Making a mess of things…

Henry's messes are a little different. At least you can clean his up.

Life has a way of making a mess of things.  All sorts of self-created speed bumps get in the way or jangle the ride.  Distance and time do their best, too, to erode relationships and keep apart what had been close.

Perhaps that is what is behind my infernal preoccupation for letters to old cronies – not so much old in years – but folks I’ve known for a long while and have allowed the bridges between us to collapse.  That doesn’t sit right.  I don’t want to get much further down the growing-old pike without trying to rebuild or repair fences.  That’s become important to me.

But the list of friends worthy of bridge repair is incredibly and impossibly long: Pete, Pat, Mike, Pam, Diana, Jim, Mort, Steve, Glen, Ben, et al.  And on it goes.  The letters to Dave, Jane, Bob and now Ray, are just a start, and not even a good one at that.

I refuse to use the hipper online ways of doing such.  Those are too public, too cold, too lickety-split.  This blog is seemingly at odds with that statement but there is a marginal difference because this is intended for a wider – but still very small – group who want to keep up with what’s written to Ellen and Reid.  A week or so ago, Reid texted me to see if it was okay if some of the letters to him could be read at a literary conference in Chicago.  Sure, I said, ‘but they aren’t high art.’  No problem, he replied.  “It’s reality.”

My reality is that I want to re-touch lots of people who meant something to my life.  I’ll keep nickle-and-diming the long and growing list.

————–

August 2, 2011

Ray: The invitation for the October wedding I’ve been expecting has yet to show up in my mailbox.  Perhaps that is a signal that my courtesy visa to Iowa has expired, along with the rights and privileges therein.  I’ll keep wandering over to the mailbox in the hopes it arrives.  You’ll know as soon as I do.

Just got back from five days of backpacking in Wyoming with a group of 11 that I’d assembled, and the term ‘herding cats’ comes to mind.  We had a great time and comfortably overcame all of the group dynamics which no doubt you can identify and relate to.  Even Ellen and her hubby, Tim, came along for the walk which was a close to a pleasure cruise of backcountry hiking as you can get.  As you saw with Ellen back in our camping days in Minnesota, a premium was placed on clean sets of laundered clothes each day, and as the days wore on and she ran out of fresh stock, things approached near crisis proportions.  Really, she was a good egg about it and fit in quite nicely with the troops.  She’d never done anything like this before and she did a great job.  When we were squatting beside the camp fires, more than once I thought of the storytelling we used to do with the kids, augmented by the occasional spewing of flammable liquor into the fire for dramatic effect at the right time in the tale.  Those were the days.  Caught a fair amount of trout that ended up fire-roasted with lemon pepper, so that made the otherwise bland meals palatable.

We saw a fair number of bikers up in the hills, some headed toward Sturgis, others bent on avoiding it.  The assumption here is that you’ll have already come and gone by the time you read this.  I miss that trip even though 24-48 hours was plenty enough time for me around the Buffalo Chip and the campgrounds.  You can only see so many displays.  It was the going out that had most of the appeal.  Just don’t tell me you trailered your Road King.  They still make t-shirts that honor that mode of travel, sort of.  It’s been at least 10 years for me to make that visit.  My most recent Sturgis hat reads 2001.  My ’03 Heritage is still plugging along, although it’s been so damn hot here it has discouraged riding.  Hopefully I’ll be able to fire the mother up in the near future.  The riding is pretty good down this way if you like twisty back roads.

The only firm travel plans now on the drawing board is Thanksgiving up in St. Paul.  Ellen just rejuvenated her kitchen and that will be my debut trip to see it.  Reid is intent on making the trip, too, as will my girlfriend of about three years, Felicia.  She’s a North Carolinian to the core.  I’ve yet to acquire her twang, although I’m said to be working on it.  She likes to ride the bike and we’ve been all over creation down in these parts.

Well, I’d best get back to the job that pays most of the bills.  If the invitation comes through, I’ll make plans for an added day or so, probably toward the front portion of the trip.  I’m sure Curt can flash-freeze pheasants and toss them in a shipping box.  I’ll depend on your shooting to fill it.

Power to the pen…

Loveable Henry shorn for the summer to beat the Minnesota heat. He is just one hell of a dog and a great addition to Ellen and Tim's household.

Well, now, I just hung up the phone from a brief but highly pleasant talk with my friends Jane and Dave.  That in our conversation Dave would reference items from letters posted here as well as the letters sent expressly to them is impressive (at least to me).  Maybe there is some power to the pen after all.

Alas, they can’t make it to Wyoming in a few weeks, but it’s still good to connect.  That seems to be happening with more frequency, and that’s good, too.

—————-

June 1, 2011

Jane: Miss Manners and the other correctness mavens would be aghast that it has taken me this long to send you the proper ‘thank you’ after your swell party last month.  It was a really a great time with a great group of people.  It was wonderful to see everyone after all these years.  It makes me believe I am the only one who has aged, but unfortunately not in the same vein as fine wine.  And to think that I thought only women in the South went around barefoot and wearing aprons.  You’d fit right in down in these parts.  How the hell you managed to pull all that yummy food together and keep your wits about you is beyond me.  And that your kids were around to help you and Dave is doubly impressive.  They’re a good pair.

Really, the funniest part of the whole trip was you and your girlfriends passing notes up in the balcony at Plymouth.  That was just a riot.  Dave had mentioned that such a hyper-social atmosphere might occur, and he was spot on.  We’ll have to start post-sermon tests to see what learnings were actually absorbed by your upper floor crew.  It was interesting to re-visit Plymouth after attending my small mixed-race Presbyterian church here in Charlotte.  Saw lots of familiar faces in the pews on the first floor.

I’m appreciative that you would take the time to pull out all the stops to welcome me back to DSM.  I miss the old sod and the people.  Yeah, my stake is driven a little further into the ground the longer I’m down this way, but a big chunk of me remains in Iowa.  I’m sorry to be so far away from you guys and all the others.

Now, this is a bold-faced recruitment effort to entice you and Dave (and the kids, if they’ll go) to get up to the Bridger Wilderness with us on Sunday, July 24.  That’s the day we head into the back country for 3-4 nights (depending on what the group will bear).  We’ve got a good crew of six coming from Charlotte (including my minister, a great guy, and his family), and for most of them it will be their first trip to the real mountains and not those bumps in North Carolina they term to be ‘mountains.’  This will be the pleasure cruise of backpacking trips.  It will be far from a forced march although you’ll have to get used to dried pasta and the like, along with any fish that are unlucky enough to be snagged on our hooks.  You are more than welcome – very welcomed, indeed – to join this little Western safari.

You’ll have to keep me abreast of the guys weekend whenever it is this fall.  My calendar is typically wide open and at any rate will push aside whatever else would show up on the docket to make room for the boys.  But thanks again for your hospitality.  It makes me wonder just how often you can keep raising the bar.

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.

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.

What a difference a few years make…

Last week’s letter to the kids could not have been written as recently as two or three years ago.  Maybe I am slow on the uptake or am a late adopter, but the region has had some impact on me, perhaps as the seas have calmed and my head has cleared.  What a difference a few years make.

It took me a while to see past some of the uncomfortable local politics and other nuances which were quite alien to a Midwesterner.  But look past them I have.

——————–

January 18, 2011

Ellen/Reid: Reid, I’m a little surprised at the turn of events relative to the new business opportunity vs. grad school.  You can’t serve two masters so by default it will need to be one or the other.  You’ll have an interesting decision to make so if you need someone to talk with, you know the number.  The big cautions remain the money and the potential harm to your friendship with Erik.  You need to keep that in mind, and I know this sounds like a squeaky wheel, but you can’t treat either of those lightly.

Never in a million years, Ellen, could you ever be envisioned as a downhill skier, but now you are one.  Black diamond runs, no less.  Those were the ruination of me the last time I attempted such derring-do.  I might as well have slid down on my bum.  John and Bruce could whistle down those but I was light years behind in skill and nerve.

I don’t know why, maybe it’s because people ask me about it now and again, but as I was driving around the other day it occurred to me that the move to North Carolina was maybe one of the best things that has happened to me as an adult.  Even in the face of all that has happened down here it has been, on the whole, a life-changing experience for me.  Sure, there have been potholes and setbacks now and then but on balance it’s been fine.  As you guys know from St. Paul and Chicago, there is something about new surroundings that force a person to make the best of what they have at the time.   It made me find a house and set it up (let’s not get into maintenance), handle all the nuances of an entirely new industry, and just overall to fend for myself economically, socially and otherwise.  Oddly enough the move came at a pretty good time in terms of cleaning the slate and beginning anew.  Although I might not have said this a year or two or three years ago, but this has been highly preferable to Des Moines for a lot of reasons given the circumstances.  I haven’t missed much about Iowa, physically that is, other than my friends which is still something of a heartache for me.  That has been by far the toughest part.  Yet not knowing a single soul down here was particularly helpful in that there were no distractions or explanations to be made in the inevitable chance encounters in Des Moines.  I could, and did, get on with things without bumping into someone I knew.  Not that anything about running into people was inherently bad but I could simply move forward.

Every once in a while I have a very strong moments of amazement; i.e. I am actually in North Carolina where they talk differently, the trees are different and the dirt is red.  And the sky is blue and there is an ocean a hop, skip and jump away.  Everything about it is different and that just stuns me.  I think that is the part that is in some ways still surreal.  And then the moment evaporates and I honk at the slowpoke in front of me at a red light.  Back to reality.

Tomorrow I head to Greensboro, North Carolina (about two hours up I-85) to visit a loan servicing center.  My first trip for the bank in nearly four years.  I stick around through Friday and then zoom home for a Friday night dinner Felicia and I will host for some friends of hers.  I’ve fallen back on an old standby menu, shrimp and pasta since those are the safest bets and it’s hard to screw up although if there is a way I will find it.

Reid, keep me posted on the business vs. grad school decision.  Be sure to make a list of the pros and cons for each.  It won’t be an easy decision by any means.  And Ellen, I hope Henry is feeling better and not so sore to the touch.  Temperatures are beginning to inch their way upwards but real warmth cannot happen fast enough for me.