Best Christmas since BC…

Tim and his bride - and mommy-in-training - Ellen.

As Christmas holidays go, this was the best since BC.  BC as in “Before Charlotte.”

The presents, holiday tree and good food aside, what it did do was remind me that the bests gifts of all are small, are in the developmental stage and come attached with a title: little girl.

—————

December 19, 2011

Ellen/Reid: Well, by now you’ll have everything you were going to get from me, so I hope that it is satisfactory.  Both of you, and Tim, too, are increasingly hard to buy for so I devolve to the usual outdoor stuff.  Nothing wrong with socks and jackets although one of these years I’ll break the mold and really surprise you.  This just won’t be the year.

It dawned on me over the weekend, as it has many recent weekends, what a year of wild, wild swings of the pendulum that this has been.  We’ve gone from no job to a job, sudden illness and fast surgery to the sadness of Grandma’s situation and ultimately to the joy of your pregnancy, Ellen.  That really tipped the scales upward.  Reid, 2011 seems relatively uneventful for you but that isn’t altogether a bad thing by any means.  All things considered, I’d give 2011 a 7 on the scale of 1 to 10.  What say you guys?  A few weeks or months ago no way I would’ve assigned it that high but we’ve done a pretty fair job persevering and rolling with the punches.  That 2011 score is up a couple of points from 2010, a year of lows.  My attitude is much more positive this year than it was the last couple of years.

Reid, you need to carve out a weekend in January for a visitor or two.  A psychiatrist may question why the heck anyone would want to visit Chicago in January (or February, even) but I’m anxious to see your new home and work digs.  That’s long overdue.  I promise not to overly embarrass you.  I’ve mentally penciled in your visit to CLT for Christmas ’12, so keep that in mind.  It would be wonderful to host you for the holidays.  If that sounds like a plan, I’ll try to book us something closer to the ocean.  Maybe a little fishing would be in order.  The paper keeps running photos of what people catch over toward the seaside, and that seems like a pretty good gig.  If by some slim chance we could land anything worth keeping, perhaps we could overnight to you some of the haul in dry ice.  There are plenty of good fish recipes out there.  Two or three minutes a side in hot butter and herbs sounds pretty good to me.  Of course, that assumes we get a nibble.  Can’t cook ‘em if we don’t catch ‘em.  If nothing else we can drink beer.

So, Ellen, a little girl.  That is just incredible.  You’d better get cracking on that extra bathroom because a baby consumes at least 10 times its body mass in available space.  You wouldn’t think a little one would hog nearly every inch of any given house, but that’s just the fact of parental life.  It sounds as if you’ve gotten off to a really healthy start to your pregnancy.  Good for you.  You exercise and eat right which is a lesson both Reid and I should pay attention to.  (I haven’t had ice cream in four days, so the withdrawal has begun.)  I would like to trundle up to St. Paul before the blessed event if you guys will allow it.  Just to see how “Momma Pommer” is faring.  I’ve told several people here and a couple of them have asked if I’m ready to be a Grandpa (or whatever title you want to assign to me) and I’m not sure what the honest answer is.  I guess I am.  It’s not like your mom or I have besieged you guys with questions about when this would happen, but it is occurring and I’m happy and I’m ready.  This is at the right stage for you both.

To get back to Christmas, the punky little tree is growing on me.  The lights are always on, and even though no packages are below it, it is festive enough in its own way.  I got Felicia a couple of things even more lame than the lame stuff you guys got.  Say hello to everyone in Des Moines.  Staying here is fine with me.  We’ll cook turkey on Christmas day, will probably walk after stuffing ourselves and maybe hit a movie.  We could do worse.  Happy Holidays!

Guilty as charged…

Ellen and Henry try to escape the 102F heat in St. Paul by snoozing on the basement floor

I am a habitual offender when it comes to one of my friend Betsy’s cardinal rules: send thank you notes.  Guilty as charged.

In the spirit of turning over a new leaf, I finally got around to writing my hosts, Stacey and Bruce, who allowed me to stay in their home during my May trip to Des Moines.  As lateness goes, maybe it was still in the 30 day grace period (if such a thing exists) for such niceties.  But if nothing else, it gives me latitude to add Stacey and Bruce to the ever-expanding circle of folks I can write to.

———-

June 1, 2011

Stacey and Bruce: I’ve let a month slip by without sending you guys a proper thank you for allowing me to crash at your home and come and go as I pleased for more nights than should be allowed.   But it sure beat the alternative which would have been some motel on the outskirts of town.  It was a real treat to stay there.

It is remarkable to see how Jack has grown, and I can only imagine how Max and Alex have matured.  Are they getting older or is it just me?  One in China, the other in Philadelphia?  It just doesn’t seem possible.   The next thing you know they’ll be married and you’ll be grandparents, although let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.  One way to look at it is you have enough room to accommodate a visiting brood.

It was great being back in DSM for even a long weekend.  I was telling Jane Hemminger that I miss the old sod and the people there and there’s a lot of truth in that.  When you look at all the factors, Des Moines isn’t faring too badly vis a vis some of the cities down this way.  Real estate is holding its own, the schools are still good, unemployment is in single digits, commute times are manageable.  None of which you can say about North Carolina, let alone South Carolina.  It adds up to a pretty nice picture.  I was really impressed with how things have pulled together in the downtown.  Charlotte should send a contingent up North to see how it’s done.  When I moved here the city was living the high life in all respects, but when things crashed we went down very hard face first.

I sense that Ellen is on a mommy-track.  All of her friends have little ones and I get the suspicion – she’s never mentioned anything to me so my view may be unfounded – that she’ll join them before long.  She seems to be nesting a bit in that they have gutted the kitchen in their older home in St. Paul for a total makeover.  The tear-out is complete but the work has yet to begin and she is still of the Pollyannaish view that it will be completed by the end of June.  Dream on, kid.  I’m hopeful of getting up there before long to view the work-in-progress although I perceive that they just want me to walk their dog and do their yard work for them.  That would be okay.

Reid is another matter all together.  He has gone incommunicado for another long stretch.  When he surfaces will be anyone’s guess.  I think he’s just getting on with things which I suppose is what boys will do.  We’re on a need to know basis and apparently we don’t need to know.  He likes his new agency and his neighborhood, but that was as of three weeks ago so who knows if the landscape has changed.

Well, gotta run.  But thanks again for letting me intrude for nights on end.  It was great to see both of you, and if by chance you ever get down to the Carolinas, you have a place to crash, too, although my guest room is Spartan by your standards.  See you soon.

Dad checking in…

There just wasn’t a hell of a lot going on last week.  For the most part, the best I could do was really just be a dad checking in.  That was about all the energy I could muster.  I doubt any complaints will be heard from Ellen and Reid.  But from what went down these last few days, today’s letter (which you’ll read next week) will be a far different matter.  There will be a return to events of some real gravity.

——————-

May 16, 2011

Ellen/Reid: I came into the office this morning and the people and their things are gone.   Row upon row of cubes sit empty.  The herding of staff occurred last Friday when a mass exodus was made to one of our spiffy new buildings where, if your entry pass doesn’t work, they can double check your retina scan to allow admittance.  I opted not to go that direction, in part because of gas costs ($4.10/gallon) and it would add another 10 minutes to the walk from my open parking space.  Instead, I chose what’s called the My Work program where I can work from home and spend two or three days a week in satellite space on the south edge of town.  The bank buys a phone and printer, a shredder and a chair for my convenience that will go up in the three floor bedroom which is my new home office.  If I needed to come uptown I could but I don’t know of any earthly reason why that should be so unless I wanted to see Betsy or my friends Tom and Mike.  I have no co-workers in the downtown, and only one in the metro area so it’s not like my presence will be missed up this way.

Ellen, I hope the fine china made it in one piece.  My box did not.  It came, crushed, as if thrown off the UPS truck.  The big red “Fragile” sticker must not have been noticed by the caring UPS handlers.  To my dismay, literally everything inside was broken, most notably the glass lid to the roasting pan your grandmother got as a wedding gift in 1948.  I was just crushed.  Of all your grandparent’s possessions, it was one of two or three items that I really wanted.  I thought the packing job was good, but the vases and other assorted stuff were in pieces.  That’s why I need to know if the china is intact.  If it is not, then I took out insurance on your box which, while it won’t nearly be enough to replace everything, will at least be some salve.

My health, knock on wood, has seemed to improve these last few weeks.  No small maddening setbacks which make me second guess the operation (just a little).  My next check up is in just over a month and that will be the real litmus test.  That has in part contributed to my desire to work at home, which will be easier on me physically.  This sitting in a chair for hours on end is for the birds and is one of the cautions they gave me at the doctor’s office.  But I’m feeling one hell of a lot better as of this writing.  Came through a 200+ mile ride with Felicia this weekend in good shape, too.  If an old Harley doesn’t rattle your innards, nothing can.  I need to start some serious cardio workouts to get ready for Wyoming which is now only two months away.  I’m worried about that part of it and don’t want to drag the group down to my level.   I’ve always said we will hike only as fast as the slowest person, and that may well be me.  We head into the back country on Sunday, July 24.  The trip still seems really exciting but there are a ton of loose ends to bring together, notably getting all the gear (the old MSR stove could not be found in DSM) together and packing all the food.  That may wait until Jackson Hole.  Reid, hopefully we won’t be sleeping in the car the night before the trip.  Jeez, what a night that was.

Ellen, thanks for the photo of your barren kitchen.  Nice job by Tim.  There’s no turning back now, but you’ll finally have a kitchen you can really sink your teeth into and be proud of.  In terms of recouping your money, it’s not a bad investment.  I’d love to get up there sometime to see the end results.  The one caution I’d give you is if they say the project will only take three weeks, double that estimate.  Nothing ever seems to wrap up when they say it should wrap up.   It’s going to be an endurance test of patience and dust, dust, dust, especially when that wall comes out.

Well guys, I have to go.  Its ghost town up here right now, but they left the office coffee pot here, and I think I’ll go make me some.

Road hunting and coffee with Ray…

Back in the day, I hunted birds.  In my early years it was about the killing but as I aged, it became about the seeing.  There was greater reward in watching pheasants and quail scurry through brush and thickets as they rushed to escape me.  (If they knew of my shooting prowess they could’ve taken flight or moseyed at a leisurely pace or simply stayed put.)  My gun, a fine 20 gauge Beretta, was ideal for the ‘sport’ yet it has resided with my son-in-law, Tim, for half a decade.  I won’t need it again.

Many of my hunting sojourns were with my buddy, Ray.  For a long while he was my boss but was more friend than boss.  Invariably, he’d pick me up before dawn in his forest green Ford Explorer, we’d hit the nearest convenience store for donuts and coffee and off we’d go for the morning’s hunt (if you could call it that).  We’d walk the fields when we could but were perfectly content to cruise the roads ever vigilant for the stray bird that might cross our path or poke his head up from a weedy patch.  If we saw the “prey”, great, if not, it was still a good morning.  It was about road hunting with Ray and a cup of coffee.

I hadn’t seen Ray in a while until I returned to Des Moines a few weeks ago.  I followed up with him on my return to North Carolina.

—————–

May 12, 2011

Ray: It was incredibly great to see you at Hemminger’s on Friday night.  Ironically, if you’d not been there I was planning to stop by your place sometime on Saturday and take my chances that you’d be home.  No doubt that would have taken the new owners of your old home – and me, too – by complete surprise.  Everyone really looked the same, it’s just me that feels the aging process has taken a toll.

I’m glad we had a chance to catch up and go back to the old days.  Jeez, are we really aging that fast?  It would be wonderful to get in the shotgun seat of your Ford Explorer and cruise the back roads toward Winterset sipping coffee and looking for stray birds along the roadside.  Those were the days, they really were.  Glad to hear that you still get down that way.  It’s been an easy 6-7 years since I’ve hunted pheasants.  My Beretta is in the safe hands of my son-in-law in the Twin Cities and it’s never even crossed my mind to go quail hunting down in these parts.  You really don’t see much of that kind of news item in the paper down here.  It’s either fishing or maybe the stray story about killing the small deer they have down in these parts.  But nothing on birds.

It’s been five years down in Charlotte, and most of it has been fine enough.  The job is what it is and I do like most of it.  I’m ensconced in a 3 BR condo that masquerades as a three story townhome (I am starting to rue the multiple flights of stairs.  Better purchase decisions have been made).  I bought for convenience which means my commute to the downtown area is about 20 minutes vs. the smooth 45-60 minutes it would be elsewhere.  Just this week I’ve started to work at home as something of a telecommuter although it is my option to go to the home office when I am so moved.  The bank has several satellite offices around the outskirts of the city and those are options, too.  We have 15,000 employees here, which is actually down a fair number from even a couple of years ago.  I miss those days at Meredith.  I can’t believe what a job the city has done in the formerly ragged stretch from the airport to the downtown.  It is incredible.  Charlotte could learn from that.  It’s very impressive.

The kids are faring just fine.  Ellen is teaching up in St. Paul, and Reid is toiling at some digital ad agency in Chicago and although he tries to explain precisely what he does, all he sees is the dazed look in my eyes.  He gets it and I don’t.  I don’t know when Ellen and her hubby Tim will join the parenting brigade but my guess is it won’t be too far off.  The peer pressure from her friends with babies must be enormous.  I’m not sure I’m ready to be a grandpa or whatever it is the kids would call me.

Still have the Harley, and last year was the first year I’ve put some serious miles on it.  I have a delightful girlfriend, and she and I put about 8,000 miles on the rig.  Great roads down here.  Great.  County road crews don’t have much practice in paving straight lines.  Everything is a curve.  The paths aren’t as maintained as they are in Iowa but it’s been a lot of fun to hit the different ‘bergs down here.  You haven’t seen the South until you get out in the boonies, and believe me, it doesn’t take much to reach the boonies.  Good for you to head back to Sturgis.  Wish I could go.  I’m playing a little golf but my swing is sooo bad that it’s ceased to be as much fun.

Well, listen buddy, it was great to see you.  Say hi to Jan, keep me posted on the lurid days in Sturgis, and maybe I can borrow that stray gun you mentioned when I come back in October.

You can’t go home again…

Ellen is about to become acquainted with dust as she and Tim kick off the remodel of their 1920s kitchen in St. Paul, MN.

I don’t know why, but the blog hasn’t been top of mind for me the past couple of weeks and the posts seem more tepid than usual.  I’ll get back in the swing of things here shortly.

Perhaps that’s because it has felt like old home week the past few weekends.  Whoever said ‘you can’t go home again’ was only partly right.  It does not apply if you need to box stuff and get it out the (garage) door to UPS. 

All the loose ends related to parental goods are now tied up.  Fine china to Ellen, antique cameras (dating back more than a century) are in Reid’s hands with the rest shipped to Charlotte.  It is all resolved and that chapter is closed. 

—————-

May 9, 2011

Ellen/Reid: This morning I’m in a bit of a fog after yesterday’s travel.  Went to bed late by my standards (midnight) and was up very early and got to work about 6:30 to wade through a mountain of e-mails and that’s only from being out of the office a couple of days.  I shudder to think what the truly higher-ups have in their e-mail queue when they get back from vacation.  It was tough to get rigged up and out the door.  The coffee was particularly weak so it might necessitate a visit downstairs to Starbucks or Caribou when this letter is done.

All in all it was a pretty good weekend.  Steve’s wedding was appropriately low key and his girls did a fabulous job with their remarks.  Good to see lots of old friends and invariably they ask how you both are and what you’re doing.  I try to fill them in as best I can.

Jane Hemminger just cannot be rivaled as a party hostess.  Clad in her bare feet and a red apron, she and Dave threw a nice bash out on their deck on Friday night.  It was a beautiful evening.  The whole crew was there; Dickinsons, Cornicks, Sculforts, Hestons, John Leonhardt, the Kobes, Fustenaus and Shifflers.  I know I’m leaving some out but it was a very nice affair.  Jane can cook and prepare gourmet foods with the best of them.  And she makes it sound like it’s no big deal when it actually is.  I had a great time but was habitually overserved.  Not to sound like a broken record, but people habitually asked about what you’re both up to.

I stayed with Staci and Bruce all three nights.  Max and Alex are doing college things so they had plenty of spare room in their 5 bedroom abode.  That was nice.  We stayed up all three nights yakking and drinking wine way past my bedtime.  That’s why the mornings were fairly groggy.  My original plans were to stay at the house but am glad that did not happen.  Saw some of the neighbors, and they also ask what you’re up to.  Gave some of the boxed plates and tableware to Mary and Frank’s daughter Gianna who is setting up her first place.  Now she’ll have some dishwasher safe plates and bowls.  Quite a bit of the boxed material is going to Goodwill which is just as well.  Reid, you clearly don’t have the space for items, and Ellen you just don’t need anything but you will get the fine china which I hope arrived intact.  The big prize of the weekend was finding the glass-covered roasting pan which was your great-grandmothers.  That is the one thing I wanted from your grandparents house and I thought it had gone missing.  So that was a coup.  Really, it was hard to wade through everything.  It brought a lot of emotions to the surface.  I know whoever buys their items at whatever thrift shop they’re sold at won’t have the same attachment as we might.  That’s okay.  In reality, it’ll be less stuff for you two to clear out down the road if you know what I mean.  In a morbid way, I thought of carting some of it home to sell on EBay but since I don’t know how that works, let alone what stuff is worth, the boxes went over to the Goodwill pile.

It’s interesting to see Des Moines after all this time.  They have done an incredible job downtown.  Lots of towns, including CLT, would be envious of the restaurants and nighttime haunts from the Capitol on west.  It’s just very nice.  They’re not rolling up the sidewalks at twilight like they used to.  Bruce and John and I ate downtown at some funky little place Thursday night and it was fabulous.  Great to see those two.  The persistent question comes up about moving back to Des Moines and that’s a tough one to answer.  You guys are in that same boat because you get the same repetitive question.  It’s like that old saying: how do you get them back on the farm once they’ve seen gay Parie?

Job one and job two…

United and U.S. Airways combined to do a nice job of scooting me back to Charlotte on time and intact Sunday night.  Job one of the long weekend was Steve’s joyous wedding, and job two was to sort through what remained of my parent’s household possessions and ship out plates and roasting pans and a menagerie of other items to points north and south; St. Paul and Charlotte.

It really was four days of mixed emotions.  It was great to see friends Jane and Dave, Pam and Greg, Sam and Bryce, Staci and Bruce, and all the others to say nothing of the wedding itself.  The dirty work was somewhat less so.  Deciding what to keep and what to donate was tedious and trying emotionally.  But UPS says the boxes will arrive at the destinations by Thursday.  Ellen will be happy when she unwraps her surprise package.  I’ll open mine, too, but we’ll see if any of the feelings I had in the garage in Clive made the trip along with whatever it was I wrapped in newspaper and bubble wrap.  Right now, I can’t remember what most of it was.

—————–

May 2, 2011

Ellen/Reid: I guess I’m looking forward to the trip to Des Moines later this week.  Steve says everything about the wedding is in place.  From the sound of things it appears to be relatively low key; they have instituted a ‘no gift’ policy that I plan on violating with a box of ProV1 golf balls for Steve.  The way he plays efficient golf, a dozen golf balls will last him a couple of years.

Job #1 in Iowa is to pack up items for shipment to Charlotte or to your locales.  Ellen, it sounds as if you have picked up just about everything you need.  Reid, the assumption is that you have neither room nor immediate desire for most of those things so I will preemptively have those items sent to North Carolina where they will remain until such time as you want them.  That’s fine.  You can look through things the next time you come down here.  And, might I ask, when will that be?  (That applies to you, too, EP.)

I get in about 3:30 on Thursday and will head straight to the hardware store for boxes and tape and get cracking on fillin’ the boxes.  That will consume all of Thursday night and into Friday morning.  Bob and I will have coffee at Grounds for Celebration then head to The Wave for a hearty Midwestern breakfast.  We have a lot of catching up to do.  He just had some surgery to overcome the effects of too much text messaging.  He just had one wrist worked on a few months ago, and now it’s the other.  And guess what I keep getting from him on my phone?  Steve has a pre-wedding golf outing set for Friday afternoon, and then I’ll head to Jane and Dave’s party on Friday night.  Rumor has it that there will be more golf Saturday morning, so at least we know where Steve’s second priority is.

I have mixed feelings going back to the house.  That’s where I’ll plan to stay to avoid hotels.  But it is a visit that needs to be made although I don’t know the full extent of what must be packed and UPS’d.  There was a lot of good that went on there for a lot of years.  It might be good to see some of the old neighbors although they might wonder what in the hell is going on.  Your mother has asked me to tend to some fresh sod that was just laid to lessen some of the standing water in the back yard.  I hope it’s in good shape.  As much as I might have groused about mowing and such, there are portions of yard work, especially the gardening aspect of it that I miss the most.  I liked digging in the dirt.

Quite the news this morning about bin Laden.  About time they got the bastard.  Of course, one of the news programs had some right winger on who said it “took a Muslim to catch a Muslim.”  He went on to say the Republicans set up the apparatus to catch him, so already the party that couldn’t catch him is laying claim to it.  What a bunch of crackpot idiots.  I don’t go along with those who say that terrorist bunch is DOA; rather, it’s like cutting the head off the hydra.  There will be someone else to come along and do the dirty work.  So this battle is far from over and done with.  But a big chunk of it is gone.

Watched four little chickadees spring from their nesting box this weekend.  One by one they popped their little heads out and flew to the nearest branch.  They were unsteady, but since then have found their wings and have frequented the bird feeder outside the kitchen window.  It’s good to know that there are now four little birds that might not have otherwise had a good home on the tree out in back.  I’ve really enjoyed the comings and goings in the nest.  I yanked the neatly made nest out in the hopes some other occupants might try the same thing.  At least the nesting box will be in clean and in place for the bluebirds next February.

On the mend from another surgery…

For the second time in three weeks, my Midwestern road trip continues; today it’s off to Des Moines for my friend Steve’s wedding and to box and ship my side of the family’s items held over from my parent’s home in Omaha.  Most of it will be sent to Ellen and Reid.  Some will be shipped to Charlotte.

I sent a letter – the fifth mailed to him since last July – to my friend Bob to apprise him of the trip details.  He’s on the mend from yet another surgery for a self-inflicted texting injury, his second bout with this over-use malady (de Quervain Syndrome, aka mother’s wrist).  Apparently he can open envelopes but not much else.

Bo strikes a post-surgery woe-is-me pose. At this pace he may have to start texting this his toes.

————-

April 27, 2011

Bob: By this time next week Jane Hemminger will have had her fix, albeit temporarily, of party hosting.  Her invitation was just a scream.  I have to shake my head every time something arrives in the mailbox or the front door that has her name attached to it.  I tried gently to stave off this event, but Dave dissuaded me knowing that it wasn’t a battle worth escalating all the way up to her.  It will be fun to see everyone although I don’t know who those people will be just yet.

I blast into town late Thursday and commence with packing boxes right away.  That will consume more of Thursday night and well into Friday.  I don’t know precisely how much stuff there is to send but no doubt it is a pile.  It is a guarantee that none of it is Harley stuff.  Kathy has whittled down things as she’s prepped the house for sale although she has had some viewings but no takers.

Your Key West vacation with your girls sounded like it was a hell of a lot of fun.  You have this knack for finding just the right travel outlets.  Coincidentally that is the one place Felicia says she would like to go but as of yet I’ve not summoned the effort to search for airfares and lodging.  When I’m in DSM you will have to remind me of just how in the hell you found the place you stayed at.  That sounds like a pretty good gig.  I’ve been grossly negligent in using my timeshare points to rustle up places such as the place you stayed.  This is where your life trumps mine in that you travel around all the time on these little adventures and you use all the Internet sources at your disposal to find deals and doings.  Me, I still look for newspaper coupons.  You’ll have to be my life coach.

So, when is this text-induced surgery (your second) supposed to take place, and how long will you be on the shelf?  You are reminded that this is prime golf season that you will be taking off.  Are you sure this couldn’t wait until the colder months so you could ride the bike and swing the clubs?  I don’t even need surgery to put my clubs away.  My swing continues to deteriorate and the game isn’t as much fun as it used to be.  The problem is completely between my ears.  A friend in my singles golf group says to just let it go and to let it be what it will be.  She’s probably onto something with that.  I need a golf shrink.  But it just kills me to have such anxiety issues.  Ask whoever is doing your slicing if a two-for-one deal might be available.  We could be on adjoining tables, you getting your wrist whacked and me getting a frontal lobotomy.  Maybe that’s the cure I’m looking for.

I’ve wondered how things are progressing on your home front.  Let me know how all that is going.  Your ready supply of $1 bills has been shrinking by the week but hopefully I’ll be able to make a deposit into your account in the relatively near future.  Well, I’d best sign off for now but you’ll get me soon enough next week.  I’ll text you when I land, and let’s hit Grounds and the Wave early Friday morning before I get to boxing in earnest.

Some good and some bad…

Felicia. She stood by me through thick and thin when she could have bolted just as quickly for the door.

All along the kids have seen virtually everything that has gone on in my new life in North Carolina.  As they’ve seen and been told, and in many cases you, too, my nearly five years here have had roughly equal shares of some good and some bad, although I think the good has nosed ahead of the bad as of late by a comfortable margin.

Last week’s letter is a recent example of how the good has extended its lead.  It is all part of simply picking up the pieces and moving on.  It is as we all do.  We all have a past but hopefully a future, too.  Ellen and Reid have had bits and pieces of the new situation sent their way but this is their first inside look at the larger picture.  As I have fumbled my way down this road, it’s been quite a path of trial and much error to reach this juncture, but here I am.

——————–

April 4, 2011

Ellen/Reid: By the time you have opened this letter, we will know of Butler’s Monday night fate.  I’ve wondered, aloud sometimes, how they’ve managed to get this far, but they have slain their share of Goliaths along the way, and what’s one more in UConn?  I may be AWOL on the telecast because I’m just too nervous to watch.

Well, it’s about time you guys got to know a little more about Felicia.  You’ve been on the periphery about this for some time – an allusion here, another allusion there.

She’s a North Carolina girl, from Shelby, which is about 50 miles west of Charlotte just north of I-85.  About the size of Ames, I would guess.  But she’s lived in CLT for quite some time, and has two kids just about your ages (Suefan, 26) and Kenneth (23).  Felicia is a nurse by training (RN) and she works in the specialized psych unit of the big local hospital system.  I don’t see how she does it, working with people who just stepped out of an alien spacecraft or see themselves as Napoleon incarnate.  And those are just the easy-to-handle cases.  In some ways it’s fitting that she works with nut cases because that makes it a little easier for her to deal with the likes of me.

We’ve been together on and off for almost three years, and virtually all of the past 20 months.  I’ve got 10 years on her, and whenever she mentions how hard it is to grow old, she gets the evil eye.  She’s very fit and health conscious, none of which has rubbed off on me, and we spend a lot of time together, at least on the weekends.  To her credit, she’s not a golfer, yet, and the thing that she really enjoys is just sitting on the back of the bike.  I wouldn’t be riding nearly as much if she wasn’t taking up the back seat.  We’ve been all over the place on jaunts of 150 – 500 miles at a crack.  Last year I’d guess we put 7,500 miles on the rig.

I have to hand it to her in that she’s quite low maintenance (knock on wood), and although she’s been known to have a short fuse, she rarely exercises her right to complain about my bone headedness or other guy faults.  Thank goodness she doesn’t pay per text message because if she did, she’d be bankrupt.  I’ve never seen anyway who texts more than she does.  If she could text me during dinner, she would.  She’s very attractive, and I am amazed at her staying power when it comes to sticking around.  In the past nine months, she’s had every reason to jump ship but has been with me every step of your grandfather’s situation, my job hurdles last summer, and most recently this bladder thing.  She could’ve bolted for greener male pastures but didn’t, and for that I am very grateful.

Even more amazing is how she has done all that in the face of what she has going on in her own life.  Her daughter lives in Baltimore with her boyfriend and that’s all well and good, but it is her son, Kenneth, who is in Asheville fighting his own set of demons which have afflicted him since he was a teenager.  It causes Felicia no end of worry and heartache, and keeps her on high alert almost every day.  Since I’ve known her, it’s almost like clockwork for him: four good months then wham, some period of time when he’s fallen off the ledge.  He’s been hospitalized and has frequented institutions, and she still has the motherly support for him.  Neither of us is certain how it ultimately will play out, but it absorbs a lot of her waking time and mental stores.  I worry for her, and for him, but it is just how life continues to unfold.

But I wanted you to know at least some of the details because it would be accurate to call her my significant other.  She’s stuck with me through thick and thin, and the least I can do is return the favor.  You’ll have your chance to meet her soon enough.

A mixed bag…

I needed a jolt of goodness today, something to lift my spirits. And here it is. One of my all-time fav pics - Ellen on her wedding day as she jettisons the church for her reception.

Today is your lucky day.

No real moralisms this past week.  I stepped down off my lofty, left-wing soapbox to simply provide updates on the typical and mundane.  I’ll get back to waxing poetic next week with full force. Next Monday’s note will be a completely new tangent the kids have never, ever before seen from me.  I’m not sure what they’ll make of what they read.  Probably ‘life goes on’ and that will be sufficient enough.  Both have seen and heard bits and pieces here and there of the topic.

What you’ll read next week has nothing to do with medical procedures or jobs or lovable dogs named Henry or sunny Southern weather or terrible-lousy-awful-shitty golf swings.

But for now, it’s back to a mixed bag of routine news.  My friend Betsy will chew on me for not being more fatherly in my advice or counsel, but it’s Monday and I ran out of energizing coffee.

———————

March 28, 2011

Ellen/Reid: See last week’s note about Butler playing the role of the little school that could.  How many brackets have Butler and VCU blown to smithereens (mine included)?  I will be on pins and needles (i.e. I won’t be able to watch) the action on Saturday night.  Call me a scaredie cat.  It’s all true.  I had Butler making it to the Sweet 16 – but no further.  And VCU?  First round losers.

Things at the doctor’s office were something of a mixed bag.  On one hand the recovery has gone smoothly; I’m all healed and ready to go.  No problems there.  But they do this crazy ultrasound of my bladder and I’m back to square one in terms of drainage.  Not sure what we’re going to do about that.  The gist is not everything is leaving me which just amazes me because I feel bone dry. Their concern is this could lead to bladder infections if the situation doesn’t improve.  They want me to try some methods to train the bladder so I am trying to practice those before they resort to other remedies.  There are no drugs or surgery options available right now, so they will give me a 90 day reprieve to see how things continue to progress and then they’ll make a judgment from there.  I feel really good in all other respects.

In fact, I played golf yesterday for the first time since February 6.  Walked 18 holes, slowly, on a cold and damp day and felt just great.  There was virtually no one else on the course so I could take my sweet time.  If nothing else it showed me how much I missed just getting out on the course.  This morning my muscles were a little fatigued but nothing like I thought they might be.  The round was a shake-down cruise in that I didn’t try to hit for the fences but instead just swing easily and enjoy the cloudy day.  There were some good shots and some forgettable shots but I had a good time.  Reid, you ought to dust off your sticks now and then.  It would be good exercise for you.

Your grandmother continues her slide.  The other day your uncle called from her room at the nursing home and put his phone to her ear.  The best part of the conversation is the first :30 seconds because that’s when she is most lucid.  There’s no real back-and-forth per se.  She says she feels fine and then in the next sentence she asks me “Is Patty dead?”  That was her sister who passed away in 1970.  Yes, mom, she is.  I think that’s when she knows that something is amiss with her.  I’m sure she feels some maddening frustration about what has occurred to her although it’s all probably just a blur.  I’ve yet to hear her ask about your grandfather; perhaps she has shoved that way down in her subconscious.  That’s okay.  She has a lot on her plate as she rides out her days.  I am so glad to be going there for Easter.  I’ve ramped up the schedule for my church newsletter to accommodate my travel.  I am very anxious to see her.

It’s good you got to see your other grandmother, Ellen, when you were in Des Moines.  No matter how things have gone down, it’s still the right thing to do.  People are who they are and there’s no sense trying to make the situation seem otherwise.  I’m not sure I would have the same degree of patience.  Life is too short to get all stirred up about things that are beyond your control.  I wish I’d of come to grips with that philosophy a little bit sooner.  Good for you, too, to pick up the china and some other items.  Your mom was anxious to get some of the stuff out of the house.

Reid, it is so good to hear you like things at Razorfish.  This sounds like a solid outfit and a very good fit for your skills and intellect.  It will be interesting to get you take on where this all fits in with the New School.  Ellen and I both think you can’t go wrong either way.  Nice to have choices.

The ice has broken…

The toughest part of writing most days is to simply get started.  The first word, the first sentence, the first paragraph.

It’s one thing to write to a faceless crowd.  When I wrote my weekly national housing column for the Associated Press, it never once crossed my mind that tens of millions of people might scan my tepid columns if they were hard up for something to read. That didn’t fluster me at all.

But it is an entirely different story altogether when I write that very first letter to someone.  It is doubly hard to expose yourself, so to speak, for the first time.  You open yourself and your writing style to their perception.  They see you in an entirely different light than they have previously seen you.  So it is with my friend in Des Moines, Bob.

Lucky for me (and maybe for Bob), he’s been on the receiving end of several letters as of late.  The ice has broken, and whatever jitters I had before that first letter to him have subsided.  Who knows what his perception might be, but that ice floe is already under the bridge.

——————

March 11, 2011

Bob: I hope you don’t see the steady stream of $1 bills as any sort of annuity program because it’s not.  The greenbacks are just another reminder to make hay while the sun shines.

I don’t particularly care to hear about your jaunts to and fro around the country.  It makes those of us anchored in our seats feel not quite as appreciative of your travels as you would like us to be.  I am, however, looking to the “Reunion Tour” of DDD&B.  It would be a travesty if there were no golf clubs involved.  That is my only line in the sand.  Hopefully by that time I will be able to keep pace with you “long knockers” (no pun intended).  The assumption here is that Jane will be the tour (director) de force.  If she’s not, she should be.  In her prior life, or the next one, that sort of detailed organization fit(s) her to a T.

I am inching back toward full participation in life.  It’s taken me significantly longer, frankly, that I ever thought it would.  That means I am either a slow healer or incapable of understanding the complexities of the situation.  Probably a mixture of both.  Maybe that’s the sentence handed down to those of us who are aging beyond our time.  Most days it’s been a matter of one step forward, one-half step back.  I’ve yet (knock on wood) to really experience any pain, a bit of discomfort here and there, but that’s written off to the recuperative process.  At least I hope it is.  The only thing that bugs me is that my last half-dozen years of faithfully working out and staying in a semblance of condition have all evaporated.  It is all gone.  The only thing that remains is my appetite, which remains at pre-workout levels.  That’s not a good thing.

When the bike becomes on-limits for riding is up in the air.  I go back to the doc in about a week’s time for the next check up and I hope he gives me the all-go sign for full activity.  The Harley could, however, rattle my cage significantly and my guess is I’ll know how that goes after just a few miles in the saddle.  My “Iron Butt” days might be a thing of the past.

I’ve enclosed the attached cartoon as more evidence that you can take the boy out of Iowa but you cannot take Iowa out of the funny pages.  Iowa is always getting lampooned in a good-natured way but at least such humor is devised rather than being reality based as it is here in the Carolinas.  The Observer this week reported we are 46^th in spending on public education, which is fitting given that we have moronic legislators who want our uneducated kids to pack heat on college campuses.  That’s an appealing recipe for disaster in a crowded campus bar on a Friday or Saturday night.  You guys have it easy up there by comparison.

I’m still thinking about Des Moines the first full weekend in May.  Steve Allen is getting re-hitched and I’ve got stuff to cart out of Kathy’s house before she gives it the heave-ho.  I hope there is enough time to see everyone and do everything.  At the last we can meet at Grounds on Ingersoll.  They made the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had: Luna Tango.

So much for an all inclusive update.  It shows you how little is really going on in my little corner of the world.  Keep the text messages coming, and I’ll hopefully keep the $1 bills flowing.