Jack: A Character WITH Character

I always knew that Jack is a real character, but now another barometer ramps that assessment to a whole other level: His peers cherry-picked him for the honor of being THE first-grader of character at their school.

That’s right, the Jack of All Trades — he who is incredibly sensitive at the same time he revels in snakes and dinosaurs and his pet land crabs; mature beyond his age (heck, he was 10 seconds old, going on 50 years, before the cord was even clipped); a bon vivant since preschool; a stand-up comic, the list can go on — can add the additional distinction of being a character WITH character to his résumé.

His classmates voted him the honor based on character traits they learned throughout the year: responsibility, respectfulness, citizenship, trustworthiness and honesty. He snagged a trophy and a certificate, not to mention the steak dinner his family treated him to the night after the award at a school assembly gobsmacked him.


Proud parents Melissa and Skip with their honored son Jack and his trophy and certificate. He doesn't put on airs, despite his accolades.

I know Melissa and Skip should get the lion’s share of the credit for building this little man of character, but I’d like to think I had some influence, too. Nonetheless, I won’t toot my own horn, but rather salute Jack on this momentous occasion.

A great indicator of the depth of his character is that he recently narc’d himself out for a little mischief at school in which he wasn’t really the main culprit. I won’t go into details, other than to say he went home, agonizingly explained the situation to Melissa, and then suggested that she accompany him to school so he could confess to the teacher.

Imagine THAT. He wasn’t even indicted for the incident, but he felt the need to plead guilty. He also had apologized to the offended party, who is one of his friends, on the day the “crime” occurred. How’s that for character, and loyalty?

Frankly, it leaves me feeling a bit ashamed about a stunt I pulled when I was in fourth grade. We boys decided it would be fun to tackle the girls on the playground during noon recess. Fun, yes, but not such a good idea, we discovered in that era of paranoia over patent-leather shoes, when the nuns called us on the carpet and sentenced the guilty parties to a suitable punishment.

I now plead guilty to not pleading guilty then. I think my alibi to myself when S’Ter DeSales asked for a show of hands of boys involved in using the girls for tackling dummies was that, although I helped hatch the plan, I was too chicken to participate. Or maybe it was just that Jeannie Bartek, my girlfriend throughout grade school (in my mind; she never really seemed to acknowledge it, and she was even downright rebellious when she spat on the ground after I stole a smooch from her in first grade) eluded my grasp.

Whatever propelled my character lapse, I didn’t have to kneel at the front of the classroom, arms extended, as a penance. A couple of girls whined to S’Ter that I was in on the caper, but she dismissed their caterwauling by saying I wouldn’t do such a thing.

When the culprits’ arms sagged, S’ter berated them and told them to hold up their arms, scolding: “Now you’re feeling how Christ felt on the cross!”

If I had it to do over again, I’d ’fess up, and I’d try to swipe another kiss from Jeannie, who ended up carving her REAL boyfriend’s initials in her arm when she reached high school. And they weren’t “M.T.”

Years later, when I was a senior in high school, my image as an angel continued to bless me, and curse me. We senior boys decided it would be great fun to depants a freshman during recess. Great fun, except we picked a big, burly farm kid who cleaned our clock.

Of course, the brawl attracted the attention of the nuns, who told the priest, who not only raised hell with us, but called all of our parents to school to revile us in front of them.

In that case, I confessed to S’Ter Reparata that I was one of the ringleaders, but she pooh-poohed the idea, saying, “Michael, you’d never DO such a thing.” Instead, she singled out Mike Rooney because, as everybody knew, he smoked.

But enough about me. Back to Jack, and I don’t mean Black, although it was rather black of him, the way he reveled in looking at my hernia scar and pleaded to get to take out the stitches. Two of my fave recollections of the lad’s youth:

When he was about 2, I served him his traditional bowl of ice cream in the living room when he was over for a visit. I then went into the kitchen for a bit and, when I returned, I beheld the horrible sight of him with chocolate ice cream not only all over his face but also down his belly and dripped over quite a bit of the couch. Fortunately, he was shirtless, so he needed just a minor hosing down, and the couch was leather, so the goo wiped off fairly easily.
When he was a tot, he liked to run around the house nekkid after his bath. Lots of kids do that, I’m told, but I suspect that few have tried this pose: He stood on his head on a chair, leaving his, uh, privates (I guess some people call it junk these days) exposed to the world.

I wonder how many of his peers would have voted for him THAT day? Well, I guess he still would have gotten the nod for being a “character.”

Anyway, I salute Jack and his parents, and his siblings, for his honor. After all, it takes a family to raise a child. Of CHARACTER.

Babysit a Rookie Walker Is a Piece of Cake. NOT!

“How hard can it be?” I wondered when son Brendan asked Kate and me to watch 1-year-old Avery for a few minutes while he ran an errand.

After all, I’d become a pro these past few years at reining in four Italian stallions without too much strain or additional gray hairs in my silver mane, so I figured that tethering a leprechaunish pony should be as easy as cow pies, right? I soon realized the folly of my ways and learned that the Four Horsemen paled in comparison with Avery, who forced me to face my apocalypse. NOW.

The quadhorsemen evolved, as sort of my breaking-in period, starting with Vincent, now 9, joined by Jack, now 7, Luke, at 5, and little Patrick Michael, bringing up the rear at 3 now.


The Four Horsemen, clockwise from upper left, Vincent, Jack, Patrick and Luke.

Although each is a handful in his own way, I don’t recall any being as hell-bent-for-mischief as Avery Michael.

Well, now, I take that back. A couple of months ago, when I was staying overnight with the quartet so their parents could have some respite during an overnight trip, I was making dinner in the kitchen while the boys watched TV and/or played with Legos, or trucks, or this, or that.

But it seemed quieter than usual — their house often is nothing short of rock concert decibel noise level — and I realized that only three boys were in my line of sight. So I went to the living room that serves as their playroom and discovered that Patrick had opened a jar of paint. And spilled it. On himself. On the table. And onto the chair.

Panicked, I grabbed paper towels and ran to clean up the mess. That’s when I discovered that he also had smeared the blue paint all over the wall, too. Thank GAWD it was water-based, and I was able to eradicate most of it from the bright yellow, textured wall. But still … on the WALL? Patrick MICHAEL! What were you thinking? (On other hand, it reminded me of the time, when I was 10 or so, when I opened a can of paint in a neighbor’s basement, just out of curiosity, and it spilled all OVER the new tile floor. What was I thinking? DAMN! My dad was maaaaaaaad!)

Back to the present, when Skip and Melissa returned from their overnight, I confessed, embarrassed, what had happened. Melissa, who formerly could be a tad high strung on occasion and used to get a little chuffed when I put cereal and other stuff in the cupboard with the labels pointed the wrong way, now is the epitome of calm with her boisterous boys. And she acknowledged that it wasn’t the first time Patrick Michael had pulled a Michelangelo. He had done it under her watch, too, so I was off of the painter’s petard.

Alas, Avery is showing signs of being a frisky little fella, too, just like his father before him. The lad wouldn’t sit still, and the dogs’ water bowls were especially attractive to him. Like a moth to a flame, he kept rushing to the bowls, each time beating me to the punch and splashing water about.

He headed for the steps and was nearly halfway up before I caught up and put up the gate. Then out to the porch to play with Aunt Allison’s candles (fortunately, they weren’t lit), then back to the water bowls, then onto my lap for a minute before darting to the TV to try to touch the horses in the Derby. Here and there, hither and yon, like the kids in the Family Circus cartoon roam around the neighborhood on the way home.

When I, huffing and puffing, chafed at the task, Kate pointed out that the lad had just started walking, and he was determined to explore everything, everywhere. OK, OK, I understand, but I still can’t fathom the magnetic attraction of the dog water bowls, or the fathoms of water he splashes from them.

Marveling at how he was outpacing me, I remembered a key difference: I hadn’t consciously realized the adjustments I must have I made as the Italian train added cars, and I made allowances along the way. To the point that I can even take all four to a movie without losing my mind as I juggle popcorn, drinks, snacks and boys in a darkened theater.

The difference is, it occurs to me, that somebody’s got my back when I’m with the Four Horsemen. Although Patrick’s three predecessors as the caboose all are very protective of him when we’re out and about, Vincent is especially attentive. He hangs back to watch his little brother, as kind of my fifth column.

For example, when we were in a huge Halloween store in October, and the boys wandered in awe at all the scary masks and swords and costumes and goblins, oh, my, and I was having trouble keeping track, Vincent hung back and made sure Patrick didn’t slip disappear into the abyss of horror masks and mechanical spiders.

Ah, yes, the young teach the old. Problem now is that the Four Horsemen are in Florida, and I’m in Wisconsin, and the Avery train is in Minnesota. I know all four of the Italian Stallions would help me keep track of their smaller cousin, because they literally smothered him with affection when the little bugger visited them in the Sunshine State a couple of months back.

The Four Horsemen surround the pony boy.

So I’ll rely on Kate to have my back. And I’ll have to teach Avery, just as I did Vincent when I jumped the shark that is the Granddad Train, that it’s perfectly OK to have doughnuts for lunch at Dunkin’ Donuts, then go to Baskin Robbins next door for dessert, and stop at the Dairy Queen on the way home for a snack.

Although I’ve had to cut back on the ice cream because it doesn’t melt from my body like it does when my metabolism was young, I suspect Avery will help me burn the calories. And I can rely on visits from and to the Four Horsemen to keep both Avery and me in shape.

As for Brendan and Erica, they could be in for a bumpy ride. I’d suggest that, to Avery-proof their house, they might want to lock up all the paint, for starters.

Avery celebrates during a restaurant outing.

As for Brendan, he's going to have to perk up a bit to keep up with his leprechaun:

BTW, this photo is not posed. Look closely, and you'll see that I actually caught Brendan not only sleeping while holding Avery but also sleeping while TEXTING!. I confess, I fell asleep on occasion with a kid on my lap, but not TEXTING. Oh, WAIT. Back then, even pagers hadn't been invented. In fact, I believe we had a princess phone.