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!

Tales of the Heart

This next week men and women, little boys and little girls, and those in between, will be running around ordering flowers, cards, rings, making dinner reservations to lavish on their life partner, or someone they just met. We scramble to either get a date or to avoid it all together, to not give any false impressions, intentions, or basically tip our hand. Valentine's Day is next Sunday and this week is a running gaggle of stuffed bears made of soft reds and whites with sewn heart-shaped pillows attached to them. I think sometimes, we mix our definitions of 'romance with 'love'. Or even worse, the definition of 'gee, I really like you...' with love.



I remember in grade school, I had a Cyrano heart for a girl named Mary, I know-how traditional. She never knew about it. I could never tell her. Sometime between then and college, hormones kicked in and I think I 'loved' everything: cloudy days, rainy nights, my bathrobe, Gilligan's Island, liver and onions from the school cafeteria, and just about any high school aged girl and three teachers-everything. But upon reflection, it was the romantic side that I was wallowing in, not love. Especially after I learned what 'love' really meant years later.



I wrote, some time ago, that my bed was my 'lover'. Now, before you shutter and wipe the key board down with alcohol, you have to understand the context. It was in a book and, well, I thought it was pretty cool. My editor slapped me-hard. "Geezus, Mary, and Joseph Williams, are you from some small town in the West Virginia Appalachians? NO ONE can have a bed for a lover-unless, of course, you live in that part of the country." The point was, I liked my bed and bedtime and the resulting sleep a lot, most men, my very young age, do. I misused the word.



Every year, I get my students to write a letter expressing their love to their parents. That will take place again this Friday, for hand delivery on Sunday. Now, some of my kids really don't like their parents or many don't know where their parents are at so we substitute someone else. But this letter follows a discussion of the origin of Valentine and what 'love' might really mean.



A great teacher once said "Love is a sacrifice word." There, I should just let that line end this discussion. When I ask my high school students to tell me what 'love' is, they give me all the TV versions. They giggle when someone is bold and says 'Sexin' it up.' They dance all around it from 'really really liking someone' to marriage. When I ask them why do we say we 'love' our ham sandwich-does that fit into one of their definitions, they give me the deer in the headlights look. Sacrifice is funny too. I love my dogs. But I wouldn't sacrifice our financial stability and spend thousands on vet bills to keep them alive. However, and here's the weird part, I would run back into a burning building to rescue them.



But what if love meant 'sacrifice' and we lived by that? What does that make the world look like then? How would that thought, change the way we look at each other?



I look back at myself, coming up on 30 years of marriage. I swear, it just started yesterday. I made a video for my kids to give them on my 50th birthday, about two years ago, of pictures showing our family as they grew up, and set it to music. I have it on my desktop and watch it every now and again and still get teary. What a life I have been privileged to live! Now, hold the pony there sheriff, we stepped into it big time when we got married. Both Joni and I would say, and actually we did say in counseling six months after we were married, that it was completely different then the day before we were married. When you say 'for better or worse, sickness and health....'-- wow! Hold on to your toast.



We all say those words, almost as an after thought. Then, about a week into it, something I do, isn't so 'cute' anymore. Then the world applies stresses and tugs on that bond like the Olympic tug of war team. Job stress, bills, hidden issues from our childhood that we thought were dealt with come back again, addiction issues, self-esteem issues, unflushed toilets, pms, sex, fatigue, all weigh in, sometimes all at once. Those are fun days! The romance, so easily supplied at first, drains away and what you have left after the sweet candy outside is licked away is that weird chocolate center, which we all know, isn't chocolate. But there's something that happens in that trail ride of a married couple. Something that only happens if we allow it too.



We get purified.



After years of life, and if we allow ourselves to, we never reach the apex of that word, 'love'. It never stops growing-until we take our last breath. Soon into relationships, after the sex, and makeup, and ski trips to Vail, are all washed away in the sink, we wake up to living life and all the blemishes it has for us. During the daily melee of living, we have respites of peace, spread out over time, broken by life landing on us again. It is here, when we look around, we see those who matter. They matter because they stood in the fight with us. We look up and down the trench line and those faces that look back at us, providing a wink, a slight smile, a look of confidence letting you know they are standing firm with you, no matter the cost-'sacrifice'. They mouth simple words, like an old Scottish warrior-"Aye, ti's a good day for a fight." There is love in a form we can almost taste.





We have seen it daily:


The nineteen year-old marine in Fallujah


The single mother working to provide for her son


The father working three jobs to make ends meet


The fire and police running into a collapsing building while everyone is running out


The child, holding the hand of their dying parent as they reach the end of their life.



The problem is many of us fail-once, twice, many times. So, we think we can never find this Valhalla that is so celebrated; we can never get it 'right'. But we can. That's the thing, we can find it. Its there, we see it all around us if we stop to look. That act of sacrifice, we do-daily. We don't think much about it but the fact is, its huge! Look to both sides and see who is near you. Look and see who you are near and then take a hand. Sometimes that last few dollars or minutes of our time, that we can't really spare, we use to give a small token for someone less fortunate, a shirt, a birthday card, letting them know they matter, sometimes that small act will change that person's life forever.

So, here we are, approaching another Valentine's Day. Legend has it, that an old priest refused to give up marrying people in the dungeons of 3rd century Rome even after Caesar said he would have him killed. He was following an example of a guy before him. He didn't stop, and he was killed for it.



If you looked throughout the catacombs of the Roman dungeons where Valentine wandered, you won't find a stuffed bear with a red heart sewn to it anywhere.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

The Arts!

I have discovered a love for writing and painting. Not those paint by number things or painting a bedroom. I hate painting rooms. No, I'm talking about that artsy-fartsy stuff of a canvas, easel, oils, and acrylics type stuff. Then, you throw some writing stuff in there and I'm a happy clam.

Like right now, I am in my little library/office/study/storage facility and writing to you. I have KYOT on the radio, they're the best on Sunday mornings, two dogs at my feet who think I am lord and master, and a cup of coffee that if it was compared to a baseball base hit would be at least a two-bagger and maybe stretched into a triple. Both writing and painting are like crack. Up until about twelve years ago they never use to be.

J.D. Salinger died this last week. He was due, the guy was 91. I don't want to live that long unless I have complete and utter control over every part of my body. I don't need to be able to run at that age but maybe still go out and get on a bike. Sure, a three wheeler by then, but just to ride around the block at least. Then just die in my sleep. I don't want to have my kids or grand kids or great grand kids find me in my own goo-you know? Anyway, back to J.D.

He was kind of a recluse. If ever you saw the movie Finding Forrester I think he might be something like that. No one interviewed him. He rejected and shunned anyone wanting to talk to him about Catcher in the Rye. The best line that came out of anything he ever said was that he wrote for himself, no one else. I could relate to that. I write because I have to. I paint because I have to. If I didn't do both of these, I would be at the track, smoking filter-less cigarettes and betting my pension on the ponies-and losing.

This year, Holy Ground will be born. It will be chasing her sister, Emancipating Elias, born in late 2007. If five people get it, it'll make me smile. Selling it is not the drive in my writing. The drive is the creation of something that I and I alone smile about. I have a few close friends who I care what they think. Three of them are my editors but the rest are family and very close friends-countable on one hand with a few fingers amputated. When one of those people say "Holy crap man, that was so good! I'm sobbing, laughing, I couldn't stop turning the pages!" or "Hey, paint that same crap for me, would ya? I want one just like it over my toilet," then I know I made something good. When one of my editors say they cried, my smile grows bigger. Everyone knows editors had their tear-ducts removed when they became editors.

Now, I have never met Salinger and frankly, it's too late now. But I think if I did, we wouldn't talk about theme, or inspiration or "so, where did you come up with the title...blah blah blah." Nope, I think we would sit and talk about our favorite scotch, best pet we ever owned, and our bowels. Men always, eventually, talk about their bowels.

We'd probably completely stay away from the topic of writing. Except for one thing, when is the best time for us to write? We'd compare. Then we'd talk about our favorite foods. Which, of course, would lead to another bowel story.

Do Your Eyes Leak?

Do your eyes leak?

No, its a valid question. Do you, on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, have eyes that cry for no reason? My grandfather did. If my dad lived long enough, I think he would have. I do. Am I that old that I have to take a wad of toilet paper with me and wipe my cheeks every 30 minutes? Sometimes, the right one runs more than the left, like a wolverine in the circus. Of course, I wouldn't do that anyway, taking the toilet paper, bad form. I'd just use my sleeve or, in case of short sleeves, my shirt tail, sock, or just let it run. Usually I just let it run down my cheek. That way, people think I'm this 'emotionally connected' French woman.

"Oh Mark, you're so sensitive!"

No, I just have a gland issue. I find that as I get older, I have a tendency to cut loose stuff that after a while, I just don't care about. People care too much about stuff that really doesn't matter and not about other stuff. Haiti and what's going on there, that's pretty high on the list. Global warming, wars, stuff like that. Whether your underwear is on inside out or not, not a big deal. Sometimes that happens to me. I get dressed in the dark. I load my clothes in my bag, hope on my bike and go to work. I change there, usually in the dark. Sometimes, things don't go on as planned. So, I leave it. Socks are the same way. Inside-outside, who really cares? I do brush my teeth sometimes three times a day. Probably to the point where I am wearing out my fillings.

I have a hole in my sweats, multiple holes. But I think they might make it one more year. I think I said that two years ago. They're just getting broken in. Besides, I don't want to go to Target and buy a new pair. I can, I have the money. I just don't want to go. I'd rather walk through Costco and try the potstickers.

I think good fitting shoes are important. Feet, that's where the real effort should be. Focus on the feet and you'll have a much better day.

What about the lint from the dryer? A little on your shirt after you take it out and put it on, especially if it is in a hard to reach spot is okay. Really.

I'm finding I buy name brand stuff now. Not all of it but I figured I've lived long enough to qualify for stuff that advertises on television. I like that new laundry liquid that smells like mangoes. It reminds me of mango margaritas I had in Mexico years ago. Ahhh. Or baths. Yeah, I said 'baths'. I take showers but a bath is a poor man's jacuzzi. Helps those joint issues.

I need to ride my bike more and run less. I'm running out of cartilage in my knees and I understand you can't grow that stuff back. They take it from pigs and replace it with surgery. That doesn't sound too appetizing.

I would rather read than go to a Cardinals game. I do like going to the Diamondbacks game but that's only because you can sit down and clap politely. Its' like being at a park watching the ducks swim.

I'm a grandfather of two now, soon to be three. I need an air of tranquility and profound knowledge, like the Silverback gorilla. King of the family, the one all apes go to and ask where the best bananas are. He walks in and whatever melee is happening, it all settles down because he is there. The little boy in me still likes kicking in a door and sticking a gun in some bad guys face and telling him that if he moves, well, you know the rest. The Silverback in me wants to knock on the door and tell him its a pizza delivery.

Little do they know his underwear is on inside out.

Busy Hands are Hands with a Cramp

How much more can one pile in a week? I know, a lot. But have you ever had a few days, a few compact days in a finite level of time that you just think, “Wow, that is a lot of stuff!”

Last week, a week ago Thursday, my son, Travis called me and tells me he is going to Haiti in 72 hours. That would put it on Sunday last. Travis is with an Army Reserve MP unit out of Mesa. It’s a week later and he still hasn’t heard. Every day, he repeats the same answer to the unending question-‘have you heard?’ If he doesn’t hear by Friday of this week, he won’t be going. It was a 30 day deployment and would bring him too near his wedding in the first part of March.

This, of course, is after the earthquake in Haiti. There is so much misery there in a state which is already miserable. But the tour cruises are still sailing there, so the country has that going for it-which is nice.

School is, well, school. The best part is when kids come into my classroom before the sun comes up. I’m usually at my desk by 6:30 to plan for the day and trying to get some writing in. I tried writing after school or at night but my brain is a bowl of cereal-covered in milk. I usually keep the lights off and have trees covered in those small, white Christm—oh, sorry, that’s politically incorrect—small white holiday lights and a fountain going with soft music. The smell of fresh coffee counters their over use of Axe cologne. Kids come in and just sit.

Wedding plans are progressing for a March lift-off. I called the place we’re having the rehearsal dinner at and made the reservations. It’s like we’re rolling out one of the shuttles to the pad for a launch. Soon, we’ll be fueling the rocket.

Speaking of shuttles, did you hear NASA is shutting down their shuttle program this year and selling off or giving away a million items to the highest bidder? I totally want a helmet.

Then this week are the rains. I’ve lived in Arizona all my life, same house even—never moved. And I have never seen so many people get their panties all in a wad over some rain. Sure, lots of rain, at least that’s what the weather forecasters say, but what do they know? They‘ve all moved out here from places like Chicago, or Omaha, or Long Island. They got their Doppler radar and maps and stuff and they bite their nails and say ‘ooohhh’ and ‘aaaaahhhhs’ a lot, but come on. Here’s an idea. STAY OUT OF THE WATER! If there is a creek where there didn’t use to be a creek, my suggestion to you is-stay away. Don’t go touch it. Treat it like you would a big Grizzly in Alaska. Yeah, their cute—from a hundred yards away. When they’re standing on your chest and preparing to rip your throat out and feed it to their young—not so cute.

There, that’s all you need to know.

So, that was a week that seemed busy. Sure, some of you had busier weeks and weeks with more action, but that was enough action for me. I’m a simple guy—really.

'Gut Instinct' or just Gas

'Intuition' is one of those words that we like to flip around like a five dollar chip on a craps table in Reno; not so expensive to really hurt but just enough to let people see it and say "Hey, that person is groovy," or some other words to that effect.

I just got through spending a week with my students talking about the 'Transcendentalist period' in American literature, mid-1800's. When people didn't have any place to go at night and once the sun went down, they didn't have any light so they sat around and 'thought.' That can be fun and 'enlightening' if your crops are in and the fire is warm and your belly is full from the possum you shot earlier in the day, but what if your marriage is done, your brother is on crack, your high school age daughter is dating some Colombian drug lord wanna-be and the doctor called you personally after your 'routine' lab tests and asked you when you can come in and talk. How does that instinct working for you now?

Its the same.

We have a tendency to doubt ourselves on every stage. Why? We've been told over the course of time, that our abilities are falling short. So, we have a tendency, after a while, to believe those people. We look past the facts and look at the fog in front of us and begin to doubt ourselves. I think that's pretty normal. But here's the thing, certain things never change. Our prior experience, still has and is made up of facts that had certain outcomes. Those don't change. Fire, still burns the skin. That Ethiopian restaurant still requires you to take a sandwich along with you for dinner, that's just a fact. Have you ever-EVER seen a fat Ethiopian? Nope, they don't exist. Why? Do you really need to ask?

People know right and wrong. By age 12, you pretty much know its wrong to shop lift, shoot people, steal, or eat an entire large bag of Doritos. We know these things. So, why do we do it-violate the truth we know? We like it. We like it so we justify it with some politically correct statement. Why do I still run in the morning? Well, first, let me clarify that 'running' is not what I do at almost 52 years young. I shuffle, at least for the first half mile. All my joints and muscles are reporting to my brain pan that this is really stupid. But after a while they assign themselves the task of just getting me home and to the bathroom before I have an 'accident.' I say I like it. In fact, if I didn't I would be Jabba the Hutt, complete with no neck and beached on a couch waiting for my family genetics of heart disease to take me out with one massive shutdown.

Look, we all need to take a breath. The world, this year, will be a place of hope, despair, love, hate, war, and peace. In other words, about the same as its been for the last, oh, well, since the whole thing started. We do the best we can each day with what we have. Look down range today and see what you can do to find a little slice of lemon pie to look forward to and then pursue it. It's okay, even for a diabetic, to eat sweets sometimes.

So trust your gut when it comes to the things immediately around you. Don't worry about stuff unless the crap is on your radar. If not, let it go. Trust me, someone will handle it because it will be on their radar. Take that trip, eat at that restaurant, buy the sweater, enjoy those things around you that you can enjoy. I'm not saying bet the rent money on the ponies, but if we're not enjoying the life we have, what the hell are we doing? Find that moment to make you smile and trust your self to get you there and then back.

Even if its an Ethiopian restaurant.

Okay, that's it. The holiday's over. All done. Nope, you can't count New Year's Eve as a holiday. Its just a marker for the end of the tax year and the beginning of your diet. Don't believe me? Look at the ads. Tell me where in your house you're going to put that $900 treadmill? Hmm? No, you're not going to get on it. Okay, maybe twice but that's it. Then it will be the thing that holds your clothes after your done ironing. Those new sweats you got, you will take them out and try them 'in the field' once, maybe twice, then you will wear them while you sit on the couch and watch re-runs of the Gilmore Girls, Band of Brothers, or NCIS. I don't care who you promised, it ain't gonna happen, at least not for very long, not if you shoot for the moon.

You've got to take baby steps.

Practice walking to the front walk for the paper and back. Start small. Instead of finishing those Christmas morning cinnamon rolls because you 'don't want it to go to waste,' try only eating one. If you wait another day or two, they'll be so hard, even microwaving them slathered in butter won't soften them up.

Take the dogs out and toss the ball or Frisbee for them. Make sure you stretch first. The last thing you want to do is pull a back muscle. That will interfere with you laying on the couch watching the Gilmore Girls, or Band of Brothers.

When you're ready, go for a walk in the mall. This will take some planning. You need a good pair of sneakers, good socks, and those sweats you bought. Take a bottle of water so you don't get dehydrated while you're looking at the sales in the windows or as you slow your pace down passing Victoria Secrets and give it a crisp, snappy hand-salute. Make sure you watch where you're walking. You don't want to bump into something and bruise yourself. It might lay you up for a week or so while the bruise heals.

We all know what's coming. First, we have to get back New Year's and drinking stuff that we haven't had since we were under the bleachers in high school. It all comes down to moderation. Between now and April we all need to save up enough to pay the IRS or, if we're lucky we're getting some back. So think about using that money for a new couch. Come on, you've earned it!