of ladder that had to be climbed.

They made it, and spent most of that night in a Detroit Emergency Room.

As I write this, Bruce finds himself in another great battle. His daughter Jan has described him as a "jolly soul that drives like a Bat out of hell and eats Like a farm -hand, and still loves a good party."that sounds like the Bruce I remember.

But today, Bruce is in ICU and the description, today, is that he is "Responding, but delirious".

I don't like the sound of that.

So for those of you that pray, pray for Bruce. For those of you like myself that don't, then,like myself, pray a little anyway.

I have so much hoped to someday to see Bruce again.

When he comes out of this, perhaps I should give a call… it’s the next best thing.

While we are at it lets ...also think about Jeff's (The XMRSB'HOLES husband) father who has suffered a bad stroke the last several days. I don't intend to turn this into a prayer group, but I want all to know whats up out here. I should also mention that the 6 degrees of separation you hear about is more like three degrees in my case.... not only is it a fact that in my Senior high School group picture, jeff and I stand together but remarkably.... his father and mine worked together years before jeff and I were friends....this we did not even know until recently.

In fact, given that Dad and Bruce worked together at the same time, Bruce most likely knows Jeffs' father; Austin Yeats! Bruce, do you remeber Austin from those Hyde-pak Days when, as Dad liked to say, ya'll were "G-Men"?

Donna

Do we meet those we dream of as they dream of us?

I should give homage to "Angel" and the "Grizzbabe" for this....
http://grizzbabesden.blogspot.com/

From a previous post titled “FOR MOM”:
http://srevestories.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_srevestories_archive.html

"In the second grade we were allowed to walk home from school for lunch. Its hard to believe they let us do that. I don't think that can happen these days.
I always walked with Donna Hartlieb. We would part at the corner and meet again to return to school. Every day my mother gave me a Baby Snickers Bar for the walk back and I would split it with Donna on the corner.
One day I asked Mom if I might have two candy bars.
She inquired as to why I would need two. I told her all about Donna and how we walked together everyday, and how I split my candy bar with her always.
I'll never forget the look on Mom's face.
"Oh yes, Stevie, you certainly may!"as she dried her hands on her Watermelon Apron and pulled another Snickers Bar from out of the cupboard.
She was beaming.

I was in Detroit in 2nd grade, and we moved back to Texas in the 6th grade.
over the next several years, passing from a kid to a teenager, with all the hormonal turmoil and finding love, and loss, and pleasures and pains, and learning to kiss and touch and stuff, I would keep Donna in mind, and try to maintain some semblance of being a gentleman.
Years later, when I was 21, a failed romance jogged my memory of Donna and brought fresh revelations of what it meant to be in love.
I wondered did or would Donna remember me, and what her memory of me might be, and how that memory might affect her relationships the way she affected mine.

This was on my mind very late one night, and I decided to drive to Detroit to see if I could find Donna. It was about 3:00 a.m. as best as I can figure when I left Texas. I was wearing shorts and a T-Shirt and had no shoes.
Somewhere around Cleveland my car broke down. I had to walk the rest of the way. It had become quite cold and the wind was blowing very hard as I entered the Detroit city limits. I made my way north, up Jefferson Ave. to Grosse Pointe Park. People were looking at me, staring at me as I had few clothes, and like I said it was quite cold...
I walked down Windmill Drive and up Trombley, past my old house, and took a left on Essex... there were kids on bikes going to School. They all did a double take when they saw me, tossing their heads back in laughter at this fellow in Shorts and a T-Shirt and no shoes.
What an Idiot!!!
I was at the corner of Essex and Harcourt, the very corner Donna and I would part and reunite, when I saw her.
She was on a Red Schwinn, with the big Chopper handlebars and Banana seat and with the pink and white streamers that flapped in the wind. She still had the Blonde hair cut, "Pixie" style, and the Little Red Riding Hood jacket, but like me, she was older now.
It was Donna, and she had seen me.
She did a quick U-Turn and approached me, her face full of recognition.
I could tell she knew who I was.
My heart is beating wildly.
“What are you doing here? Aren't you cold?” she asks.
‘Yes, but I wanted to see you” I say.
“Do you know me?” she asks.
“You are Donna”
“Yes, how did you know?
“I used to live here, I used to walk with you”
Her face is even more full of recognition now and I am so full of emotion I can scarcely even say the words, cannot find the voice to ask that which I have come 1100 miles to ask...so here it is...

‘Donna, do you remember me like I remember you?”

I see it in her face, in her eyes, all she has to do is say the words...her lips begin to form the words to say “Yes, you are Steve, and I remember you so well, we walked and talked and you shared your Candy Bars with me..”
But before she is able to say these words...

I WOKE UP!

And I was shaking, saying "OH MY GOD" and shivering, and I was cold and the next three days I was feverish with the Flu...
If I have ever had a Dream where I went somewhere and met someone... that was it.

Do we really meet those we dream of as they dream of us?