Those are some tough bastards

I really didn't like to be around old people. They kind of creeped me out. I mean they were old. They had lost their cuteness when they were three, their teeth, smell, and the worst part was where they went when they got really old, to a nursing home. They'd sit on a bench and wear clothes that don't match, and again, that smell.

I had a grandfather who outlived his son. That made him a bitter, mean man in his last few years. His first wife died of the pandemic in 1917, leaving him to raise his four year old son by himself. It wasn't until WW II, the second war he fought in, when he decided to re-marry.

Old people and I just didn't mix. That was until I found myself becoming, well, older. I don't really know when it happened. I think, maybe, it was the movie Saving Private Ryan, I don't know, but something changed. I realized that old people, use to be young. They use to be young in a time in the world when youth didn't last long, there wasn't necessarily a phone, hospitals, or even the cavalry near by to help those living with the act of living. It dawned on me like a brick falling on my foot, that these people, were a lot like me, growing up, then again, they weren't like me at all.

They were tough.

A friend of mine's mother, growing up, baked us cookies whenever we went over to her house after school. We were in high school and teenagers with thoughts that didn't much pass that of a functional aardvark. She would come out with a plate of cookies in a dress with an apron around her. She was well into the shrinking time of her life, only about five feet tall if she was standing on a box. I found out she was a bomber pilot during WWII. She would shuttle the bombers over to England across the Atlantic and South Pacific. That way, men were free to fly the missions. There was no GPS in those days. They navigated by the stars. BY THE FRIGGIN' STARS!

A friend of mine, at least I wish to claim him as a friend of mine, is now a frail man living with his frail wife in Montana. I think he's about 120 years old. When you talk to him he has a smile that will melt lead and cries for you because he is so sensitive to your heart. He is the kind of man you want to, even as a grown up, just crawl up in his lap and tell him about your day. I thought about it but figured I would just crush his hips. His arms are black and blue from the slightest bumping.

He was at Normandy the day Normandy became a household word. He didn't need a knife to cut your heart out, his hands would do.

My dad would be 95 this year. Mom would be 85. Had he lived past 58, he'd undoubtedly be using a cane now and need heavy care. But in his day, he would ride a horse bareback and fly night missions patrolling the Tokyo Express and dare to bomb Japanese cruisers in a plane that didn't go more than 200 knots and his crew would have to throw the one-hundred pound bombs out the waist windows by hand. AND THEY ACTUALLY HIT STUFF!

Before my grandfather fell into distant disrepair, he showed me a few things. We would go to his small ranch and we would castrate cattle and de-horn them. He would sometimes cut his hands so he would wrap the bleeder in a kerchief soaked in kerosene. He said it healed it. When he got a sore throat, he would gargle with it. He said it cured that too. I tried it. All the grand boys tried it. I think I'll stick with name brand stuff. But I found myself using alcohol and stuff that cures your cut by burning every nerve shut. Maybe I got that from him?

Yesterday, I went to Costco with my son and future daughter-in-law. At a table in the food court, were three old men with clothes that didn't seem to match but each wearing a ball cap. On the front of the cap was the the emblem for the Big Red 1. They were sipping drinks and talking. There were two canes and a walker at their table. Old warriors-silverbacks. I looked at my son who was walking ahead of me and didn't see them. He was a warrior in his own right. Ah, the contrast.

At my daughter's wedding, I talked to her husband. I told him to look around the room and see the old men. I called them 'Silverbacks' because they had crowns of silver and in a group of gorillas, it was this old wise gorilla that was the heart and strength of the troupe. I told him to trust these men and women for they were the source of great wisdom. My daughter didn't like it because, well, I was talking about gorillas at her wedding.

But in their eyes, deep in their eyes, the old ones, behind the wrinkles and the smell, behind the coarseness and the bad teeth, the walkers and the canes there still is a fire. Don Quixote was a character written long ago, but he lives in the hearts of the old today. Watch them, look into their eyes. There, right there! You see it? The old men would take your last donut but risk their life to drag you to safety. They would want to date your sister but beat up any one who was not part of your group for saying the same thing. They would be the first to stand with you when the wheels were falling off. They will bake you cookies or stand with you in the fires of hell.

They know the path, they walked it before.

Buried or Cremated and what's that on the bottom of my shoe?

At 51, some might think that age is too young to have any plans about death and what to do with the package when the contents are gone. You might think that topic is too sad, too gloomy to think about now. Frankly, I kind of like thinking about it because it won't be my money or time to figure it out. It'll be the collective 'yours.' One of the last great 'Deal With It' moments anyone could have.

I'm pretty keen on the idea that it really will not make any difference to me. I won't be there and the vessel I had been riding in for decades will need to be disposed of because, frankly, if you keep it, it will start to smell, like week old potato salad. It doesn't make any sense to bury me, although my dogs will bury their chew bones, Joni and I get them, in the couch (I get the feeling my dogs don't like the taste of dirt, especially on their food or food-like substances so, hence, the couch) so burial makes sense. But the cremation, now that's economy in a little silver dish.

Joni and I took the kids to D.C. once and watched the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns. What a peaceful place, Arlington. I liked it. I know as sure as I'm sitting here that I don't deserve to be there, although I did take the oath twice in my lifetime, those men and women earned that trip.

Then I saw Joe Louis' headstone at the bottom of the hill just down from the Unknowns. 'Wait a minute little pony. What's he doing here?'

Nope, not taking anything away from anyone. Sure, there are special people there. Someone made the decision to install some non-warrior types there because of their deeds and services in their civilian lives. Okay, I get that. I still haven't earned a spot there.

Then, it occurred to me, as we walked over a small stream that cuts through the property, I could be cremated and thrown into the stream and wind up being fertilizer for the flowers and plants giving peace to those marked there. Hey, that's not a bad idea! I didn't earn a plot, but I could fertilize the plots, kind of a servant thing, honoring all of those that my little microbes could sprout flowers for.

Why not?

Look, its not morbid. I'm not saying you throw the whole carcass in the stream. That would be gross and probably block the water flow. You got to do something with the casing when you're done living. I bet most of you throw your coffee grounds out in the trash instead of tossing them into the flower bed, huh. How many of you have a compost pit in your back yard? Yeah, I didn't think so. Now that would be gross if my kids just kicked me to the pile of yard clippings and leaves in the corner of the back yard. They would come out and turn the pile once a week and see old dad's frame out there and I think it would cause some distress, as well as some light vomiting and or dry-heaving. But this way, all they would have to do is sneak me in via a brown paper bag. They could pretend to be eating peanut butter and jelly's among the New Hampshire's 3rd Regiment of horse soldiers from Shiloh and tip the bag over and there ya go, Daddy's working again, serving the Thin Line!!

Just think about it before you go all Calypso on it. After a while, it kind of grows on ya. Maybe, the idea of your old friend here causing a flower or two to bloom at the foot of the Unknowns, among the fallen sons and daughters will bring a smile to your face.

Besides, as you walk there, moving among the markers, looking at the names and years etched in the marble, you'll smile. A little bit of me will be stuck on the bottom of your shoe.

I want to hang out with this guy

"If you were to pick someone in history and hang out with them, who would it be?" Everyone has been asked that question. I've had my students write about that as kind of one of those "filler" assignments. You get the traditional answers like MLK, Lincoln, Jesus, not too many ask for Buddha, more ask about Hitler, sports figures, politicians, even Wyatt Earp-the whole spectrum. I was writing this morning, coffee was hot and the dogs asleep on my feet when I started to think. There are a bunch of people I would want to spend a day with, Winston Churchill for example. He would be a kick. I mean, just look at this guy. He knows secrets-you can just tell.

I think it was because Trace Adkins was playing on the CD that caused me to come up with this one-the apostle Peter. Now, don't change the channel. I'm not going to proselytize you. Don't worry about that. Just ride the pony with me for a minute and see if you don't agree.

Peter, one of the Big Twelve of Jesus' 'cabinet', was a sailor. Today, sailors are still pretty rough around the edges. Sure, you get a bunch of them coming out of the Naval Academy and they are all spit and polish, but I'm talking about a true sailor, like on 'Deadliest Catch.' You know the kind, they smoke hard, drink hard, don't wash, don't shave, and when they cut themselves, they find some fishing line and sow themselves up while they bite down on a leather belt-those kind of guys. You hit them in the face with a wrench and they just smile at you. Right at that moment, you know you made a wrong move somewhere in your life to get you to that particular spot on the time line.

Now, go back 2000 years and picture yourself working the docks around the Sea of Galilee, basically, a very large lake. You're living from hand to mouth. There is no Walmart. What ever you have, you have to make out of a tree or rock. You are a very early version of a blue collar worker and when people try to take your stuff or mess with you, you don't " go get your GATT and bus ta cap", you get into a fight using big sticks, clubbing each other until one of you backs down. Then you go find some fishing line and sow yourself up-biting down on a leather strap.

Peter, I am sure, was one of the first users of the 'F Bomb' or whatever that word or phrase might have been in Judea two millenniums ago. When he relaxed, he probably went home to his family or sometimes a neighboring sports bar and had a skin of wine with some buds and talked about how bad the fishing 'sucked' or whatever the Hebrew word equivalent was for 'sucked'. Kind of sounds like the docks in Boston, the warehouse at Henley's Shipping and Receiving, ANY construction site, etc.

The early writings, I think, cleaned up Peter's response when he was recruited and merely have him follow the rabbi, but I think there was some initial response similar to 'WTF' or again, the Hebrew equivalent. From then on, what we know about this guy is he had a paradigm shift in thinking about who he was. It would chase him for the rest of his life until he was killed for it.

But along with that, there was still the Peter I would like to hang out with.

I think today, Peter would love to go to a sports bar and drink a beer-or three, and have a plate of nachos with those green jalapenos on it. I think he would be a great listener and although he doesn't tell 'blue' jokes anymore, like he did before the teacher fellow became a part of his life, he still tells jokes-clean, but really really funny. He was the inventor of the joke starting with "A priest, a rabbi, and a lawyer walk into a bar...."

He would love to tell stories and even make some up. You look at him, sipping your beer, and say out loud, 'you're full of crap on that.'

"No, I swear," he would say, and then spoon a slather of nacho and peppers into the salsa and shove it into his mouth, getting half of it on his chin whiskers. He might or might not use the paper napkin left by the waitress on the table."I swear, that fish was as long as the boat," raising his right hand to heaven, a sure giveaway the man was lying to you. He would comment about what ever story you told and when you described something and tried to make it sound bigger than what it was, he would, if he knew you well enough, say in a whisper, "You're full of shit," with a big smile. That was Peter, a fisherman, a working man, a guy I think much like the rest of us.

I don't know if he would like baseball, definitely not basketball unless they changed the rules and allowed a forearm shiver every once in a while. He would love football and tolerate hockey. He would be a Pittsburgh Steeler's fan because Pittsburgh is a working man's town. Boston would run a close second because of the seafaring. Unfortunately for you, if you went to a game where Pitt was playing, he would paint himself the team colors, take his shirt off, and show you during the game. He wouldn't be obnoxious, like calling the refs' names or saying things like "My dead grandmother could call a better game than you, you stupid (insert Hebrew equivalent to F Bomb here)" but he would be loud-real loud. Still, he would be fun to go with.

He'd drive a truck. It wouldn't be an extended cab but one from the seventies with those side vent window, no A/C, and an AM radio only along with a gun rack holding two fishing poles, a fly rod and a regular rod-just in case he wanted to stop at one of the canals and wet a line. Old habits are hard to break.

Yep, he would be fun to hang out with. And If I could hang out with two, it would be Sir Winston and the fisherman. Wow, the three of us out for dinner, Peter and his beer and Churchill and scotch. We'd be smoking cigars-those big fat ones and telling lies and listening to Peter and the priest jokes. After a couple of drinks, Sir Winston might have a comment or two about the men around him.

"Look at that weak chin daffer," Winston would say, just loud enough so the man could hear.

"You talking to me?" the tall skinny guy with the Polo shirt turned up would say to the old man.

"Why, no-no I am not necessarily addressing you but undoubtedly talking about you, my good man. I was just wondering, did you have the mandible removed from your face to allow your lower lip to slide into your neck like that? And if so, why?" He would finish the sentence with a draw on his cigar, his eyes squinting to slits.

"Winston, stop it," Peter would say, half laughing because, all three of us would be sitting there looking at this lodge pole of a man and in our minds wondering about the same thing at what our friend pointed out. "Please, forgive my friend," Peter would continue. "He has a working bowel obstruction that causes his Tourettes to flare. Please-" he turns to the bartender while addressing the man with no chin-"let me buy you another drink of whatever you are having there."

The lodge pole man nods as if he had won a great victory and takes the offer, then moves down the bar to recover his free drink. Churchill's eyes never leaving the man's face.

"Winston," I would start after the man moved down the bar and out of ear-shot "what are you thinking? He had friends, this is a nice spot, we're three middle-aged men and you're trying to get us into a bar fight."

"I could of taken the tanker," he would say puffing on his cigar, sipping his third neat scotch, and looking down the bar, remembering the days of his youth when he was a calvary officer in the Light Brigade.

"Yeah, fifty years and a hundred pounds ago. Geezus, Mary, and Joseph," I would say.

"Hey."

"Oh, sorry Peter."

"Now, what was I saying, oh yeah, a priest, a rabbi, and a lawyer walk into a bar...."

Yep, someone would be going to jail that night!

Sprint or Marathon

As teachers go, life comes down to sprints or marathons. Our life is a compilation of days and weeks of random lengths, with the finish line being the next available holiday. For example, we are just coming off of Fall Break. Now, don't start bitching at me for having a week off and saying you didn't. Teachers all know we have a good gig. But we do earn it. This, from a guy who before he became a teacher, said those same words; until I did the job and then realized that there isn't enough time for the therapy and oh, don't forget, I am expected to go back to school and get another degree, more education, seminars, and stuff to keep me 'sharp.'

Please, I need a week sitting on a boat, moored in some harbor somewhere just pretending to sail and trying to decide where I am going for lunch. Joni, being a special education teacher, does IEP's in her 'off hours.' We sat down and figured it out, her hourly salary is right around $7 an hour. She could earn more putting fruit out at the Fry's than she does at school. So, its understandable when she has true down time, she likes to sleep in and then curl up in the corner and suck her thumb. Me, I find relaxation by reading, writing, painting, or playing 'Dodge Ball' with trucks on the freeway. So, with that, we measure our time from one break to the next either as a sprint or a marathon.

Example: It's now October so it is a marathon to summer break.

Another example: we just came off of Fall Break (Joni is just going on break so that's why I'm not writing this from some beach cottage in Fiji) and I know I have almost exactly one month to Veteran's Day. Test it. Ask any teacher and they will be able to tell you when their next holiday is. This is a good example of the individual sprints from one break to the next. We teachers don't measure grading by semesters or terms but by holidays and what goes in between them.

Now, its weird this time of year because Halloween is not a holiday but more of a marker. It feels like a holiday because Walgreens has been selling bats and witch hats since July plus it is the doorway to the winter season and halfway to Veteran's Day, which, of course, is just two weeks until Thanksgiving, the only holiday with two-TWO days, making it a four-day weekend. Then, its a down hill run to Christmas! Or, as we like to call it in the politically correct world-Winter Break. Throw in weekends and a teacher or any staff member at any school can tell you, almost to the hour, when time off is coming.

So, in the second week of October, as I crawl out of the mire and muck of what was a delightful week of working around the house and doing mind-freeing tasks, as I look down range at nine more weeks until Santa shows up to my door and offers me a forty-year old scotch, I am reminded why I went into this profession. Yeah, sure, the breaks and time and the fact that I wasn't traveling or working weird hours anymore, is part of it. I hate to admit it, there is something I miss about adolescent teens and their pines of woe. Some of them really have those-for real. Others are just dorks that make me laugh. So I'm going back with a half-assed smile and clean underwear (tell the truth men, when you're off for a while, don't you forget to change your underwear?)

Besides, who would teach them how to play dodge ball on the freeway?

Fall Break? Who's watchin'?

Some teachers and staff in this great country of ours get a break about now. In our district its called "Fall Break" because it happens-you guessed it, in the Fall; although, Fall in Phoenix just means you can try to switch over to your evap cooler.

People make comments about teachers. "Oh, you're so lucky, you get nine months off in the summer and ten weeks off at Christmas (staying politically correct and not wanting to hurt any of those Tibetan Buddhists who have converted to Judaism but still pray five times a day, we now call it 'Winter Break') and now you guys get a week off in the Fall and one in the Spring. Geez, I wish I had your job." Yeah, well, we wish you had our job too sometimes. What do teachers and support staff do with all that time? We do a lot of the same stuff you commoners do. We see our therapists wishfully, while we're at some cheap happy hour.

Some of us teach your kids that still, in high school, can't read or write beyond a fifth grade level. Whatever we do, we've got to get them to pass the state graduation test-in their tenth grade year. Yep, that didn't make any sense to us either. Oh, and if your child is SPED (receiving special education services) they have to take the same test. But don't worry, they don't have to pass the test, but the teachers and school will be taken over by the state if they don't. Teachers are accountable for the child taking and passing the test just like the rest of the regular kids. Wait, it gets better.

The refugee kid that happens to be old enough to be a sophomore but yet, might never have seen a school, let alone the English alphabet or shoes, guess what he has to do-yep, pass the test his tenth grade year. The kid that can say "Okay Joe, waddya know? Want tickets to the picture show," when asked to write an essay explaining what he would change about the American way of life? He's the head of his class. in the mean time, what did we do with that kid who talked to us about his family being evicted and he has to work the late shift at Fry's to buy Top Ramine to feed his little brother and cousin?

First of all, we don't get nine months in the summer, its only eight and the Winter Break is only two weeks but we get tickets to fly anywhere in the world. But the breaks at both ends, nope, don't see them.

NOW, shut up and pour. I can still feel my lips.