Soccer Dad

There won’t be any Norman Rockwell-painting-like photos of my son’s first soccer game. In fact, it was an incident I would like to forget, but probably won't be able to.

His first game was scheduled for Saturday at 1:00--here in Texas, the temperature was forecast to get to over 100 degrees that day, with high humidity and even a pollution warning. I talked to my wife and a friend of ours who has a son on the same team, and we all decided that it was ridiculous to have 6-year olds playing soccer in those harsh weather conditions. I mean, come on! It's supposed to be fun, right? Something just felt unsafe about the whole thing.

Where I started to get into trouble was the point where we (the other kid's dad and I) decided that we would dress the boys in their uniforms and take them to the field. That way, if we were able to dress a team, we could try to force the referee to reschedule the game so we wouldn't have to forfeit.

Now here's the secret--I really don't give a shit about a 6-year-old forfeiting a soccer game. Go ahead, put it on his college transcript if you like. But some parents are, well, psycho about stuff like that. I even made a point of making Ryan understand that he wasn't going to play today, and that we were driving out to talk to the referee.

When we got out to the game fields, we saw half a dozen other teams actually playing in the scorching heat. We immediately went to the referee and his response to our request to reschedule the game was "Well, these kids play out in this heat all summer, they can play a 60-minute soccer game in it."

I went to the coach and told him that Ryan wasn't playing. He was very cool about it and told me, "I completely understand, and I wouldn't want you to let him play if you didn't feel completely comfortable."

Just then, two of the other dads walked up to me, not looking happy. One of them had a soccer ball in his hand and was (probably unconsciously) smacking it violently against the palm of his hand. The other dad asked me "Are you keeping Ryan out of the game?"

"Yes, don't you think it's a little silly to be playing in 100-degree heat?"

"Didn't you know it was 100-degree heat when you came out here and had him put his uniform on?"

"Yes, but we thought that the ref wouldn't allow the game to be played."

The other dad looked at the ground and shook his head, clearly disgusted.

The conversation continued, "Well, do you realize that if Ryan doesn't play, then we won't have any substitutes and all the boys will have to play all 60 minutes. I don't think I like that so much." I have known this man for several months, and I have a great deal of respect for him. I don't think he was trying to put me on the spot, but was just voicing his thoughts aloud.

Great, I thought to myself, now I'm responsible if one of these kids passes out from a heatstroke. In the meantime, these guys are trying to pressure me into doing something which I consider to be unnecessarily risky. And that dude slapping the soccer ball is about to piss me off.

Then the other dad, the guy I rode out with, came up to me. He told me that they had changed the rules for today's game and that they were going to play the game in four quarters, and actually take an additional four water breaks. We have plenty of water on the sidelines and they were going to allow liberal player substitution. Add to that that our coach had brought a portable canopy for shade, and the prospect of Ryan playing seemed a lot less risky. One thing that I really appreciated is that that Dad told me "I wasn't going to change my mind and leave you hanging without talking to you about this, but it seems to me like they are taking this seriously and I'm tempted to say 'okay'."

Now, my dilemma was that I had been so forceful in saying that Ryan was not going to play, first of all to Ryan and secondly to everyone else. And Fran had been pretty adamant that he not play no matter what.

The whistle blew, the game started, and Ryan was on the sideline. To his immense credit, he didn't seem upset that he wasn't playing or even question me about whether or not he could play. It was a hard decision in my mind to undermine that confidence that he has in me that makes him know that I am pretty consistent when I make a decision. Another thing that I had tugging at me was pride that didn't want the dads that confronted me to feel like they had pressured me into saying "yes". This really bugged me, and I would normally be willing to die, tied to a burning stake, than to reverse a decision under such circumstances.

I picked up the phone and dialed Fran. She was understandably irritated, even after I explained the rule changes to accommodate the heat conditions. But she told me she would go with my judgement since I was out there. Something in my mind had Desi Arnaz's voice saying "Lucy, you got some 'splainin to do..." but I guess I would just deal with that when I got home.

I turned to the coach and nodded. He didn't make a big deal out of it, and queued up Ryan to go in and sub for a player when the whistle blew. When he sent Ryan, Ryan ran to me first to make sure it was okay. What a great kid. As a reward, I poured icy cold water all over his head to keep him cool. He never complained the whole game--he just ran out there with a big smile and a newly drenched head every time his number was called.

The effects of the heat were obvious, though. At one point, our best player got turned around and drove the ball down the field right toward our net. Another player's mother made the coach pull him out of the game because he was lethargic and disoriented on the field. We went through gallons of water. The other team didn't even have any shade. The moms from our team went over to them and soaked them down, inviting them to come sit under our canopy (they didn't).

I felt very humbled and sickened at having to eat my words. I must hold too much pride in standing by what I say. I even still felt a little uneasy about letting him play, and still wonder if I made the right decision.

I know some people will think this is no big deal, but it is a big deal to me. I look at everything I do on a day to day basis and feel like I owe it to Ryan to be a respectable person who lives with honor and is always watching out for his best interests at the expense of my own. By that definition, I failed him Saturday.

Eye Key Uhhhhhhh...

The lights were dim. I stood in a grouping of 100 racers, warming up, stretching out, and anticipating the opening bell. Each eyed the other carefully, subtly jockeying for a slight position advantage. The trick is, if your shoulder is in front of the other person, then, effectively, you've edged them out.

No, it wasn't the opening of the Boston Marathon--it was the start of operating hours for our new Ikea store.

Before today, we were afraid to enter the same zip code as this monstrous, blue store in the north part of Dallas, Texas. Fran got a catalog, and has been poring over it for about a month or so. Occasionally, she would look up and say "This can't be real!" I guess the prices were much lower than she expected.

Our taste in furniture has differed since right before we got married. I had surprised her by renting a little larger apartment for us to move into together (I was living in a tiny studio), and she had come over to "help" me move. The truck was next to the dumpster, and, somehow, half my stuff ended up in the wrong container. My favorite was this coffee table that I could (and would) stand on all the time. I think it takes talent to chop a coffee table out of rough 4x4's, nail them together, and slap some dark stain on it--to me, it doesn't matter if it doesn't match anything else that you have--that's a freakin' marvel of engineering. I was sad to see it go. I had one of those hammered medieval pewter placques that was a nice, picturesque tavern scene. Fran frisbeed it out into the dumpster from my front porch--you gotta admit, she did it with style...


So, I arranged to take a couple of hours off this morning and accompanied her. When we were first dating, we would go hang out at the mall (we were teenagers), so it kind of felt like old times. Also, I was overwhelmed inexplicably with the impulse to purchase and eat Swedish meatballs (yes--for sale).

I wasn't expecting a vote, but maybe a little veto power in case I couldn't stand what she picked out.

The bell rang, the lights came up, and the herd departed with a ceremonial "moo", grazing slowly across the showroom in all directions.

The crowd was very diverse--about 30 feet from the entrance I heard someone speaking Swedish (don't ask me how I know it was Swedish, but it WAS). Now that was impressive. I turned to Fran, we were still just wow'd by the dizzying expanse of everything (the Dallas Morning News even wrote an article about how not to get overwhelmed at Ikea when shopping there), and said "Hey, check it out, they even brought in real Swedes..." Like they were a prop to help sell the furniture.

Fran was in her element. I guess the gimmick of this place is: funky Scandanavian furniture with clean lines, low prices, that "Euro feel" (not my favorite), and the "flat pack" concept. Seriously, these guys could flat pack a Saab for you if you needed it. You could buy a couch and somehow the box is like 6 inches thick...

(Somebody STOP the madness....)\

So, we scurried around for 2 HOURS (I mean, come on, how many permuatations of bookshelves could there possibly be?) measuring things, comparing colors and styles, and recalculating costs before I finally started to fade. I felt like all the oxygen was being extruded from my body and I started feeling dizzy, my head pounding, and gradually I felt like I was going to spontaneously combust all over their white lacquered (whatever the hell it was). So, we broke for lunch.

One of the things that has kept us married for 14 years is my knowledge of my own limitations (insert your own jokes here...) So, we had taken separate cars--Yes, I'm smart like that. I dropped her off after lunch and, thankful that I was swamped at work, drove off to do...anything else I could think of.

OVER SEVEN hours later, Fran emerged with 7 flat-pack boxes of assembly penance for me to do (I've already got the electric screwdriver charging up), along with 5 bags of "accessories". Fran says someone saw her walking out and said "Well, someone went nuts at Ikea today."

Yes, exactly. But I'm glad she got what she wanted and it is going to look cool once I get it all put together.

False creations proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain...

I almost went into a heat-induced fugue today. I was driving around, frustrated about a bunch of things, mostly work, including someone who isn't going to let me work on their new project with them (it's not completely lost yet). I drove right by the airport and spotted the Texas Ranger's airplane (sorry, no photo) and was tempted to just get on a plane heading...anywhere cooler. I seriously contemplated just taking a day off and going somewhere. Maybe an amusement park?

Last week I had a fantasy about having to go into the hospital where I could just lay around for a couple of days, have food brought to me, read books, maybe even catch some TV or a movie. No phones, people with attitudes trying to get through workdays without actually having to do anything, etc. Maybe they would even consider being a little nicer to me...nah (it's not really just me, anyway).

Actually, it was more about being frustrated and angry than wanting to get away. I mentioned it to my wife and she paused for a moment, then quietly said, "Well, I guess I'm glad you didn't go..."

So I guess that's a good sign.

I had to go to Wal-Mart today during working hours. Yeah, yeah--I'm sure you think I was goofing off, but it was actually the 4th place where I was looking for something that I needed for an installation job.

My company made this plastic piece that threads inside a pipe, and I guess they use that high-pitched"whiirrrrr, whiirrrrr" machine that they put your tire lug nuts on with to tighten these things into the pipe--last time I tried to undo it I had a blister across my thumb (that ain't workin'...Money for nothin', chicks for free...-Gar, that one was for you) for about a week. So I thought I would get smart and get one of those (what in the HELL do you call that?) jar-lid- traction-increasing-rubber-pad mechanisms.

Two grocery stores and a drug store later, no thingie found--I thought I saw those things everywhere. Here's an excerpt from a plea for help:

Me: "I'm looking for something, can you help me?"

Customer service clerk (just awakened from a micronap): "Oh, you can't find it?"

Me: "Uh, no. It's one of those rubber things you use to open a jar lid"

Clerk: "A can opener? Aisle 3."

Me: "No, not exactly a can opener. It's kind of like a rubber pad to open jars"

C: "No, you don't need anything for those."

Me (slowing my words down but surprisingly patient): "You know, for when they are very tight--for a better grip"

C: "Maybe you could wear gloves for that."

Me: "Okay, I'll think about that--thanks."

So...on to Super Wal-Mart (I'm a big fan, and don't understand people that don't like Wal-Mart. Hey, if you don't like it, go somewhere ELSE! It's America (and yes, I understand their stranglehold)).

So, I look in their 4 aisles of kitchen wares and can't see this anywhere. How could Wal-Mart not have one of these things (you know what I'm talking about, right? It was like a chess match--I was trying to anticipate the mentality of some far-off store planner and how they would insert one of those grip-thingies into their store so people would buy it. All of a sudden I was starting to think I had imagined the existence of these things). I had wasted an hour and had driven 5 miles trying to find it at 4 different stores.

Then it hit me and I knew exactly where to go...I took off quickly and I was right.

There it was--hanging on a hook right in front of rows and rows of jars filled with spaghetti sauce. Knight takes Bishop, checkmate. Genius?

I See No Such Roses

I have seen roses d'masked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks...

And yet, I think my love as fair
As any belied by false compare.

William Shakespeare


In late fall, the air finally turns crisp and brown leaves crunch underfoot in a way that makes me think of potato chips. I find myself dreading the inevitable weekend when I will be pressed into retrieving the multiple and growing number of boxes of holiday decorations that my wife has accumulated, which I keep stashed in the decking above our garage where they mostly bake under the heat of the day.

This year, when rearranging the remaining boxes for the predictable increase in returning partners, I stumbled upon a particularly solid cardboard case, originally designed to protect a mass of cereal boxes. Slowly, a smile spread across my face and I couldn't resist sitting back and pondering its contents for a moment--the box itself reminded me of my high school years as a grocery store clerk and the day of realization, while stocking shelves, after a day of high school, that a guy could use a sturdy box to hold the treasures accumulated throughout life. I brought it home, immediately began filling it, and have subsequently schlepped it superstitously from place to place since leaving home, even giving it some of the honored floor space of my single storage closet in my tiny studio apartment during my early college days.

I have compromised my impulse to keep every possible memento from my childhood in exchange for no complaints from my wife regarding this one box which represents the residual treasures of my youth. Inside it are seemingly random objects which trigger memories of landmark events--among them: the remnants of an arrow that I split straight down the middle with a phenomenal shot (to the awe of watching observers) during my summer teaching archery, a shattered drumstick standing testament to my self-supposed gorilla strength in the drum corps, handwritten notes from my grandparents which still make me misty-eyed, a letter from a secret admirer, newspaper clippings, photos, and my first driver's license. It warms my heart to rummage through these objects occasionally and feel a tangible connection to my youth as my memories fade over time. But One item in particular generates strong memories of adolescent years, victory, fear, and conflict.

When I opened this box, the first time I had done so in a few years, I spotted a chipped, brown golf clubhead curiously split open, and I immediately saw my grandfather's face again as though I had just spent the day with him.

I can't shake the memory of my grandfather as a volatile person from the moment he appears in my memories. The slightest annoyance, even the mention of a mildly controversial topic, could launch him into a rage laced with shouted obscenities that was frightening to me as a small child. Love and respect for the adults in my family came as an ingrained reflex, but memories of hugging Grandpa brings to mind the smell of cigarettes and alcohol mixed with fear and dread. When he was in the vicnity, I would observe closely and be prepared to scurry quietly to a safe corner if something set him off on a sudden tirade.

As conflicting as the memory of Grandpa is, whenever he comes to the forefront of my memory, the game of golf is not too far away. It was sort of a family joke that we could always find him on the golf course--it was the true love of his life. In light of their modest income, his extravagnace when it came to his golfing habit was seen as potentially ruinous folly. Piecing together the facts early anthropologists deriving Piltdown Man from nothing more than a happened-upon tooth, I've come to believe that he could escape at the country club and not have to face the disappointments of his unsatisfying occupation and dysfunctional family relationships. At the country club, and on the course, things were taken at face value, Grandpa could be a hero and have inherent respect. For the cost of purchasing golf equipment, his own personal cart, nice golf clothes, and a country club membership, he could escape to a world where he was on par, if even for a few short hours, with an oil millionaire. No wonder he loved the hit the links as often as possible.

When I was eight years old, Grandpa unceremoniously presented me with an old set of three cut-down women's clubs that once belonged to my mother when she was a child. Grandpa had sent them to be modified so she could learn to golf, but that idea had frustratingly never come to fruition, with the clubs left as an annoying reminder.

I don't think Grandpa was ready to have a grandson when I arrived in the family--he was thirty-eight at the time and preoccupied with fitting into respectable society in North Dallas. Over the years, my grandparents made some effort to be a part of our life, but often showed up late for our birthdays, sometimes by several days. I was the oldest grandson, and this was one of the first times that I remember my presence being acknowledged so kindly. As the family had grown, kids were an annoying decorative item that slinked around quietly on holidays with lowered heads among crowds of tall, unstable adults perpetually downing cocktails and filling the room with a ubiquitous cloud of cigarette smoke. My younger brother, Don, used to joke that "smoked ham" took on a whole new meaning at Christmas time.

My mother seemed pleased by this gift--I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was because she had never fulfilled his dream of her being a "daddy's girl" by accompanying him on the golf course. My suspicion is that she was relieved that he finally acknowledged grandfatherhood in some way--she liked to build him up to be a tenderhearted, loving father, but this image could be contemplated with some considerable debate. By transferring the clubs to me, the reminder of failed expectations moved on as well, without much promise of a good outcome, almost like throwing out . The clubs were an odd but utilitarian mix: a four wood, a five iron, and a dismal gray putter which, for purportedy unused clubs, looked like they were almost worn out. He also gave me five balls and ten golf tees zipped inside a lifeless, filthy "white" canvas golf bag which sat in my dad's garage for six months before I touched the clubs again. This gesture of kindness was an afterthought; an alternative to throwing the whole bundle into the trash.

The year was 1979. In my memories, the hot Texas sun blanches the colors out of everything in my world at the time and turns it all to a washed-out, fading, technicolor panorama. Our neighborhood had a small pack of boys that ran around untiringly--we played football all year long: Full contact tackle football across two adjacent yards down the street. If we were lucky we would have six or eight players of roughly the right size and age. Otherwise, we wouldn't count my little brother, Don, who was four years younger than me and who I considered a secret weapon as an unstoppable running back. Occasionally we would play baseball when it was in season, but it wasn't nearly as popular. Golf was definitely not a "cool" preoccupation, and wasn't even considered a viable sport for kids my age--it was a "rich man's game."

One day the following spring, I spotted the bag in the garage, scooped it up, and headed across the street to the schoolyard to see how far I could hit the ball. My brother, Don, saw me headed across the street and ran behind me. By the time I got the first ball teed up, there was an audience of five or six neighborhood kids who had never seen a golf ball hit before. They lined up behind me to my right. I chose an open field about 75 yards long surrounded by a large circular driveway. I picked a flat spot and used a blue tee (later, when it caught on among my friends and I we would all consider the blue tees to be lucky) and one of the rotten water balls that Grandpa had stuffed into the bag.

I whiffed my first shot, of course. I think everyone does. The crowd snickered and I could hear them all vying for dibs on was going to go second. I determinedly regripped my five iron with the blue, smoothly worn leather wrapping. This time I took a big baseball-style cut at it and ripped it wildly with all my might...about 12 yards along the ground, burying it solidly in the thatch of tall weeds. After eight failed shots, I lofted the ball off the tee, arcing it in the air gracefully and straight down the field, where it landed about sixty yards away. To me, it was the most beautiful shot ever hit.

I immediately knew my turn with the clubs was over for the day.

I ran across the field to the ball and, leaning over to pick it up, set the clubhead of my five-iron down in the weeds. A pencil-thin green snake whipped around and wrapped its body up the shaft about 5 inches, startling me into jumping straight up in the air. Don was right behind me but didn't see the snake, even when I, in silent shock, held the club out for him to examine momentarily. I then raised the club over my head and brought the shaft and head down against a medium-sized composite rock, and then again, cutting the snake in two. When he saw the bloody body, Don looked up at me in awe with wide-open blue eyes.

Ever since then, I've joked to myself that my golf game was snakebit from the first day.

After the boys in the neighborhood took a turn, we ended up missing 2 tees and 2 balls. I made everyone search for them, but they still weren't found. There was much fascination over the dead grass snake, though. I vowed that, in the future, I would practice golf by myself.

Before long, I was consistently hitting the five-iron across the field, and eventually I had to move to the second field in the back of the school, which was about 150 yards across with two baseball backstops butted next to each other in the middle. I learned the five-iron first, lofting it over the twin backstops, and eventually making a tight grouping of balls resting on the other side. This was a valuable lesson, because as the weather got hotter, the dry earth ripped open and formed crevices that the ball could fall into, and I didn't feel that I could afford to lose any more balls. I guess other golfers had used the field at one time or another, because eventually I had a stockpile of about a few dozen balls, which I stored under my bed in styrofoam egg cartons, but tees were a precious commodity. Sometimes after hitting a beautiful shot and watching the ball land softly across the field, I would have to turn around and quickly search for the resting place of the dislodged tee, which would spin backward several feet. Pretty soon, I was down to three rough-looking tees with chips knocked off in all directions.

Eventually, I realized that more tees could be bought, and I remember that Don and I felt like the richest two boys on earth when we came back from Target with a bag of 250 blue tees, which we continued to conserve like misers out of habit.

Although he occasionally came with me, Don lost interest in the game and golf became my sport. I would leave out each morning during summer break and hit two or three balls through a "course" that I created. I would practice for a couple of hours until the heat became unbearable or I ran out of water in my aluminium canteen.

Hole number one would be to tee up my five iron and hit the ball in the air until it landed against the backstop. Then hit the ball with no tee back to the chocolate-brown painted fence in the corner (I would always "lay up" so I wouldn't accidentally hit the ball over the fence). Next, I would tee up with my four wood, which I became proficient with, and crank the ball as hard as I could diagonally across the field (about 175 yards), hitting it until I bounced the ball off the metal base of a light pole (got 3 "hole in ones" that summer). Then I would tee up the five iron, hitting it back to the original starting place.

Another breakthrough came from my friend, Jody. He had caught a little interest in the game and, being a very studious person, checked out an old-timer golf book, complete with a brown leather cover, from the public library. One technique described in the book was moving the ball in your stance so the effect of the club's loft is altered slightly. Since I only had a couple of clubs, I used this technique to drastically alter the ball flight--I could hit my five iron long like a 3-iron, or short and high-arcing like a 9-iron. Since I had nothing by time on my hands, I learned that club like a musician knows an instrument--I could just walk up and hit it a very predictable distance with a range of 80-175 yards, and soon, I knew just where the ball was going to land within a few feet.

I got the nerve up to casually mention to my grandfather that I had been practicing at golf and he nodded impatiently and promised to take me out to the course with him "someday". A year later, that day finally came around. I was 12 years old.

I spent the night rolling restlessly on the couch. I was very nervous about disappointing my grandfather the next day on the golf course, and possibly annoying him to where he wouldn't want me to come again. I wasn't worried so much about doing my best, but rather avoiding a family scandal or irritating him on the golf course. My secondary goal was to someday be invited back.

We got up that morning and quickly loaded the car. Grandpa had his own golf cart, which in retrospect seems absurd. Their family was middle class at best, and having a cart seems to me to be a luxury beyond their means, even though he did play several days per week. He seemed to be a gadget man: One of the first to have a television set in the neighborhood, and, later, one of the first to have and use a personal computer. We hitched the trailer to the back of the car and headed off to the excluisvely "whites-only" club (one of the last of its kind in racially-charged Dallas) where he was a member.

First, we stopped at McDonald's for breakfast-the first time I ever had experienced Mc-Breakfast. Cautiously cutting my pancakes and sausage, I desperately tried hard not to poke a hole in the styrofoam container, but ended up doing it anyway and having to watch syrup run slowly out onto the table. Grandpa pretended not to notice.

We warmed up at the driving range, and I committed my first mistake of the day--hitting my warm-up shots so rapidly in succession that Grandpa shouted at me to "SLOW YOUR ASS DOWN!!!". But eventually I could tell that he was very pleased that I could hit the ball solidly. I was a small 12-year-old, barely five feet tall and 110 pounds or so, but I was getting the ball about 175 yards straight down the range with my four wood. After one solid smack, I looked back to see him admiring the shot, staring after the ball with folded arms and mouth slightly open in a smile. I even saw him nod a smile to one of his friends who stopped to watch me smack balls down the range.

I suddenly realized that this was a sort of audition, which I had just passed.

To a kid that was pretty much limited to knocking the ball around a weedy field, an actual golf course seemed like a fantasyland. The thick green carpet of grass under my feet seemed to buoy me upward as I walked. The trees were immaculately trimmed. The water was blue and seemed to paint beautiful mirror images as I swept my gaze across the lush fields as we zipped along in the cart. The aroma of freshly cut grass drenched with morning dew and the daily watering of the course smelled like a perfume, and I was suddenly reminded that I was outclassed in this rich man's game. I was intimidated by just the surroundings.

We got out onto the course and I started to tee up one of my raggedy, now thoroughly grass-stained practice balls--it was one of the balls he had given me with the clubs over a year before.

"What the hell is that?" he asked.

"It's my golf ball." I answered, cringing inside. The ball looked like it had been painted camoflouge-colored, like it was part of a top-secret military project.

"Looks like a goddam roadkill to me" he said, holding his cigarette with his lips and pulling his baseball cap down a little. I thought I saw a little gleam in his blue eyes when his voice became a little gentler "Let me see that thing--it's shot all to hell!"

He reached into his bag and fished out a brand new sleeve of the most beautiful, new golf balls I had seen. I had not hit a new golf ball before, and when I hit my first drive I could feel the vinyl covering around it send a smooth wave of vibration through my hands from the club all the way down through my legs to my feet.

"Damn, boy, I've never seen a 10-year-old hit the ball like that. Don't lose those balls--that's all you get!"

I didn't correct him about my age.

When we went up to the hole, he put his cigarette on the side of the fringe with the filter hanging out over the green so it wasn't touching the ground. I'll never forget the awkward sight of Grandpa walking across the green: Blue striped shirt, a puffy baseball cap with a sailboat on it, dark blue shorts down to mid-thigh and loosely fitting white cotton socks that hung very loose on ankles that seemed much too thin. He had a pot belly and his skin was reddish brown and the texture of leather, but with beautiful, sparkling, blue eyes. He had already drank three beers that morning by the time we got to the first green.

On the fourth hole, we stopped for about fifteen minutes to look for balls that were lost by other golfers. Grandpa found about ten, reaching them with a long pole with a scoop on the end. When we finished the hole, the Marshall drove up to us at the teebox. He looked like a good 'ol boy and seemed to know my grandfather.

"Sorry we're going a little slow--it's my grandson's first time to play."

My face reddened but I didn't dare say anything. I lined up my shot on the par 3, fairly confident despite my audience of potential critics. I heard some murmuring behind me then my grandfather laughed a little. I could tell they were having a conversation but I had no idea what they were laughing about.

"Michael, hit the green on this one and I'll buy you a cherry coke when we get back to the clubhouse."

"What's a cherry coke?" I had never heard of it.

"What the hell do you think it is? It's a coke with cherry juice in it. Just hit the damn ball!"

I lined up and took a swing and lost my concentration at the last second. The ball sliced right of the green by about 30 yards into the trees beyond. The marshall laughed loudly and I turned around to see my grandfather, with a clenched jaw, reach into his pocket and slowly hand him a couple of bills before he got back into his cart and drove off. Puzzled a little, I knew that wasn't a good sign for the mood of the rest of the day.

We went down to the green in silence. I didn't have any place to go, so I figured I would make the best of the rest of the day. Playing good golf was now the last thing on my mind. I saw my ball at the edge of the trees, and waited til Grandpa wasn't watching. I picked it up, clinked it loudly against my club with my hand, and then lobbed it with an overhand toss aimed at the top of the flag on the raised green. It landed ten feet from the hole.

Grandpa whirled around, angry that I had hit a shot in his direction, then looking down at the ball.

"That was a great chip-shot, boy! Now get up here and putt it in the hole for your first par!"

I putted the ball, rocketing it past the hole three times before Grandpa, disappointed, had needed to go back to the cart for another beer.

Looking back, it wasn't too bad for my first time on a real course--and my first time to get to putt the ball on an actual golf green. I even seem to remember Grandpa putting his arm around me as we walked back to the clubhouse, happy for the siginificance of the moment--his first outing with his grandson.

When we got back to the clubhouse, I stared wide-eyed at the gentleman in the lounge. Surrounded by dark wood paneling, dim lighting, and wandering among the tables loaded with coctails, I was certainly out of place-it was a peek at an alternate world, where men reclined in thickly padded chairs while drinking scotch and women dressed up and put on makeup to play tennis.

"Hey, Bill. Who you got there with you?"

"This is my grandson, Michael."

"How did you two duffers do out there today?"

"Not bad at all. This boy can knock the hell out of the ball straight down the fairway, but he can't putt for shit."

Both of them laughed. I smiled but didn't speak.

"Isn't that the way it is, sometimes?"

That day, there was no cherry coke for me. Or talk of me ever coming back.

My experience of playing golf with Grandpa fueled my desire to improve my skills. Finding myself on a real course had given me challenges that I hadn't anticipated--the most difficult was my inability to gauge relative distances--the huge scale of the outdoor surroundings played tricks on my eyes and I would think the hole was close and it would end up being 200 yards away.

Also, it was surprising how wonderful it was to hit the ball off the supporting grass carpet of the fairway. My weed-filled practice field had made me an expert at getting the ball in the air under the worst conditions.

Lastly, it caught me off guard how far I could hit the ball--the schoolyard where I practiced was only a little over 100 yards, and I would hit diagonally and maybe be able to get the ball about 130 yards. When I got out on the course with new golf balls and the necessity to crank the ball as hard as I could to get it down the fairway, I was able to do it.

That Christmas, my dad gave me a great gift: his old set of golf clubs. I guess I didn't realize that they were in the garage all this time. He took them out, cleaned them up, and put them in a brand new bag and there they were on Christmas morning--I couldn't wait to get to practice with them.

My dad, an engineer, really didn't care too much for outdoor activities like fishing, camping, and golf--he would suffer through it, and would go camping with us sometimes and took us fishing a couple of times, but it just wasn't his thing.

One thing he was good at, though, was hanging on to stuff for a long time. Our garage was a work of storage art--it pretty much hit critical mass early on and stayed there, even through today, despite my mother's best efforts to reform it. Following the philosophy that something saved isn't of value until it is used again, I was often given things in their second life. The best example of this was my baseball glove, which was perhaps the exact model that Lou Gehrig started his career with in 1925. In fact, it could have been the same glove. The leather had a dusty, rust-colored coating that I used to scratch at with my fingernail while playing out in the outfield. The padding had been pounded flat in the palm from hundreds and hundreds of caught balls, so if you played catch with someone with a good arm, your hand would sting for a few hours afterward. Now, this would typically be a pretty cool thing for a kid to have when he was growing up, but it kind of embarrassed me. I wished I could have a brand new glove from Target to play with and not a hand-me-down antique. My coaches would kind of look at me funny when I would trot out to the field with my "mitt".

Here are other items which my dad held onto beyond their anticipated useful life: Lawn mower (push mower with no automatic drive): 20-something years til it finally died, fire alarms (still has them after 35 years), college books, LP's of marching band performances from the '50's that we used to torture my mother with by blaring them on our stereo (age: 30 years) on Saturday mornings, VCR (17 years before it died), Electric carving knife that Edison could have invented, and the list goes on.

However...my dad now rides around in comfort on a new riding lawn mower while I push my broken-down 8-year old model like a tackling dummy because the automatic drive broke down. So who is modernized and who is a stubborn miser now?

So it didn't surprise me too much, when examining these old clubs, that they weren't of the same generation of the clubs that I had seen when playing with my grandfather. These clubs were labeled with old English names: Mashie, Niblick, Mid-Iron, And the driver had a huge wooden head, unlike my Grandfather's "metal woods" that made a nice "ping" when he hit it solidly. Back to the library to get a key that would tell me how these older-style clubs translated to modern-day equipment. There was a pretty good translation, but the book refered to these clubs as "pre-modern-era". Too funny. In some ways, these slim clubs made me a better golfer. It turns out that modern clubs are weighted differently to increase the club head momentum during the golf swing. These "new" clubs of mine were decidedly unforgiving and required the perfect stance.

I imagined myself hitting shots in the highlands, but the best Scottish accent I could muster sounded more like the leprechaun on the Lucky Charms commercial.

Nevertheless, I practiced with these clubs for another year, then showed them to Grandpa when he was over for a rare visit. I guess it renewed his interest in taking me golfing, because, almost one year to the day after our first visit, we went out again.

This time, I was much better prepared for the challenges of the day. It was a beautiful spring morning and the air was crisp. I teed up a practice ball on the range, reminding myself to go slowly. I hit my first shot with my huge, wooden driver from the 19th century.

I had a friend once who had a three-legged dog named Tripod. I think he had to love "Tripper" more than most people loved their four-legged dogs. Somehow it compensated for the missing leg or something. This is the way I felt about my old set of clubs. I was glad to have them, and I felt a little protective of them from ridicule. Over time, I came to secretly believe that I was really a better golfer and played a more "pure" game than people who used currently, more technologically advanced equipment.

Craaaaaaack! The ball sailed beautifully over 200 yards. I turned around and saw my grandfather's face break out in a wide smile. I had been practicing at the local driving range, and had become impressive with this driver--I knew exactly how to hit it perfectly, like a musician with an instrument.

I went through the bucket of practice balls, warming up and getting my footing and swing down for each of my clubs. At this point I had accepted that I was never going to have "modern" equipment, so I had thrown myself with enthusiasm into learning how to use what I had. By this point, my swing had become so solid that I had outgrown my practice field and could really only practice with a couple of short-range clubs. I still carried my cut-down 5 iron and 4-wood in my bag, just in case.

I felt more at ease walking around the country club now--I didn't feel like I belonged there, but I didn't fear being thrown out for invading their forbidden culture. I was too self-conscious to make many close observations, but now that I had a bag of clubs and new golf balls that I had purchased with money from my magazine delivery job, I felt like I didn't stick out so badly.

We walked up to the first tee box. Grandpa went first, and I followed with a solid shot. I had clearly improved.

On the fourth hole, a long par five requiring the best driver shot you can hit straight down the fairway, I decided to unleash everything I had on the ball. I hit a thundering 275-yard drive which was so incredible that my grandfather actually drove back and forth, measuring the distance with the markers on the course. He wrote on the scorecard "275 yard drive". I know, because I still have the card. Unfortunately, I still hadn't learned out to putt and ended up shooting a score of 6 on the hole. I had even tried mowing a patch of particularly fine grass in our yard down to putting green size, but the mower wouldn't go that low. It was pretty laughable, because, even though the grass looked nice from a distance, the ground under it was lumpy as hell and the ball wouldn't roll smooth. Besides, practicing putting wasn't nearly as impressive as pounding huge drives at the range.

Two holes later, it was time for another drive. We had met up with one of Grandpa's fellow club members, and older gentleman with white hair and a red face. I remember his gold watch sparkling in the sun that morning as I went to tee up with my trusty driver.

"What do you say, Tom? I bet my grandson outdrives you on this one."

(laughing), then quietly: "okay".

Oddly, this didn't shake me at all, even when I thought I heard someone say "fifty bucks."

I teed up my ball, picking out a blazing white, new ball I had just bought for today's game, my second game ever on a real course. As I set the ball on the lucky blue tee, I was determined to just hit it as solidly as I had just a few minutes before. I clamped my teeth together and things seemed to go in slow motion as I spun my 13-year-old body with perfect form. This time, as I hammered the ball with all my might, I felt a nauseating dull thud. The ball came off the club with a funny, lilting spin, swerved over to the cart path, and slammed against it with a loud whack, bouncing twice more on the path before rolling back onto the fairway a fairly disappointing 180 yards away.

I turned around and Grandpa was shocked and silent. So far he had never seen me mis-hit a drive so poorly, and I'm sure he chalked it up to inexperience and rattled nerves.

But then I looked down at my club. I knew something felt odd--the clubhead was missing.

We walked together, silently, about fifty yards down the course, straight down the middle. There we found the ancient, wooden clubhead split open down the middle, the freshly-exposed wood shining bright against the emerald field. Grandpa picked it up, grinning, and held it up for his friend, who was impatiently sitting in his cart by the tee box, to see. Then he turned to me.

"God Damn, Boy! We're going to have to send you for a Mad Dog test! You knocked the everloving shit out of that one. Split the club head clean down the middle where it connects to the shaft!" It was the combination of the hard drive on the previous hole, which certainly was what cracked the head, and all the force that I put into the final drive, which split the clubhead open cleanly. I held the clubhead up to my nose and will never forget that it smelled just like newly sawed lumber. Obviously, that club could never be repaired.

Sometimes it was hard to tell when my grandfather was mad or when he was just making a fervent point with lots of emphasis. I clearly remember thinking that I was somehow in trouble, and slowly realizing that he was proud of what happened, and it was a story that he could talk over with his golf friends later, especially since there was a witness to the event.

His friend didn't hit a shot. He drove off in the cart, shaking his head.

I still don't know if the bet was ever paid.

I finished the round horribly. It didn't sink in until later, but losing that old driver took the fun out of it for me. I liked to think of myself as playing against the odds in the face of adverse conditions--my secret that was an indicator that I could be even better than I appeared to be.

My grandfather let me use his metal driver for the rest of the round. It was depressing to see my shattered clubhead rolling around in the cart as we drove from hole to hole--I guess I'm not sure why I saved it but sometimes I do just save things like that (in my cardboard "memory" box I still have it in a zipper bag stuffed with playbills from Broadway, birthday cards from my ninth year, business cards of people I don't know anymore, and a silver medal from the National Latin Exam--it reminds me of things that Boo Radley would stuff into a knothole.)

I imagine in my mind that my old clubs let me feel the ball making contact with the club better, and I got depressed when I knew there was no going back to my old rejects--I was going to have to join the world and start playing with current equipment. Or did I? No, I refused to get a new club. My old ones got dusty in the garage, and I didn't play anymore.

We packed up my parents' household and moved away, away from the schoolyard. I had already stopped practicing at that point, but it was a point of no return--Much like life progresses, I realized I could never go back to running across the street and hitting golf balls for an hour. In retrospect, this has even greater symbolic meaning to me as my responsibilities continued to increase to the point where I can't just break away to do what I want anymore.

The clubs got left out in the rain by my younger brothers, and started to rust. I rescued them from my parents' garage, took them with me, and then let them sit in a corner of my tiny apartment while I slaved away working forty hours a week and taking a full load of college courses.

When I was nineteen, I got angry at my dad, and took revenge in the only way that I could--I loaded the clubs in the back of my car, and gave them away to an acquaintence. They were a constant and painful reminder, and I just wanted to unload that burden, mutilating myself somehow in a way that could never be reversed, and would always conjure up memories of the pain that I was going through. When I was unloading them, he saw the funny names and realized that they were quite old, and asked "Are you sure you want to give these to me? I mean, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I would hate for you to regret this." I assured him at the time that I wouldn't, and, strangely, I never have.

Four years later, my grandfather died of cancer. While he was sick I felt like kind of an ambassador for the family, primarily because I spoke "golf" and had spent those two full days with Grandpa, which had comparatively made me an expert.. I went and visited him a few times before he got really sick, and I was so glad to have something to talk about with him. I hadn't played in ten years, since that now infamous day on the course when the Mad Dog was unleashed, but it felt like it had just happened the week before, and it was good to see him laugh. I remember him clearly, sitting on the edge of his bed in his striped pajamas, his blue eyes glistening a little as he told me "I want you to know that I'm proud of all of you kids." It felt like he regretted just getting to know me and not taking the same time with my brothers and sisters. If it hadn't been for golf, it would have never happened, and we both knew it.

It was another ten years, a full twenty years after my last game, when I picked up clubs again. The game had vanished from my mind, with the exception of occasional reminders, like driving by the pristine fairways near my house or sometimes the sweet smell of cut grass. My company had a tournament, and I faced the inevitable experience of venturing out on the course again. My skills were surprisingly decent, and when I smashed the ball, the quiet of the fairways seemed to echo my grandfather's voice "Goddamn, son, that was a helluva shot!" I smiled.

A year later, I introduced my son, Ryan, to the game. It felt like I was introducing him to his grandfather, whom he never had the opportunity to meet. I tried not to let it sink in to deeply or attach too much importance to the event, but I can't help but consider how generations link together.

I even bought a new set of clubs, but it will never mean the same thing to me. There will never be a passion for the sport like there was during my youth, but that makes the memories sweeter.

I liken my brief, life-changing experiences with my grandfather to the brushstrokes of an impressionist's painting. Colorful, seemingly randomly placed blips of paint--some tiny, some large, and the whole creation is best viewed from a distance. The paint has been dry for a long time, and,when viewed from the distance of time, the picture, even with it's defects, still makes me smile.

Chapter 2-No Such Roses...

My experience of playing golf with Grandpa fueled my desire to improve my skills. Finding myself on a real course had given me challenges that I hadn't anticipated--the most difficult was my inability to gauge relative distances--the huge scale of the outdoor surroundings played tricks on my eyes and I would think the hole was close and it would end up being 200 yards away.

Also, it was surprising how wonderful it was to hit the ball off the supporting grass carpet of the fairway. My weed-filled practice field had made me an expert at getting the ball in the air under the worst conditions.

Lastly, it caught me off guard how far I could hit the ball--the schoolyard where I practiced was only a little over 100 yards, and I would hit diagonally and maybe be able to get the ball about 130 yards. When I got out on the course with new golf balls and the necessity to crank the ball as hard as I could to get it down the fairway, I was able to do it.

That Christmas, my dad gave me a great gift: his old set of golf clubs. I guess I didn't realize that they were in the garage all this time. He took them out, cleaned them up, and put them in a brand new bag and there they were on Christmas morning--I couldn't wait to get to practice with them.

My dad, an engineer, really didn't care too much for outdoor activities like fishing, camping, and golf--he would suffer through it, and would go camping with us sometimes and took us fishing a couple of times, but it just wasn't his thing.

One thing he was good at, though, was hanging on to stuff for a long time. Our garage was a work of storage art--it pretty much hit critical mass early on and stayed there, even through today, despite my mother's best efforts to reform it. Following the philosophy that something saved isn't of value until it is used again, I was often given things in their second life. The best example of this was my baseball glove, which was perhaps the exact model that Lou Gehrig started his career with in 1925. In fact, it could have been the same glove. The leather had a dusty, rust-colored coating that I used to scratch at with my fingernail while playing out in the outfield. The padding had been pounded flat in the palm from hundreds and hundreds of caught balls, so if you played catch with someone with a good arm, your hand would sting for a few hours afterward. Now, this would typically be a pretty cool thing for a kid to have when he was growing up, but it kind of embarrassed me. I wished I could have a brand new glove from Target to play with and not a hand-me-down antique. My coaches would kind of look at me funny when I would trot out to the field with my "mitt".

Here are other items which my dad held onto beyond their anticipated useful life: Lawn mower (push mower with no automatic drive): 20-something years til it finally died, fire alarms (still has them after 35 years), college books, LP's of marching band performances from the '50's that we used to torture my mother with by blaring them on our stereo (age: 30 years) on Saturday mornings, VCR (17 years before it died), Electric carving knife that Edison could have invented, and the list goes on.

However...my dad now rides around in comfort on a new riding lawn mower while I push my broken-down 8-year old model like a tackling dummy because the automatic drive broke down. So who is modernized and who is a stubborn miser now?

So it didn't surprise me too much, when examining these old clubs, that they weren't of the same generation of the clubs that I had seen when playing with my grandfather. These clubs were labeled with old English names: Mashie, Niblick, Mid-Iron, And the driver had a huge wooden head, unlike my Grandfather's "metal woods" that made a nice "ping" when he hit it solidly. Back to the library to get a key that would tell me how these older-style clubs translated to modern-day equipment. There was a pretty good translation, but the book refered to these clubs as "pre-modern-era". Too funny. In some ways, these slim clubs made me a better golfer. It turns out that modern clubs are weighted differently to increase the club head momentum during the golf swing. These "new" clubs of mine were decidedly unforgiving and required the perfect stance.

I imagined myself hitting shots in the highlands, but the best Scottish accent I could muster sounded more like the leprechaun on the Lucky Charms commercial.

Nevertheless, I practiced with these clubs for another year, then showed them to Grandpa when he was over for a rare visit. I guess it renewed his interest in taking me golfing, because, almost one year to the day after our first visit, we went out again.

This time, I was much better prepared for the challenges of the day. It was a beautiful spring morning and the air was crisp. I teed up a practice ball on the range, reminding myself to go slowly. I hit my first shot with my huge, wooden driver from the 19th century.

I had a friend once who had a three-legged dog named Tripod. I think he had to love "Tripper" more than most people loved their four-legged dogs. Somehow it compensated for the missing leg or something. This is the way I felt about my old set of clubs. I was glad to have them, and I felt a little protective of them from ridicule. Over time, I came to secretly believe that I was really a better golfer and played a more "pure" game than people who used currently, more technologically advanced equipment.

Craaaaaaack! The ball sailed beautifully over 200 yards. I turned around and saw my grandfather's face break out in a wide smile. I had been practicing at the local driving range, and had become impressive with this driver--I knew exactly how to hit it perfectly, like a musician with an instrument.

I went through the bucket of practice balls, warming up and getting my footing and swing down for each of my clubs. At this point I had accepted that I was never going to have "modern" equipment, so I had thrown myself with enthusiasm into learning how to use what I had. By this point, my swing had become so solid that I had outgrown my practice field and could really only practice with a couple of short-range clubs. I still carried my cut-down 5 iron and 4-wood in my bag, just in case.

I felt more at ease walking around the country club now--I didn't feel like I belonged there, but I didn't fear being thrown out for invading their forbidden culture. I was too self-conscious to make many close observations, but now that I had a bag of clubs and new golf balls that I had purchased with money from my magazine delivery job, I felt like I didn't stick out so badly.

We walked up to the first tee box. Grandpa went first, and I followed with a solid shot. I had clearly improved.

On the fourth hole, a long par five requiring the best driver shot you can hit straight down the fairway, I decided to unleash everything I had on the ball. I hit a thundering 275-yard drive which was so incredible that my grandfather actually drove back and forth, measuring the distance with the markers on the course. He wrote on the scorecard "275 yard drive". I know, because I still have the card. Unfortunately, I still hadn't learned out to putt and ended up shooting a score of 6 on the hole. I had even tried mowing a patch of particularly fine grass in our yard down to putting green size, but the mower wouldn't go that low. It was pretty laughable, because, even though the grass looked nice from a distance, the ground under it was lumpy as hell and the ball wouldn't roll smooth. Besides, practicing putting wasn't nearly as impressive as pounding huge drives at the range.

Two holes later, it was time for another drive. We had met up with one of Grandpa's fellow club members, and older gentleman with white hair and a red face. I remember his gold watch sparkling in the sun that morning as I went to tee up with my trusty driver.

"What do you say, Tom? I bet my grandson outdrives you on this one."

(laughing), then quietly: "okay".

Oddly, this didn't shake me at all, even when I thought I heard someone say "fifty bucks."

I teed up my ball, picking out a blazing white, new ball I had just bought for today's game, my second game ever on a real course. As I set the ball on the lucky blue tee, I was determined to just hit it as solidly as I had just a few minutes before. I clamped my teeth together and things seemed to go in slow motion as I spun my 13-year-old body with perfect form. This time, as I hammered the ball with all my might, I felt a nauseating dull thud. The ball came off the club with a funny, lilting spin, swerved over to the cart path, and slammed against it with a loud whack, bouncing twice more on the path before rolling back onto the fairway a fairly disappointing 180 yards away.

I turned around and Grandpa was shocked and silent. So far he had never seen me mis-hit a drive so poorly, and I'm sure he chalked it up to inexperience and rattled nerves.

But then I looked down at my club. I knew something felt odd--the clubhead was missing.

We walked together, silently, about fifty yards down the course, straight down the middle. There we found the ancient, wooden clubhead split open down the middle, the freshly-exposed wood shining bright against the emerald field. Grandpa picked it up, grinning, and held it up for his friend, who was impatiently sitting in his cart by the tee box, to see. Then he turned to me.

"God Damn, Boy! We're going to have to send you for a Mad Dog test! You knocked the everloving shit out of that one. Split the club head clean down the middle where it connects to the shaft!" It was the combination of the hard drive on the previous hole, which certainly was what cracked the head, and all the force that I put into the final drive, which split the clubhead open cleanly. I held the clubhead up to my nose and will never forget that it smelled just like newly sawed lumber. Obviously, that club could never be repaired.

Sometimes it was hard to tell when my grandfather was mad or when he was just making a fervent point with lots of emphasis. I clearly remember thinking that I was somehow in trouble, and slowly realizing that he was proud of what happened, and it was a story that he could talk over with his golf friends later, especially since there was a witness to the event.

His friend didn't hit a shot. He drove off in the cart, shaking his head.

I still don't know if the bet was ever paid.

I finished the round horribly. It didn't sink in until later, but losing that old driver took the fun out of it for me. I liked to think of myself as playing against the odds in the face of adverse conditions--my secret that was an indicator that I could be even better than I appeared to be.

My grandfather let me use his metal driver for the rest of the round. It was depressing to see my shattered clubhead rolling around in the cart as we drove from hole to hole--I guess I'm not sure why I saved it but sometimes I do just save things like that (in my cardboard "memory" box I still have it in a zipper bag stuffed with playbills from Broadway, birthday cards from my ninth year, business cards of people I don't know anymore, and a silver medal from the National Latin Exam--it reminds me of things that Boo Radley would stuff into a knothole.)

I imagine in my mind that my old clubs let me feel the ball making contact with the club better, and I got depressed when I knew there was no going back to my old rejects--I was going to have to join the world and start playing with current equipment. Or did I? No, I refused to get a new club. My old ones got dusty in the garage, and I didn't play anymore.

We packed up my parents' household and moved away, away from the schoolyard. I had already stopped practicing at that point, but it was a point of no return--Much like life progresses, I realized I could never go back to running across the street and hitting golf balls for an hour. In retrospect, this has even greater symbolic meaning to me as my responsibilities continued to increase to the point where I can't just break away to do what I want anymore.

The clubs got left out in the rain by my younger brothers, and started to rust. I rescued them from my parents' garage, took them with me, and then let them sit in a corner of my tiny apartment while I slaved away working forty hours a week and taking a full load of college courses.

When I was nineteen, I got angry at my dad, and took revenge in the only way that I could--I loaded the clubs in the back of my car, and gave them away to an acquaintence. They were a constant and painful reminder, and I just wanted to unload that burden, mutilating myself somehow in a way that could never be reversed, and would always conjure up memories of the pain that I was going through. When I was unloading them, he saw the funny names and realized that they were quite old, and asked "Are you sure you want to give these to me? I mean, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I would hate for you to regret this." I assured him at the time that I wouldn't, and, strangely, I never have.

Four years later, my grandfather died of cancer. While he was sick I felt like kind of an ambassador for the family, primarily because I spoke "golf". I went and visited him a few times before he got really sick, and I was so glad to have something to talk about with him. I hadn't played in ten years, since that now infamous day on the course when the Mad Dog was unleashed, but it felt like it had just happened the week before, and it was good to see him laugh. I remember him clearly, sitting on the edge of his bed in his striped pajamas, his blue eyes glistening a little as he told me "I want you to know that I'm proud of all of you kids." It felt like he regretted just getting to know me and not taking the same time with my brothers and sisters. If it hadn't been for golf, it would have never happened, and we both knew it.

It was another ten years, a full twenty years after my last game, when I picked up clubs again. The game had vanished from my mind, with the exception of occasional reminders, like driving by the pristine fairways near my house or sometimes the sweet smell of cut grass. My company had a tournament, and I faced the inevitable experience of venturing out on the course again. My skills were surprisingly decent, and when I smashed the ball, the quiet of the fairways seemed to echo my grandfather's voice "Goddamn, son, that was a helluva shot!" I smiled.

A year later, I introduced my son, Ryan, to the game. It felt like I was introducing him to his grandfather, whom he never had the opportunity to meet. I tried not to let it sink in to deeply or attach too much importance to the event, but I can't help but consider how generations link together.

I even bought a new set of clubs, but it will never mean the same thing to me. There will never be a passion for the sport like there was during my youth, but that makes the memories sweeter.

She's a Rainbow

I put "She's a Rainbow" by the Rolling Stones in my iPod. I changed the name to say "Kaitlyn's Song". Kaitlyn is my 18-month old daughter, and right now, I feel like we are gearing up for the extended dance mix of the terrible twos. She's into everything and climbing on everything in the house. But I love her little personality.

This picture is...maybe I should make everyone guess.

Anyway, I put it in because of the beautiful colors. Here's an interesting note: It's a refractile pattern but the rainbow isn't "in order", is it?

A genuine nail-biter

I sat at the conference table yesterday--it was a pleasant conversation, a business meeting. Two men sat across from me, one beside me. We were all discussing a pretty technical process.

About five minutes into the conversation, my attention was shaken by a flurry of movement to my right. One of the guys across the table was voraciously munching his fingernails. I tried not to watch because I don't think I could have properly reigned in the expression of shock on my face. The enthusiasm that he was putting into it really threw me off--it was comical, but a little alarming.

I averted my eyes, but, observing him out of the corner of my eye I noticed him biting each nail on his left hand one by one, even flipping his hand in different orientations just to ensure he had thoroughly and properly gnawed it to a stump. I didn't look to see if he was saving the pieces or not.

Was he nervous?

Just a habit?

Why didn't anyone else notice? ...Or did they?

Am I going to shake this guy's hand when we are finished? If so, where is the nearest soap and water?

Is he bored and needs to occupy his time? (just for the record, I wasn't the one talking)

He paused, making a loose fist and turning it over to admire his work. The meeting continued.

Holly is making me heartsick

I feel depressed and uninspired. I'm trying to write something good, but I just can't. All around me, good things are happening. I have every reason to be happy but I can't shake it into myself. I know it will pass.

Sometimes when I'm taking a shower, I get a lightning bolt of inspiration. One time I solved a complex math formula I had been working on for four solid days. Today, I was inspired to write a novella--I think I could condense a character sketch into a few dozen pages that would hold interest. My model is the character study of Holly Golightly in Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I think I may be in love with her. I somehow want to save her. I'm obsessed with her, but she is perpetually lost. Sometimes I can put it out of mind, for months, even.

If you've seen the movie, forget it--you don't know what I'm talking about (it's very loosely based). Holly is much darker, less oblivious, and more in control of herself. I visualize Audrey Hepburn manifesting Capote's characterization. I loved her first words "I can't find the goddam key!" It's a prologue to her recklessness. Her carefree style. Living in the moment--certainly an objectionable lifestyle to some, but tragic to me.

Somehow, I found myself studying a beautiful photo of a silhouetted dancer. The lines against a window pane, her posture, the bleakness of the room, the mundane grey behind her--it made me feel so lonely to look at that picture, like I was the only person the could see it and feel exactly this way. Everyone else sees dancing. I am so sad to think that.

My emotions are so foolishly wrapped up in Holly that I can't throw them into another book right now--it's killing me. I've tried to start about 5 in the past week or so, but they become repulsive to me after a couple of pages.

Yeah, I guess I'm a creepy weirdo. Maybe I'll come back and delete this before 200 people from all over the freakin' world read it, but this is where I am right now. Welcome to my craziness.

Mis apologias

Me estoy sintiendo sin inspiración. Cuando miro mis diezentradas pasadas, son como mierda. Mayor que otros, por supuesto.

Me disculpo -- intentaré más difícilmente y no me preocuparéquizá de escribir para un poco mientras que.

Flashback

It was early. He hadn't left the island yet, and he knew he had to stop for gas at some point soon. Just then, two deer skittered across the highway right in front of him. Michael raised the camera and took a shot of the second one getting across with one despearate last leap. Blurry for sure, he thought to himself.

Five minutes later he pulled into a Chevron station and filled the new midnight blue Subaru Outback with gas, knowing he was going to burn most of it that day in his random road trip.

His digital camera was unsheathed and waiting on the front seat--he decided it would be best to tuck it under something rather than leave it exposed and invite a problem. He clicked the doors locked as he hurried inside to buy a couple of cartons of chocolate milk and some chips and candy for snacks for his road trip today. He paid cash, and carefully put his change away so he could go through it. He hoped that his trip to Maine would enable him to get some of the state quarters with the P mint mark--these didn't seem to make their way down to Texas, where he lived, which was supplied by the Denver mint.

He was pretty tired even before starting what promised to be a day-long adventure. In the previous week, he had worked almost 100 hours at the workshop, and ironically, due to his pure commission pay structure, wasn't paid a cent for it. But that was a little secret that he didn't tell anyone...

As you sow, so shall you also reap.

His thoughts started to dwell on that verse from the Bible--it can mean so many things, and can be applied to so many diverse situations, yet the words ring true and are certainly wise. He was considering what he was currently reaping and wondered how he sowed such seeds. Some good, some bad.

Honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the land that the Lord giveth thee.

Suddenly it was blurry, then a technicolor scene came into focus. The three boys lay low at the top of the staiway"She got dat naas ass. Like a white girl. Ummm I lak that un her." He was pointing to Miss Linda, who was walking slowly away from their position toward the large coffee percolator by the serving window of the dining hall.

He had no idea what the larger boy, Jarrod (which rhymes with "the rod") was talking about. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. No, they don't. It would be years before he would understand what that was supposed to mean. What it could mean to other people, but would never mean to him.

The smaller boy, Samuel, hadn't said a word in two days. He and Jarrod met at the top of the stairs every night. Tonight, he had joined them, and they all three hid in the shadows above the 3 adults talking down in the main room below. They were sitting at the folding tables on the benches. It smelled like coffee and Aqua Velva.

Samuel stlll didn't say anything

She fine. Dat Jennifer mo fine but her daddy been up in 'nayre. She messed up over dat."

The boy felt repulsed by that type of talk. He looked down at the foosball table and wondered if they could play again tomorrow.

They had listented to music together as a group earlier that day. Jennifer said her favorite song was "What's Love Got to Do with It?" by Tina Turner. The room had gone silent.

"Theys call it 'foos ball', 'cause foo's think 'a cn beat me in it" Jarrod had said, patting him on the back and smiling broadly. They had played for 2 hours until Miss Vickie had put the ball up. They played with spins allowed, and encouraged.

He looked down at his hands and saw that there were tiny green flakes of comet on his right hand from scrubbing the bathtub when he was finished washing tonight. Everyone scrubs the bathtub when they are finished so it will be clean for the next person. Mister Robert checks how you did and always finds something to make you go back again and do better. Then he had started to lay down on the scratchy, hot, mustard-yellow sheets before he saw Jarrod sneaking out and followed him to the shadows at the top of the stairs.

Jarrod was surveying his domain. He was the 16 year-old alpha male of the group of 20 or so kids, seven of whom were boys. The boy looked up at him. Jarrod had deep scars on his back from being slashed with electrical cords by his mother. Samuel was his brother. The boy had already known it could have been much worse.

I don't know why he chose to help me, he thought, but I sure am glad he has. He took him under his protection and helped him. Must have even helped him when he came in, practically naked, seeing red. Red was all he remembered. That and how to hold a cigarette between your index and middle finger and flick the ash off the butt by snapping your thumb from your middle finger against the butt. He had seen the preacher doing it a hundred times, chain-smoking passive-aggressively for hours til the waiting room was a foggy haze.

When the preacher cussed and stormed out, he went over, picking up one of the smoldering butts, and practiced it quickly to make sure he wouldn't forget it. He waited to make sure no one was watching, but he was alone on the hard plastic chairs, unwashed, teeth unbrushed, and wearing his blue, gappy shorts with no underwear and his shirt with the devil playing the drums on it like he had been plucked out of bed 8 hours before.

The boy had been dumped in the waiting room and apparently was in some kind of state custody war that he couldn't see being fought, or who was winning. He was stripped naked and viewed and photographed twice. He was humiliated, starving, and had lost his family today.

The preacher came back with the smallest McDonald's cheeseburger he had ever seen, but he took tiny bites and made it last.Then it was just red. He was dazed and disoriented, like a dream. Tragcially sad and euphorically happy. He couldn't see what was going to happen two hours in front of himself, and there was something to this impulsive life of safety that felt fantastic although he knew it was temporary.

He felt like his life had just been ruined.

Miss Linda came back with her cup of coffee, and Jarrod used his long arms to scoot them both back from the light.

"Miss Vickie got a black gurl's ass. Wide lak a train track..." He was whispering but now he stopped talking suddenly.

Mister Robert was coming up the stairs, and they all froze. The boy's heart was beating so fast he could feel it, and he flinched when he reached out to them. Mister Robert smiled and put his large arms around all of them. The boy flinched again involuntarily at his touch, but knew he was safe for tonight.

"All right now, boys, you better get off to bed now. If ya'll 'r hungry I can git you a snack or somethin'."

They marched back into the dark room.

Michael woke up from his daze and kept driving quietly off the island. It was twenty years later, and he had survived--survived with scars that people can't see and secrets that no one knew or could possibly understand.

I think this was a mistake

Walking through the streets of San Antonio, Texas, with a group of coworkers, I spilled my guts to our director of Research and Development. It was 90 degrees (F) outside and humid--he may have been a little drunk. It was 11:00 PM and we were stumbling down the old streets near the muggy riverwalk in the August heat.

I told him about an idea that I had been mentally sketching out over a couple of months--an idea for a new piece of equipment that was made possible by recent breakthroughs in multiple fields in technology--it is a unique combination of several ideas, the primary one being an old technique, which is now considered outdated, that was previously generally accepted by the scientific community. Because my professor was an old-timer, he showed several of us in the lab this technique just for kicks.

I don't have the means to produce this piece of equipment.

It may or may not be an original idea--it's hard to tell.

I think that corporations that appeal to inventors are really trying to sucker you in.

The R&D manager listened to my idea...for about 3 minutes before completely shooting it down. I was somewhat discouraged but thought that it wasn't given a fair shake.

The next night, he came to me and wanted me to describe the whole project in detail. As I laid it out over about an hour and a half, complete with hasty, uneven drawings on the back of a cocktail napkin, I realized that it is actually two distinct projects, one of which is almost certainly novel and the other is probably on someone's project list somewhere.

I'm REALLY SORRY to be so vague about this--hope you can follow along...

So, maybe Mr. R&D was somewhat less drunk that night, not sure. But he was impressed with my novel idea. He told me that something similar had been tried 15 years earlier by a company, but was impossible due to data processing limitations. He was intrigued.

I never heard from him again about this. I wonder if he still has that cocktail napkin.

I was later offered a job in this group, but I don't even think it was a serious offer because it wasn't for any more money, plus I would have to move...somewhere bad (and expensive). I was also consulted on several new projects that have come around since that time.

What's my next move? Or is there one?

FYI--I have no "intellectual property" agreement, so it's my idea still. Right?

Wouldn't you feel weird saying you have an idea, but it's so technologically complex that it can't be produced without the means of a large company? Do ideas like that have intrinsic worth?

More than I ever would want to know

It was an odd homecoming.

I took the elevator to the basement and walked through the dimly lit corridors with the sound of dripping water drowning my thoughts. This is what the famous Chinese Water Torture must feel like, pounding inside your skull. Coming up to the stone wall and passing the entry keypad made me remember days where I went underground at predawn hours and didn't resurface until after sunset. If a day goes by without you seeing daylight, is it still a day? It smelled like a dank cave but was nevertheless immaculate--Today I went to the college where I graduated and then did graduate research. I went down to the electron microscope lab in the basement.

It wasn't just a sightseeing trip--I was there because the school is now my customer and I had to install some equipment. You would think that I would roam the halls with confidence, but it reminds me of something in the Bible: "A prophet is never welcome in his own hometown." I really felt like more of an outsider there than anywhere else I go.

I met the equipment coordinator, and we took an elevator ride up. I knew this guy from when I went to school there. One thing I remembered about this guy was that there were pretty much three different states of existence: About to have a cigarette, Currently having a cigarette, and Just had a cigarette. The only thing that was drowning out the smell of smoke was the odor of alcohol from last night's rampage coming through the pores of his skin--I couldn't help but literally taste it in the air. It was just four floors, but I was so relieved for a fresh breath of air.

Usually, I can work on equipment in peace--the installation that I was doing was a little complicated, but mostly just tedious. I had even brought my iPod so I could just relax, listen to music, and work for about 4 or 5 hours.

But that was not to be.

After about an hour, an older man walked into the room. Has it really been 10 years since I graduated? I was really happy to see him--I had taken a class in plant physiology from him and he had explained some of the complex processes to me more clearly than I had ever seen before. I was so inspired in his class that I did a very complex project to measure the "antifreeze" capability in citrus fruits. He was so impressed that he told me the work was practically a thesis--I had even bound it and included graphs, photos, micrographs, and electron micrographs. I had selected him for my graduate committee.

But my happiness faded when I remembered that, instead of continuing on with my graduate studies, I had left school abruptly to work full time. Regardless of the reasons, I felt like a real chicken shit for not personally speaking to him when I left grad school--I just left him to wonder what happened to me, after he had been such a great teacher. I handled things with him badly, and that is one of my biggest regrets.

Now he walks in and I'm sweating and standing with a handful of tools and an odd expression on my face with my iPod in my ears playing something that was absurdly unfitting the situation. I could barely turn it off and take it off fast enough. I felt like a real loser, but he was gracious enough to let me off the hook and he told me that he's glad that I'm doing well. He's a good guy, so I know he means it, but part of me hopes that he believed the part about "doing well". Oh well, maybe it was age regression of sorts since I knew him mainly when I was a wet-behind-the-ears 20-something year old college student struggling to get by.

Back to work on the equipment, then one of the new faculty walks in. And out. And in...So, I thought it would be rude for me to be jamming out on the headphones, so I took them off while she was around. Music seemed to be doomed today.

As I was concentrating on a particularly tough part, in walks the equipment coordinator. I asked him a seemingly innocent question about why his office was moved recently, and he, quite literally, told me the story of his life. It took over two hours. I guess I was a safe bet, because I was pretty much a captive audience figuratively chained to 2000 lbs of equipment for the afternoon.

He kept a safe distance, so the fumes didn't overwhelm me, but his story did. Coming from a small Texas town, he had gone to college just like his 4 brothers before him did. But he liked to party and flunked out. Then he went to work in the West Texas oil rigs.

"That's where I got this!" (I was afraid to look). Finally, I did, readying myself to cringe at the sight of an unfortunately-placed tattoo, but instead he was holding up a hand missing two lopped-off fingers. After he healed, he got fired from that job for "going out and getting drunk and not getting up in the morning."

He went back to his hometown where he sold ladies shoes in a store while going back to college. Soon, he had flunked out again. He met his wife and they ran off to Mexico to get married--they didn't tell their parents for another 6 months, and when they did, they were then married in the church. When I asked him how long he had been married, he answered "It lasted 20 years." and I could tell he was choked up. He took a long sip of coffee and composed himself. At different times, he rambled a little about different classes he took in college, the teachers, and the grades that he got in the classes.

He finally moved to the Dallas area and took a job as a surveyor with the highway department. He got in a fight with a co-worker on a job site and they were both fired. He took a job working in manufacturing which he held for 8 years, getting "cross-wise" with the boss and eventually walking off the job before getting fired. He was about a year shy of being fully vested for retirement. At rock-bottom, he went back to school and found that he had a new scholastic maturity. He started to do well in his classes for the first time in his life, and graduated with a degree in biology. Twenty-five years after he started classes for the first time.

Funny how a lot of people tell you stories with themselves as the hero. Sometimes I even try to see beyond their story to see what "really" happened and how it is being skewed by their interpretation of it--I'm not sure how I got this jaded. It was really refreshing to hear this guy talk, because I felt like he was humbly telling me the perfect truth about his situation, and taking accountability for it. When he first started talking, I was kind of rolling my eyes to myself and hoping he would sneak off in the back room for a couple of shots of MD 20/20 and pass out and not bother me. Eventually, though, I came around and wanted to hear the rest of the story.

I'm not sure what else was going on with this guy currently. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he had to get something off his chest. Maybe he had to tell that story because it showed how he had overcome adversity to make something of himself, and he wanted to feel proud. Sometimes my knee-jerk response is to respond by telling some of my personal history to show that I related to him, but not today. I let it be his turn today.

I didn't get to listen to my iPod--I have a great playlist that has almost all of my favorite songs on it. I can turn it on and drown out the rest of the world. This was a little bit of a different tune than I anticipated today, but I listened closely and it became music to my ears.

Indulgence

Ryan started school last week, and Fran and I wanted to be a very positive experience. I tend to be a little strict (but very consistent) with him, so I am conscious of that and try to balance it out by giving him lots of praise and having a lot of fun activities when possible. We had a party on Friday night, just for our family--we ordered pizza and hung out at home and played video games--we linked our computers together and played head to head--Ryan had a blastl.

Was that enough? Oh, no. Fran committed me to take him to Chuck E. Cheese's on Saturday (while she stayed home with Kaitlyn), which I was thoroughly dreading. Just walking in that place gives you a reeking blast of little kid sweat and gross, greasy pizza. Lights flashing, creepy, fleabitten, enormous Stuffed Mouse lumbering around in a grey costume, loud music and beeping horns and wailing sirens. It's like a freakin' insane asylum.

But here's a secret: For 20 bucks, your kid can pretty much be The King of Chuck E. Cheese--That's about 100 tokens, and each game is only 1 token. Ryan was walking around like he owned that bi-atch. Plunking tokens in everywhere, cramming tickets from games into his pants until they couldn't hold anymore. Playing head-to-head driving games against overzealous grownups and then running them off the road and making them flip over while laughing maniacally at their downfall. And, I must admit, equally demolishing other kids, making me a little uncomfortable saying to them that he's going to "take them out." But all in good fun, right?

I tried to "zen out" and step back from the chaos for a minute, and I felt like I rose above them all and watched the kids scurrying like ants, power-crazed with tokens and electronics. Then I kind of connected with them, and this song came to mind:

Y'all gon' make me lose my mind
up in HERE, up in here
Y'all gon' make me go all out
up in here, up in here
Y'all gon' make me act a FOOL
up in HERE, up in here
Y'all gon' make me lose my cool
up in here, up in here

We even got our picture taken on their "sketch machine".



Brief factoid: It takes a kid about 2 1/2 hours to use up 100 tokens, then the kingdom must be abdicated. Whew! But he had a big smile on his face when we were leaving--right before I autoclaved his hands. Afterward, I took him to the ice cream store where we shared a double-dip hot fudge sundae with nuts, whipped cream, and a cherry on top. By the time we got home he was wiped out and had lots to tell his mom. It was a great day, and Ryan was the star.

Lowest Common Denominator

I used to work as a supervisor in a call center, which was a fast-paced, high volume environment. I was going to college, so I usually took the night shift, which started around 1:00 and ended around 9:30. My colleague had just left the company and a new guy was hired from within our department--he had been with the company for about a year, was very, very quiet, but in general a good worker. The job he had was data entry and answering calls according to a script.

Here's what I discovered very shortly: This guy was very, very dumb.

The Peter Principle states that "...people tend to be promoted to the level of their incompetence." Well, that's what we're talking about, here. Scary dumb.

So, we were all trying to make the best of this mistake, and my manager was getting really antsy about being exposed for having made a very hasty, very bad decision. She encouraged me to befriend "Dave" and help show him how to do the job, etc. One of the major obstacles was that Dave didn't want to say anything to anybody. Ever. It was shocking how many questions can be answered with non-verbal communication, but Dave had this down pat. And if the question was too complex, he would just smile, shake his head, look down, and laugh a little. But no answer.

After about a month, it kind of became a challenge to get through to him.

I was supposed to be teaching him about calculating statistics, productivity records, entering them into a computer, documenting problems, talking to employees, and other supervisor-like stuff, but he would just look at me with a blank stare through cow-like eyes. I did check to see if he had opposable thumbs...

I decided to just focus on getting something we could talk about. Anything that would interest him. Maybe I could use it as an analogy to help him learn, something.

Was he into sports? Unh Unh (no)
Do you like cars? (no)
What did you study in (high) school? (blank stare)
Do you like to travel? (no)
Do you have any brothers or sisters? (no)
Girlfriend? (no)--what a shocker, Cyrano.

He was about 21 years old, and had this weird habit of interpreting things as an insult, or at least always considering the possibility that someone was making fun of him. I'm sure it had happened to him a lot growing up. I went to his house one time to give him a ride to work. He lived with his mother, and the apartment was as neat as a pin. She also had every CD ever made by Barry White. I don't mean a copy of each CD, I mean EVERY CD! Thousands! He had a funny last name: Flowers. I asked him if anyone had ever made fun of his last name, and it seemed to make him angry that I had suggested that. He answered a very defensive-sounding "unh unh."

One day, I was trying to show him statistics, and was about to give up. I looked out the window and said "Look at that cloud--it looks like a hamburger."

Dave brightened up and leaned toward the window "It sure does! I can even see tomatoes on it. And there's another one that looks like a tree right next to it."

In his defense: I started it.

But we talked about what the clouds looked like for about 20 minutes. Of course, I was self-conscious, but encouraged that at least we were having the longest conversation that we had ever had. And he seemed so enthusastic about it.

I turned around to see that one of my more cynical employees was standing there snickering at our conversation, and my faced reddened deeply while I answered her question. I'm sure it just further reinforced her image of supervisors of screwing around all day instead of working.

Sadly, Dave and I never hit it off. I even felt bad when he got demoted back to data entry. Sometimes it makes me laugh to think of the lengths it took to find some common ground, even for a fleeting few minutes.

If I had a million dollars...

Not sure why this Barenaked Ladies Song Comes to mind...

If I had a million dollars(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a house(I would buy you a house)
And if I had a million dollars(If I had a million dollars)
Buy you furniture for your house(Maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman)
And if I had a million dollars(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a K-Car(A nice reliant automobile)
And if I had a million dollars
I'd buy your love

If I had a million dollars
I'd build a tree fort in our yard
If I had million dollars
You could help, it wouldn't be that hard
If I had million dollars
Maybe we could put a little tiny fridge in there somewhere
You know, we could just go up there and hang out
Like open the fridge and stuff
There would already be foods laid out for us
With little pre-wrapped sausages and things
Mmmmmmmmm
They have pre-wrapped sausages but they don't have pre-wrapped bacon
Well, can you blame 'em

Uh, yeah
If I had a million dollars(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a fur coat(But not a real fur coat that's cruel)
And if I had a million dollars(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you an exotic pet(Yep, like a llama or an emu)
And if I had a million dollars(If I had a a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you John Merrick's remains(Ooh, all them crazy elephant bones)
And If I had a million dollars
I'd buy your love

If I had a million dollars
We wouldn't have to walk to the store
If I had a million dollars
Now, we'd take a limousine 'cause it costs more
If I had a million dollars
We wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner
But we would eat Kraft Dinner
Of course we would, we'd just eat more
And buy really expensive ketchups with it
That's right, all the fanciest ketc... dijon ketchups!
Mmmmmm, Mmmm-Hmmm

If I had a million dollars(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a green dress(But not a real green dress, that's cruel)
And if I had a million dollars(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you some art(A Picasso or a Garfunkel)
If I had a million dollars(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I'd buy you a monkey(Haven't you always wanted a monkey)
If I had a million dollars
I'd buy your love

If I had a million dollars, If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars, If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
I'd be rich

Ryan and I like to sing this song in the car sometimes and and then put each other on the spot to finish the line...

He usually says something serious, like he would make a baseball field--and I believe that the lad means it.
I usually say something silly, like inventing a jet boat for shark-hunting (he is going through a stage where he loves sharks and I know that will interest him), or buy 10,000 lbs. of bubble gum.

My favorite line from the song is "I would buy you a monkey" In one version of the song, the echo signer sings "I'll take mickey dolenze please", which is pretty freaking funny. But that makes me think of pretty much the last thing on the list once everything I really want is bought,--I guess that item would, necessarily, have to be a monkey.

Fran went to Ryan's first day of school, and checked in on him at lunch. My kid is the only 6 year old who actually chose to get spinach in the lunch line...I bet I could have won a million dollars betting someone on that.