21 posts tagged “life”

No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.

Happy Birthday, Emma Goldman

What are five things that make you unique?
Submitted by RA<3TA.

1.  I am the only man with my first and last name in Google.  There is a nineteen year old surfer girl on the Gold Coast of Australia with my first and last name.  But I'm pretty sure her middle name isn't Edward. 

2.  I am the only D&D paladin to have had their only daughter die in front of them in a dank cavern.  That I know of.

3.  My rehab counselor was an ex-Marine Vietnam Vet chaplain, who went to his first rock concert, at which a former patient was performing, while I was in rehab.  No, I won't tell you who the former patient was.

4.  As alluded to earlier this week, I used to kiss my kindergarten bus driver every day when I got off the bus.  That is, until I gave him the mumps.

5.  My brother once gave me a fork out of the kitchen utensil drawer as a birthday present.  I gave him a spoon the following Christmas.

This man is a role model for me.

Who helped make you the cool person you are today?
Submitted by Amy - Sister Brown Hair Surprise.

This is Father Bill Hultberg.  Father Bill was my counselor at Chit Chat, the rehab I attended in 1987.  He no longer works as a counselor there, but remains in the role of spiritual advisor.  When I was there, he took a couple of days off to go to his first rock concert, at the invitation of a rock star he had counselled earlier.  (No, I won't tell you who.)  Bill is an ex-Marine chaplain who went in-country with his troops in Vietnam.  He had to face his own demons in order to come to a place where he could be useful to people like me.  And you would not mistake Bill for the kindly priest down at the country parish.  He wears boots, and has plenty of Oorah left in him.

Bill was the first person who was able to get me to face myself and my alcoholism squarely and honestly.  He was able to place me in a position where I could admit that I was doomed if I didn't change, but that there was hope that change was possible.  And he helped me to understand that there was a power greater than my addiction, which has allowed me to live a life without fear, and with the hole I used to fill with booze now healed by joy and faith. 

I haven't had a drink since the day I met Father Bill.  I owe him my life. 

I live in a city.  The beautiful city of Philadelphia.  I know, I know, cities are bad.  Especially old rust-belt cities like Philadelphia.  Well, let me tell you a secret about cities.  I don't own a car.  Don't need one.  Just about everything I need is available within walking distance to my home.  Convenience stores?  Two with two blocks.  Hardware stores?  Two within four blocks.  Food markets?  Well, if you want small organic, it's a block away.  If you want chain organic, the Whole Foods store is a whole seven blocks away.  Gourmet?  Three blocks.  Regular chain?  Two within seven blocks.  Asian?  Five blocks.  Farmers markets?  Tuesday's is three blocks; Saturday and Sunday five blocks.  I could go on forever. 

But I have a better idea.  This site allows you to score where you live, on a scale of 1-100, the walkability of where you live.  I put my address in; my score was 98.  I was born and raised in Marin County, California.  Heaven on earth.  People ask me, why don't you go back?  I put my parents house in the walkability calculator; their score was 11.  I used to joke, when I was in college, that where we lived, you needed a car to go to the bathroom.  Apparently, I wasn't far off.  The home we lived in when I was in college scored a 9.

One of the "great" things about this gas nonsense is that suburbanites will learn the value of cities again.  Who knows?  Maybe more families will move back into town.  I know my neighborhood is full of young kids, and babies in fancy strollers.

What's your score?

I was tagged the other day by Tamzen, but have been under the weather lately.  Here, belatedly, is my list.  If you are reading this, and are so inclined, feel free to carry the torch after me.

1.  I am left-handed.  Hardly extraordinary.  But I had to fight for the right to remain so.  When I was in first grade and second grade, my parents were flush enough, for a time, to send us three kids to a private school.  It was called "3R School" (Reading, Writing, and Arithmetics).  Actually quite a good school.  When my parents pulled us out after a couple of years, and I ended up in a public 3rd grade class, I was two years ahead of the class.  They used the old "McGuffey's Readers."  Aside from the old fashioned bigotry, excellent teaching aids. 

The school was old fashioned in another way.  It believed in breaking the students who were left-handed, and making them right-handed.  My brother was originally left-handed, and is now right-handed.  I was more stubborn than he was.  I refused to comply with the demand to switch.  The first time, I was put in the hall, and the principal came by to explain that this demand was non-negotiable.  I agreed.  The next time, I was put in the hall again.  This time, the principal told me that if I refused a third time, I would be suspended.  (Remember now, I'm 6 at this point.)  I went home, and told my parents.  They called the school, and threatened to sue, bless them.  The school backed down, but essentially refused to teach me penmanship.  My cursive is so bad, that I print when I write.  And that is often no picnic either.  But it's a small price to pay for my freedom.

2.  I was watching when Bobby was killed.  I was 9 years old, nearly 10.  Because of my family background, I was fascinated by politics.  (My mom ran Goldwater's campaign in Northern California).  So, I was watching TV, alone, as Bobby gave his victory speech in that hotel ballroom.  "On to Chicago!"  And then the nightmare unfolded.  Now, I wasn't raised in a Democratic family.  And I was still young enough that issues like race and poverty, living as I did in a wealthy, mostly white community, hadn't touched my conscience.  (Beyond caring about Biafra, and trick-or-treating for UNICEF.)  It was only later that I came to appreciate what Bobby was talking about.  But I remember that night like it was yesterday.

3.  I have held human bone in my hands.  I spent several summers working as an archaeologist, and went to college for the purpose of following that profession.  When I was 10, my fifth grade teacher, Miss Symmes, came to the class to ask for volunteers.  A new development was being built down the road from the school, and they had come across a Miwok Indian burial.  Cal Berkeley had sent a team of archaeologists over, but the developers only agreed to give them a few days to get everything out.  (There are laws now).  I went to the site with some other students, and was given a standing sifter to shake and examine.  It was wonderfully exciting.  At that moment, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

4.  I got lost at the zoo on my birthday.  When I was a young child, my family took us all to the San Francisco zoo for my birthday.  I don't know what happened.  I was looking at the spider monkeys.  When I looked up, my family was gone.  They eventually realized they had lost me, but not a big confidence booster.  Not as bad as the time my brother gave me a table fork for my birthday, and not as good as the time my mother got me caviar and Swiss fondue for a birthday party with friends.  Ranks in the bottom quarter of birthdays.

5.  I had my first formal date when I was 7.  Her name was Karen Penhaligon.  She and I were in the same class at 3R in the second grade.  She was a cute little blonde pixie; think Coppertone Girl a few years later.  Her mom asked my mom if we could have a picnic together at the Mount Tamalpais Mountain Theater.  We went, and had a nice time.  I was in love.  As I mentioned earlier, I left 3R after the second grade, and I lost touch with Karen.  The next time I saw her was entirely coincidental.  I was taking my SATs, and I heard her name while roll was being taken.  I looked over, and there was this statuesque beauty.  I was feeling pretty grungy that day, and not terribly self-confident.  So I didn't go over to re-introduce myself.  I have no idea if she remembered me.

6.  I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy over Easter break when I was 8.  Well, I was almost 9.  My family rented a house down at the Sea Drift community in Stinson Beach, on the Pacific Ocean in Marin.  I loved being there.  But I had just finished the Hobbit, and decided to start reading The Fellowship of the Ring.  Once I started, forget about vacation, the beach, the ocean, eating.  I was in a trance.  I didn't stop reading until I had reached the end of the appendices.  It took me about four days.  That's an average of about 300 pages a day.  I reread the trilogy again every year, until I went to college.

7.  I have a genius IQ, but cannot speak any foreign language.  Frankly, I don't really care about the "genius" thing.  It just means I'm good at taking certain types of tests.  I've known a few Mensa people over the years, all of whom have been either boring or boorish.  (I stand willing to meet an exception to my experience to date.)  But I do really care about my not being able to speak or even barely understand any language beyond English.  I feel deficient.

8.  I need to touch things as I walk.  It's a sensory thing.  As I'm walking, every once in a while, I need to brush the fingers of my right hand against a wall, a post, a car, whatever.  One nice thing about having my son is that we almost always walk with me holding his hand with my right hand.  That seems to assuage my need just fine.

Have you ever experienced road rage?
Submitted by Question of the Day.

It depends on what you mean by "experienced".  A group of colleagues and I were driving back to California from the 1976 Republican convention.  I was behind the wheel, and had been since we left Kansas City.  It was now late at night.  Half the folks in the car were asleep, and we were somewhere in Wyoming.  In those days, there were two state troopers in Wyoming; one on the eastern border, and one on the western border, both at all night coffee shops.  It was a breeze to exceed the speed limit, and I was pressing the pedal to the metal.  I saw a couple of sets of lights ahead, so I slowed down from the 75 MPH I had been pacing myself at. 

As we approached the two vehicles, I saw that there was one 18-wheeler, going around 60, being followed by a pickup truck.  The pickup was weaving back and forth, clearly driven by, at best, a very tired person.  I was guessing drunk driver.  There were two lanes going in our direction, but with the truck weaving, I couldn't get past.  Finally, as the pickup swerved to the right, I gunned the engine, and shot by in the left lane.  Once by the 18-wheeler, I settled back into the right lane and pulled away at a smooth 75.  That is, until I saw the pickup truck, in the rearview mirror, as it passed the 18 wheeler, honking and flashing its lights. 

At that point, I hit the gas and took it up to 80.  But the pickup was getting closer.  85.  Closer.  90.  Closer.  By this time, I realized we were in deep shit.  I slammed the pedal, and we shot down the road at over 100.  I got one turn ahead of the truck, saw a turnoff racing up, sloped downhill, turned off my lights, threw the car into neutral, and shot down the turnoff, waiting until I was over the edge to slam on the brakes.  It worked, barely.  The truck went shooting past, oblivious of us.

I waited ten minutes, and then crept back up the other side, and back onto the highway.  We proceeded with caution.  I was still driving at the dawn's early light, as we passed the only two state troopers, lights flashing, parked by the side of the highway.  Looking down at an overturned pickup truck in the field just off the highway.  That truck.  I pulled over at the next rest-stop, and crawled into the back.  I slept until well into the afternoon.

Today is Thornton Wilder's birthday.  He was the author of the one play I ever acted on stage, Our Town. 

I was a senior in high school, and wanted to try something different.  So I joined a drama class for one semester.  The spring play that year was Our Town.  I tried out as a lark, and got the relatively minor role of Simon Stimson, the drunken choirmaster.  Only in three scenes, with only two substantial sets of lines.  But it was a perfect role for me.  The first scene was of Simon conducting choir practice rehearsal, while half in the bag. The second scene was a bit of mime, with Simon staggering drunk across the stage, and then out of sight.  And the final scene, in the body of a third act which takes place mostly in a graveyard, consisted of Simon roundly condemning the living world, in a bland voice.  My best friend, Kim, came into the dressing room after the show and said "Lorin, you were great.  I hated you."  The reviewer was also kind, and compared my voice to "an idling motor boat engine".  (Funny that I still remember that.)

Why was the part perfect for me?  Well, by then, I was already drinking heavily.  I had started drinking in my freshman year in high school.  That year, my sister left for college, and my brother was off in Germany as an exchange student.  It was the first time I had been alone with my parents, who were no picnic.

My parents' habit was to start drinking after "the sun was over the yardarm", meaning at dusk.  And they would drink until they felt groggy enough to stumble upstairs and pass out.  Leaving me alone downstairs, knocking around the dark-stained panelled formal area of the house, where the stereo was located.  And the liquor cabinet.  A long dark mahogany masterpiece, with three deep cubbyholes, filled with glasses, and with assorted bottles of hard liquor and vermouths.

After it quieted down upstairs, I would sneak over and open the cabinet.  I would pull out a mint julep glass, and throw a few cubes in.  Then I would take a silver jigger cup, and measure out a full jigger each of assorted liquors, depositing each portion into the blue glass, until it was full.  Some nights it would be scotch/gin/vodka/rum.  Other nights it might be tequila/rum/cointreau.  The kind of liquor didn't matter.  What mattered was that I only took enough from each bottle to contribute to the glass without alerting my parents.  I called that drink a "Soberkiller".  And that's what it did.  When I was finished, I would wash and dry the glass, and put it back in precisely the same spot.  I would also make sure the bottles were placed with the labels facing as they had before.  And I would go upstairs to bed, with the voices which usually were screaming in my head blessedly silent.

I won't bore you, now, with further details of my drinking.  Suffice it to say that playing Simon Stimson was easy.  Not even acting really.  It took me many years to reach the point where I understood in my soul what my friend had said to me.  Kim, whose father was an alcoholic. 

I don't drink alcohol any more.  But I still understand Simon, and do whatever I can to reach out to alcoholics in despair.  Simon, in the play, ends up in the graveyard after having hanged himself.  My friend Jeff came to the same conclusion about life that Simon had, and acted as Simon had on that conclusion.  Everyone can't be reached.  But, in addition to me being sober, so are my parents.  And my brother and sister.  A family ravaged by alcoholism has been restored to an ideal which it never knew to aspire to before.  And at least, now, Simon and Jeff are at peace.

An old acquaintance, Terrance at The Republic of T., has indirectly tagged me with the following meme:

Write a memoir in six words or less.

This is my entry today (I am sure tomorrow's would be different):

Learn more.  Love more.  Worry less.

I invite my neighbors to post their entry in the comments, and pass the meme along.

What is the best birthday present you've ever received? (Bonus question: What's the worst?)

It was the morning of my 20th birthday.  I was setting up in my square outside the Nauvoo Mansion,  getting ready to sharpen my trowel.  You may ask, what the hell is he talking about?

In those days, I was an archaeologist.  I had signed on to spend that summer digging at the site of a Latter Day Saint city on the banks of the Mississippi River, in Western Illinois.  In the early 1840s, Nauvoo was the second largest city in Illinois, after Chicago.  By late 1946, the vast majority of the Saints had been driven out, and Nauvoo became a ghost town.

The Mansion House had been built in 1842 for the prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., and his family.  It also served as the hotel for whomever came to visit Nauvoo.  I was excavating in the front of the Mansion House, which still stands. 

When one is doing archaeology, it is common to use a trowel to remove dirt slowly from the square you are digging in.  Not a garden trowel, with a curved blade.  More like a flat-bladed masonry trowel or a cutting trowel.  Some diggers prefer a diamond shaped trowel, or pointing trowel.  Others prefer a rectangular, or margin trowel.  I was a pointing man myself.  The trowel is used to scrape a thin layer of earth off of the surface.  In order to do that as evenly and and thinly as possible, it is important to have a razor sharp trowel.  So you use a flat file to sharpen the trowel.

Paul, the head archaeologist came sidling up to where I was preparing to sharpen a trowel.  He smiled, and said, "No Lorin, not that trowel.  Use this one."  And he handed me a brand new Marshalltown Archaeology Pointing Trowel.  With my name engraved on the handle.  Marshalltown; the Rolls Royce of trowels. 

"Happy Birthday", Paul said.  I smiled, took the trowel, and stroked it lovingly.  I then picked up the straight file, and proceeded to sharpen it.  I was so excited that my hand slipped.  The point of the trowel gashed me on the side of my hand, near the bottom side of my thumb.  I was delighted.  That really made the trowel mine.

This is the Mansion House:

See the gate?  My job that day was to find the location of the original fence and gate, which had disappeared long ago.  I found the post holes that day.  And the gate you see is set in the spot my trowel located as true.

For years, that trowel was my most prized possession.  I ended up giving it to some fellow I met on a train between Pittsburgh and Chicago.  He was an ESThole, and I just wanted him to go away.  (For anyone who doesn't know what that term means, here's a link that explains it.)  But I still have the scar from that slip.  Whenever I look at it, I remember those three wonderful summers spent in a sleepy town on the banks of the Mississippi.  And I know, for a surety, that my life has not been entirely wasted.