Whoa Nellie!

We spent the night with some dear friends up at their home on the western end of Flagstaff this Labor Day weekend. Nice house, modern; not a 'cabin' one would think of for the woods. It had everything you wanted in a weekend respite.

The four of us walked around the downtown area, the two men following the women in front of us. I could feel my blood pressure drop, kicking my brain into neutral and allowing the coolish air to remind me that living in a convection oven most of the year was an anomaly and most places, just a few hours away, were not like that.

Then, I heard it. The train.

Every day, several times a day, trains pass through downtown Flagstaff on their way back and forth across the nation. And I mean BIG trains, lots of cars, carrying Aunt Millie's refrigerator and your sister-in-law's new car. They blew through town like they were on their way to a chrysanthemum convention in Long Beach.

It was funny, I love that sound-the sound of that huge piece of machinery running through town. You never heard a whistle; you didn't need to. The rumbling of it was enough to tell anyone to get the hell out of the way. Where ever you were in Flagstaff, you could tell a train was coming. Eventually, you stop hearing it. Oh, but at night, I found that was the sweetest time.

Just before I started my coma cycle, I got into bed with my book. This is my favorite time of day. Cool sheets, comfortable pillow, a book with a nice story, ahhhhh, I'm there now! But at this home, you could open the windows. Now, for those of you getting this who do not live in Phoenix, let me explain something. You don't open your windows in Phoenix in the summer time which, of course, goes from March to October. You definitely don't open them in July or August or the shoulder weeks on either side. You will wake up dead from dehydration. Someone will come into your room in the morning and there you are, looking like a dried piece of apple. So, opening the windows and letting fresh, cool, mountain air in was like the foyer to heaven. That, and my bookie time, I was two steps away from Nirvana.

After about three minutes of solid reading, my eyes crossed and I turned out the light, getting into my PSP (Perfect Sleeping Position-years of research have helped me find and patent this).

In about two minutes I was on my way to Never Never Land. Then I heard it.

The 10:05 from Muncey to LA was passing through town.

It started off a subtle rumble and it grew. I found myself loving it. Like thunder, I love the sounds outside. Wind, rain, thunder, locomotives, all of it massaged my brain. I pictured, oh so briefly, the engineer in the front engine looking out the window into the darkness that made up the woodlands of northern Arizona. He would be making sure that all the lights were green, showing he was clear ahead, knowing that if anything was in the way, there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it. So, he opened the throttle a little more, once he cleared the heart of the town. Five hours later, I awoke to the edge of consciousness to hear another train, then drifted off again, a smile on my face.

Funny how things affect us. Some people would no more be able to sleep than I could stay awake to that sound. I think today, I'm going shopping. Need to price one of those train sets that circled the base of my Christmas tree when I was a kid. Maybe an engineer's hat as well.

"Send me..."

An interesting conversation with two Iraqi boys occured in my class today. They saw a picture of my son, father, and grandfather in my room. My father’s picture was of him in WWII, my grandfather in both World Wars, and my son in Iraq. “Mister, is that your son?” one asked. I told him it was. He then asked if that picture was taken in Iraq. It was either Iraq or just before when he was in Kuwait, it has the epic image of moonscape. It opened up the conversation about likes and dislikes.

One boy clearly didn’t want to talk about it. I think he had been asked the questions before and was tired of answering them. The other boy was wide open. The boy who didn’t want to talk said he liked Saddam. “He kept the lights on.” The other boy, he clearly hated him and said so. Saddam and his people tried to arrest his uncle for being friends with someone Saddam hated and had killed along with anyone who knew him. Both said they miss the part of their families who were still there. Neither wanted to go back. Both said things are worse there now because at least when Saddam was in power, the power was on. The boy who didn’t want to talk just said “You would be fine if you just kept quiet about the government. Don’t talk or comment about them and you should be fine.” Both were amazed about the fact they could even have this conversation without fear-limited fear- that I might report them to some hidden government agency about what we were talking about. Old habits die hard.

Imagine a life where fear was a part of your daily life. Not the fear of being blown up by some bomber but a fear that is secret. It creeps out at night and snatches your uncle, your cousin, your brother, never to be seen again. You don’t even know who took them or if they had fallen ill on the side of some road in the middle of that flat country my little boy was photographed in front of. “Just don’t say anything, and you can keep the lights on.”

So, today, as I write this, my little boy is leading a small team back into the throat of the Dragon for a second time. In the undisclosed location that will be his duty station, somewhere between Saudi Arabia and the Himalayas, he will try to teach a new mind set. “Freedom” without limits, “Freedom” without reprisal, “Freedom” without fear. A concept we lose sight of while standing in the checkout line with a grocery cart full of food, getting upset because it is taking way over five minutes for the person in front of us to ring up their coupons. We have, forgotten the cost. Yes, the cost. “Freedom” is never-ever free. But, by the love of a power beyond our imagination, we have been supplied with hearts, owned by some who said a simple line, quoted by a simple man named Isaiah a long long time ago.

Send me, Lord. Send me.

With a wink and a nod, a kiss for his new wife, loving mother, and sisters and brothers-in-laws, a hug and one long look into the eyes of his father, a little boy turned and climbed up the stairs to a waiting plane. “Once again, into the breach.”

Nope, we’ll never know the cost to keeping the lights on.

Rain in Phoenix? You've got to be kidding!

It's 4:30 in the morning here and its raining. Actually, its 4:37 in the morning-thanks to the new digital clock I got for the new side table that is so bright, one can see it from space. Its raining AND thundering with bright flashes of lightening or as we call it in this house 'Mr. Lightening.' A carry over from when the kids were, well, kids. I'm up writing about it because I am living in a city that breaks in on their television programing to alert the people to the fact that the stuff falling from the sky is, in fact, rain.

Its a good one too. Washed out the curbs and filled the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. On days like this when I was a kid, I would take my carrier fleet of 2x4's with smaller chunks nailed with 8 penny nails to its deck simulating radar and comm antennas and float them down the street. Mom would give up telling me something I already knew, that my black high-top Converse All Stars were soaking wet. They were suppose to get wet. You can't launch a carrier without getting into the bay-Geez mom!

I got up and turned the coffee on and took the girls outside. Betty, of course, was halfway across the street, oblivious to the water. Mindy, on the other hand, didn't want to get her feet any wetter than she had to. She stood under the eaves and watched her adopted companion. I wanted to rip my clothes off and run naked (wearing proper foot wear of course) down the street while holding my coffee cup yelling for everyone to get up and come outside and enjoy what I was enjoying. I didn't. The sun was starting to produce enough light where I could be recognized.

Funny thing about rain. It is a mood enhancer. You can go either way with that. If you live on the Olympic Peninsula, rain could cause depression because you get so much of it. Here in Phoenix its the opposite. It causes people to do things they wouldn't normally do. Like-

• Go to morning mass. The real early one.


• Go to Pottery Barn and buy some wind charms.


• Think about eating healthier-including the idea of more tofu in their diet.


• Not dwell on, at least for today, about the neighbor's cat using your feng shui garden in your back yard as a toilet.


• Think about putting in a feng-shui garden.


• Looking up in Wikipedia what the hell a feng-shui garden is.

Nope, rain in Arizona is like a drug to us here. As I sit here and look out the window, everything seems to be in its place. The world's problems, for just one brief moment in time, all seem to be at peace. In a little while, we will be back into the fray, but for right now, right this very moment, well, lets just say that this old man thinks he can get to the end of the street and back without anyone seeing me with my 2x4 and a half dozen nails.

Big Obituary or a Small One?

I was thumbing through the paper this morning. Yes, I still get the paper. I like reading it in the quiet early morning. The smell of the newsprint on my hands, the feel of the dirt from the wrapper as the newspaper man slid it across the oil spots on my driveway. It leaves a little black stain on your fingers that you inadvertently transfer to your new white dress shirt. Anyway, after the comics, crossword puzzle, and I have my 'private time,' I come back out and finish the rest of my reading, I always turn past the obituaries. Now, I have noticed that they are getting to be big. Like a quarter page big. With a big picture and little emblems to show the dead guy's memberships in things like the Elks and being a Shriner Clown. Then I look at the others, the common man obits that are from, well, the common man. Or maybe the family just didn't have the money for the bigger one. I had to ask myself-would I 'wear that'? Would I want a big, quarter page, short story about me being dead and what my life was, what I did, or who was still left in my family after I 'crossed the bar'?

Nope, don't think so. I think I want to go out with no notice at all, just to make people wonder 'Hey, have you seen Williams? I haven't heard from him in three years. Maybe I'll give him a call.' You start thinking of this crap as you get older. I swore I would not live live past 40 when I was 40. Now, I'm 52 and stuff is getting more and more real. Physicals actually have stuff showing up. I can't remember when my knees didn't hurt or I wasn't so tired as I was approaching Coma Level at 8:30 at night, and the greatest marker-I'm listening to NPR instead of music-and liking it!

So, to wander through this life and have a big-booty article written about myself, that might be nice. I don't think I could say enough to fill a quarter page though. I know, maybe I could attach a coupon for a 'buy one-get one' somewhere. That would be cool. Pre-pay like $1000 to a neighborhood bar or drive through and the first bunch of people to eat up the $1000 win. Why can't you do that? Why hasn't anyone thought of that before? At least then I would be remembered? Not that's is the most important thing. Frankly, three or four generations down, your siblings will say 'Mark who'?

I left instructions in my will (you have to have a will when you pass a certain age; its required) to 'dispose of my remains the cheapest way possible.' I don't want to be buried so people can come 'visit me.' That, frankly, is kind of gross. Think about it. If you have any religious background, you aren't there. If not, you are a pile of ashes or a plot of ground with a piece of granite on top. Can't you get the same effect by going in your backyard and sitting quietly in front of the begonias?

Maybe a nice coupon for chocolate shake somewhere? Chocolate always makes people happy. Plus, its free! Now, that would be worth remembering.

Summer in Phoenix-you've got to be kidding!!

Is there a reason we few, we happy few, live in Phoenix, better known as Dante's Fifth Level of Hell, during the summer? Huh?

We Phoenicians cheat and go to places like San Diego or Los Angeles, anywhere close to the ocean for a week or two during the summer. However, the vast majority of us are here for the greater part of the summer, moving the hose from one location of our dried-out lawn to another and scalding our collective mouths on water that is hot enough to boil an egg emanating from the 'Cold' water tap.

I remember my mom talking about moving to Phoenix after she met and married my dad. She met him while she was employed at the Alameda Naval Air Station in San Fransisco while he and his squadron were stationed there just after the Big One. She moved, like a dutiful wife, following her husband to where he was born, on the banks of the flowing Salt River in the middle of a wide beautiful valley-in the late fall, early winter. Warm, yet cool, and full of sun, unlike her hometown which had a little reputation for fog and cool-always. Then winter rolled to spring, which lasted about two days waking her to the start of an Central Arizona summer; introducing her to the hell to come. Oh, by the way, there was no such thing as 'air-conditioning' in homes then. That was reserved only for large department stores like Hanny's which would advertise their store with a sign which simply read 'air-cooled.' Evaporative coolers were in full effect and actually worked until late June when Dante's demons rolled in to town on vacation and invoked charms and chants and burnt incense raising their brethren demons of the underworld to come lay out in this god-forsaken heat.

Every year-I swear it gets worse. Although I don't think its the weather as much as my sorry ass is just getting older. Now, I think mom cried every night during the summer time. I know I would have. I never saw her do so, but she was 35 by the time she had me. By the time I was 7, mom and dad were frankly just tired. She probably got tired of weeping uncontrollably after years of repressed despair. I never saw her cry about missing the beautiful weather of the bay, cool breezes, fog, dark days, no sun, and the smell of stale ocean water. To a Phoenician, a 'true' Phoenician defined as one who was born/stranded/abandoned/left for dead here, maybe has a generation or two or, in my case, five generations worth of idiots who never took the train out, the smell of stale ocean and endless cloudy, cool days this time of year is like offering crack to any of the people living under the Seventh Avenue Bridge. I am salivating just sitting here thinking about it!

The idea of getting up in the morning in a place, such as the one my mother left, and doing something such as going out for your morning run, you actually get to sleep in. Ya see, in Phoenix, in order for anyone to exercise during the summer, you have to wake up and be outside before the sun comes up. That's about 4:30. Sure, its still 96 decrees at that time in the morning, but the advantage is you don't die as quickly from heat exhaustion in the pre-dawn hours. Anything after the sun rises, the simple fact is, you're dead-simple. They will find you under a neighbor's tree with your eyes rolled back in your head and your tongue swollen. If you awakened for a run in the morning in San Fransisco, you don't want to go out before dawn. You want the sun to be up or at least behind the clouds above the horizon. The neighborhood coffee shops aren't open until then. The only thing up at that time are the fishing boats getting ready to go out into the bay to catch something you could eat that night. The only thing in Phoenix you could get up and go catch at a pre-dawn hour is a STD.

Look, I like living here. I know you don't believe me and frankly, you'd be right. Except for my roots going way down and having actually touched Dante's fifth level, I am in too deep to move. Our kids are here and they show no signs of moving. Sure, mom could have married a dad who could have been born on the Olympic Peninsula, or New Hampshire, but she could have married a guy from Buffalo, New York where they 26 inches of lake effect snow in one day in the winter. That would-well, that would be bad.

There is a great advantage to living here. Living here weeds out the weak. This is God's farm where He thins the herd. We are hearty souls who make a living here, we few. My son, Travis, is in El Paso, gearing up for another tour of the beautiful Middle East and I talked to him yesterday. They spent 17 hours in the sun and soldiers were dropping like flies, except for his team. They were all from Phoenix. Just another day at the pool for them. You don't find any French people here in the summer. Italians are missing too. The Germans are in the hotels and delis and the Scotch and Irish are, you guessed it, in the bars. Don't believe me? Go hang out at one of our malls. We have a bunch of them. They're marked with signs that say 'air cooled.'

Ears, walking away-

So its July 4th, 2010. Independence Day has always been a special day in the Williams household, going back to when I was a kid. The Williams lineage goes clear back to WW I with my grandfather. This one, how ever, is different.

I have been thinking. What do you say, those last words, to you little child, before they go off to war-again? What are those last precious sounds you want them to remember coming from your mouth, the last vision of you, as a parent, speaking to them, saying something so important? It has to count. It has to mean something-at least to you.

My little boy is saddling up again and leaving for Iraq. At least that where the first leg of his second deployment takes him. He was in Tikrit, Iraq the first time, Saddam's home town, two years ago. Now, he commands a team and is responsible for their lives in addition to his own. He will leave his new bride of three months and leaves tomorrow. What do you tell him that you want him to know, want him to remember, before he leaves, that he doesn't already know? What words, what cluster of sounds, do you want to put together and in just the right order, that you want him to hear, that you haven't said, used, formed in various ways over the years before?

There are a lot a things, especially a father, wants to say. A last piece of advice, a kind word, a question, some blustery quote, anything. We want to say anything and keep saying it to the ears walking away.



Because we know.



We know there is nothing more we can say that will make anything wash the chalkboard clean. We can add to it-this chalkboard, of all the memories we have generated over the years, but all that was said or done is there already, written in our memory; in our child's memory. If we did it right, those ears walking away have already heard it, seen it, tasted it, felt it with their own hands and seen it in the aging eyes of those they call 'father.'



For thousands of year, people have had to do what we now have to do, say good-bye to a part of us, our family- my child, as they walk off to face danger. For most, so it is with my son, it is to stand for a belief that there is Evil and this Evil is destroying those that are not strong enough to withstand it themselves. Sure, there is a whole political side to it, but none of that matters when it comes down to those wearing the boots. At this level, this level where two sides meet and look into each other's eyes, where names are attached to faces, the level most politicians have never seen, and some have avoided themselves, its personal, intimate, strikingly pure.



At this level, our best and brightest are forged. They do not develop their character here, they expose it.



This is not a place for politicians, or those weak in their character and morals. This is not a place for those slow at decisions or who waiver in action. This environment is where the test is made, not only for those leaving, but also for those staying behind. They are tested as well.



Sometimes, I think its harder to stay than to go. I always felt it was better to be in the melee than to watch. At least you had a feeling of some control, some belief the steps you take are under your power, your decision.

Where do we get such individuals, men and women, who can do such deeds? There's a whole list of reasons these people join the military or any first response group for that matter-good insurance, nice retirement, steady income, three hot meals a day, a personal pride, the Flag, God, a whole bunch of reasons. For my little boy, its all those things as well, but also he's going because he has orders to and most importantly, he will not leave his team without his experience from the first tour to protect them. He can't leave them-at least not now.

I went out this morning and drove to get some food for the sleeping little ones at the house. I drove through a neighborhood, also still asleep. I went into a crowded restaurant, got what I went there for, and drove home. No where along that route did I even think about a bomb going off, being shot at, kidnapped, or my life threatened by martyrs wanting a random piece of me. Not that some neighborhoods aren't a little 'sporty' but at least in this area, at this time, there was a natural calm and peace to the world. There are a lot of people who wrote checks over the centuries so that this could be so. My little boy was one of them. Thanks son.



We come back to the question of what are those last words. What do I want my boy to know? The conclusion is there is nothing. He has heard it all. He knows all that I would want to tell him because he has heard it from me for years. Those things that count, those words that have the real meaning-he knows them. He can close his eyes at night and hear me say them. I would rather he think of his beautiful bride and I am sure I will be way down on the list, but when he needs a word or two, he can tap that part of his brain and find me. I could remind him to duck or to run faster between buildings, love his team by caring for them, wear clean dry socks, pray, but he knows this better than I. I don't need to tell him. He knows.



I guess, when he walks away, when I lose sight of his face and can't smell his cologne anymore, it is then that the work begins. There is really only one things my little boy needs to hear from this father. Everything else has been said, instructed, shared-everything but one. There is one thing that no human should ever get tired of hearing or saying.

I love you.



Oh, and maybe-stay low and run fast.

To those standing watch, thanks.

A Road Less Traveled

We were driving north on Interstate-17 this last weekend when I got to experience one of the least observed and yet most widely seen sights in our nation that any of us have ever had the privilege to experience. Of course, I thought I would share my take on it-with you.

We got stuck in the long tail of stop and go traffic due to an accident, ten miles north from where we were. I literally stopped the car on the freeway, designed to be traveled on at 75+ miles an hour. I stopped, twenty feet beyond the last possible exit to escape back to the south and an eventual trip around a mountain, fifty miles out of our way. But then I saw it.

It was rare. As a matter of fact, I had never seen this before, at least I had never seen it at this speed, which was slower than walking.

Crap along the side of the road.

Trash, waste, spillage, whatever you want to call it. I looked out my window and down at the asphalt. I looked over at the retention barriers, the faded Sprite 16-ouncer. All of them were still. They weren't flashing by at 110 feet per second (75 miles per hour converted to feet per second-hey- I'm bored and you admit, you found that interesting). So, as we creeped up the hill, out of Black Canyon City, towards Sunset Point, I started to make observations. I wasn't going anywhere in a hurry anymore.

9 hubcaps in about two miles. Here's a question- what would cause you to lose your hubcap? Wouldn't you realize it when you did? One of the hubcaps was from a Mercedes. You know that guy got out and looked for it, you just know he did. Here's a better one-ice chests.

If you lost your ice chest, heading north out of the city, you had something in it you wanted to preserve until you got to your destination; something you wanted to eat or drink at the campsite you were heading to that night. "Hey Merrill, did ya heard that?"

"Heard what Carl?"

"That explosive crashing sound. Sounded like a forty-pack and five steaks hittin' da asphalt at whatever speed we'z were goin'."

"Nope, besides, you know'd I'm deaf in one ear."

I saw several vehicle shock absorbers. How big of a pot hole would you have to hit to jar one of those babies loose? There was also some clothing that, if given the right water setting and some Tide detergent, could probably be recycled. I almost made Joni get out and get a five-gallon water jug just sitting upright with the lid still in place, but then we started moving a little faster and I could just see her trying to run to catch up with me in stop and go traffic, she'd just about get to the car and I would have to move the car up again, all of it going up hill. I would never hear the end of it.

Then there was all the trash. Mostly plastic bottles. I would not mind the recycling contract for the freeway. You could make a pretty penny with all the plastic, metal, and rubber that you could put back into the economy. You'd get enough to be able to order cheese on your burger, that's for sure. The interesting part was that I didn't see any cigarette butts. I'm sure they were there but they weren't recognizable, so we have that going for us, which is nice.

I think we need a little Koran law when it comes to intentional polluters. I can see having part of your load come undone and your steaks and beverages are returned to the land, but to do it intentionally, bad form. I think we, when one of these 'road polluters' is captured, tried, and convicted, should have his/her left hand completely cut off and duct-taped to their antenna of the offending car. Several things happen. Most immediately, they will stop polluting while they drive. They can't, unless they steer with their knees and throw with their right hand. It would just be easier to toss the empty container on the floor next to their baggy of Colombian and bag of half eaten Doritos. Secondly it sends a message, like a head on a pike in ancient Rome, that we take our 'road pollution' very seriously.

"Oh, look Marge, there's another one."

"Yeah, I wonder what he threw away?"

Third, it would bring people back to conversing instead of texting and tuning the world out while they traveled cross country. They would look out the window, hoping to spot another 'Polluters Flag' flying stiffly in the traffic breeze.

After an hour and ten minutes, we passed the accident scene. It was almost cleaned up. There were a couple of police officers, three news crews, and an overturned truck about twenty yards off the road. It looked like it had been a bad accident (I guess anytime you roll your vehicle over while traveling at high speed on the freeway can be considered a 'bad accident'), but it also looked like everyone made it out. Ten yards beyond the accident, I began to accelerate to flight speed. It will be, hopefully years, before I ever take that tour again, but I was sure glad I got to do it.

The last thing I remembered as I pulled away from the accident scene and back into my weekend was the image of the accident and the truck.

It was missing a hubcap.

Is This Something I Need?

This is Memorial Weekend-2010. This is a holiday of conflicting ideas and activities. When you think about it, it is designed as a sad and reflective weekend. Unlike its twin brother on the other end of summer, Labor Day, where we celebrate, well, 'labor' and the 'Merican worker, Memorial Day is designed to be somber and passive, thinking about those warriors who paid the ultimate price for us. In response to this, the Americans honor this day with those things that only Americans have earned the right to do. We remember Memorial Day with the Indy 500, lake boating, and sales on toilets.

Look, I use to be like everyone else and talk about what we, as a family, were going to do on this three day weekend until Travis decided to connect the dots for us with his deployments into the throat of the dragon. But I won't take you there. I got my flags out and run through my mind the significance of this day and how it could very well relate to me and my family this coming year. BUT, and I speak for my son, we are not going to dwell on that. There are other things to think about, fun things.

Let us examine the sales that tag along with this day and what, if anything, we can do about them.

Our fallen would actually, if we could hear their collective voices, want us too. "Momma, I'm fine here, don't you fret. You need to get yourself out and go mallin'. Go find that pillow you've been talkin' 'bout. You're sleepin' on one you've had since you were in tenth grade. You keep sayin' it makes your jaw hurt. Take Aunt Millie with you. Let her drive. Her eyes are better than yours.' Yep, I think our fallen would want us to think about them and the cost they paid, maybe over the morning cup of joe, but then get ourselves out and enjoy the day-the way of life, they wrote the check for. I think if I could take their collective souls shopping, we would hit two places-Costco and Home Depot. And what says Memorial Day sales better than toilets!

But do I really need a new toilet with 'siphon flush action?' Do I want a toilet that uses the word 'action' in its advertisement? Do I want a toilet that does something that you describe as an 'action' rather than just a 'flush'? Especially when I am at its mercy and in a position of vulnerability?

So we have a toilet in this house of ours that dates back to when I was a child-in this same house. I never changed it and my dad never changed it. Its an American Standard. The type that won the hearts and minds of the third world. It has different guts but the porcelain is the same. It has been acting up lately. It is strictly an indication of the guts needing to be replaced, but one doesn't just go buy guts to a toilet without first looking at 'what's new in the world of toilets.' Its very similar to when you need to buy new tires for your car so you go buy a new car.

At Costco recently, they had a toilet for an odd price of $93.78. Why not $93.76 or .79? Someone told me once that those weird prices indicate something is about to go away and be sold out. Which means, good luck on finding someone to fix it. AND, it had a push button flushy thing. No handle, just a button. Apparently, you can pick your flush strength which, I would guess, taps into that 'siphon action' we were reading on the side of the box. It also is a way to save water, which is something I am not sure I want to negotiate about when it comes to my toilet-plants and trees, yes, my toilet-nope.

Look, I don't know about you, but I am a 52 year-old man that is, apparently, at a cross road in his life. I have to make a life changing decision. I don't think I want to make this decision. I don't think I want my life to be faced with ANOTHER life change. First, its computers, and televisions then cell phones, and as always, boxers or briefs.

Questions raced through my mind. Men take their toilets seriously. We spend time there. We 'linger.' Women get in and get out. Men, ah, men plan financial empires during their toilet time. It's said that Tesla came up with the alternating current while camped on his. Mercury astronauts sang songs before their flights on commodes, or the invasion of the Falkland Islands was mapped out on the back of the stall door. Worlds are conquered here. Very serious stuff-very.

So to change from handle to button, oval to round, toilet height to seat height, all are easy decisions for a women. Men, well, we have to go to our god about such things. Then, we field test them.

Yep, I sat right down on that bad boy right in the middle of Costco. No, I didn't 'use' it but I wanted to check it for, you know, reach. That's why they put one out there, for the men, to try-I swear. Can I reach around and push the button without getting up? Yes, with some strain to my back muscles. It just means I need to spend more time in the gym working that part of my back. Seat height appeared fine. It wasn't chair height like the one in our other bathroom. My feet dangle on that one and my legs go numb. This one, well, height was not an issue.

There ya have it. The decision of the day. Instead of watching the Indy 500, I can wait until tonight to see the wrecks, the best part of the race, I might buy a toilet with 'siphon flush action'. There is a game or two on today but maybe I'll try to finish the crown molding in the living room. I didn't buy the toilet for $93.78 with the siphon action the other day. The timing wasn't right-maybe today. I thought about it, but then thought I would go price another set of guts at Home Depot, my other favorite store.

As I was walking out of Costco, my path took me right by the LCD flat screens. I slowed. I stopped. I have a second thing to take to my god-I guess.

Another year gone. Did it count?

Just finished another school year. It was a high casualty rate this year. Out of twenty-six juniors in one class, eleven failed. Here's the tough part, they chose to do so.

'Mark,' you start off, 'We think you're just a crappy teacher.' Well, sure if you are any teacher at all, you should go there. What can I do differently? What didn't I do? All of it. Many times we can, as teachers, differentiate our teaching and adapt. But sometimes, sometimes we need to let choices be lived out.

I've heard people say that kids don't choose to fail. They would be wrong. I've seen it. I've talked to them. I've actually heard them say 'I choose to fail.' Why?

That's all they know. They're comfortable with it. They've been told all their lives they were worthless, no good, wish they were never born, by those that were suppose to be their biggest fans. Some of the lives of these students are what make up bad movies. Their lives are terrible. They are old before their time. Parents? What parents? I am a firm believer that some parents-many parents, should never-ever be parents. They leave a wake of damaged children in their path. Somehow they breed and have children they don't care about, sometimes even hate. The cycle continues with the next generation.

But then there are those students that walk into class, torn, worn, beaten, and still they would rather spend the day with me than at home. It always happens just when you are contemplating changing your career path and thinking that being a roofer is the Arizona summer sounds like a nice break from this gig we call teaching. There's a look in their eyes. So, we take a walk, using whatever the non-educators at the state tell us we should be teaching. Ahhh, and here is the best part-I have learned that I can adapt and teach Life using anything-ANYTHING. Somehow, I can find an application to these young minds while identifying a preposition; how about Shakespeare? Way too easy. Give me a stick and a ball of twine and I will tie a life skill and a literary element to it. I can look any geek from the state in the eyes and justify why I used pudding pops and sock puppets to explain the literary element of characterization in Homer's Iliad while the transcendental metaphor was ignored. Yeah, I know, it makes me dry heave too. Same with the kids. We don't teach this crap for any other purpose than to help them understand the life they've been given. So, I usually tell the kids -"Look, the parts to Shakespeare you can't understand, well, those prose were probably written in the afternoon after he had been drinking rum all day because the water in London was so foul (sucked). The stuff that makes sense-the 'once again into the breach...' that good stuff? He wrote that in the morning before he got tanked." They buy it because instead of rum-momma's live-in-boyfriend is doing Cobra 40's.

Some of these kids, actually, most of them, will be the first in their family to graduate from high school. In some countries they make doctors out of a high school graduate. Here, you'd be lucky to mop the blood off the floor of the surgical room the doctor was in.

So, we as teachers, are running for the door at this time of year. This teaching crap really takes its toll. Lives are used up and spent before they even have a chance to grow whiskers. We get front row seats at the train wreck. We can even predict them, with almost 100% certainty. But, then there are those that have the eyes, looking into mine. The worn out and broken ones that somehow show up and stay.

I think about the course changes that have brought me to this very spot. In some districts, I'd be fired for talking to someones little spoiled brat the way I do. Here at my school, ahhhhh---I have students like 'Jose' come up to me. He was timid, shy, struggling with the language and life. He was almost completely broken, badly bruised, and his heart had been spoiled.

He waited until the room was empty before he spoke. "Mister, is it true?"

"What?" I responded. I was distracted with something meaningless.

"Is what you say, is it true?"

"About what?" I don't even think I looked up when he clarified. It took a minute before the radar picked up something.

"About what you told us all year, that whatever we can dream, we can do? I come from a real bad neighborhood and life. I don't want that. They shoot people and do drugs on the corner. My cousin, he wants me to join his gang-I want what you said."

Its was then that a middle-aged teacher's back straightened. Somewhere deep inside, as I get older, I find myself looking back and identifying, in times like these, with my heritage. My one grandfather was a Scotsman and my other was a rancher in the 19th century. Both, if they heard this, and I reckon they did, would look at each other and wink.

Grandaddy Jim's family, my brother and I figured, were not great warriors in Scotland; maybe his great grandfather, although doubtful. They were probably bakers. But in Scotland three hundred years ago, you were all warriors. You all went to the fight with whatever you had-an axe, a mallet, a long stick sharpened on the end. Your clan lived for a good war. You'd kiss your wife goodbye whom, by the way, could kick your ass, and you'd go. "Aye, looks like the lad is in need of some guidance he is," James would say, swirling some fine single-malt as he watched my show from the other side.

"Yep, reckon the boy needs someone with a good rope and a strong back to carry him if need be," Harrison would say missing the spittoon and leaving some pug on his chin. Grandad Harrison's idea of fine medicine was a kerosene soaked rag wrapped around whatever open, leaking wound he had, usually caused by a dull knife covered in cow dung. He would gargle with it when he had a sore throat. The brothers and I tried the kerosene treatment. It actually worked. He had the rag always with him, around his neck. it was his kerchief and if he needed to, he'd blow his nose in it too.

Sometimes, when God sets you down where you are, you don't know why most of the time. You look around and you question the foundation of life. 'This isn't my plan.' But sometimes, sometimes, he lets you see behind the veil. Instead of flying fighters off of a carrier, I am here. Aye, tis a good day for a fight! I could hear in the back of my brain.

"Yeah, Jose, every word is true-every word. Stay, and I'll show you," the old middle-aged teacher said.

Yeah, give me time and pen and paper. I'll make it fit into anything the state wants me to 'teach.' I'll even issue a grade.

As you read this, I am on my way to graduation. I don't want to be late. Jose is walking. He will be the first one on his block to graduate from high school.

Excerpt from Holy Ground-need your imput

We are getting close on the release of the second book Holy Ground later this year. It's darker, deeper, and hopefully, more entertaining than Emancipating Elias. Don't get me wrong, I liked Emancipating. I think it was a great read and people I've talked to say the same thing. Of course, they'were in a drunken stupor and thought I was the Sultan of Brunei.

I want your opinion, truly want your opinion, on a few things.

• The photo to the left-every book I am going to write, (unfortunately for you there are YEARS worth) will have a photo of the author trying to capture the mood of the main character and the story itself. Emancipating doesn't have that but we are going to re-release it under a different publisher so we get a second shot. What do you think about that idea?

• Tell me about the chapter you read. Would you like to read more? Does it cause you to keep going or does it not interest you (topic, genre, etc)? Or are you just reading it because I am standing over your bed at night with my Glock in your ear forcing you to read my crap?

I've included here the first chapter to give you a little taste of our hero, Cooper William Gardner, a middle-aged man dealing with things, much like the rest of us. The tests of his past have tainted him. He's a train wreck just waiting out life. Little does he know, 'life' is right around the corner.

Enjoy-

CHAPTER ONE
The purpose of life is to fight maturity.
—Dick Werthimer

March 20, 2003

Cooper woke up, lying on his back, to the clock radio.

“The second invasion of Iraq started early this morning….”

He was breathing like he just finished a run. His pillow was soaked with sweat. “Oh, god,” he groaned. His right shoulder hurt him. If he laid on it long enough, an old high school football injury flared up. As a matter of fact, it had gotten worse. Now, the other shoulder hurt from laying on it so much, so he would roll to his back. He couldn’t sleep on his back. His fifty-five year-old body was becoming a wreck. He was sore from osteoarthritis, from years of running on hard concrete, streets trying to keep his fading body somewhat in shape. He was losing that battle. He smoked too many cigars and drank too much scotch at Moreno’s Bar, usually to the point of becoming a stumbling pile of goo. His blood pressure bordered on hypertensive, and the rib-eye steaks he allowed himself to eat helped his total cholesterol to reach the nice round number of 260.

In the base of his brain, he listened to the radio and the report of the invasion. He kept his eyes shut and his breathing slowed. His hand moved up to his face and to rub his ear. He felt the whiskers on his face then down to his chest and his testicles, freeing them from the boxers he had on that spun tight as he rolled over.

Cooper’s ruddy complexion was highlighted with close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair and a gray mustache. His face was filling out from the high consumption of alcohol in the last year. His face had taken on a reddish tint, especially his nose, from hours in the Arizona sun and was marked with broken capillaries, just above his cheeks. His lips were thin; if it wasn’t for the mustache, his face would almost appear mouth less. Jowls were forming below his jaw line. His ears seemed to sag, like the rest of his body, which after years and years of abuse, sloped down as if he had carried a heavy rucksack and never taken it off. His whole body, under a load of weight that had been there for so long, no one noticed it anymore, especially Cooper, worked on the joints and muscles.

He felt his stomach and his growing waist line. His abdomen, which at one time was cut into six muscular sections, began to push on the belt holding up his pants when he would get dressed.

Surprisingly, in some regards, his body still depicted health. But if one looked, they could tell. Even though he went to the gym and ran three times a week, his body was still writing checks it couldn’t cash. All in all, Cooper William Gardner was a physical wreck waiting to crash. In a few years, if he kept up his lifestyle of self-abuse, he would drown in his own life, probably in his own toilet.

Cooper was a helicopter pilot for the Phoenix Police Department. He was the senior pilot and part of the development team that employed the aircrafts when the trend in police work called for it years ago. After his tours in Vietnam, he came back home and joined the department. It was really the only choice for many of the military, unless one could learn some other skill in order to make a living once they returned from the war. If you went over as a doctor, you could come back and work as a doctor, but most of the troops were not of that cut. Cooper had gotten a college degree in business using the G.I. Bill, but business didn’t interest him. He couldn’t stand the idea of working in a room all day. He happened to be at the right place at the right time when the city decided to start an air wing. He was part of the initial six who made up the section. He was also the only one with any helicopter experience. All the rest were street cops the department sent to flight school. He loved it.

He looked over at the top of his dresser and pictures hanging on the wall behind it with him in younger days. He had trouble focusing from the bed so he rubbed his eyes and his face again. Pictures of him and his first wife, Torin and graduation day from the academy. He joined the department and then shortly thereafter married his first wife, Torin, and just as quickly divorced her after a year and a half. The job and the old dreams consumed his life and that of his first wife, Cooper’s sweetheart, who made the mistake of saying she would wait for him to come back from Vietnam. She did. They married. But neither of them were the same person they were before he left for the war.

“God, you’re such a cynic!” she would call him.

“Oh, really, well I guess that makes you a bra-burning feminist!” Cooper wasn’t quite sure what all that entailed but it was the talk of the time and it wasn’t meant to be nice.

The marriage lasted until he had been out of the police academy for six months. He came home one day to an empty closet and a note on the counter saying she was tired of the silence. That was fine; he didn’t want to talk to her anyway.

“…coalition forces started in the darkness with air and cruise missile strikes at the nation’s capital of Baghdad….”

“‘Bout damn time,” he said as he reached over and shut off the radio and then wiped some white stuff from the corner of his mouth, transferring it to his bed sheet.

Mother's Day and the All you Can Eat Buffet

Mothers-I will just apologize to all of you for all of us with a 'Y' in our genetic make up. Your little boy, well, sometimes doesn't think with his head; at least not very well, when it comes to this day.

Look sons, don't, whatever you do, take your mother to an 'all you can eat' anything today. Don't even pretend she'd like it. She won't.

Guys, there are definite rules to this day. Ask your sisters.

Daughters are in tune with this. They have the gene pool, even if they don't have kids, they know what is right and wrong. Ask them and stand by to break that crusted over thing you call a wallet in your back pocket.

But, being a mom, more so as a grand mother or great grandmother, they will smile and say 'that would be fine dear, an all you can eat Sudanese buffet would be just fine.' NO, IT'S NOT!

Look at your mother. Go ahead, I'll wait........................................................................................................................................................Does she look like someone who could put away a $9.99 all you can eat Chinese buffet? She's 4'11" and weighs 90 pounds! She began shrinking twenty years ago and eats almost as much as a large pigeon does in a city park-two large table spoons of whatever and then she pushes away and wants a nice cup of coffee-black please.

OR, you take your mother, who really IS the size of a small freight car for the Southern Pacific. That's what she wants, to be reminded that her presences in this restaurant will panic the owner into starting a fire just to get everyone to evacuate the place and try to save some of his stock.

I went by the new Great China Super Buffet at the corner of 15th Avenue and Bethany Home the other day. It use to be a Country Home Buffet. It had flags and banners announcing its grand opening. It has 'islands,' not just one line, but individual islands packed full of whatever you wanted-in deep bins. The shear size was enough to give that skinny Japanese guy who always wins at hot dog eating the Willy's. You take your mom there, two things are going to happen, you will not get your money's worth out of her and you, yourself, will start to feel self-conscious about the fact that your plate can't be seen under the layers of sweet and sour crap. The other thing is your mother will get a salad. That's all, oh, maybe some cottage cheese and those little hominy pellets but nothing more. Now, you look at her, then back to your plate, then you realize this was a bad idea. Too late. The only buffet that she might even feel good at is one of those that has linen table cloths and a French guy offering some sparkling wine. Your mom hasn't had a drink since your Uncle Phil backed the truck over her legs when she lay passed out from the 4th of July 'party' at a Woodstock reunion festival.

Look guys, the flowers and candy are nice. Even though you'll probably have the first one out of the box. But spend time with your mom today. That's really all she wants, some time with her little boy and girl. If your sister suggests something, listen to them. They know stuff. Go over and fix the dripping faucet or better, pay someone to fix it so she has someone else to blame when it starts up again.

Tell her you love her without her saying if first. That's the most important thing. Some day, if it goes right, she will leave you first. Mother's Day will come around and you won't have that woman around to pester you, wipe your mouth, comment on the wrinkle in your shirt or eat a salad at an all you can eat (totally appropriate place to take her on just about any other day of the year). She will be gone. Then its just you and those memories. Make them good ones.

Happy Mother's Day mom. You were a good one!!

Long Pull

It was a long pull this week. And I look back and can't really say I did anything worth being so tired over. Sometimes, fatigue comes schlepping the mule across a prairie, scratching dirt and hoping to plant some soy beans in it, so in the fall you can sell them and buy that shot gun you've been eying at the Mercantile.

Or-

Sometimes, it just life.

Did some traveling this last week. Part of it was going all the way down the Florida, south of Jacksonville, then coming back within 48 hours, back to Phoenix, by way of Philadelphia. Yeah, I know, don't ask. There was nothing to it, except sitting and deciding which of the palm reading devices I would want to buy from Sky Mall magazine.

I don't know about you, but I am getting worse about air travel as I get older. I get anxious. Not that we are going to crash in a fiery ball of screams and body parts, although just writing that gave me a gurgle in my loins. The flying doesn't bother me. No, I don't do well until I get to the gate. I can sit for hours-HOURS at the gate, waiting to board, as long as I'm at the gate. Before I get there, I find myself pacing, cold and clammy hands, checking my boarding pass 78 times to make sure I have it, where's my debit card? Shoe strings? Is my bag full-crap, my tooth brush! It just takes one bump, one small squeal of the tennis shoes on the floor causing me to spin around to double-check something and then finding it was true, to solidify me in the paranoia for another ten years. The cycle starts all over again. It's like right before the kickoff and you are waiting to go in on the first set of downs, or the tip off of the big game, or you're in the chorus or orchestra and your Nana is in the front row. Anxiety, nerves; jeez, what a clown fish.

But, once at the gate, I morph into this playful kid. 'Who wants to go shop for food for the flight?' What about a loaf of bread? A magazine? Look at that guy over there and why is he taking his shirt off? Pull my finger-all those things that make time pass as we wait for our plane.

Arriving in Philly on the first leg of our return trip, we were late, hosting our own controlled crash-landing. Aside from the fact I hadn't been in a near crash like that since I used to fly as a pilot, we got off the plane and had to get two concourses over in 20 minutes to make our connection. 'Rajah', my little Ethiopian driver of the cart that the airline sent to move the seven of us more swiftly, said he could only take six of us and then only half way. He said this directed at me since I was sitting on the arm rest and by some OSHA code, I was endangering the lives of the world. Obviously, I was the one left behind, but since I had nothing to do with us being late and frankly, I think my dead mother could have landed the plane better, I was in a 'sporty' mood. The fear of being late or whatever it is that crawls out of my pancreas and causes me to be anxious prior to getting to the gate was gone. Now, it was game time.

I'm not quite sure what my little friend was thinking when his eyes looked into mine. Love? Compassion? His taxes? Fear that I would reach down his throat and rip out his duodenum with the hand I was pointing at him with and, of course-very politely, telling him to get my team to the gate-all the way to the gate, I'm not quite sure. There was no time. I grabbed my bag and turned for the four mile run (approximately, its always bigger when you're actually doing it). There was no time to check and make sure my boarding pass was secure, or my shoe laces, or the fact that I had to pee from somewhere over Gettysburg but couldn't get out of my seat for fear of being thrown against the overhead bulkhead due to the weather. I just had to get to the gate and hold the plane.

I had no plan as to where I needed to go or how long it was going to be to get there. I quickly knew, however, what I was going to do once I did get there to hold the plane-vomit. Hey, its a bio-hazard. I could buy 20 minutes easy and the run was going to provide the ability. I just needed to not make a wrong turn. I read signs and tried not to run over old women in the process.

Well, long story even longer, I got there. People were still in line and I climbed in behind them. I took up a waiting position behind the gate and waited for the rest of the team, preparing myself to force a stomach purge as soon as someone moved to seal the hatch. While I waited, I took stock in my gear-bag with contents-check, boarding pass stub with seat assignment-check, need to pee-on standby. I was good and in position. And then they showed. My little friend came through for us, although he and I didn't set eyes on each other again, he has made a wonderful memory for me.

I wonder if I made a wonderful memory for him?

Ah, life. It sometimes wears me out.

Bunnies, chocolate, and a good pair of underwear

So, it's Easter, again. I wrote this last year and was thinking about what to write this year and said to myself "Self, this is good to run one more time. Enjoy the day, each other, quiet moments and laughter. Take a look, that big ass stone has been rolled away. Dare to believe it.

What the heck does that mean? If you were to read the paper, it would mean sales at Macy's; half off at Starbucks; cell phones, in all colors, at a discount; and of course, discounted breakfasts for seniors at IHOP. People don't want to really think about Easter, having to admit there is a God and that God had and has a plan individualized for each one of us. We don't want to think that on the Friday before, God took his son, and slaughtered the boy for us, as individuals. Who the heck wants to think of that? Nope, the idea of a chocolate bunny and paisley colors are much nicer.

Until you really look at the picture.

You see, I think love has nothing to do with what we think it has to do with. It has nothing to do with sex, skin tone, the shape in a pair of jeans, ice cream, or a trip to the Bahama's. Love, pure love, is a sacrifice word as my dear friend, John, puts it.

Joni and I just got done waiting out some tests to see if her breast cancer had come back. It had been a long couple of weeks waiting on the tests and doctors. You see, Joni's breast cancer was described by her original doctor as "having teeth." Meaning, if or when it does come back, the outcome won't be good. We've been here before and panic or high anxiety was not present. But there was an undercurrent of tension. I got the folder out containing the response plans to just such a situation. I keep this folder in the dark corner of my brain. I reviewed it and began to hold meetings with my response team, also deep within the gooey mind. As we waited, I planned.

This whole thing turned out to be fine. When I have some time, I will share with you some of the funnier moments; yes, there are some really laughable things-well-maybe just to me but still. But hear this, the one thing that was a constant was that I knew there was a plan. God, by definition, is Love. He can't be anything other than Love. He bought me, Joni, my kids, some of you, with Love. How? Well the payment was huge. He couldn't sacrifice a sheep or a goat like in the old testament. He could but we'd run out of sheep and goats and eventually start cutting up muskrats which doesn't work. So, He paid it once and for all. He laid his boy out on the alter and took his life--for me-oh wait, you too. Don't run from that image-run to it! That isn't embarrassing or degrading. Set that self-flagellating guilt aside. It is a wonderful image. Now, pass it on. I was able to think that this God has a plan for what we were wading in. It was a perfect plan. How Joni getting cancer again would be a perfect plan was beyond me. I just knew the source. I had to trust it. Whatever happened-Daddy had it.

So, Easter-the celebration of sales and chocolate, of half-priced meals and trips. I can look at those things and smile, enjoy them, melt them down and rub them on my chest. My Daddy said to me "Hey, now that you're mine, go and enjoy the world I have surrounded you with. Put some whip cream on that chocolate sundae; look at the sale of underwear at Target; check out the yellow ties and paisley bunnies. I made them-just for you to enjoy." We smile at each other because I know He knows. I remember. Then, like a toddler, I turn and run and play with the things He has laid out, looking back over my shoulder to make sure He is watching.

He is, with a big smile.

Happy Easter everybody!!! Go buy a chocolate bunny and bite its head off. Daddy thinks that is soooo funny.

A Country for Old Men

During our lives, we have times that, well, quite frankly, are a little busy. I am terrible at social stuff. I fake it. I really do. As I get older, I like to go out more often, but I don't like to stay. It's like I need to go 'touch' whatever it is then I can go home, get into my jammies, and wander off into the deep well that is the Delta sleep level during REM. This reminds me-let me take us down a rabbit trail about sleep, which I have to mention before I forget where I was going; kind of like walking into the kitchen from the den, opening the refrigerator door and standing there, forgetting what you were looking for.

What was I saying-see? I forgot-oh, wait, now I remember, sleep. A few years ago, I would wake up with the digital rolling of the clock. I could hear the alarm 'click' sound to start the music. I slept that light. Yesterday morning, I was soooooo faaaaarrrr down in the deep well that I call Delta level sleep, the music actually was part of the dream. I hit the snooze button twice. I never even knew what the snooze button was for until about six months ago-never used it. Bastards (my favorite swear word. It is always plural).

All this to take us back onto the main trail about social dancing and the thrill of just living. We can go to the mall and walk around, usually when I am in the walking 'zone' I have my hands behind my back, my brain is in neutral, like every other man of 85 or more doing the same thing, only I'm not wearing black socks with my shorts. We might get something to eat, walk some more, then come home. Sometimes the drive to the mall is longer than the walk. Like I just want to go and get out and drive around, then walk, then come home. A friend of mine was in a small band and played at a restaurant. I could sit there and listen to him, have a scotch, share a pizza or a salad or whatever, then come home by 9:00. I'M FIFTY-FRIGGIN TWO!

I also discovered recently that my running days are just about done. No, correct that, my running days are over. My knees are like two Peruvian tortillas after my morning run. Look, I'm 52-oh, I said that huh? Memory is the next thing-bastards. I've been running since I was in Pop Warner, whenever that was-ten? Now, I get my sorry ass out of bed and go for a bike ride instead of a run in the pre-dawn dark. Same cardio, better on my knees, but I had to come to grips that I wasn't the Maltese Falcon anymore. If my son and I wrestled again, which we have done extensively, I think I could still take him, but I would have to refer you to the movie of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the type of fighting I would have to resort to. I could take him, but cheating would be my middle name. He has all that Army training crap and youth and muscle on his side but I have old age and treachery. I can still hop the wall to my neighbor's house next door, but with age comes the pausing question-why not walk around to the gate? See? I think that is what we exchange our knee cartilage for, brains-if we live long enough.

The wisdom that comes from just taking more breaths than others for a longer period of time, counts for something. Sure, you could be a real screw up at twenty-five. But if you live to eighty, you must have learned something to allow yourself to not be such a screw up for so long.

See, my theory is god thins the herd at two major points; between the age of thirty and forty-five and again later. If you haven't turned a major corner in your attitude or life style by one of those time periods, a tree is going to fall on you. I don't mean you have to be perfect, nope, that won't ever happen. But how many bullets can you dodge? A Department of Justice report indicated that most gang members are either dead or permanently incarcerated by the age of 42. The herd is thinned. The next thinning, at least for men, is right around 60-70. That's when the first 'Big One' starts thumping on your chest.

It doesn't help the fact that my family can now be shown to be 'predisposed' to things like cancer and heart disease. Every physical form I ever filled out since high school I had to check the first three boxes for family history-cancer, diabetes, and heart disease the 'Big Three', geez.

My dad had his first HA at 55 and the one that put him down at 58. My brother had something like eight vessels blocked and they were taking veins from chickens to put him back together at age 59. They didn't even have a name for it like 'quadruple' or 'triple' bypass. You look at him or my dad and you would say nope, not them. They look healthy. They had other factors that played into it but the Williams line has some gene that explodes at a predetermined time, our own IED. I have them both beat with dedicated exercise for a longer period of time and I eat well but I still have no illusions of making it out of fifties without someday breaking into a cold sweat with a sharp pain lancing down my arm while I'm operating something with a spinning sharp blade before I'm 60, not a chance in hell.

So, here, two weeks after our last kid got married and the smoke has cleared, do I sit in a house that is actually pretty still. Life, right now, has slowed, at least today. I helped my son in law move and plant something like 4,500 square feet of sod in his back yard yesterday. The old man operated an old wheel borrow and could still work like a Trojan slave. Three Advil this morning helped. Tomorrow morning, I'm back on the bike, listening to NPR and riding the neighborhood in the pre-dawn. Heart disease has to find and catch me first.

I like it.

But the pessimist in me says it won't last.

Nope, no such luck for a husband and father who actually did pretty well as a husband and father. My family loves me. They actually like to be around me, in limited amounts. They are making no plans for me to be electrocuted in the shower with an accidental falling lamp (not that I spent any time thinking about things like this) or doing Rocks Paper Scissors to see who gets Dad when he's in diapers, the house keeps the rain off, I've found a semi-creative side, I still have a job, and I currently have my health an most of my teeth. Life, right now, just before beddy-bye time is pretty good.

Now, if I can just put my hands in my pockets instead of behind my back when I walk the mall. Baby steps.

They Don't Call for Daddy

It's an early Saturday morning and yesterday was the rehearsal of our son's wedding, taking place tomorrow afternoon in the middle of the first fairway at a golf club in south Phoenix. Travis is the last of three children to break out and start the age-old trek of germinating a family. His fiance, Tara, is a wonderful girl and the two appear in love and devoted to the common goal of the rest of their lives together. So I sit here, quietly reflecting, as not enough fathers do, on what I did or didn't do to facilitate this end.

I was watching a video this past week with my students on teen violence. Part of it was filmed in the L.A. County Emergency room. The doctor, taking a group of hard core teens on a tour of the hospital, was telling them, straight up, about the end of life which he saw so much of in those halls. He told them something that stuck, "All bad asses come in here and as they die, they all call out the same two words, 'Mommy' and 'god.'"

It hit me. Why don't these people call for their 'Daddy's'? The answer was clear. It didn't take a college professor to do a five year study. The dads had failed their daughters and sons. They abandoned them. They abused them. They made them witnesses to unspeakable crimes against their mothers or others who they, in their roll as a father, were sworn to honor and protect. Why don't bad asses, or any asses for that matter, call out for their 'Daddy's'? Because we fathers have butchered our duty.

I cried.

No, not like a Frenchman who got a paper cut. The eyes filled and when I blinked, they ran over. Crap, I get weepy at AT&T commercials now and don't even get me started with the Budweiser horses. I am sure I will be curled up in the corner somewhere during this wedding of my last child, sucking my thumb and holding a tablecloth up to my head like a binky.

The kids in the class knew why the bad asses didn't call for their dads. Why, as men, would we ever want to go down that road? Why, would we not want our child, in their last dying breath, to be thinking and calling to us as well? I lost myself in thought for a day or two.

Right before a wedding of one of your kids, you get reflective. You do the same on your birthday and Christmas. "Did my life count?"

I want my life to be one of those where, even years from now, my children or grandchildren will be able to come to my house, maybe I am stooped over some begonias in the garden (can one grow begonias in Arizona? What is a begonia?). I look up and there is fear, panic, tension in their face. Resources have been tried and for some reason, they felt a need to seek out the old Silverback. Quixada rises to a standing position, maybe helped by the child. "What can this old man do? He can barely stand," they might think to themselves.

But inside the old gentleman, still beats the heart of a lion of eighteen. Funny thing about fathers, they are capable of unspeakable horror and pain. But sometimes they get it right. And when a father gets it right-sometimes years or decades later, unimaginable healing and love happens. Which means for men, there is always hope.

So, since this damn video, I have been thinking the gruesome thought of whether my children would call my name in their last moment. Then I smiled, laughed almost. Nope, they wouldn't. They would call to their god. The one they know and who knows them.

Oh, I guess I all right.

Quixada straightens up to his child's fear. His back firms, his arms and legs tense. There is a fire that lights his eyes from the back. The child had not seen such a fire there before. Strange. He rubs his thinning silver hair and places his arms around the child. There is a transference of comfort in that arm. Something about it causes the child to believe he made the right decision coming to speak to the old man. As the fear is shared, the old man walks them into the house and they sit down. The child had not been there in a while, it was cluttered with old man things, newspapers, old gym shoes. Coffee is poured and cookies, for comfort are given. They sit at a table and Quixada listens. Counsel is asked for and smartly given. The old man smiles and says things will be better soon.

Just as the child prepares to leave, something in the corner catches their eye. There, next to stack of papers and where the old dog bed still occupies a corner. It is an old lance, a sword in an old leather scabbard, and a rusted iron helmet. The child asks about it-"Why do you have that old stuff over there?"

The old man smiles as he looks at it. "For certain times," the old man says. The old man winks and walks the child to their car. He kisses them gently on the cheek and waives good bye. When he comes back inside, he reaches under his sink and pulls out an old shoe box. In it, is a old can of rust remover, a well worn soap stone, a small tin of oil, and an old rag. He lays out some newspaper on the coffee table, takes the old helmet from its resting spot in the corner, and begins.

Another Day

I turned 52 today. Its Saturday morning and like other Saturdays, I get up, walk the girls, make a pot of joe, get into my art class with Jerry Yarnell, and then do some writing. All this before I face the day-- love this time of day.

Men, I think all men, get up this high in the number range of their ages and when their 'special day' comes around, they can't help but be reflective. Think about it; I'm much closer to the end than the beginning, at least I pray to god I am. I would hate to think I am going to live to 104. "Roll over Mr. Williams. We need to change your bed linens-again." The Inuits had a good idea. The old ones would just wander out onto the ice pack and go away, eventually falling asleep and then surely becoming an afternoon snack for a polar bear. I would love being food for a bear! What a great cycle of life you could claim.

"How did you die?"
"Drowned in my own pee. You?"
"Fell asleep on an ice flow then a bear and her two cubs ate me. They didn't have to eat for two weeks after that."
"Oh, dude, that is SO COOL!"

So men get all reflective. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting here, polishing off a bottle of Jack and wiping tears away from my stained cheeks with a pair of dirty underwear. I feel pretty good right now. Very little in my life that I wish I could have done different or that I still see as an un-obtained goal. Maybe I still want to own my own restaurant or be a short order cook at Denny's. Plus, with age, come a paradigm shift in feelings, beliefs, values, etc. I want to grow up and be a Silverback!

My daughter hates that term, Silverback. I spoke at her wedding and while addressing her new husband, I made him turn and look into the audience an focus on the old men with silver hair. I told him those are the wise ones whom he should seek for counsel when you need it. Now there is a goal worth pursuing!

Look, my legs are starting to wear out. My "Christmas Day present handing out injury" actually still bothers my left knee which means my running ability is cut. I am sure I am going through male menopause-I'm having night sweats like a Coyote muling a bunch of illegals across the Arizona Sonoran in the summer time, and now there is just the act of living-like why is there water under my wood floor in the den and where is it coming from? That kind of living.

Life is a strain, its suppose to be. How I respond to that life, well, that's the fun part. I had a couple of partners in my prior life who I would still run into a collapsing building for. They're older men now, just like me. I remember we were following a bad guy along a canal. One of the young bucks we were working with was in a foot chase with this guy. Problem was, the young buck was a young buck who liked food too much and the bad guy was a gazelle. We couldn't shoot him; that would have been bad form. So, my partner and I were chasing him in a car. My guy pulled up next to this man running and opened his car door 'accidentally' causing the man to fall. That was Silverback wisdom.

We let the young buck cuff him after he finished puking his lungs out.

I am at a time of my life that I am still willing to try hopping walls, leaping tall buildings, and jousting at windmills. My Scottish heritage won't let me think that there isn't a day that isn't a good day for a fight.

But there is also something to be said for driving the car, filling the inside with the sounds of Bachmann-Turner Overdrive, up to the local Denny's for a short stack.

Now, where the hell is that leak coming from?

To you and yours, thanks for being in the life of this developing Silverback.

Stop and Sniff!!

There are things around us that if we blink, we miss. The simple things, the quiet things, those things that we haven't seen because we've been too busy worrying about the building burning down around us. Sure, we have to survive the fire, get out of the building, make sure it doesn't collapse on our heads, but what about the beauty of the fire? Fire is primal. Both sexes love a good fire. Women love one in the fire place with a glass of wine, snuggled next to someone they care for and who they think cares for them. Men, well, we like the burning building.





I discovered this 'blink' thing this morning. I should say, rediscovered it. I got up and didn't have enough coffee to make coffee. So, I loaded the girls, Betty and Mindy, into the back of the rental (I was in an accident last week in my truck, a story for another day) and we went to Copper Star Coffee Shop on 7th Avenue.





I enjoy coffee. I don't worship it or light candles to it, but I am of an age now where I will spend $8 a pound for some instead of the $2 at Fry's.





The girls stayed in the car because I wanted to give Betty enough time to get her white hair on the dark upholstery. I ordered a cup of joe and a pound. Then I looked at the food display case. I have been coming to this neighborhood store since it opened, sometimes stopping on my bike ride to work for a cup, but I've never ordered food. Bagels, muffins, scones, things with frosting and things plain. I was easily talked into a scone, something between a biscuit and a heavy loaf of bread only this one had chocolate chips. They had some with blueberries and cranberries but why? I paid for everything and went over to a side table to dress my coffee. I then pulled a chunk of the scone out of the little paper bag it was in and, without thinking, plopped it into my mouth.



It was warm.





A warm-bready thing, with soft, melting pieces of chocolate, some fresh ground coffee with cream and sugar. All of a sudden, life just got real good.





For moments in time, we have these things cross our path-then they leave, sometimes never to be seen again. Here are just a few that I have overlooked:

• The color green in the early morning light as it falls into the shadows. Sunsets work the same way, but those are at day's end and we're usually too tired to notice.


• A dog sleeping on your foot or curled up next to you on the couch and placing their paw in your lap.


• The smell of an out-door grill from a neighbor cooking beef (men can smell the difference between beef and anything else).


• The smell of the lawn at a spring training baseball game.


• Having to stand in line for only fifteen minutes at the grocery store instead of hours in most countries only to be told they were out of whatever you were standing in line for, two days ago.


• Reading a book in the afternoon and falling asleep after a page.


• The laughter of a child younger than three.


• A morning run, bike ride, especially this time of year. Summer time we would move from neighbor's sprinkler to sprinkler, dehydrating ourselves until our pee was a fluorescent yellow, but this time of year, it's glorious.


• The soft, stroking, touch of a hand from someone you care about across your cheek while they smile at something 'cute' you said.


• A barefoot walk on a beach, almost any beach.
• ANY single-malt scotch, cigar, and a good friend talking about nonsense.
• Seeing a rabbit in your backyard.


• A clean pair of white socks. Underwear is a distant second.

Look, life is a freight train screaming right at our noggins. I guess we need to ask ourselves, what are we doing? Are we living to work, finding our identity in the labels we get from each other? Or, are we working to live? Most of us would say the second, but are we really? "Mark, you don't get it, my hours got cut, my wife is sick, my kids are sick, the car broke down...."Yeah, I've been there. I've also said that same exact sentence-still do sometimes.

But when you think about it, is our identity in what we do, since what we do, when we're done doing it, is just handed to someone else or cancelled due to budget cuts?

Here, tell ya what, lets try something. Today, go for a walk, a bike ride, or a simple drive in the car with the windows down-wear a coat if its cold. Throw the dogs in the back seat and let them have their own windows and just go. Stop off at some gooey store and buy a scone or a scone like substance. "Mark, (insert whine) I can't eat that. My doctor said I...." Geezus, quit yer bitchin', are ya French? What's it going to do? Shave a month off your life? I'm not asking you to double-salt your fries, although that sounds pretty good right now. Nope, we're going out for 'socks.'

Some nice, white socks.

Maybe if we're lucky, we'll see a house fire.

Pulling on a Cat's Tail

I love the sound of bag pipes. I like the sound of drums-any kind of drum, bass drums, bongos, Native American drums, USC marching band playing with Fleetwood Mac, just about any marching band, really. Put those two sounds together and I'm marching off to war.

We had a "Cultural Awareness Assembly" at our school yesterday. It was one of those assemblies where student get up on stage and dance, sing, do something from their culture. We are an international school, something like thirty-seven languages are spoken by our students from all over the world, pretty cool. Of course, as I get older, I draw closer to my own ancestry-the Scots. These students don't necessarily need to see another white guy in a dress but I give them a pretty good accent when we're talking about Shakespeare and my theory that he was drunk most of the time, a prime reason why you can't understand half the crap he wrote. London water, terrible in 1604.

So I'm sitting there watching the tribal dancers and eventually, the Hula dancers arrived. Who the hell on our campus is from 'Hula,' I thought to myself. Most of the kids I saw dancing, from the back row I was sitting in, looked like Hispanic kids. Of course, if you put a Hispanic kid next to Polynesian kid, baggy their pants, turn their hats on backwards, and have them say "Wazup?" they would be identical. If they can have suspect Hula dancers, why can't they have the Scots!

I'm sitting there imagining a pipe and drum core marching in and then up the aisle to the stage. Kids would follow them automatically because they couldn't help it. That's just what they did at the Battle of Sterling!! Wait, I think we lost that one, anyway-why can't we?

So, as the sun starts to crack the horizon on another snow-less Phoenix landscape, the beasts are sleeping at my feet, the coffee is oh, so good, and The Royal Dragoon Guards play on the CD, I think today, later after the sun dries the lawn, I will proceed to the yard where I will mow the bonny glen to an even layer to the melodic sound of someone jerking on a cat's tail. Aye, tis a good day for a fight!