Here are the ornaments on my tree. Of course, you have to suspend your disbelief to imagine the tree. Work with me here.
I don't have an angel to set atop the tree, and Avery has no idea who James Cagney is. But to warp one of Cagney's more famous movie quotes: "Look, Ma! I'm on top of the snow!" And the tree.
As the only girl in the grandchild chain, Amelia is surrounded by boys, which makes her the center of attention. And the tree.
Some day, the Four Horsemen — clockwise from upper left, Vincent, Jack, Patrick and Luke — will get to SEE snow instead of just being flakes themselves. (And they'll find out how c-c-c-c-c-cold it is, and see lights on pine trees instead of palm trees.) For now, though, they are the snowdrift holding up the tree.
I never thought that Melissa would have another bun in the oven, but she surprised me with just that the other day.
Wait, that didn’t come out right. I meant to say one of her buns was in the oven.
WHOA! That’s really off the mark.
OK, I’ll back up and start at the beginning. She called several days ago and invited me and Kate to Jack’s holiday play.
“He’s going to be the gingerbread man,” she said. “He’s nervous, but he’s glad he won’t have to sing. He said he’ll be in the oven when they’re singing.”
(Get it, one of her buns was in the oven, again. GROAN!)
Can’t say as I blame Jack for not wanting to sing. After all, he’s no Justin Timberlake.
A lot of boys don’t like to sing except for, well, maybe Justin Bieber, and I don’t understand that phenomenon. From the first time Vincent, Jack, and Luke have stepped onto stages for pre-school and school activities, they’ve either not sung or mostly mouthed the words. Oh, besides Bieber, they do know another singer, Cousin Anthony had a star role in a musical during his senior year of high school. Who KNEW he could sing? We all thought he was just a star athlete.
As I recall, Brendan didn’t like to sing much, either, and he spent a lot of his acting career as Joseph, or one of the Wise Asses, uh, I mean, Wise MEN, looking out at the audience.
But I digress, the same way my voice splits from notes when I try to sing myself. Who could resist such an invitation? We showed up bright and early — in fact, early enough to get front-row seats if we hadn’t been so casual and that rude woman wouldn’t have selfishly called dibs on the whole dadgum front row.
As the singing started, I had to smile when I thought of Jack being snug as a bug in the rug behind the colorful façade of a gingerbread house. But then, I spied someone in a brown, hooded getup in the back row who looked strangely like Jack.
Sure ’nuf, twas he, just days before Christmas, that little creature was stirring with a song from his mouth.
As the echoes of the children’s voices faded into the corners of the school cafeteria, the action-adventure play began, with groups of children saying they were going to catch a gingerbread man and Jack periodically taunting, “Run, RUN, as fast as you can, but you can’t catch ME because I’m the Gingerbread Man!”
In groups of four, and five, and six, they chased him around the stage, and he eluded them each time. Two impressions I had:
1. He’s a REALLY cute little guy.
2. GOSH, he’s got a big class. I didn’t think the play was EVER going to end. But I guess it just seemed that way. I guess the teacher had to let everybody have a moment on stage; they can't all be stars like Jack.
But it did, and Jack posed for the paparazzi, in this case, with his little brother Patrick. Two cute little buns, out of Melissa’s oven.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, “When first we practise to deceive!”
Sir Walter Scott couldn’t have imagined how true those words penned more than two centuries ago would ring today, when filmmakers practice to deceive our eyes with their 3-dimensional endeavors. And I’m not talking only about “Tangled,” Disney’s tangled rendition of the Rapunzel saga.
At the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon, I rebel against the rush to 3-D taking over movies for a couple of reasons:
No. 1: The old 2-D films weren’t broken, so why fix ’em? No. 2: I lament the fact that, when all movies are in 3-D, which I suspect they will be, kids will never know the magic of the old 2-D’s, just like they can’t appreciate the old days of black and white. No. 3: When you get right down to it, in my opinion, most of the 3-D flicks are pretty lame, with few moments of brilliance. No. 4: And this is most important of all, the theater prices for 3-D are making the films just too damn high for middle-class families to afford.
OK, so that was more than a couple of reasons. Call it a four-dimensional diss.
The 3-D devolvement knocks movies out of a tradition dating to the Great Depression, when the admission of a nickel gave folks just about the only diversion they could afford. Now, amidst the Great Recession, 3-D movies are knocking us for a loop.
Even if the 3-D technology made every flick into a WOW, the prices are inflated too exponentially to make the venture worthwhile.
For example, time was, I could take three grandsons to a matinee for an admission of $21 bucks, courtesy of the old-fart rate for me. Now, the theaters don’t give us old duffers a break so that, when Kate and I took four lads to “Tangled” a week ago, admission was 56 bucks, at 13 smackers apiece for Kate and me, and 10 apiece for the boys.
Fortunately, Patrick got in for free, as a 2-year-old. That was doubly fortunate, as he slept through the entire flick (I envied him the nap, because it just wasn’t worth the time, IMHO).
How sacked out was he? Enough so that, when I transferred him from my lap to Kate’s so I could go buy another freezie drink at an inflated price because the boys needed a refill (we bring cups and split up the drink), the tyke didn‘t even wake up.
I used to feel a tad guilty when we’d stop at the drugstore to buy contraband candy to sneak past the ticket sentinels, but no more, not now that the ticket sellers might as well be wearing masks, as bandits for the theater moguls charging outrageous prices for technology that doesn’t add a scintilla of enjoyment to the experience, in my opinion. They're just churning out 3-D flicks to jack the prices, pure and simple.
To the moviemakers and theater owners I say, to tangle a line from Rapunzel: "Highway Robbers, Highway Robbers, take down your prices!"
Oh, I know they think the math adds up, but here’s my math: I used to be able to take the lads to a flick for $30 or $35, tops. Now, with the total tally approaching 80 greenbacks, we just won’t be going to as many movies.
With apologies to Johnny Paycheck, from back in the ’80s, long before YouTube and the glut of 3-D movies, they can take 3-D and shove it, I ain’t payin’ that no more.
It was the best of the Tighes, and the worst of the Tighes, and then back to the best of the Tighes, on super smackdown Sunday, which, not to be confused with Super Bowl Sunday, otherwise is known as Vikings vs. Packers.
The trash talking began early Sunday, game day when the Minnesota Vikings, with Brett Favre at quarterback, hosted the Green Bay Packers, who consider Favre nothing short of a traitor not only for unretiring but also for playing now for the team’s arch rival. I try to be above the fray, as the father of a Vikings fan and the spouse of a Packers fanatic.
So I sat on the sidelines, knowing that the fuse was there for the lighting. And my son, Brendan, lit it early with a visual volley that my bride, Kate — a Packer fan who has braved the frigid conditions at Lambeau Field where Favre once warmed the hearts of cheeseheads — likened to child abuse.
Brendan sent a photo of my grandson Avery holding a poster proclaiming that the Packers suck, in direct defiance of Kate’s repeated warnings to Brendan and other Vikings fans that Favre would end up sucking pondwater — not to mention sucking the air out of their team’s hopes time and time again. But Brendan never received the message, unlike Favre’s opponents, who have received plenty of passes from him during this, his Season of Interceptions.
Imagine Kate’s delight later, then, when the Pack pushed back, and — as the cheerleaders used to say (maybe they still do; I haven’t been at a high school game in ages) — pushed ’em back, pushed ’em back, pushed ’em waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, to the tune of a Packer lead of 17-3 at halftime.
That’s when Kate pushed back, happily texting Brendan that we were at Vincent’s basketball game and didn’t know the score of the Vikings-Packers joust (she was telling a half-truth, as we were at the 9-year-old grandson’s game but were able to monitor the implosion at the Metrodome). Mischievously, she asked him for a score update.
Child abuse evidence No. 2: My (formerly) mild-mannered son sent THIS photo of his progeny weighing in, as if we’d believe that the score really WAS just 1. Or, perhaps, Brendan was giving Avery a driving lesson, although such salutes violate the old saw about “Minnesota Nice.” Well, I’ve driven in Minnesota, and I can tell you — you betcha, I can — they aren’t nice, gosh darnit. Oh, they’re nicer than New Yorkers on I-95, but they’re not Nebraska Nice.
Although I’ll roll my eyes at the thought that Avery now knows how do drive during rush hour at such a young age, I’ve gotta say that his mischievous expression suits the message.
By the end of the game, though, cooler thoughts prevailed — and I don’t mean Favre, because word has it he got pretty hot headed with a coach (and I don’t mean head coach Brad Childress, whom the Vikings dumped a day later). Or perhaps it was just the minister’s daughter ruling the roost as mom Erica sent this revised photo, even before Favre helped the Pack win again, 31-3, in the Vikings’ own house.
Brendan’s lesson: If you’re gonna talk trash, it better not be about the Packers, because they’ll be taking out the trash.
OK, OK, so I’ll admit it: Sometimes, I can be a bit of a whiner. It started with a whimper, after Melissa invited Kate and me to a hayride/punkin hunt a week ago. On the way home, I said to Kate, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go on any dadgum hayride! In this Florida heat? Getting straw in my shorts is worse than getting sand in my shoes at the beach.” Imagine my surprise when my bride, who could borrow a page out of New York gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan’s political playbook and start the “Florida Is Too Damn HOT Party,” chastised me: “Oh, you big WHINER! It will be fun.”
“Well, I’m going to suggest something else, maybe a movie,” I countered. “You need to PLAY more with those kids,” she parried. “Besides, I already told Melissa we’d go.” That’s when it started. The whining. Heck, I hadn’t been on a hayride since I was in high school, and back then, the hormones were looking for different things in a haystack than pumpkins, if you catch my drift. I didn’t stop at whining, though, because we all know all that does is give a guy a headache. So I schemed. I tried to figure out a way to have to work yesterday. Didn’t work. I tried to ramp up my heartbeat so I could fake a heart attack. I lay down on the railroad tracks, trying to end it all. Dadgum train stopped inches from my head. Saturday arrived. My eyes popped open, and I checked my limbs, just in case, to see whether I had been paralyzed in the night and I could have used that as a dodge. Everything worked, as well as it does, at my age, so, since I’d been foiled, and foiled again, we set out for the punkin farm; fortunately, it wasn’t too damn hot, and the sun playfully, mercifully ducked behind the clouds. Then another reason to whine transpired: The wind blew my new hairdo askew. After all the planning, and my hairdresser, Sharon’s, careful planning and execution of my coif to look like Mark Harmon, the wind botched the part down the middle. When I had left her shoppe, I was the spitting image of the NCIS star.
Granted, when I got home, Kate agreed that I looked like Harmon’s character. Well, she coughed that out between guffaws, as she rolled on the floor and kept repeating his character’s name: “You look just like a JETHRO — like one of the characters in ‘Brother, Where Art Thou?’ goin’ down to the river to pray.” (And she didn't mean the George Clooney character, either.)
Soooooooooo, anyhooooooo, I’d like to unveil my new ’do, but the wind aft gang it aglee. And so did the hayride/punkin hunt. The adventure turned out to be quite a bit of fun. Of course, the added thrill was seeing a baby alligator in the canal next to the punkin patch. And wonderin’ where the mama grizzly, uh, mama gator, was. With no further whining, or ado, here’s a mini album of the outing:
Luke, Patrick and Skip on the hayride; upper left: Kate's photo-challenged finger.
Skip, Melissa and the boys (from left) Luke, Vincent, Patrick and Jack, guard their gourds.
Luke and Vincent pick pumpkins under the watchful eye of Mark Harmon, aka Jethro Gibbs. He just HAPPENED by, working an NCIS case, no doubt. He's doesn't seem to have the tight, well-formed 12-pack I have.
Kate poses with a character from 'Brother, Where Art Thou,' and (from left) Luke, Vincent and Jack. And, of course, their punkins.
After a hayride and a punkin hunt, nothin says lovin in a Florida oven than ICE CREAM. Some of it even made it into Patrick's mouth.
Vincent puts a finishing touch on his caramel apple, and the day, by showing his prowess at caramel through his teeth. I suppose it fits the Halloween season.
OK, OK, I'll have to say that, overall, it was a fun day. I guess my aversion to hayrides turned out to be just a straw man, or maybe I've sublimated a memory of being slapped on a hayride in my youth. All I can remember is that the girls were on one end of the wagon, surrounding Ray Burns, like they ALWAYS did, and most of us guys were on the other.
Turns out, I spent part of my overnighter with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with my eyes wide shut, but at least I didn’t let ’em pull the wool over my eyes all of the time. In one instance, I found that a 2-year-old can be brutally honest. And in another, I discovered that, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Some people have expressed wonderment that I’d tackle an overnighter with the Gang of Four, ranging in age from 2 to 9. I pooh-pooh such incredulosity. Pooh-POOH, I say. So THERE, the four poohs in those two sentences match the number of poopy diapers I changed for Patrick in a 24-hour period. All a guy has to do to survive such an adventure, from noon on a Saturday to noon the following day, is stay one step ahead of the lads (and allow TV and Wii to help with the sitting chores). First step out was a trip to the Halloween store. DAMN, how times have changed since granddad was a lad. Back then, we either made our own costumes or chose from a few options in a tiny Halloween section of an aisle at Ben Franklin (the STORE, folks; I don’t date all the way back to the father of the “penny-saved-is-a-penny-earned“ slogan). This was a whole dadgum store with aisle after aisle after aisle of costumes and masks and scary paraphernalia. Ghosts and ghouls and goblins, oh MY. The life-sized, automated, machete-wielding Jason Voorhees scared Jack a bit, although he refused to admit it. If he wasn’t scared, I asked, why did he make a huge detour around the manikin in motion, all the while trying to figure out whether it was real, as the ch-ch-ch-ch-ch emanated from a speaker. His lips said he wasn’t skeert; his eyes told a different story. (Can't say as I blame him; Jason used to scare the bejabbers out of my kids, and they were older than Jack when Jason started slicing the air with the oversized knife, not to mention throats, and heads, and sundry body parts.)
Anyhow, we burned about 45 minutes at the store, and could have spent more because there were about a bazillion scary and/or fun things. But we had to head to the big-box drugstore where we stop to load up on movie candy and reasonable prices instead of being held up at the theater. Actually, having Patrick along helped my stealth maneuver of sneaking the candy past the gendarmes and the sign that proclaims, “NO food or drink from outside.” All I had to do was stuff part of the loot in the bottom of the diaper bag, and the rest in my cargo shorts. Sorry, theater folks, I don’t like your 70 percent markup. Bad example for the boys? Well, at the prices for 3-D movies these days, nobody should begrudge my saving a few bucks.
We saw the owls movie, which I thought had some of the best 3-D I’ve seen so far, although I didn’t give a hoot about the length. It was just too dadburned long. (Time was, I thought the longer, the better, to get my money’s worth, but this challenged sitting times for Patrick and 4-year-old Luke, who kept asking when it was going to be over.)
However, just to help other grandparents, I’ll disclose my secret to taking the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to the flick and surviving: You’ve gotta get the kids organized before the lights dim. That means making sure each has the candy he picked out at the drugstore, as well as dividing the two supersized icies I’d bought, at the theater’s exorbitant prices, into the four cups I’d brought, as well as divvying up the huge bag of popcorn I’d bought a the theater’s highway-robbery prices, and making sure Luke is propped in front of the diaper bag so the seat doesn’t swallow him, which is his one fear of theaters.
Of course, it helped that Patrick, who was a little whiny at first, was that way because he was tired, and he soon nodded off to sleep. In my lap, which meant I had to be careful when I reached for the HUGE drink I’d gotten for myself, albeit supposedly cut-rate from the theater thievery, because it was in the trifecta of the popcorn and a supposedly “free” candy.
After the flick, I considered a stop at the ice-cream store, but they all seemed sugared up enough, so we headed home for their various choices of dinners: Vincent and Jack opted for cereal, I forget what Luke ate, and Patrick ate a couple of fistfuls of miniature corn dogs.
The evening was fairly uneventful, breaking up a few scuffles, watching a kids movie and playing Wii.
Here’s a HUGE secret, or so I thot: I let ’em stay up late so they’d sleep late, and so could I. After all, it worked onetime at our house, when Vincent stayed up til midnight and slept like a teenager the next day.
Despite my loose bedtime rules, Jack tried to trick me. As I nestled in to sleep twixt Patrick, who had gone to sleep at 9, and Luke, Jack came in and said: “Papa Mike, what channel was that Nickelodeon we were watching — for no particular reason?”
For no particular reason? Does the lad think I was born yesterday? He serves up an alibi with the premeditated crime? Well, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, son. Just so happens I used to sneak behind my step-grandfather’s back when I was a lad, too. I figured he was asleep when I got back up and turned the TV back on to watch “Gunsmoke.” Next day, he said, “How’d you like ‘Gunsmoke?’”
That legendary series started out simple enough, in black and white (after all, those were the simple days, when everything was black and white):
Of course, eventually, it came out in color:
I saw most of the series’ 635 episodes (BTW, that‘s the record for the longest-running, prime-time drama leaving even the more recent “Law and Order“ in its smoke, but I might have missed this one, if it really WAS missing and that isn’t just a myth:
My suspicions were confirmed a bit later when I checked on him and found him sprawled across his bed, dead asleep, with Nickelodeon on the TV.
I should mention that Patrick foiled my bedtime secret: I guess he wasn’t very tired, between the nap at the movie and having gone to sleep at 9. The little pants loader was up bright and early: at 7 a.m., and I was dead tired.
To make matters worse, he bruised my ego a bit as he watched me change out of my SpongeBob SquarePants jammies Sunday morning.
He looked at me reflectively and said, “PaMike, you’ve got a big bewwy.” Well, I NEVER. Here, just a few months ago, I wondered what it would be like when he started talking. Now I know: He’s a little wise-a**. Oh, wait, that’s a bit harsh to say about a grandson. Perhaps I should say only that he's a wiseacre.
Then I looked in the mirror and realized why he said that. I mean, it’s not big as in HUGE, but it’s bigger than when I was a senior in high school and drank a malt a day trying to gain weight. He could have thought I had a fat bewwy without SAYING it. After all, I've been on South Beach for two months! And I mean the diet, not the beach.
Maybe he IS a wise-a**. Time will tell, I suppose.
All in all, though, a great, and memorable, 24 hours. Chances are, someday, Jack will have a grandson who tries to foil him into letting him watch TV all hours of the night. Or whatever they’ll be watching then.
One could surmise that the key to success is at least sounding as if you know what you’re talking about, even if you don’t. If this weren’t supposed to be a family-oriented chronicle, I might be tempted to write: “. . . as if you know what you’re talking about, even if you’re talking out an orifice other than your mouth.” I could cite examples of folks who do that, but why frustrate Green Bay Packers fans any more than necessary about Brett Favre. As my cheesehead bride, Kate, repeatedly tells my hopelessly romantic Vikings fan/son, Brendan: “Just wait till the end of the season, and Brent’ll break your heart.” (The cheeseheads just LOVE to call him Brent.) Anyway, enough about horses’ anatomy. PLUS, this is a family-oriented chronicle, so I’ll forgo the temptation. Besides, I wouldn’t DARE say that about a grandkid. And, as my Uncle Frank used to say, “All kids are grand.” Comes now Jack, who seems to have mastered the art of sounding confident, even if one wonders whether he actually heard a particular gem of wisdom somewhere — on Animal Planet, on the playground, in the dinosaur aisle at Target — or whether he’s making it up. I’m tempted to suggest that he’s like an ostrich, burying his head in the sand to search for facts. But oftentimes, he makes his case so convincingly that I end up shaking my head in wonder at his depth and breadth of knowledge instead of writing him off as a blowhard (in a good way, son). Like the other day, after Jack and I and Patrick and Vincent had walked Jazzy and Dewey to the park. (Luke passed on the chance to walk the dogs, as he is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Dog Whisperer.) I said we’d better head back home, and Jack wondered why. I noted the sweltering temperature, which doesn’t bother Jack because he’s one of those play-hard kids who doesn’t mind sweat and dirt as long as he’s having fun. And I pointed out that Jazzy and Dewey were panting because they were so hot. “Dogs have to pant to cool off,” I explained, “because dogs don’t have sweat glands.” Jack nodded knowingly, thoughtfully. “Uh-oh,” I thought. “Here comes an explanation.” Sure ’nuf, he piped up: “They’re not like ostriches, then.” “How so?” “Because ostriches sweat from their heads and their feet to cool off.” I asked how he knew that, and he changed the subject. But I’ve got to wonder where he came up with that tale, because he sounded so convincing. Sweaty-headed ostriches, inDEED. I bet the lad’s never even SEEN an ostrich work up a sweat, such as in a race, which would work up a sweat, theoretically. Until NOW:
I
Or an ostrich fight:
OR, for SURE, an ostrich sticking it’s nose where it doesn’t belong. What’s it think it IS, a dog?
Ostrich sweat would be the least of the problems after that on, IMO. (For those less enlightened, the term “IMO” is young folks’ texting shorthand for “in my opinion.” Sometimes, they make me FOTCLMAO, or at least, LMAO.) This topic got me all lathered up wondering why ostriches bury their heads in the sand. Turns out they don’t, but it just appears that way, and there are a variety of reasons for it. My favorite explanation is this, from the wiseGEEK website: “possible source of the rumor that ostriches bury their heads in the sand could be the scientific fact that, when threatened, the ostrich will fall forward in the sand and lay its head to the ground, so that its body will resemble a bush to passing predators. This action is especially common when the ostrich is attempting to protect its eggs. Because the head and neck are the same color as the sand, to an observer, it may look as though the ostriches bury their heads in the sand.” And now, my friends, I’m going to go bury my head. In a pillow. Maybe it’s made of ostrich feathers.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, football season, which brings out the worst in people, amid the rivalries. F’rinstance, I learned a long time ago not to call son Brendan on Sundays, because he doesn’t answer the phone during football games. (If he happens to call ME, I know it’s a commercial break.) He’s a Vikings fan, with a fondness for da Bears, as well. Witness this photo, grabbed from a TV screen lo those many years ago when he cheered a Vikings score back in Randy Moss’ daze. Speaking of, Moss tossed him a football after scoring lo, those many years ago. Don't ask ME to explain the turban; I have NO idea. Maybe he was wearing it in hopes of predicting that Brett Favre someday would turn his back on the Packers, after retiring, then playing for the Jets, then retiring, then playing for the Vikings, then retiring, then returning to the Vikings. I don't want to get into that scenario, as my Cheesehead bride, Kate, still is among Packer fans who love to hate Favre to this day for going to their top rival. (Their favorite saying: "We'll never forget you, Brent.") Back on point then: Here's evidence that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in Brendan's household. Just got this cyber photo from Brendan of his firstborn, Avery, (OBVIOUSLY, during a commercial): I texted this message back, although it displayed my lack of texting prowess: “I think it’s adorable. Kate sex it’s child abuse!” To which Brendan replied: “Tell Kate Avery says the Packers suck… his first words! We’re giving him purple breast milk Thursday!” Now, I’ve gotta say that would be spouse abuse. Like, how many blueberries will he make Erica eat to turn her milk purple? Meanwhile, my bride is rolling on the floor (LHAO, as they say in the text world), saying, “Did you SEE what you texted?” OOPS, NOW I see it. Why do they put the x and the z so close together? (Oddly enough, neither Brendan nor I had noticed the typo; too much testosterone flowing to the football quadrant of the brain rather than the sexual, I suppose.) "Honey, You’re an EDITOR,” she admonished. Well, I’m gonna wrap this up now before it gets even worse. After all, we’ve got a case of child abuse and two cases of spouse abuse. Personally, I don’t have any football allegiances; well, OK, I’ll confess: I don’t care who wins, as long as somebody knocks the snot out of Notre Dame whenever possible. Which, of course, leaves me disappointed this weekend, with the Fighting Irish winning their season opener against Purdue. I haven't cried so much since "Rudy."
And I hadn't cried THAT much since "Brian's Song," which has reduced men far stronger than I to tears, so that's no shame.
Jack asked me for a divorce the other night. Well, not in so many words, but the 6-year-old cast an aspersion at me at 3:30 a.m. that echoed sentiments of which divorces — and, by extension, of course, country songs — are made. Ahhhh, country songs, those melodies my kids used to scoff at but now embrace like the old man. I was country when country wasn’t cool, and now they’re cool with country.
But I digress. Let’s get back on point. I suppose that such an intro requires a backstory, so here it is: The occasion was a sleepover of Jack and his youngest sibling, Patrick, who was days away from his second birthday and who never had had a sleepover anywhere. Although Kate and I had no qualms about it, Melissa and Skip were a tad nervous about their caboose being away from both Mommy and Daddy for his first overnight. They feared — Melissa confided to me that Skip was more fretful than she was, to which I say, “Yeah, RIGHT” — that the tot would wake up in the middle of the night, terrified at unfamiliar surroundings without a parental shoulder to cry on. Were I a skeptical sort, I might acknowledge genuine parental concern, but I also might wonder, “Hmmmmmmm, I wonder whether they were the real fraidy cats, experiencing angst about their youngest’s passing such a milestone.” But I’m not a such a doubting Thomas, so I accepted their concern at face value: not wanting him to be scared, or us to be inconvenienced. Melissa knew that I wouldn’t cry uncle, even if Patrick Michael were wailing in the desert of the night, because, as she often says, “You wouldn’t call me even if their hair was on fire.” So far, I haven’t had to, because I’ve studiously kept the kids away from flames. Turns out, I didn’t have to that night, either. Indeed, the four of us — me, Miss Kate (or, as Patrick says, Mi’Kate, Jack and Patrick) — were just watching TV in the living room when the caboose got up and went to the game room. Actually, I called it the game room when I was bachin’ it, and it was outfitted with a train set and a cheap little pool table, but the boys and I loved it.
That’s when I was a solitary man.
These days, with Mi’Kate as my bride and the lady of the house, the train’s in the attic and it’s called the guest room. But I digress. As I was saying, Patrick went into the game room; er, the guest room, so I went to see what he was doing. The little lad, the fella whose parents had worried that he would panic at bedtime and cry for mommy and daddy, had plopped himself into bed and was nodding off. Within seconds, he was asleep. Later on, when it was time for all of us to go to bed, Jack was stewing a bit about what to do if he woke up in the night. Actually, he never had woke up in the night staying with me and later, with us, but it’s a dog thing. Mi’Kate’s dogs, Jazzy and Dewey, are excitable when people arrive, and they jump a bit and wag their tails. That always puts Jack off for a bit, although he warms up when they settle down, and he’s quite good with those cockapoos. But I guess he didn’t want them waking him up, so I assured him that I’d close them off from the game room, uh, the guest room, with our gates, and he should just holler to me. Then everybody went to sleep. Next thing I heard was Jack saying, “Papa Mike.” Problem is, he apparently had forgotten my directive to holler from the kitchen, and he was standing at our bedroom door. His plea to me startled Dewey, who jumped up and started barking his dadgum head off. Jack screamed bloody murder and went running back to the game room, uh, guest room, faster than Jesse Owens.
Jack and Dewey, during calmer, daytime hours.
So I ran to settle him down, fretting all the while that he was so petrified that I’d have to take him home in the middle of the night. Of course, Patrick was wide awake. “Did you come get me because Patrick woke up?” I said. “No, he was asleep,” Jack said, still sniffing a bit. “I just woke up and needed you.” DOH! So, Patrick, who was expected to be the troublesome one, was doing FINE, until he woke up. Even then, though, he wasn’t a problem. He looked at me plaintively and said, “Mi’Kate?” He then walked to our bedroom, confirmed that Mi’Kate was there, and went back to the game room, uh, guest room. I figured I’d NEVER get him to sleep, but I plopped down next to him to try and, within seconds, he was asleep. Jack asked whether I’d stay there with him, so I figured I’d do so until he fell asleep. Except, he had a heckuva time giving in to the Sandman. He tossed and turned, and turned and tossed. And tossed. And turned. I thought he’d NEVER go to sleep, when I heard him say, “Papa Mike, your snoring is keeping me awake.” Well, I NEVER! Obviously, I had nodded off, and apparently, although he’s the only witness, was snoring. So I resolved to stay awake until he fell asleep. Next thing I heard was Jack saying, “WELL, I can’t sleep without ya, and I can’t sleep WITH ya!” I must have nodded off, I guess, but that observation, from a 6-year-old, sent me into fits of laughter. It just seemed like a charming, and hilarious, way to wrap up the night. I managed to stay awake long enough for him to go to sleep, and the rest of the night was uneventful. And Patrick’s sleepover was a success. No problems, no hassles, no night terrors. Except for snoring.
Patrick, the sleepover guest with nooooooo problems.
Sooooooo, if Jack can’t sleep without me, and he can’t sleep WITH me, we’ll close with one of Tammy Wynette’s signature songs, in hopes I quit S-N-O-R-I-N-G.
’Cuz I’ll stand by that little man.
Oh, I don’t want to leave you with the blues, so let’s cue up the Blues Brothers:
Kids’ personalities sometimes emerge early, with the graceful flourish of a Monarch butterfly taking wing after squeezing from its cocoon. Others gestate, leaving everybody guessing about what persona will burst forth from the surly bonds of that scrunched cocoon. Still others take so long to develop they look like an old moth when they flop out (at least that’s what some people say about me). But enough about butterflies. This is about Patrick. Well, and Avery, the offspring of Patrick’s godparents, Brendan and Erica. Let’s toss Sylvester Stallone into the mix, just for the heckuvit. Avery’s a good example of a personality that busts out of the cocoon like a kernel of popcorn explodes from olive oil, whether virgin or extra virgin. Unless early appearances are deceiving, his perpetual laugh — it’s usually so much more than a smile that it was a full-fledged guffaw from the get-go. Unless appearances now are deceiving, he’s a lock to be class clown, at the least, and maybe one of the world’s top stand-up comics. If his glibness matches his smile, he just might get rich selling acting lessons to Al Pacino, or steroids to of A-Rod (oh, WAIT, that's been done). Patrick also has been a smilin’ child since he popped onto the scene two years ago Aug. 12, although I had trouble figuring out what his occupation might be until recently. Patrick also has played his preferences close to the vest. Avery the clown.
Regarding the other grandkids, I’ve known since Vincent was barely on the gravy train that he is a train fanatic, and since Jack was knee-high to a beanstalk that he is a dinosaur stalker, and since Luke became the third wheel on the sibling trike (before the Patrick surprise) that he would love cars, particularly red ones and especially movie “Cars"; and that the lone girl, Amelia, has a thing for sock monkeys (or her mom, Annie, does). But I didn’t have such an intuition for Patrick for several reasons: * My schedule has prevented me from being around him as much as I had been the other lads at those young stages. * Even when I did have time to cruise with the boys, I couldn’t take Patrick along because the terrific trinity didn’t leave any more room in the car for a car seat for the fourth horseman. * As the caboose on a four-car train, Patrick really didn’t have to come up with his own particular fancy because he’s surrounded by trains and dinosaurs and cars. He has toys galore in several genres But Kate and I got a glimpse of his present preoccupation a couple of weeks back, just in time for his birthday. We stopped over to baby-sit, and he grabbed a boxing glove I’d won in a claw machine. (YES, I used to be THATgood at the claw machine, until I went into rehab and broke the habit, kinda-sorta.) He put that glove on, and handed me another one, challenging me: “Box, box.” Now, I’ve never been much of a fighter, but I figured I could whip HIS butt, and I did. But he made it so easy. All I had to do was tap his cheek, and the lad immediately flopped to the floor, eyes closed, as if he were knocked out cold. Then he’d pop up, not unlike Rocky (thought I’d forgot about Stallone, eh?), for more. Tap. Flop. Tap. Flop. Kate tried it, with the same result: Tap. Flop. Then I figured I’d let him hit me, and I flopped, but not as gracefully, and I was slower popping up. And that’s why we got him some boxing paraphernalia for his second birthday, Aug. 12. Actually, sometimes I have trouble making up my mind. I had my heart set on a boxer’s robe and shorts, which I found (the outfit includes abs to die for) in an outfit that also includes gloves, but I also found the cutest SpongeBob SquarePants set that includes not only gloves also a punching bag, so I got both. PLUS, Uncle Brendan and Aunt Erica and Cousin Avery got him a boxing set, too.
Now, he’s outfitted to duke it out with all comers: He's got no fear of biggest brother Vincent:
Even a birthday weapon Jack gave his little brother, and now borrows, is no match for the gloves from Brendan, Erica and Avery: Brother Luke doesn't appear to want to take any chances with Rocky: As for ME, I vanquished the little bugger, with ONE punch: Then he returned with Fists of Fury: But he bounced back up, and we KO'd each other:
He’s like the Energizer Bunny boxer. Not unlike Rocky, he just keeps bouncing back for more with his fists of fury. “Yo, ADRIAN!”
BUT, in the future, when Cousin Avery can don the gloves, he might make a match for Patrick. He's got the form:
Aw, c’mon, Bert, give the little guy a BREAK. I don’t mean a big, looping break like that curve ball you used to toss that reduced batters to jelly-kneed buffoons swinging at nothing but air. I mean a little break, for a little fan such as Avery, at his first Minnesota Twins game. Let me, as they say in baseball (and to recalcitrant teens before Thanksgiving dinner), set the table (or you won’t get anything to eat) before I try for a grand slam. I recall the day that fresh-faced Bert Blyleven, whom the Twins drafted right out of high school, took to the Major League mound after only 21 starts in the minors. He was that good. Young he was, a lanky lad who threw a curve like nobody’s business. Well, perhaps not quite as tricky as THIS pitch, mind you:
But Bert chalked up plenty of Ks in his Hall of Fame career. Slender he was (as was I) when his curves started freezing batters like so many statues of ice. Fans loved the 19-year-old (I wasn’t much older), and they voiced their disapproval whenever the coach pulled him. (Back then, there were no middle relievers to coddle the multimillion-dollar starters like nowadays; fortunately, there also weren’t any vuvuzelas to harass the coach with deafening buzzing noises, or he might have left Blyleven in and worn out his arm.) Of course the grand old outdoor Met Stadium went dark long ago, memorialized now only with a home-plate plaque in the floor of the Mall of America, the mecca to excess that now stands where the likes of Blyleven and other Twins Hall of Famers such as Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew, not to mention opposing greats such as Yankees Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, whom I saw hit and play there when I was a lad myself. Replacing the outdoor park was the indoor monstrosity known as the Metrodome, a leaky-roofed, sorry excuse for a ballfield, in which players frequently lost sight of fly balls in the light background of the Teflon bubble that served as its roof. And, as opposing players could tell you, it was as noisy in there during World Series games as those dadgum vuvuzelas at the World Cup. Now, happily, the Twins are outdoors again, although the wisdom, weatherwise, of that choice remains to be seen if Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and clan can become the boys of October any time soon. And now we come back to the boy of June: Grandson Avery’s first Twins game, where proud papa Brendan had his heart set on having Blyleven circled the infant as part of his schtick as the Twins’ color commentator these days. It traces back to the 2002 season, when he circled a fan carrying a sign. Nowadays, fans of all ages trek to the stadium with signs of varying shapes and sizes, pleading, “Circle Me, Bert.” Thus it was that Brendan and magnificent mamma Erica produced a large and, I think, superior sign hoping that Bert’s eagle eye would spot Avery and circle him with his telestrator. Brendan totes the sign touting Avery's first game, as well as Brendan and Erica's third anniversary.
Alas, it was not to be, although, perhaps attesting to the artistic merits of the sign and/or the cuteness of the kid, one of the wandering cameramen spotted Avery and gave him and Erica a moment of glory on the Jumbotron.
Take THAT, Bert Blyleven. You may have a reputation as a great prankster, but the Jumbotron took you downtown on good judgment, putting Erica and Avery up in the big lights.
Pox on you, Bert, and, although I believe you SHOULD be in the Hall of Fame, you’ll have to settle for now for the Tighe Hall of Shame for not circling Avery. This umpire, possibly by virtue of being a proud grandpa, penalizes you with a passed ball.
As I recall, Bert, you challenged Cy Young award winner Johan Santana to pitch a shutout in 2007, and you lost the bet. And THAT time, your punishment was a head-shaving.
Believe you me, Bert, I’m gonna buy Avery some clippers, and you could end up as bald as you were when Santana clipped you.
JUST when I thought Jack might be leaning toward being a food critic, perhaps even a chef (see June 1 posting,), because of his culinary tastes, he takes a whack at being a hairstylist (and shows his lack of taste in that arena). Well, more precisely, he took a whack at his own hair. I haven’t seen the damage yet, but to hear Mom tell it, he wielded the scissors on his locks like Lizzie Borden did her ax on her folks — taking 40 whacks at her mom and then, when she saw what she had done, she gave the old man 41. I was going to post a YouTube video of the scene — Lizzie’s smacking, not Jack’s whacking — but my devilish side lost to my angelic one, which pleaded that it was: Just. Too. Gruesome. So I opted for something from Alfred Hitchcock:
Back to Jack, the ripper, of hair: In the blink of Melissa’s eye, the lad morphed from being a finely coiffed gentleman who had served as a ring bearer, along with older bro Vincent, only three days previously to looking more like a rugby ruffian who had lost great gobs of hair in a scrum.
Ringbearers Jack (left) and Vincent flank the flower girl, Olivia, as they parade in for our wedding.
“I may have to resort to getting him a buzz cut for the summer,” his mother wailed into the phone as she told me about spots where the hair was within a half-inch of his scalp. Oddly enough — and perhaps I should feel guilty about this, but I don’t — his ring-bearer duties when Kate and I married were intimately connected to his dome’s demise. After all, it’s partly the recent kindergarten grad’s fault. He and his brothers had enjoyed playing with Flarp so much at my mom’s recent birthday party (so what if she died in’50; I recently discovered he actual birth date so we decided to celebrate her 93rd birthday) that Kate and I decided to spread some joy at the family dinner the night before our wedding. So we passed out Flarp to each and every person there (even those who might not have needed a canister to produce the effect. But wait! Perhaps I should digress, on the off chance that one or two of the few people reading this doesn’t know what Flarp is. Basically, it’s the modern version of a whoopee cushion, and it looks like Play-Doh. Except, when you play with this dough, it makes a flatulating sound. I suppose that its name comes from the first three letters of flatulating, although I have no idea where the “rp” comes from Whatever the etymology of the word, kids love Flarp, and adults love it, because it lets them act like kids. (Plus, you can eat beans and then use Flarp as a cover.) Let me digress a bit more, and regale you with my story of how hard it can be to obtain sometimes. I didn’t want to buy it in Florida, where I knew a Target store that carries it, because I was afraid some airport security official might think it was C-4 and toss me into Gitmo, as long as it’s still open. A worker at the Target I wandered into in Iowa said his store is too small for that product (not enough space for the brraaaaaaaap?), but he obviously has kids because he knew what it was. So I called the Wal-mart and asked one of the rollback people whether he had Flarp. “Nope, but we’ve got Whoopee,” he said. “It’s the same thing.” He allowed as how it’s the same price as Flarp, a buck for a canister that has too much of the gel substance to be able to carry onto a plane, so I asked whether he had 35. Not even close, he said, but I was bound and determined to get some party Flarpy favors, so I headed to the store. Once there, I figured I was talking to the same price roll-backer in the toy department as I’d talked to on the phone. “Where’s the Whoopee?” I inquired, drawing a blank stare. “What’s Whoopee?” he countered. “It‘’s like Flarp,” I replied. “You know, kids use it to … ” “I know what Flarp is,” he said, rolling his eyes and motioning a couple of aisles over. To my surprise, and delight, there was enough Flarp there to level half of Dubuque, Iowa, so I snapped it up. It went over like gangbusters at the dinner; at least IMHO, as the kids text and tweet and twitter. Makes a guy wonder why EVERYBODY doesn’t hand out Flarp at rehearsal dinners to have a Whoopee of a good time. Lest you think I’ve sidetracked myself to the end of oblivion, never to return, let’s get back to the beginning of the story: Jack the Barber. It seems the lad got great gobs of Flarp in his hair and, instead of letting his mom handle it, he decided to put his locks on the chopping block by himself. Whackadoodle, he looked like a poodle, with a bad haircut. Sorry I don’t have a photo to share the destruction, but after all, the kid’s got feelings. Suffice it to say he won’t be making a Brylcreem commercial anytime soon. But for a fitting end — split ends, in Jack’s case — I bring you “Hair,” which should grow back by the time the lad is ready to enter first grade:
Jack’s got a bone to pick with the kids menu at restaurants — and it’s more than just the chicken fingers, which obviously are boneless, anyhoo. The 6-year-old — we often call him an “old soul” because so many of his views on life seem to be those of a wise old man instead of the dinosaur-loving, prank-playing little rake he is (as when he joked around with Uncle Brendan at the pool) — believes kids menus ought to be banned outright. Possibly echoing what many a dog has thought while begging for human food at his owner’s knee, Jack says the food on the kids menu simply doesn’t pass muster. So he prefers to order from the adult menu. Kate and I got a hint of this when we took the lad out for his birthday dinner a couple of months back. As I’ve recounted previously, he not only ordered the adult steak with all the trimmings but also asked the waitress to bring him a gigantic gooey chocolate dessert and polished off most of that, too. The thought recurred, though, the other night, when we were out celebrating his mom’s and my birthdays. The budding connoisseur, it seems, has such a developed palate that he is selective when he’s in a mood for fish. Melissa asked the waitress what fish was featured in the fish and chips menu item. When the answer was cod, she allowed as how that probably wouldn’t be up to snuff for somebody who used to find tilapia tasty but recently pronounced it blasé. So she instructed the waitress to deliver an order of the mahi to her son, although she stipulated that it need not be a full adult portion. All eyes turned to Jack as he tasted the grilled fish (it looked like a full adult portion, BTW), awaiting his verdict with baited breath. (I know that should be bated, but hey, this is a fish story.) “How is it?” someone asked breathlessly, baitedly. He pondered the answer before pronouncing: “It’s good, but it needs a pinch of salt.” OMG, who does he think he is? Julia’s child? James Beard? A Top Chef candidate? There I was, eating one of my faves, a BLT on rye toast, happy as a clam, and he’s quibbling over a few grains of salt. Obviously, I don’t know jack when it comes to food. However, I must acknowledge Jack’s practical, thrifty side. His 8-year-old brother, Vincent, had eaten only half of his cheeseburger, so Jack polished that off as well. That’s my kind of kid: cleaning the plate, his or not. Speaking of Top Chef and Jack’s culinary acumen reminds me of one of my most embarrassing moments as a parent. Back when my oldest, Annie, was 7 or 8, we went to a mid-range family restaurant named Mr. Steak or something like that. I never had eaten a steak there, despite the eatery’s name, because I was raised a poor drycleaner’s son who was steered toward burgers instead of the more expensive cuts of the steer. So, as per usual, I ordered a burger, perhaps splurging for a slice of cheese. Came Annie’s turn, and she ordered, without flinching — a steak! I was stunned, and my childhood deprivation took over as I literally foamed at the mouth that she would DARE order such an extravagant item (I think it was all of $5.95). I caused such a scene that Annie was bawling and had trouble enjoying the steak. Only later did I realize how innocent her choice had been: She was used to going out to dinner with her grandparents, and Ambrose and Jeanette routinely had let her order whatever she wanted, which usually was steak. And believe you mean, Ambrose was a packinghouse worker who knew his steaks, and ordered the best. I bet she’d never had one as lame as the piece of beef I raised the stink over. The experience scarred both of us for life, as I’m still embarrassed about the day I acted like a bull in a china closet in a family restaurant, and my kids occasionally remind me about what a horse’s ass I was in throwing that tantrum. So why does the Top Chef aspect remind me of that day? Well, Annie’s a film editor these days, and Bravo’s “Top Chef” and “Top Chef Masters” are two of the shows she’s worked on. Twixt her and Jack, I’m surrounded by Top Chefs. As for Jack, I think should inform him, as he searches for the perfect dish that doesn’t need even a pinch of salt, that even the late, great Julia Child muffed a few recipes, as Meryl Streep channeled last year in “Julie & Julia.”
I ran across an interesting generation test t’other day at work.
Somebody, for some reason, mentioned Brylcreem. One of the young turks in the office said, “What’s Brylcreem?” “What’s BRYLCREEM?” I said, astounded. “SURELY, you must be kidding!!!” The lad, who I spose is in his mid-30s, assured me that he wasn’t kidding. Two others in the immediate vicinity stared at me with similarly blank eyes. So I expanded the survey, going out into the area of our offices called the fishbowl and asked three thirtysomething fellas what Brylcreem is. When they didn’t know, I went to an area where there are some fortysomethings and fiftysomethings and asked for a show of hands. Three of the five department raised their hands that they know what it is, while the two younger ones looked like I’d asked them to do quantum physics. One guy even knew that Vitalis’ commercial intoning “no more greasy kids stuff” was to counteract Brylcreem, of which a little dab would do ya. OK, any wiseacre thirtysomethings reading this: That’s VITALIS, not VIAGRA!!! In absolute disgust, I went back to the fishbowl young turks and announced: “Well, you smart asses, some day, you’re gonna be about 60 and you’ll ask a bunch of 30-year-olds what tweeting used to be, and they’ll look at you like you’re daft.” One had the GALL to say: “Well, I’d venture to say that tweeting is going to be around for a lonnnnnnnnnngggggggggggg time, obviously lots longer than Brylcreem, whatever that is.” My daughter Allison thought pagers would be around forever, too, back when she had one as an appendage. When’s the last time you heard a tweet out of that technology. And when granddad was a lad, the only time you heard tweet was about Tweety Bird or, perhaps, if you went trick or treaking with Elmer Fudd. Little did Mr. Smartypants know at the time (nor did I actually) that Brylcreem not only is around, but it’s expanded. You can get not only the original formula but also even gel.
For the record, and nostalgia, check out these old Brylcreem commercials:
Brylcreem was so confident, it promised romance right outta the tube. And you all know what they say: You can’t put the romance back into the tube after you’ve let the Brylcreem out. (Actually, they don’t say that. I made it up, but the implication is there, no?)
If you’re wondering whether I wore Brylcreem, the answer is YES! Why? Because, I was a sucker for commercials. That splains why I'm still an inveterate coupon clipper, I spose.
What the hell am I yammerin’ about this for, in a grandfather column, you ask? Well, it’s an old granddad reflecting on LIFE.
Now, I'll go rustle 'em up and tell 'em 'bout the good old days, of Bryclreem and party-line phones, waaaaaaaaaaaay before tweet.
I can tell already that the next apple didn’t fall far from the tree. When I first saw the above photo, I imagined that Avery was getting ready to duke it out with somebody. But the closer I looked, the more telling the infant’s smirk and body language became. “OMG!” I said to myself. “FOMCOMALAROTDADTS.” (Yes, I DO speak to myself in text, even though I refuse to text on a cell phone.) “I DO believe he’s thinking: ‘I thought you said we couldn’t get a car for CHEAP!’ ” Supporting that pure conjecture is the fact that the twinkle in his eye has that “new-car glint” (even if his britches usually don’t have that new-diaper smell), and his appendages look like he’s just itching to get behind the wheel! This wild speculation underscores the fact I’ve got a fertile imagination, so wild, in fact, that I was able to time-travel back to the echo of this defiant exclamation from Avery’s dad, Brendan: “I thought you said we couldn’t get a car for CHEAP!” The back story: As Brendan’s driving age neared, he became driven in another sort of way — two ways, actually. 1. Driven to get a job to buy a car. 2. Driven to find a car he could afford, with a little parental aid. To his credit, the lad never whined that he wanted a new car, like some kids get (or whine that they don’t) when they’re 16 (some even at 15), or that we should pay for his car. I knew he was serious when, after months of saying he didn’t want to get a carryout job at the grocery store down the street, he marched down on his own and put on the apron for his first job other than a few stints of substitute newspaper delivering (and guess who drove). He never griped about getting the job, and he pinched pennies like mad, because he was on a mission to get his own car. (No WAY was he going to drive a minivan or a station wagon.) Like most parents, I applauded the effort, without realizing the full, startling implications. At first. Then, I realized he might hit his goal before I was ready for such a transition. And I really began fretting when he started poring over the classified ads in the newspaper, circling cars that caught his fancy, and fantasy. To make a long short, he searched for months, sighing resignedly whenever I came up with a good reason that this car or that wouldn’t work for him. And then, he spotted the ’92 Chrysler LeBaron convertible, for a relatively minuscule $1,700. “You can’t get a good car that cheap,” I said, reluctantly agreeing to drive him across two cities and a suburb to check it out. His eyes lit up when he saw the convertible, and I admit I got a little verklempt, too. The private owner who was selling us the car told us to pay no attention to the slight chugging at stoplights, as it was just a matter of tweaking the carburetor, advice we heeded — and would regret later. Brendan paid him some money down, and we departed so I could arrange the $1,100 loan we would share for his first car. Driving away, he taunted, in exhilaration, “I thought you said we couldn’t get a car for CHEAP!” To which I replied, “Well, it obviously needs a tune-up, and we’ll see what else.” And that’s when, if somebody hadn’t already invented the old saying, “nickled and dimed me to death,” we’d have had to invent it. As it was, we tweaked it to “hundred-dollared us to death.” I don’t want to recite the full litany, although the writing started to appear on the wall, and the checks, and the credit card receipts, and in blood, when a mechanic botched the tune-up so badly that I took it to another mechanic to straighten it out. The first guy’s solution had been to set the carburetor so that it revved the engine enough to keep from stalling. Which is why it almost bolted through the wall of the second mechanic’s shop when they fired it up to work on it. There, of course, the service manager noted that those LeBaron carburetors were nearly impossible to tune, and we ended up buying a new one. Although Brendan had fun with his convertible, as I did with my old ’67 Cougar, it took its toll in angst and money, as did the Cougar. As I said, I’ll not recite them here, as that would just rub salt into our wounds. I also won’t mention his second car, a Chevy Celebrity that I’ve gotta take most of the rap for as a headache from the get-go until it got gone. (One of the lessons I learned in that venture was that Minnesota’s lemon law didn’t require dealerships to tell a guy he was buying a car that didn’t have the original engine [no WONDER it looked so clean].) Suffice it to say that we helped the owner of Lloyd’s Automotive on Grand Avenue in St. Paul not only send his kids through school but also undertake a spiffy renovation that prepared his shop to vault into the 21st century, which was just around the corner at that time. I’ll give credit where credit is due, though, and acknowledge that Brendan more than shouldered his share of the cost. And he’s bought a couple of cars on his own since then. He even has a little change in his jeans. Why, a couple of months back, right after Avery was born, Brendan took some film to a store up in Minnesota and had pictures sent to me to a store two blocks from my house here in Florida (what’ll they think of NEXT?) — with the notation that I shouldn’t let the store charge me anything because he already had paid. I appreciated his picking up the tab, but I think he’d better start pinching his pennies now. In the blink of an eye, little old Avery is going to be pestering him to look at cars. His argument, I suspect, will be that they can get something “for cheap.” If you think the steering wheel of that old Le Baron vibrated at stop signs, Brendan, you better grab ahold TIGHT, now, because you’re in for a wild ride.
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