The Aimless Saunter

It's not a bomb...

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:50:00 +0000

There was a lot of backlash when the TSA first installed full body scanners at many of the nation’s airports. There were concerns of privacy and how much the security personnel would see and what would happen to those images. I’m sure that many women were very concerned (with great reason), but I didn’t really worry about it for myself. I already had a pretty poor body image, so all I felt was a bit of sympathy for any poor TSA agent who had to cast their eyes upon my unrestricted frame.

In response to the backlash, TSA adjusted the image so that (supposedly) the shape is standardized and only the area where contraband is suspected will be highlighted.

Something like this:

Of course, we have the option to bypass the scanner and request a pat down, but I’m not a fan of strangers laying hands on me. It’s awkward and I never know whether to look really uncomfortable (which I am, but might make me look guilty of something) or to try and relax and go with it (which might make them think I’m enjoying it). It’s far too much pressure when I’m already worried about the twenty ton metal tube I will soon be trapped inside for a four hundred mile an hour rocket ride five miles above the earth.

So I always go through the scanner. I don’t worry about the potential radiation, although I probably should. I already have a cell phone to my ear for half my day and I live in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where animals routinely grow extra legs and no one eats the local fish. It just gets to be too much to worry about, and I could already serve on the US Olympic Worry Team.

Now, after all the fuss about what the image would show, the tricky thing about the new full body scanners is that you have to get almost naked to go inside. Shoes off. Belt off. Coat, jacket and sweaters off. Nothing in your pockets (even a tissue). It’s only you and a thin layer of clothing.

I think I’ve mentioned before that one of the more difficult things for me is removing my belt. I’m kind of at an “in between” size right now. Not quite snug in one size, but too big for the next size down. Since I don’t aspire to the idiotic teen male trend of having my pants hang down to my upper thighs showing my underwear to the world, I keep my belt tight and my pants around my waist. Once my belt is removed and I step unsupported into the body scanner, I am required to raise my hands over my head (see photo above) and remain still. This is not so easy and I know it is just a matter of time before a video of me hobbling out of an airport scanner with my pants around my ankles ends up on YouTube.

This past Monday I showed up at the Knoxville McGhee Tyson Airport for my flight to Washington like I had done for the last three weeks and many times throughout the last ten years. Being an experienced traveler, I have learned to wear the same basic clothing when I fly. My logic is that once I found an outfit that gets me through security without issue, I will stick to that. It makes sense and in general, it works.

Monday I arrived and after checking my luggage and getting my boarding pass, I made my way to security. After a short wait in the serpentine control line, I started filling the gray plastic bins with my personal items: belt, wallet, cell phone, two tissues, boarding pass and shoes. In a separate bin I placed my laptop and then pushed them all into the conveyer for their fun ride through the tunnel of no secrets.

I then waited behind a slightly older gentleman who apparently had neither flown nor watched the news in the last ten years. He also did not appear to have the capacity to listen, since every two minutes there was a loud and clear announcement blaring through the entire area stating that you need to remove your shoes, belt, etc. He ignored all of those things, threw his oversize bag on the conveyer and marched proudly forward.

The TSA Agent sent him back to remove his shoes, watch, coat, cell phone, and clearly said “Do you have anything else in your pockets.” The man shook his head and said, “No.”

He stepped into the scanner and didn’t raise his hands. The agent pointed at the large sign inside the scanner (about 12 inches from the man’s face) that showed a clear diagram of a body with their hands over their head. The man put his arms straight out. It was brutally obvious at this point that the man was a career politician. No one else could possibly be so oblivious to their surroundings.

Once he finally grasped the correct standing procedure and the scanner ran, he was stopped and informed that he had something in his right pants and left shirt pockets. He stepped back through the scanner and emptied a few dollars in change, some car keys and his boarding pass into a bin and tried again. I wanted to suggest that this man must have been hiding something and in the interests of security he should submit to a full cavity search. Unfortunately, he was cleared on this go through and he began the slow process of gathering his belongings.

Swift and practiced, I stepped into the scanner and planted my feet on the painted yellow feet on the floor and my hands in perfect symmetry with the diagram in front of me. This should be quick and painless and I would soon be on my way to the gate.

The scanner bar made it’s quick half turn and I was motioned by a TSA agent to step out and wait to be cleared to proceed. It only takes a few seconds, twenty at most. I don’t even look back at the screen anymore because I am the model of travelling efficiency and I know that there can be no problem.

I knew something was wrong when the eyebrows on the TSA agent standing in front of me went unnaturally high. He looked at the female agent to my right and said, “We’re going to need a supervisor.” I watched as she lifted her radio to her lips and in soft, calm voice said, “Supervisor to One…we have a Groin Alert.”

I turned to look at the screen and the cut-out human diagram displayed there, and sure enough, dead center of the crotch was a bright yellow square.

Supervisors must be trained to respond rapidly to “groin alerts” because by the time I looked back a very tall and intimidating man was standing within inches of my face. He gave me a quick look up and down and then without a hint of humor, said, “Sir, do you have anything in your pants?”

There was only one correct answer in that instance, because TSA agents are not known for their appreciation of sarcasm, so I simply said, “no.”

“Okay,” he said. “Are you willing to go through the scanner again?” I quickly agreed to that option because I was almost positive that any other option might not be very pleasant.

I stepped back inside the scanner and silently prayed that whatever had set it off the first time was a technical glitch and would not happen again. The supervisor stood just outside the entry and said, “Sir, please untuck your shirt from your pants and pull your pants waist up as high as it will go.” I did as I was told. “Now sir, please raise your hands above your head.”

I quickly glanced around to see if anyone had their cell phone out filming my moment. I knew that without the extra snugness of my shirt being tucked in, my pants were considerably loose. I had no idea what would happen when I raised my hands. If nothing else, I could prove that I wasn’t carrying a weapon.

After a few attempts to raise my hands and feeling my pants start to slip, I finally pulled them as high as I could and spread my knees a little bit, hoping against hope that this bizarre yoga squat move would hold them up long enough for the scanner to run. The TSA supervisor gave me a strange look but hit the button to start the scanner. As soon as it was done, I grabbed for my pants and stepped outside, waiting nervously to see if my groin was still considered a threat to national security.

After what seemed like a half an hour, but was only about 30 seconds, the screen flashed bright green with the simple word OK on it. The TSA supervisor looked just as relieved as I was, probably because the next steps in the screening process would have been somewhat awkward for us both. He stood by me as I gathered my belongings and I asked, “I guess this happens a lot, right?”

“No,” he said. “Fortunately, it’s very rare.”

As always, lucky me.

.

Alive and Kicking

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:10:00 +0000

.

Connie told me last week that she has added something to her bucket list and she was going to make it a priority to see it through. Having seen the 2007 Morgan Freeman/Jack Nicholson film of that name, I knew what a “Bucket List” was and it didn’t really surprise me that she had one. She loves to experience new things and likes a little bit of adventure thrown in. Then she said that Taylor had mentioned something being on HER bucket list, and I was a little taken aback. Why does my 13 year old have a bucket list?

After various prolonged discussions about how we could make her bucket of dreams come true, Connie asked me what was on my bucket list. I had to think for a minute. Then I had to think for a very long time. I knew that I had never made a formal list of things to do before I died, but was there even an informal list floating around in the ether of my frazzled mind?

After giving it some thought during this last week, it struck me that the only thing sadder than not doing what you want to do before you die is to not even have a general idea of SOMETHING outside of our normal day to day existence that we would like to accomplish.

Starting from scratch, I was a little overwhelmed with the thought of filling an entire bucket…so I decided to start small and make a “coffee mug list.” I’m a big fan of coffee, and holding a steaming cup of java in a heavy mug gives me a high degree of comfort. Buckets are little unwieldy, and besides all that, I had a misfortunate run-in with a galvanized metal bucket as a clumsy toddler that left me with stitches over my left eye. Buckets haunt me.

The first thing that popped into my head when I asked myself, “What would I like to do that I haven’t done before” was: Take an uninterrupted nap.

I realized immediately the fault in my thinking because surely at some point as a child I had experienced a nap which was not broken up by a phone call, a crying child, a barking dog or the emergency need for me to replace batteries in the remote control. I reasoned that just because I could not remember something didn’t mean that I hadn’t done it, so I needed to set the bar slightly higher.

“Where would I like to go?” I asked myself. This question is a little difficult for me considering that I spend an average of 30 weeks a year away from home. When you spend that much time eating airport food and sitting in cramped “built for maximum occupancy” seats, the thought of sitting at home in your comfy recliner is more attractive than seeing one of the seven wonders of the world. (Combine my recliner with an uninterrupted nap and I may have found enough wishful thinking to actually fill a large dump truck, forget the bucket). After perusing the web and a spending a few hours watching the National Geographic channel, I still couldn’t find any place that I had an overwhelming desire to visit. I’m sure I would enjoy a visit to Ireland or Australia, Alaska or Brazil, but I’m also pretty sure that I wouldn’t feel all empty inside if I never go there.

I thought about other people’s lists. They seem to contain acts of adventure like Sky-diving, Zip-lining, bungee-jumping or swimming with dolphins. Considering that I can’t play most video games because I get motion sick and I also can’t swim, I pretty much had to rule out most of the standard “thrill” acts that make it on the lists. Living on the edge doesn’t appeal to me. I’m more of a “stay way back in case I trip” kind of person.

My blank list was getting more pathetic by the minute as the implication settled in that I seemingly had nothing to live for. What would people say about me when I was gone? Not that I grabbed hold of life and lived every moment, but that I existed…watching each hour pass from the safe cocoon of my comfort zone.

After berating myself for a good long while over what I couldn’t imagine myself doing, I had a brief moment of clarity when I simply asked myself, “What would make me happy?”

Now, that shines an entirely new light on these semi-morbid proceedings. I don’t need an impressive list of accomplishments to be happy. My joy comes from other things.

-I want my daughters to be healthy, happy and stable. I want them to find a good man who will love them unconditionally and worship them as they deserve. I want them to live the life that they were meant to live without the binds that hold so many of us back. I want them to find their inner peace and develop a strong personal relationship with their maker.

-I want to retire and spend mornings with my beautiful wife sipping coffee on the back deck until the sun becomes too warm and we have to switch to ice tea.

-I want to help my family achieve their goals.

-I want to travel some…but I don’t care about the destination.

-I want to be a better person.

Some of these items are out of my control, but I might be able to nudge them in the right direction a bit. This is my list of things that would make me happy, and now that I’m thinking that way, I’m sure I’ll think of more. I’m a very lucky man to have options. I’m not going to call it my “bucket list.” This is my “Cup runneth over list.”

The Big Deal

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 22:24:00 +0000

I think I’m pretty laid back as a father, which probably has more to do with the quality of my kids than with any specific personality traits I may have mastered. I don’t have to do a lot of yelling and screaming, and when I do it usually backfires on me and requires some type of humble apology and a pathetic explanation that I misunderstood what was going on. Fortunately, my kids don’t hold those mistakes over my head too often and they accept my groveling as part of who I am.

In the last couple of weeks we’ve had some situations that required me to pull back the mask of fumbling idiot and be “serious Dad.” Even rarer was the fact that I was justified in doing so. I know this to be true because Connie did not give me the evil eye while I was doing it.

The first incident occurred on a Saturday night two weeks ago when Shelby and Ashlyn invited a 16-year-old male friend from church over to practice music. As it turns out, there was no music practiced and soon plans had changed into going out to eat and seeing a movie. Life changes fast in the mind of teenagers (or twenty year olds, in the case of Shelby). Their mutual love of music was overpowered by their desire for buttered popcorn and a night on the town.

After some drama and debate over leaving little sister Taylor at home (why can’t they all just get along?), the gang of three left the house with the promise to call later to let me know what’s going on. A while later, while watching Disney channel re-runs with Taylor, I get a text from Ashlyn saying that they were “in Turkey Creek” to eat. For those who don’t know…Turkey Creek is a shopping and restaurant haven that is not in our town but is on the outskirts of Knoxville, about 15 miles away.

Now, before I describe my reaction, let me explain a few things. First, it might sound like that’s not a big deal. Second, it’s a big deal because I say it is.

My text response was this: I am not happy

This prompted a quick text response of “why?” by sweet, dear, oh so innocent Ashlyn and almost immediately a phone call by the same sweet, dear, oh so innocent child. “Why are you upset,” she said, completely unprepared for the hurricane of parental judgment about to befall her.

“Well,” I said, “you have driven to Knoxville without telling me that you were going. It’s Saturday night, so the roads are full of people who have just had a few glasses of wine or beer with dinner. And…you have a minor in the car whose parents think he is at our house or at least in our town.”

“His parents won’t care.”

“Did he call them for permission?”

“No, but they won’t care.”

“I would care…don’t try that with me in the future.”

“We didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“It’s a very big deal,” I told her. “I’m not just responsible for your well-being, but for his as well.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take responsibility.” She said, thinking that at seventeen she could bear that weight.

“No, you don’t understand,” I told her. “I own the car that you are in. I pay the insurance. If anything happens, I am completely responsible.” I let that sink in for a few seconds. “Not that his parents would do it, but if anything happened to him, they could sue and take everything we have. I am absolutely responsible!”

She got quiet and then said, “Sorry.”

I was too upset to let them off the hook, so I said “it’s easy to be sorry after you do something,” and then added “and I’m very disappointed in your judgment.”

That last part probably stung me harder than them. When I heard myself saying it, I thought about the times I had seen disappointment on my parents face. There was nothing worse. I’d have rather been beaten.

I thought of them riding in our van; the joyous mood of youthful fun that left our house had been sucked out by the vacuum of my anger. I didn’t want them driving so upset. In my always churning “worst case scenario” mind, I didn’t want what might be our last conversation to be so harsh.

“Now listen,” I said, calmly. “The main thing is be careful…and know that I love you.”

There was a brief pause, and I can only imagine the look on her face, because Ashlyn responded with “Geez Dad, I hate it when you do that.”

“What?”

“You get all upset about something and get us all upset…and then you say you love us, like it’s all over or something.”

“Oh,” I told her, “it’s not over. We’ll talk about this again. But I do love you.”

“Fine,” she said, in frustration. “Love you too.”

“Be careful then,” I said, “and text me when you get where you‘re going…and again when you leave. Then let me know when you get to the movie.”

“Fine,” she said, although her voice made it clear that it wasn’t. The call ended.

Taylor had listened to my end of the conversation and wanted to know the details, both out of some sisterly concern and also a barely repressed glee that the older kids who had abandoned her at home were now in trouble. I tried to use my explanation as a teaching lesson, telling her that she would do well to learn from the mistakes her sisters make, and hopefully avoid the same problems.

A little later I got a text: We’re leaving.

I responded: Okay, be careful.

Twenty-five minutes later I was surprised when the front door opened and the three silently came inside. “We decided to skip the movie and stay home,” one of them said. They did not look happy, but they did not look mad. In fact, my girls looked different than I had seen them before. They looked like they knew they had screwed up.

It was not a common thing for them. It was not a common thing for me.

When Connie and I talked about it later, we discussed the fact that one of the reasons that I responded so strongly and they took it so seriously is that they have not done anything remotely like that before. They had not done the typical, stupid teenage stuff that most teens do. They had almost exclusively been thoughtful, careful, dependable kids. This behavior, while not malicious, had been a serious error in judgment, and reminded us that they were still going to make mistakes.

Another mistake they made that night was wanting to talk about it when they got home. Since Ashlyn had talked to me on the phone, Shelby led this discussion, and although I had planned to stay quiet until their friend had gone home, I decided that if she wanted to talk about it, then talk about it we would.

She did start with an apology, and it was completely sincere, but when the excuses began I had to cut her off. I explained again that this was not a problem of trust. She didn’t have to tell me that she is a good driver because I know that. Being a good driver doesn’t matter when you’re suddenly staring into the headlights of a drunk driver. Even years of experience can’t prepare you for that.

I tried to explain that no matter how ridiculous my rules and demands might seem, I have only one goal and that is to keep them safe. If I die with the epitaph of “over protective,” but my kids are alive to see me buried, then I will have died a happy man.

It’s not always fun to be a parent. We somehow assume that our kids won’t make the same kind of dumb mistakes and make the same poor choices that we made at that age. We think that our wise guidance will keep them on the straight and narrow path of perfection. When they wander off that path it’s a bitter reminder of how often I stumbled off myself.

So, I’ll try my best to teach them. I’ll pray for them and ask that they be protected from both their own mistakes and the mistakes of others (including mine). I’ll reprimand them when they do something wrong, and hope and pray that I will always have the opportunity to do that. They aren’t perfect, and neither is their father.

And even if they don’t like it, I’m going to tell them that I LOVE them after I get through yelling.

Hoops

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 22:24:00 +0000

(Part two of the backpack saga begun in "Lost")

Our drive to the airport was uneventful and just like the driver had promised; we came to a stop in front of the airport at 1pm…exactly 30 minutes. I paid him his fee and a generous tip, grabbed my bags (after carefully checking that I had everything) and hurried inside.

I had flown the 1:40pm direct flight from Reagan National Airport to Knoxville’s McGhee Tyson Airport many, many times. Rarely did it leave exactly on time, and almost never did they begin boarding thirty minutes early like they say they will. Still, despite my good fortune in finding my back pack, I did not feel I could push my luck. There was no time to waste.

I turned the corner to find that there was only one person in line at the First Class check in counter. Let me stop here to make a brief explanation: One of the few benefits of excessive travel is the accumulated appreciation of airlines and hotels for your return business. The more you fly, the higher your status rises within their particular program. For several years I had been a Gold member with USAir, but this year, for some reason, I was bumped up to Chairman…their highest level. This sounds much more extravagant than it is. My primary perk is getting to step up to the First Class check-in desk (which I was also able to do with Gold level) and bypass the longer lines. The First Class desk is more about status than seating. The small commuter jets that fly back and forth to Knoxville do not have “First Class” seats, so usually I end up sitting in the back near the smelly bathrooms. It’s extremely glamorous.

I used the available self-service kiosk to confirm my seat and print my ticket, but then had to wait for the agent at the counter to check my bag. The person in line in front of me was not happy. Apparently his flight had been delayed from its original departure point due to mechanical problems. Personally, I have never understood why people get so bent out of shape about Airlines having to fix an airplane before flying. I hope I am never in so big a hurry that I am willing to get on a plane that isn’t in near perfect working order.

This gentleman wanted an explanation for the delay and some kind of compensation for his time. The extremely patient lady behind the counter tried to calm him down while also explaining that since he had made his connection to his next flight, there was nothing the Airline could do. I wanted to tell him that his complaining might cause me to miss my flight and would he compensate me for that, but I remained silent. I had my backpack. I was happy.

The man finally walked away, sulking and growling under his breath. I put my suitcase on the scale and quickly showed my ticket and photo ID. “You’re a little overweight,” the lady said. The words stung like a slap. I couldn’t help but be offended, despite the fact that saying I was only a “little” overweight could have been considered a compliment. I started to say something when I saw the digital readout on the scale reading 56 lbs. The weight limit for checked bags was 50 lbs. each.

I took a step back and realized that I had placed my carry-on duffel bag too close to the scale and a corner of it was adding extra weight. I moved it aside and the scaled dropped to forty seven. I smiled and apologized, hoping that the agent had not noticed the red on my face when I thought she was making a personal comment about my size.

Once my bag was checked (with the assurance of the agent that it would make it on the plane), I rushed down to the security checkpoint. If there is one thing that I have learned from my years of air travel, it’s that you never know when there will be a long line. I’ve been there at the same time on many different days and sometimes it’s insanely crowded and other times it’s a ghost town. I had two minutes until boarding time, so I was hoping for the ghost town.

There were no tumbleweeds or boarded up storefronts, but the lines were shorter than I had seen on many days, and best of all, each of the six security lanes were open. I jumped into a line with about five people in front of me and smiled at the thought that I just might make it. After each person stepped up to the TSA agent and presented their ticket and ID, they were moving quickly and efficiently up to the conveyer belt. There did not seem to be any “amateur travelers” in this group. Everyone was taking off their shoes before going through the metal detector. Those with laptops were removing them from their cases and putting them in a separate bin. It was like a training video on proper airport behavior.

An attractive, but stern looking redhead stood in front of me, wearing a dark, blue business suit and a look that said that she might be late for her flight as well. Just as she handed the agent her ticket and ID, another agent came past us and began sliding the doors closed to the two security lanes we had expected to use. The woman grabbed her ticket and rushed forward, but it was too late. The door was open only enough for the agent inside to put his face through and say, “These lanes are closed, please use one of the other open lanes.”

“Are you kidding me?” the woman said, although I think I was the only one listening at that point. The agent who was now checking my ticket and trying to decide if the face on my ID matched the one on my head did not seem to hear her or care. I’ve learned not to argue or question TSA agents, and I think they’ve learned not to care if anyone is late for a flight.

I stepped forward, ticket in hand, and tried to decide whether to choose the two lanes on the right or the two lanes on the left. I couldn’t tell that the lines on either side were any shorter, and so I chose the right. The redheaded lady made the same choice.

Because we had been in line together, I think she thought we were bonded in a common goal. “Do you think we made the right choice?” She asked.

“Probably not,” I responded, laughing. I didn’t really seem to care as much as her. I had my backpack. I was happy.

We moved forward slowly until I could peer around the corner and see the conveyer belt, x-ray machine and metal detector. Then the line was stopped cold. At the front of the line was an older gentleman in a wheelchair. Two TSA agents were beside him, trying to figure out how to get him through the security system. First, they tried to get him to stand up so he could walk through, but after a few wobbly moments, it was obvious that it was not going to work.

I had to wonder what was so important that it required this man to fly somewhere; when his portable oxygen tank, wheel chair and physical debilitation made it seemed more appropriate that he should be under a doctor’s care. I was, however, impressed by his determination.

The redheaded lady was not impressed. She whispered, “Why is this taking so long?” I did not answer. She could see the older man as well I could, so the answer as to why we were not moving should have been obvious. I was more concerned with who the man was travelling with, because it was not readily apparent, and from the look of things, he had no business being alone.

After coming to the realization that he would not be able to make it through the metal detector without his wheel chair and oxygen tank, TSA finally rolled him through the bypass gate on the side and took him on for further screening. The line began to move once again.

I got to the conveyer belt and swiftly placed my shoes, laptop and cell phone in bins and put my duffel and backpack through the x-ray machine. As I stepped through the metal detector the alarm began to beep and I did a quick pat down of pockets to make sure I had not forgotten anything. I found nothing and shrugged at the TSA agent who was looking at me with sullen suspicion. “Are you wearing a belt, sir?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “but I wear this belt every time I come through here. I was wearing it last Friday when I came through this security line and it was fine.” As I finished talking, I knew I had simply wasted my breath and more time. You don’t argue or try to explain anything to TSA agents. They do not care.

“Take off the belt, sir.”

I stepped back through the metal detector and grabbed one of the small white bowls they have for change and small items. I pulled off my belt and wound it around my hand so that it would fit nicely in the bowl and sent it through the machine. When I returned to the metal detector, the TSA agent pointed me to the larger machine next to it. “Go through the body scanner, sir.”

I had been fortunate enough to avoid the newly installed body scanners for the last couple of months, but my belt had betrayed me, so I stepped into the large plastic tube and put my feet on the yellow painted feet outlined on the floor.

“Raise your hands over your head and don’t move until I tell you,” said the TSA agent controlling the scanner. My next thought was, “How loose are my pants?” I was pretty sure that the final straw for my day would be the humiliation of my beltless Khaki’s falling to my ankles in front of hundreds of people at the Reagan National Airport while my off in the distance my flight lifted peacefully into the skies on the way to Knoxville.

I took my fingers off my belt loops and slowly raised my hands over my head. I held my breath and hoped I wouldn’t feel a sudden cool draft of air on my legs.

“You’re clear,” the agent finally said, and I dropped my hands quickly to secure my pants and shuffled over to where my bags and personal items were waiting. I grabbed the belt first and cinched it tight around my waist, then carried everything over to a nearby bench to get out of the way. As I sat down to put on my shoes, I heard my name being called over the loudspeaker. “…please come to gate 35A immediately for final boarding of flight 2553 to Knoxville.”

I gathered my stuff and hurried through the crowds in the terminal, making one brief stop at the water fountain to take my motion sick pill, which I was grateful I didn’t forget. I ran down the moving steps of the escalator that led to gate 35A, finally reaching the gate agent, who looked up and smiled. “Mr. Warford?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry I’m late…it’s been a crazy day.”

“Don’t worry about it. We knew you were here. And we wouldn’t leave without you.” She took my ticket and scanned me into the system. She handed my ticket back. “You have a great day.” I had been sent another angel.

Gates 35A and B are not gates in a typical way. They are doors that lead out to shuttle busses which then take you to a waiting zone of midsize commuter airplanes. Some people are thrown by this when they leave the airport for the first time, but I was very used to it. I did my walk of shame (reserved for the person who has made everyone sit on the bus while the announcements are made to get the lost and late to check in) and climbed the stairs into the shuttle.

The shuttle was not full, but the only empty seats were in the back. Unfortunately, these were completely blocked by the people sitting in the front two rows who were (to put it kindly) “over extended” into the aisle. I’m a big guy, and I’m pretty aware that I’m a big guy. I know my limits and what space I can fit through (and how much space I take up). The people who were blocking the aisle-way of the bus did not seem to be aware of the space they inhabited, because they looked at me with the childlike expectation that I could somehow slip right through the half inch of daylight between the person on the right and the person on the left.

“I guess I’m standing,” I said, and waited for the driver to come on board and take us out to my carpet ride home. As he did, I happened to notice that I was at least a foot and a half in front of the infamous yellow line (the one that all riders are supposed to stay behind), but thankfully he didn’t say anything to me. He just sat down and started driving.

I was the first one on the plane, thanks to my position on the bus, and I would have hugged the flight attendant, but I was afraid it might get me arrested. I collapsed into seat 12D, just in front of the bathroom, and was asleep before we crossed the Potomac. I was happy. I had my backpack. More importantly, I was finally on my way home, where the four angels God has blessed me with awaited me…and there’s nothing better than that.

Lost

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:02:00 +0000

It had been a horrible week. Stressed and exhausted…I was worn down by lack of sleep and a brain addled by too much second guessing and a plummeting sense of self-worth. I’ve often heard the phrase “running on empty” and by Friday of that week I felt as hollow as a cave...and just as dark and dreary.

It was my sixth straight week on the road. Week after week in a different hotel, meeting with different people and feeling further and further from my family and the warm comfort of home. I’d been doing this kind of travelling for a long time, but I’d hit a low point. I did not like myself that week. I did not like the world I was living in.

Friday morning did not feel like going home as much as it felt like escaping. I quickly packed my suitcase and duffel bag and put my laptop in my backpack. I could not get out of there fast enough.

The Twinbook Metro stop on the Red Line of the Washington Metro system is just across the street from the Rockville, Maryland Hilton. I had walked out the back of that hotel many times in the last ten years and rolled my bags the hundred or so yards to the Metro entrance. From that Metro station it is normally a 45 minute train ride (with a change from the Red to Yellow line) to the Reagan National Airport. I could do it in my sleep.

When I reached the platform, I expected to check the monitor and see that a train would arrive in the next three to five minutes, but that was not the case. The monitor listed the next train arriving in 9 minutes. 9 minutes is an eternity on a train platform…at least when you are desperately ready to go home.

I found a piece of wall and leaned against it, dropping my backpack to the ground and pulling my suitcase and duffel close against me. It was 11:30am and my flight was scheduled to start boarding at 1:10pm. I should still be fine, I thought. As long as I’m there by 12:30.

I didn’t check my watch, but it seemed much longer than nine minutes when the train finally rolled to a stop in front of me. I recalled the previous week when I had missed a train because I politely stood back and let others board in front of me. The doors had closed and left me on that platform feeling charitable, but also slightly foolish. I did not have time for either on this day. I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and hurried through the open doors of the train.

Oddly, for being so far outside of the city, the train car was already nearly full. With my large bag hindering me, I was forced to stand in the space near the door. I thought of the long, swaying ride ahead of me and that little voice in my head that loves to make things worse whispered, “you know that you will probably get motion sick.”

At the next stop I moved back to make room for the half dozen or so new passengers who squeezed their way into the car. As the door closed I looked down at my suitcase and suddenly had the uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right. I took a quick inventory and immediately realized that I was missing my backpack.

My brain was tired, but it put the pieces together anyway. I had left my backpack leaning against the wall on the Twinbrook Metro station. I was in such a hurry to get on the train that I did not stoop to pick it up. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

I turned pale with panic and beads of sweat popped up on my brow. Inside my backpack was my personal laptop, with family photos, videos, slideshows and attempts at writing. I tried to remember when I had last done a back up and wondered what had been lost forever. It was gone, many internal voices were telling me, and it was my own stupid fault.

A few minutes later we pulled into the next station. I staggered off, probably looking like a wild-eyed lunatic to anyone nearby. I quickly devised a plan of returning to the Twinbrook station while simultaneously assuring myself that it was pointless. Too many people come and go in those stations, I told myself. The backpack was gone.

According to the monitor, the next train heading back the way I had come was due into the station in three minutes. I started pacing, pulling my heavy bag behind me and muttering words like “idiot” and “moron.”

There were not many people on the platform, which was fortunate, but I did notice one young man who was looking my way with some concern. I thought at first that he might call security but instead he approached me and asked, “Is there something wrong?”

I told him my tale of woe and regret and he calmly listened. I’m not sure how much sense I was making because my breaths and words were choppy, my lungs felt like they had been reduced to the size of golf balls. Being rather cynical about human nature in general, I was surprised at his look of sincere concern. I was even more surprised by what he said next.

“It will be okay. I’m going to pray that it all works out.”

I meet a lot of people when I travel. Most do not inspire confidence. It’s not that they are bad people, but it’s exceptionally rare to meet someone who offers genuine compassion. Most of us put up walls in public. We wear masks to hide ourselves from others. We don’t want to get involved in someone else’s problems.

The train arrived and the young man followed me onboard. He started asking me about my life; where I was from and what I did for a living. He asked about my family and we learned that we had both grown up near Louisville, Ky. As I answered his questions, I felt my breathing returning to something that resembled normal. The pounding in my chest began to ease and the screaming in my brain calmed down.

He apologized when we reached the next stop, saying that he had to exit but wished he could stay and find out what happened to my bag. We shook hands and I thanked him, telling him that I appreciated his efforts to calm me down and regain my senses. He turned back just before he stepped out the door and said loudly, “I’ll keep praying…it will be alright!”

I sat down and thought about what he said. It would be alright. The laptop was almost certainly gone, but it was just a thing. It was frustrating and I knew that I would spend many hours wondering what exactly I had lost since the last backup, but it would be alright. People go through much worse.

We arrived at the Twinbrook station and I stepped out into the cool crisp air. I took a deep breath and made my way down the platform toward the wall where I had been leaning. I checked the time and confirmed that I had been gone for nineteen minutes. I whispered a little prayer, “God, please let it be there.”

I turned the corner and there was nothing but empty wall and empty floor. The bag was gone. I was disappointed, but not surprised.

I glanced around to see if it had been moved or if by chance someone was carrying it, but it was simply not there. I debated my options. It was past noon now, and my time to get to my flight was getting tight. If a train came soon, I could still make it. However, if there was any chance of finding my laptop bag, I felt I should risk it. There was always another flight back to Knoxville.

I decided that it was worth the time to check with the Station Manager, just in case there was a Good Samaritan on the platform that day. I have to admit, my confidence level was low. I have a tendency to live in worse case scenarios, so I was fairly certain that my effort was pointless.

Inside his glass booth, the manager was on the phone, so I waited. It didn’t sound like a business conversation, but I didn’t interrupt. It’s not that I was overly patient at the time, but I didn’t mind prolonging the bad news.

When he hung up the phone, I knocked on the glass and he opened the door with a frown. “Can I help you?”

I stammered a bit and finally spit out, “Did anyone turn in a black backpack?”

He looked at me suspiciously and said, “What’s in it?”

I exploded with a list of contents like a kid giving his Christmas list to Santa, “A blue Acer 17 inch laptop, a cell phone charger, a USAToday newspaper, four black thumb drives, a set of keys on a blue metal key-ring, a bottle of motion sick pills…”

He held up his hand to stop me. “I guess this is yours then.” He reached under his desk and pulled out my backpack. I nearly cried.

I thanked him about five times and said that I wished I knew who turned it in so I could thank them too. He said it was a Metro staff person, so I asked him to please offer my sincere appreciation to that worker. I walked away feeling twenty pounds lighter, despite the weight of my twelve pound bag once again hanging on my shoulder.

It was too late to catch the train. If I had a chance to make my flight, I had to get a taxi. I grabbed my bags and ran back across the street to the hotel. I made my way to the lobby and out the front where cabs were always waiting. Except that day.

I was almost resolved to miss my flight when I saw one of the black sedans from the Limousine service pull up to the front. As soon as the driver finished helping their passenger with their bags and received his payment, I grabbed him. “Can you take me to the airport RIGHT NOW?”

He looked at me slightly confused, but I am very used to getting that expression from people. I explained further, “My plane starts boarding in forty minutes, can you get me there?”

He nodded and said, “Thirty minutes…unless we have traffic.”

I threw my suitcase and duffel bag in the trunk and hugged my backpack close against me as I settled into the backseat of his comfortable Lincoln sedan. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Whether I made the flight or not, I could relax for a while.

My mind raced through the events of the morning but stopped on the young man I had met on the platform. I wished that I had gotten his e-mail so I could thank him again and let him know that his prayers had been answered. I also wished I could introduce him to my oldest daughter.

It struck me that despite my own best efforts to ruin my day; I had been sent some guardian angels. The young man calmed me down when I was ready to lay down on the tracks…and the station workers did the right thing, reminding me that the better part of human nature actually is honest. These people not only helped me that day with a lost backpack, they helped soften an increasingly cynical heart, which truly is a miracle. I had much to be grateful for.

***In case you’re wondering…yes, I did make my flight, but not without a few more hoops to jump through. By that point, I was taking it all in stride. Things that would have frustrated me before just gave me a chuckle. All it takes sometimes is a slight adjustment in your perspective.

Intruders

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:32:00 +0000

About a week before Halloween, the year after our encounter with the bat, I was awakened from a deep and peaceful sleep by a loud noise from within our home. Sitting straight up in the bed, I looked at the clock and saw that it was just past one a.m. Connie had heard it too and grabbed my arm. “What was that,” she said, in a frightened whisper.

“Shhhh...” I hissed, and listened carefully to the silence we were now drowning in. It was one of those ridiculous moments when you want to hear the noise again, to confirm that it really happened, but also didn’t want to hear it, because that would prove that something was making the noise.

I swung my legs off the bed and set my feet quietly on the floor. The noise replayed in my head over and over and I tried to make my best guess as to where it had come from. When my mind cleared from its sleepy fog, I reasoned that the sound must have originated downstairs. It was not the sound of breaking glass, but could have been something knocked over as an intruder stumbled around in the dark.

I slowly made my way out of the bedroom and into the hallway; my hands reaching out along the way for something to use as a weapon but finding only a hairbrush and some jewelry on top of the dresser. I tried to remember where my baseball bat was and then recalled that it was in the storeroom downstairs, along with anything else I might conceivably use to protect myself and my family.

I cautiously opened the door to the basement a few inches and listened. At first I couldn’t hear anything, but then I could make out a strange break in the silence. It didn’t register as a recognizable sound, but more like a soft change in the tone of nothingness.

I slipped my hand through the doorway and flipped on the switch for the light on the steps. I half expected to hear footsteps and the hurried rush of our intruder to escape, but there was nothing. I knew that this could be either very good or very bad news.

At this point I had the option of calling 911 or investigating for myself. With no weapon and having little or no skills at martial arts or hand to hand combat, the logical thing would have been to close and lock the basement door and call the professionals. I, however, in an extremely rare moment of perceived masculinity, decided to live free and die hard. My name is Bruce W. after all.

I moved carefully down the first few stairs, cringing with each alarmingly loud creak of the wood beneath my feet. There were six stairs down to a landing and three more stairs after turning a blind corner before reaching the basement. If someone was waiting on those lower steps, I would have little time to rush back up the stairs to lock the door.

I listened again and the odd, broken noise was louder. If I could describe it, I would say it sounded like someone with asthma taking a long, wheezy breath. I froze. The sound was almost identical to the breathing noise that Jason Voorhees made behind his mask in the Friday the 13th movies. My mind tortured me with the words that followed his intense respiration on film…”kill, kill, kill.”

Then my nostrils flared at a sudden, pungent smell that I didn’t expect. It was a hot smell, not like wood burning or fire, but like burning hair. It was strong and getting even stronger.

I slid down the wall and peeked around the corner, not sure what I might encounter, but very relieved to see the sliding glass doors that led outside were closed and locked, glass still intact. The breathing sound continued to grow louder and the stench was beginning to smell like burning rubber. My heart beat furiously in my chest and my own breathing was becoming somewhat panicked.

I moved onto the landing and stepped down, but stopped short of the last step. The light switch for the basement family room was just around the corner and I twisted my arm around blindly to find it. I half expected someone or something to grab my hand in the dark, which would have surely caused me to drop dead of a heart failure or at the very least awaken everyone within a five block radius with my high-pitched siren scream.

I found the switch and with a deep breath flipped it upward, bathing the area in the warm glow of soft white bulbs. The noise and smell did not alter or stop; and whatever was causing it apparently had no fear of me or any weapon I might be bringing with me down the stairs. I considered yelling out some manly threat like, “I’ve got a gun,” or “the police are on the way,” but I was pretty sure that the fear in my voice would come out sounding like Barney Fife or a six year old girl, so I stayed stoically silent.

Gathering all my nerves, I peered around the corner to see what horror awaited me. My eyes scanned the room for shadowy figures or grotesque monsters and finally settled upon two furry lumps lying calmly on the green felt of our pool table.

The grey tabby looked at me like I had just woken her from a peaceful slumber. The black cat was more alert, but taunted me with a “what are you doing here?” look on his face. If not for the loud, hissing breathing sound still emanating from somewhere in the room and the stench burning my eyes and nose, it could not have been more peaceful.

Let me stop here and explain a little bit about the cats. It’s no secret that I am not a pet person. This is not to say that I don’t like animals. That is not true. I enjoy visiting zoos and love a good horse movie. I think aquariums full of fish are really swell and I was a big fan of the Lassie shows as a kid. I like animals just fine. I just don’t particularly want to have a pet.

I’m can’t remember how we got those two particular cats, but I know that I had nothing to do with it. Like most of our horrible experiences with pets I’m sure it started off with someone’s best intentions. You know the kind. They always say things like, “Every child needs a pet, blah, blah, blah,” and “those allergies are all in your head.”

As usual, I went along for the ride (mostly in the backseat, and sometimes in the trunk).

Anyway, the cats were not guests in our house for a very long period, and their untimely demises (which I assure you were not of my doing) are now the stuff of neighborhood legend, but in their brief stay we seemed to have had a mutual agreement to stay out of each other’s way. Most of the time, it worked out just fine.

I stepped down and walked over the table, relatively sure at this point that no one was lurking in a corner to get me, but still completely perplexed over the continuing noise and the overpowering smell. The cats watched me with their wide, glassy eyes and I asked them, “Okay, what did you do?”

And then I saw it.

Behind the pool table, lying on the floor, was our ironing board…and beside it, hissing loudly and burning its way through our carpet and the foam pad beneath, was our iron.

I grabbed the hot iron and pulled it from the sticky, melted mess of the carpet and pad. Thank goodness for the cheap material of the low cost floor covering because a good shag rug would have probably burst into flame rather than melt into black goo. We were very lucky.

One thing I know is that Connie is very vigilant about turning off the iron when she uses it. Most of the time she unplugs it, but she always turns it off. Anyone who’s seen my wrinkled shirts knows that I rarely iron, so that left me with one explanation. Obviously one of the cats had jumped on the ironing board and toppled it over. When the iron hit the floor the switch had somehow turned on.

After unplugging and safely putting away the ruined iron, I gave the cats one last disappointed look (which they totally ignored) and made my way back to bed. Connie looked relieved when I walked back into the room and asked what had happened. It was too late and I was too tired to go into detail, so I just said “stupid cats…” before collapsing into bed and pulling the blanket over my head. She knew me well enough to let it wait until morning for the rest of the story.

Going Batty

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:00:00 +0000

It was a dark and stormy night…

Actually, no…it was dark, but the sky was clear and the air was crisp and cool. It was a beautiful October evening; the night before Halloween 1996. I swear upon the grave of Daniel Webster that the story I am about to share is true.

It was a little after 9pm. We had just tucked our Shelby and Ashlyn into bed and Connie and I had settled onto the couch to watch a little television. I can’t remember what we had planned to view because within minutes of sitting down, the phone started ringing. I stepped into the kitchen to answer the phone and barely started the conversation when I heard Connie scream.

Our kitchen at the time had a door on one end that opened into the hallway that led out of our living room to our bedrooms. The other end was open to a small dining nook and back into our living room. Essentially, you could make a circle through our kitchen into our living room and back.

As I looked up in reaction to the frightened yell of my usually calm and rational wife, I heard the strange flap of wings and came face to fangy face with a large bat. It swooped past my head and flew through our kitchen, making a wide turn through our living room and back past my face again.

This was not one of those little bats that you see flying out of chimneys and caves at twilight. I’ve seen those before. I don’t like them, but I’m not completely freaked out by them. This was what I call a “movie” bat. The wingspan was over a foot wide and its head looked to be the size of a tennis ball. It looked like the thing that Gilligan turned into in that weird vampire episode I watched growing up.

I know what you are thinking. I am obviously exaggerating the size of what was simply a regular bat. Or maybe it was even a bird that I mistook for a bat. In the hysteria of the moment, I could have only thought it was a bat. That is logical, and if I were alone when it happened, I would tend to agree. However, as I said, my very logical and clear headed wife can confirm my story. It was a bat. It was big. And it was in our house.

I hung up the phone (after politely saying I would have to call them back) and told Connie to run back and close the kid’s bedroom door. Crawling quickly through the flight zone, she did just that, and locked herself in with the girls.
I dodged the next pass of the bat and ran to the front door, unsure of what to do except hold the door open and hope that it would fly out on its own. From behind the glass of the storm door I watched as it circled, again and again, and wondered how long I could wait. Looking once again at the wingspan and the pointy ears on its massive head, I decided I could wait a good, long while. It was a beautiful night and I decided that the fresh air would do me good.

After twenty minutes of watching and carrying on an anxious conversation with Connie through the window of the bedroom where she was trapped, I saw the monster bat finally fly through the opening and disappear into the night sky. I hurried inside, closing and locking the door.

We checked all the windows and access points (upstairs, downstairs, attic, and basement) and could find no obvious point of entry for the creature. We never found a sign of its existence. No scratch marks on the walls, no little bat droppings. We had no idea how long it had been in the house before it made its presence known. It could have been hiding under our bed or in one of our closets for days or even weeks. It was more than a little un-nerving.

The mystery has never been solved.

It won't happen to me...

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:14:00 +0000

A recent study claims that despite new laws banning the act of texting while driving, the percentage of accidents due to texting might actually be increasing. The study suggests that now that drivers can be stopped, ticketed and fined when they are seen texting by police officers, they have not discontinued their behavior, but are doing so in a more discreet manner. Instead of holding the phone at windshield level (where their actions can be viewed), they are holding their phones lower; therefore taking their eyes and concentration even further from the road.

How stupid are we?

I won’t go into the numbers. The statistics are overwhelming regarding the percentages of drivers who text and the number of deaths caused by distracted drivers. Do a Google search: “Texting while driving.” Pages and pages of the same data will be available to you, but do you really need it? Does it take a genius to know that this is an incredibly dumb and dangerous thing to do?

In today’s world, texting is becoming the default communication. It’s the way teens (and a lot of adults) talk. Many feel that not responding to a text immediately is the same as ignoring someone who asks you a question face to face. Even while driving, they consider it “rude” not to answer.

Amazingly stupid.

Like all idiotic things people do on the road (speeding, aggressive driving, driving while under the influence), it wouldn’t be so bad if they had the road completely to themselves. We have all heard the expression “they think they own the road.” Apparently, many people actually do.

When I heard of a single car accident in Knoxville a few months back where the driver was killed while racing down a busy street at speeds in excess of 120mph, I felt bad for the family (and no matter how an accident happens, there will be pain and loss experienced by someone), but I was also glad that this person was no longer on the road. I drive that road with my family. My wife drives that road. My daughters drive that road.

People get behind the wheel of their car and forget the awesome responsibility that they are taking on. The crushing weight, speed and power of the vehicles we drive can change from a beneficial mode of transportation into a violently brutal weapon of destruction in a matter of seconds. Unlike the little Matchbox cars I pushed around my bedroom floor as a child, they are not toys.

We are spoiled and selfish. We want what we want. We get aggravated when someone is driving in the passing lane and going too slow (I’m as guilty of this as anyone). We fuss and fume when people do not race through a yellow light so that we can follow. We honk our horns if they do not floor it as soon as the light turns green.

We are not only the most important person on the road at all times; we are the only person who has the right to actually be there. I have places to go and things to do! Why don’t these people get out of my way? Why don’t they know where I am going? Where did they learn to drive?

Our excuses and justifications are endless:

I am an excellent driver.

I’ve never had an accident.

I’ve never had a speeding ticket.

I only had a couple of drinks.

I don’t text often…

It won’t happen to me…

I get angry about this kind of thing because it’s personal. It’s not just personal to me; it should be personal to all of us. My worst fear is that dreaded phone call or knock on the door, when someone’s moment of stupid might forever change my family’s future.

Part of me wants to grab my wife and kids and go hide somewhere deep in the Canadian woods (this is also my fall-back plan if Sarah Palin is ever elected President), but I’m not sure the kids could handle the lack of cell phone reception.

Yes…my kid’s text. So does my wife. Occasionally I even get my own chubby fingers to bang out a message. Like many things taken on their own, texting is not evil. It’s just the way that we opt to use it.

My kids know my rules. They know that if I ever find out that they are texting and driving they lose the phone (and a good bit of their driving privileges). They know that if they need to answer or make a phone call while driving, they need to pull over. They know these things. I pray they do these things, because I can’t be with them all the time (and I think they know that despite what I have told them in the past, I do not actually have a video camera hidden in the car).

I hope that if I have taught my children anything about responsibility, it is that they are not just responsible for themselves, but also those around them. As I’ve told my daughters many times, the only thing worse that causing an accident that gets yourself killed, is causing an accident that kills someone else and having to live with that the rest of your life.

Springs Eternal

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 20:52:00 +0000

It could be a long, rough, angry life if we didn’t have the ability to laugh at ourselves. If I’ve learned one thing about myself, it’s that I am a walking amusement park of stumbles and gaffes, so if I didn’t laugh I’d have a long row to hoe. As it is, I would rather giggle than fume, so I try to look at things with a reasonable perspective. As long as I haven’t hurt anyone else, I try to shrug off my goofs with a smile.

I was a clumsy kid; and apparently it was a very rare thing for me not to have some type of bandage, stitches, a plaster cast or a large, purple bruise somewhere on my body. If there was a tree root snaking through the grass, I would trip over it. If there was a slick spot on the hardwood floor, I would slip on it.

By the time I was twelve years old I had fallen face first into a galvanized bucket (8 stitches), rode my bike into a barbed wire fence (10 stitches) , crashed into a coffee table (5 stitches) and broken both arms. Trust me when I say that these are just a few highlights from a long list of injuries (and I have the scars to prove it), but I think you get the picture.

One of my greatest humiliations, and therefore the one that brings my children the greatest joy whenever they hear the story, was an incident that occurred in my freshman year of high school. At that time it was required that all ninth graders take Physical Education (or as I liked to call it: one miserable hour of unrelenting HELL in an otherwise stressful day).

When you are blessed with neither the slightest shred of gracefulness nor an ounce of athletic ability, the daily torture of attempting to perform a variety of seemingly impossible tasks while wearing a snug white t-shirt and ill-fitting white shorts gave new meaning to the term “awkward.” Like most kids who were teasingly called “pudgy” (at least on a good day), white was not my color. It was an incredible boost to my self-esteem. (sarcasm)

Of course, I was well aware of my own limits. When it was time to climb the big rope (which hung from the roof of the gymnasium some 40 or 400 feet above), I told my parents that I would probably fail the class. Not only was I completely positive that I did not have the physical ability to climb to the top of the rope, I was absolutely certain that when I inevitably lost my grip and slid downward with ever increasing speed, I would severely burn my hands and inner thighs in the attempt to stop. Between that foregone conclusion and a fairly strong aversion to the big knot at the bottom, I knew that my climb would not end well.
Through a careful balance of luck, skilled avoidance and faking sick, I was able to skip out on the joys of “rope-climbing” days.

The story that haunts me, however, even today, did not involve the rope. It was one of those winter days when we couldn’t go outside and run. Rather than play Volleyball, which was one of the few things I actually enjoyed, Coach Kuhl decided to teach us the intricacies of the trampoline.

For safety, he had us all gather around the outer edges of the trampoline. We were instructed to be careful of flying feet and elbows, but also that it was our responsibility to stop any of our fellow students who bounced wrong and became human projectiles. We braced ourselves to save lives.

I can still remember, very clearly, his detailed instructions on the proper mounting of the trampoline. From the narrow end of the stand, we were to grasp the frame firmly with both hands and jump straight up, dropping our head and pushing up with our arms so that we could tuck and roll smoothly on to the top. It looked very easy. He called on one of my more athletically inclined classmates to show us how it was done, and they did so with the grace of an Olympic gymnast.

In my deluded mind, I could see and feel myself doing the same. Jump, push, lift, tuck, roll…I could do this.

Although the class was not officially co-ed, there were certain activities in which the girls having class during that period joined the boys. Trampoline day was one of those days. In hindsight, I’m not sure it was a spectacularly great idea to have teenage boys and teenage girls watch each other jump up and down on a trampoline in tight white t-shirts and shorts, but I personally have no memory of it being a problem or a distraction. I was completely focused on the task at hand.

As each student took their turn, we slowly rotated around the trampoline frame. When I finally reached the end of the line, I was ready. I grasped the frame like I was supposed to, then waited for the Coach to give me the nod to go ahead. I closed my eyes and talked myself through the mounting steps.

I jumped…and felt myself rising. I dropped my head…chin to chest, just as I had been told. My arms tightened and lifted my body even further….then I felt myself tuck and start to roll forward. I could feel the watchful stare of forty pair of eyes upon me. I was almost there…

…and then my forward momentum stopped.

It took a moment to realize where I was and what I had done. I was not lying on the black mat of the trampoline like I should have been. I was still gripping the padded frame with both hands and my feet were flailing wildly above my body. Somehow (and I find this particularly amazing considering the size of my noggin), as I tucked and rolled, my head slipped between two of the heavy springs which provide the bounce in the trampoline and got stuck.

I’m not sure what this must have looked like to my classmates. I’ve tried to visualize it in a way that looked somewhat natural or even cool, but after years of trying I have accepted that it is impossible. I was stuck upside down, legs flopping wildly in all directions, head missing in the underworld of the trampoline.

My kids would rob a bank to buy a video of this.

I don’t know how long I stayed there like that. It seemed like hours. I don’t recall hearing laughter, although with my ears pinned so tightly in the grip of those springs, I don’t think I could have heard anything anyway. Eventually, Coach Kuhl got over his shock and came to my rescue. He grabbed the springs and spread them apart enough for my head to pop free. Fortunately, my legs were flopping in the direction of the trampoline, so I collapsed into a motionless heap…surrounded by a large group of my peers.

It took a while to get my body to move again, and I wasn’t up to bouncing or doing flips at that point, so I just rolled to the edge and slithered off the side. Although my legs were shaking I was able to stand and walk. Coach Kuhl said I could hit the showers early and it wasn’t until I was looking in the mirror in the locker room that I saw the striped red whelps that had burned into both sides of my neck and face. Small patches of hair were missing and later found still trapped between the tight coils of the trampoline springs.

I’m eternally grateful that this little experience took place in the days before cell phones and viral videos. I would not enjoy being a YouTube laughingstock.

Still, I can look back on it now and laugh. Not as hard as my kids do whenever they think of my head stuck in the springs of that trampoline. Not nearly as hard as my friend Thaddeus, who asks to hear the story again like it’s a child’s favorite bedtime story. Probably not as hard as any of my classmates whom I have foolishly hoped wiped it from their memory.

The only one who doesn’t laugh quite as hard is my sweet, loving wife Connie. She looks on with a balanced mix of compassion, good humor and concern. I’m pretty sure that the concern is not for me, though. I know that she is thinking, “Why did I marry this guy?”

Road Trips

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:19:00 +0000

I enjoy the concept of a road trip. The dream of the open highway and the beauty of the American countryside flowing by is a glorious thing. If not for time and scheduling, I’d rather drive than fly. There’s something freeing about being behind the wheel and in control of your own destiny.

Like a lot of things, however, these trips can get idealized in our minds before we ever open the car door. The open road is not really so open. There are other cars, pickups, motorcycles and massive trucks which get in our way, block our view and endanger our existence. There’s road construction and speed traps and potholes; you have to take the good with the bad.

Last Saturday we left home at 8am to drive the two hundred and eleven miles to my parent’s house to surprise my Mom for her birthday. Shelby and Ashlyn couldn’t get off of work, so it was just Connie, Taylor and I. It was the first time we’ve only had one child in the car for a trip since before Ashlyn was born. Instead of the constant chatter of three voices in the back seat, we only had the constant chatter of one. That evening as we drove back home, I was reminded of some of the best and worst things about our family road trips.

Best

The excitement of leaving. There’s something about getting out of the house early in the morning and getting settled into the car that gives you a little thrill. This is best if you know you are actually heading off to a real vacation, but it’s still fun just to know you’re going somewhere.

Worst

The frustration of leaving. Those last minute arguments and searches for shoes, IPods, cameras and car keys. The check and double check of lights, stove, locks and windows. The battle over who sits where in the car and why it’s not fair because someone ALWAYS has to sit in the middle. Of course, after everyone is settled and you think that you are ready to go, someone remembers something they absolutely must take and you have turn off the car, get out, unlock the house and start all over again.

Best

Road music! Certain songs seem made for cruising down the highway. My personal playlist would include almost anything by the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Lynard Skynard, Boston, Kansas and REM. Certain songs seem to merge with the speed and rhythm of the road, but you have to be careful. When I was commuting back and forth to college I wore out the cassette tape of The Police performing the song “Synchronicity II.” That song started out fast and built in tempo as if the drums, guitar and lyrics were racing each other to see who could reach the end of the song first. My foot seemed to want to keep the beat as well, and I often found myself edging past 90 mph on Interstate 64 on my way home. I soon learned I was better off listening to the Eagles singing “Take it Easy.”

Worst

Road Music! I have learned the hard way that my experience with road music is only great if I am in complete control of the music and I am the only person in the vehicle. Connie and I both love the “70’s on 7” channel on satellite radio, but when a disco song comes on, I want to change it and she goes into foggy eyed memory mode. I do not “boogie.” Never have, never will.

It’s even worse when the girls are in the car. No matter how well I hide the audio cable that plugs their IPods into the car sound system, they always seem to find it. They have also learned how to make their own mix cd’s. These are often painful and contain no central theme or pattern, other than the songs they like at the moment.

While I argue that they need to bring headphones to listen to the music that they like, they insist that we should all HAVE to listen. They are like parent’s trying to get kids to eat brussel sprouts: “If you try it you will like it…and if you don’t like it at first, or it makes you feel nauseous, just keep going, it will get tolerable and eventually you’ll love it.”

On a good day, there might be one song in twenty that we all equally like. Depending upon the general tolerance level of the moment (and let’s face it, there’s not a lot of tolerance amongst my three girls as they sit in the backseat of a car), they can either listen to a song they don’t like with mild disdain or decide that they won’t have to hear much of it if they simply grumble their way through it.

Best

Road food! One of the joys of driving for a long distance is the promise of stopping along the way to eat. My general preference is to try something new, not the same old thing I can get in my home area. With the family, however, stability and familiarity is important, so we’ve learned we can’t go wrong with Cracker Barrel or McDonald’s. Both for variety or price, these give us the options we need and the speed to get us back out on the road quickly. It’s a rare road trip that we don’t stop at one (or both) of these establishments.

Worst
Road food! Although I should know better, I have many weak moments where I tend to forget who I am dealing with and make the mistake of asking, “Where would everyone like to eat?” The battle that follows is bloodless but verbally brutal. No one likes the same thing, and their individual likes and dislikes seem to change from hour to hour. If they liked Arby’s yesterday, they simply “aren’t in the mood for it today.” (This is usually in response to someone else saying “I would really like some Arby’s!”).

I’ve made lots of mistakes, but I’m learning. I’ve learned that a Wendy’s Frosty is not a satisfactory replacement for a Dairy Queen Blizzard.

I’ve learned that no matter how sincere a person seems when they say “I’m not picky…you know what I like, “ that I should just hand them cash and INSIST that they order for themselves.

Most importantly, I’ve learned that no matter how much they beg, I should never stop for Mexican food or let them order chili.

Best

Time together! At its best, a road trip can remind you how much fun your family can be. For some strange reason, I am much funnier in our car than I am at any other time. Even Connie, who generally stopped finding me amusing quite some time ago, will laugh at my quips in the car. Maybe it’s the hypnotically lulling sounds of the tires. It reduces her resistance.

When the girls aren’t arguing over music or food or whose elbow is in whose side, they can be adorably sweet in the car. They will break into song and harmonize together. They will play silly games. They laugh.

When it’s quiet, I’ll move the rearview mirror just so I can watch them sleep.

Worst

The smells! If boys are grosser than girls, I’m glad we didn’t have any sons. I’m fairly positive that some of their tennis shoes and sandals were made with possum hides, because when they take them off in the car, it smells like week old August road kill. Other odors flow forward as well, and they can’t be blamed on the shoes. As mine and Connie’s windows roll down and we gasp for breath, the giggles follow. Apparently, there is no shame amongst family.

As we crossed the state line on our way back into Tennessee Saturday night, darkness had fallen and Taylor was sleeping quietly in the back seat. She didn’t have to sit in the middle on this trip. She had the entire seat to herself and was stretched out across it.

I couldn’t help but wonder if she was more comfortable sleeping that way, or squeezed in between her sisters with her head on Shelby’s shoulder? Our trips are changing. Fewer and fewer trips will find us all together. Sooner than I am prepared for it will be just Connie and I, driving in relative peace, listening to the music we want to listen to.

I’m sure that as I think back on our family road trips, even the “worst” things about them will be cherished memories.

Swiss Cheese Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:41:00 +0000

Since I was never very good at sports, or much of anything else, one of the rare qualities I could take some small measure of personal pride in was my ability to remember random, frequently useless bits of lore, legend or unimportant fact. In particular, I was good at movie and television trivia.

Throughout high school and college, I devoured books and magazines about films and film-makers. I don’t know whether it was due to my youth or just a keen interest, but my brain was able to retain that information like a fat sponge. For years it was a useful party trick, and I think that often people thought I was much smarter than I was because I didn’t just know the year a film was released, but also who wrote it, directed it and whether the lead actor had an affair with the lead actress during filming.

Fortunately, they didn’t ask me any questions that would require Algebra.

Before we all had access to the World Wide Web, friends and family members would call me for the sole purpose of asking, “Who was that guy in that show? You know…the one with the girl?” I’m not sure what was scarier…that they would ask such a vague question…or that I would usually know exactly what guy and what show they were talking about.

So, I had a reputation. In retrospect, it was kind of sad and pointless reputation, but it was basically all I had, so I shined it up and placed it on my mantel. Did you need to know the chronological filmography of Spielberg, Scorcese, DePalma or Hitchcock? I was your guy. Curious about the color template of cinematographer Gordon Willis, or the editing style of Verna Fields? I could regal you for hours. It was a hobby that was more interesting to me than any job I ever had.

With the advent of the Internet, I found new avenues of information. Websites devoted to the kind of details I loved; operated by kindred spirits. I learned the term “film geek” and recognized immediately that I had always been one…I just didn’t know the name.

My lovely wife Connie, who…like most women…had dreamed of marrying a tall, dark, rugged and handsome Sean Connery or Sam Elliott type had to adjust her expectations a wee bit to accommodate my average height, pale skin, and injury prone clumsiness. I was lucky that throughout our months of dating, I often had a cold, which fortunately lowered the timbre of my voice by at least an octave. By the time my sinuses cleared and she heard my natural speaking tone, with its occasional higher pitched falsetto exclamations, we were already married. Occasionally I will attempt to treat her to a Connery style Scottish brogue, usually failing miserably, but even after a week of strep throat I don’t try to imitate the gravelly baritone manliness of Sam Elliott. I don’t think that her heart could take the laughter.

Connie was not aware that she had married a “film geek.” She thought that I was a smart guy with a lot of potential. Little did she know that my knowledge was primarily focused in areas that allowed for minimal income producing possibilities. Still, I was somewhat useful to have around.

If we were at a movie or watching a television show and someone came on screen that looked familiar, all she basically had to do was glance my way and I’d give her a brief rundown of that persons film credits. Eventually I would say the name of the film or show that she remembered so she would nod and say “that’s it.” I may not have been Sean Connery, but it was my own little Bond moment.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed that I’m not quite up to my game. Connie will give me that questioning glance during a movie and I’ll hesitate, finally telling her, “You know…he was on that show we liked. The one about the doctors.”

I know that it’s age. Like the rest of my body, my brain is slowing down. I’m just not as sharp as I once was. It feels like I’m half asleep all the time.

My short term memory is pretty well shot as well. I’ll go to the grocery store for bread and milk…that’s all…two things (!)…and as I’m driving home later with four bags of groceries that I hadn’t planned to buy, I’ll realize that I didn’t get one (or both) of the two things I went there to get in the first place.

I have recently found myself watching a television show for 30 or 45 minutes, then when a commercial comes on I’ll channel surf (I am a guy, after all) and after a few minutes of perusing what else is on, I’ll completely forget what I was originally watching. I could say that part of that is based on the fact that television shows today are relatively forgettable, but it’s still pretty sad.

I can still remember the days when people, including my wife, said that I had a mind like a “steel trap.” Now I sometimes feel that drudging up memories is like trying to catch water with a fish net. I need to clear the cobwebs and spray some mental WD40 on my rusty hinges. It’s time to wake up.

Malaise

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:47:00 +0000

I’d love to say that it’s been an interesting summer, but the truth (at least for me), is that it’s been a fairly miserable summer. Before I sound like I’m going to throw a pity party for myself, I will fully admit that no great ill has befallen me. No natural disaster has rerouted the course of my life. In fact, the worst thing that I can say has happened to me is that “absolutely nothing” has happened.

Compared with those folks out in the real world who have been dealing with floods, tornadoes, oil spills, unemployment, wars and numerous other tragedies, my sad-sack whining is beyond pathetic. The realization of just how ridiculous it is to be burdened by nothing more than the microscopic weight of my own malaise is not just humbling, but more than a little bit humiliating.

I was tired coming into the summer. My travel schedule was heavier this year than ever, and there were added levels of stress related to that. I have always tried to follow a “work to live, not live to work” philosophy, but sometimes necessity becomes priority and your personal life doesn’t just get kicked into the back seat, but is wrapped in a tarp and thrown in the trunk.

Still, in these difficult economic times, I’m not going to complain about having a good job that just happens to keep me away from home more than I like. I understand that it’s not really the job but the way I handle things that cause me the most trouble. I am my own worst enemy.

For the last couple of years, one of the things that kept me busy and out of trouble was my relatively consistent scribbling in my blog. It didn’t really accomplish anything other than give me something to do and a way to vent, but that release valve was a crucial fulcrum in helping me balance the various stresses and weights I faced. I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I stopped writing a few months ago.

I’m not really sure why I stopped. My excuse was that my brain was fried from too much travel, and that was partially true. I was exhausted and mentally spent from one trip after another; smiling and pretending to care about whatever new, almost always pointless way that someone had come up with to spend our tax dollars. I had dreams where I grabbed some of them by the collar and screamed “No one cares about what you’re doing! Go get a real job!” Of course, they could have just as easily done the same thing to me and I would have had no justifiable response. We were both just cogs in the machinery.

I did attempt to write…sitting in my hotel room with the television muted and the cold air blowing full force to try and fight off the oppressive summer heat...but the words were disjointed and randomly bitter. I couldn’t find a through-line to hang my intentions on.

As summer draws to a close, I’m hoping that the falling leaves of autumn will give me a new spark. Maybe it was just the incessant rays of the sun that baked away my energy and castrated all signs of creativity. Or maybe I had one too many eggs and my mind is roiling from salmonella. It’s difficult to say.

Either way, I’m going to force myself to write until it spills out easily again. It might not be pretty, and I don’t count on anyone reading it, but that’s okay. This is much cheaper than therapy.

Family

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 20:06:00 +0000

Summer is not my favorite time of year. When you’re overweight, out of shape, and work in an office with air-conditioning for most of your day, it’s not easy to step out into the thick muck of heat that has settled over us. It is only the beginning of July and we’ve already had more ninety degree days this year than all of last year; so to say that my mood has not been pleasant is an understatement.

I’m a fall person…or better yet…a winter person. I’d much rather put on more clothes than take anything off (and after taking a brief survey of both family and friends, they too agree that they would rather I put on more clothes than take anything off. It’s a rare moment of total agreement; although some of the survey comments were a bit more hurtful than I felt was necessary).

Last weekend Connie and I traveled to Kentucky for a family reunion of my father’s side of the gene pool. Shelby and Ashlyn had to work Friday night and Saturday morning, so they could not go, and Taylor was away at a church camp until Sunday, so it was a rare, but pleasant road trip for my lovely bride and me. We listened to the music we wanted to listen to, and we got to talk without constant interuption. Unlike most of the trips from our door in Oak Ridge to Mom and Dad’s door in Shelbyville, it seemed to pass by too quickly. I am sure I did not drive any faster than usual, but the 211 miles sped by in a blur.

When we arrived, Dad was out on the front porch, which is the throne from which he overlooks his little kingdom. Dad is an outdoor person and is as resistant to Air Conditioning as I am to heat. He has worked outside all of his life, from farm work as a child to hard, manual labor on the County Road Crews in his teens. Through his years as a truck driver, he drove with the windows down and his left arm lay across the edge to receive a dark, permanent tan.

Mom likes to give Dad a hard time about sitting on the porch, and I’m not sure why. I think she sees it as a waste of time, but the way I see it, if you’ve worked hard all your life and you’ve finally retired, then you should be able to do what you want to do.

Dad enjoys sitting on the porch more than sitting in the house watching television. He enjoys the feel of the sun and sound of the occasional breeze in the leaves of the dogwood tree nearby. He enjoys watching the cars pass by on their way into or out of town. He recognizes a lot of the people and waves…and they wave back. He sometimes waves at those he doesn’t know too. Most of them return the friendly greeting.

As the sun was slowly setting Friday evening and the air got slightly more bearable, I sat on the front porch with Dad and we waved at those driving by together. I had to admit it was relaxing.

When it got a bit darker, we went inside, where Mom and Connie had been sharing stories about mine and Dad’s problems and how they intended to fix them. Although I had told Mom we would eat dinner on the way and not to fix any food, she couldn’t resist breaking out some home-made pound cake and ice cream. Far be it from me to hurt her feelings by refusing to partake of her generosity.

We talked into the evening about family and the kids. Again, the lack of interruption was nice, but there was a bit of sadness in the undertone of the conversation. My kids were growing up and their absence was like a vacuum. Not only had I grown up and moved away, but now my kids were growing up and moving on with their own lives. They would visit again, of course, but not nearly as often.

Saturday morning Mom was up before five, starting a kettle of green beans. Dad had hoped for a mess of fresh beans from his garden, but we were about a week early so Mom was using canned. Still, a piece of salt pork for seasoning and a long time to simmer and they would taste just fine.

I had made a Mississippi Mud Cake, since it travelled easily, and planned to buy fried chicken from Kroger’s. Mom made a big pan of baked macaroni and cheese and Dad made his world famous banana pudding. We were prepared to feed the multitudes.

The reunion was supposed to start at 11am, but since everyone had been told that we wouldn’t eat until noon, that’s when everyone showed up. There was more food than there were people, and we had to add tables for desserts and drinks. Everyone out-did themselves with their favorite recipes, and when I say “out-did” I also mean that some went too far. I didn’t recognize what everything was…although it mostly resembled food.

There are some excellent cooks in my family¸ evident by the numerous shirts stretched near the point of fabric failure, but there are a few experimenters as well. I don’t mind trying new things, or new recipes, but I generally try them at home, where smoke detectors and waste baskets are close by. My basic rule at pot-lucks and reunions is that I don’t partake of foods that I can’t easily identify or if the ingredients aren’t obvious to my naked and extremely well-trained eye…especially if I have be somewhere in the next twenty-four hours.

Fortunately, there were plenty of the basics. Fried Chicken in all varieties except home-made (I guess no one actually fries chicken at home anymore), several batches of Mac and Cheese (with varying levels of cheesiness), corn, beans, potatoes, and a variety of casseroles with cracker toppings. One odd thing that Connie and I both noticed (and discussed in some detail on the way home) was that no one had brought “deviled eggs.” In retrospect, I still find it rather shocking.

Connie also noted (on our quiet drive home that evening) that my family was obviously a “mac and cheese” family and her family was a “hash brown casserole” family. It took only a moment’s thought to realize that she was absolutely right. No Warford family gathering seemed complete without a dish of baked macaroni and cheese, while the Dunkel family could not seem to meet without the hash browns. There is probably an interesting social study in that nugget of information, but I don’t really care. Fortunately, I like them both.

I always look forward to the reunion to see family members that I do not see the rest of the year (unless it is at a funeral). After the loss of my uncle Lee last year, there are only three siblings left in Dad’s family, from the original thirteen. Dad is now the oldest, followed by his brother Bill and sister Eleanor.

There were many of my cousins at the reunion, and many more that did not make it. The greeting etiquette of family members who have essentially become “strangers” is an odd, but consistent one: for male cousins, there is a quick handshake and a chipper “Hey ______, how have you been?” This is answered by a simple “Good, and you?” The response to this question can vary between “fine” and “great,” but never more detailed than that.

Female cousins sometimes get a hug, followed by the same general dialog. Occasionally someone will ask me if I still live in Tennessee, and I’ll say “yes.” They might follow that up (if we haven’t been interrupted by another arriving cousin) with, “now that’s near Nashville, right?” And I’ll say, “No, near Knoxville.” Since I’m always afraid of asking a question that I should already know the answer to or might not want to know, I generally shuffle my feet awkwardly and say something about how unbearably hot it is.

The heat was miserable. We were under a shelter, but it had a tin roof that seemed to be conducting the sun’s rays into a microwave. Dad and my brother David had brought some fans to sit around and people were not so casually situating themselves in front of them. Those spots were prime real estate and provided the only breeze and relief while trying to eat.

Despite a strong suggestion that we sit with people that we normally don’t see, everyone mostly broke up into their immediate family groupings. Old habits die hard, and we all gravitate to our comfort zone. Nothing is more comfortable than family.

Barely an hour and a half after getting in line to eat, people were packing up to go. It was just too hot to sit around and try to make conversation. It was really a shame though; because I think the longer we had stayed, the more we would have been forced to catch up. I might have actually learned what a few of my cousins do for a living.

My cousin Kevin, however, was the hero of the day. When a discussion arose about next year’s reunion, he suggested that we find a place indoors (even offering his church’s fellowship hall). As sweat dripped off my forehead and down the tip of my nose, I think it mixed with tears of joy at the thought that we would be in air-conditioned comfort next year. I quickly added my support to the idea and so did most of the others. (I think Dad was a little disappointed, but he was the only one present who didn’t look like he had just stepped out of the lake. He was as cool as the glass of ice tea he was holding).

Soon we were back at Mom and Dad’s house unpacking leftovers. I lifted the lid and looked down at my carefully and lovingly prepared Mississippi Mud Cake. One solitary corner piece had been removed. The rest of the cake sat there in the pan like some unwanted ugly stepchild. Connie noticed the cakes sad plight as well and said “Didn’t you get a piece of that at the reunion?” Yes, I nodded. One piece had been eaten from my cake and it was I who ate it. Kind of sad.

We visited a while longer, then hugged and kissed everyone before heading south toward home. I cranked up the air conditioning and set the cruise control. Another peaceful ride home, full of uninterrupted conversation and music of our choice. I couldn’t help but miss the kids.

Emergency!

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Tue, 18 May 2010 21:51:00 +0000

I hate hospitals. It’s not an irrational hatred or a paralyzing fear reaction, and it’s certainly not a lack of respect for the fine individuals who provide such necessary and life-saving care, but like most people I simply would prefer never to step inside one again. Of course, I rarely get what I prefer.

Sunday night one of those things happened that you can’t predict or plan. Rather than a quiet evening of television and an early bedtime that we were expecting, Connie and I ended up in the emergency room of Oak Ridge’s Methodist Medical Center with our daughter Ashlyn. She had been complaining about her stomach hurting throughout the afternoon, but as dusk began to fall it became more obvious that it was not just “something she ate.”

Since my aim here is not to write a medical mystery or a draw out the concern for her well-being, let me say upfront that Ashlyn is okay. The final diagnosis was that she had a cyst that was causing the pain and after a few days it should go away.

To borrow from Connie’s favorite quote, however, this is about the “journey, not the destination.”

Hoping to avoid a trip to the Emergency Room, we called our family doctor for some advice on Ashlyn’s malady. Of course, being the weekend, we ended up talking to the phone service and then to an intermediary person whose primary job seemed to be keeping us from talking directly to a medical professional.

There were several calls back and forth, each with a new list of questions and answers, and finally we were asked to have Ashlyn jump up and down. Apparently, this is a standard tool for over-the-phone diagnosis, because when she admitted that “yes,” her abdomen did hurt more after jumping, we were instructed to go to the hospital.

The emergency room experience is unlike any other, except maybe for the green room of The Jerry Springer Show during an episode entitled “Cousins Who Marry.” I am actually tempted to spend some evenings there with my camera so I can start the next Internet sensation: PeopleOfTheEmergencyRoom.com.

The lady at the registration desk was very professional. I assume she has seen and heard a lot over the years, so she has removed any sign of emotion or compassion from her face or body language. She questioned me in more detail than my last home loan application and then took my insurance card and driver’s license to make a copy. I was not surprised by this, but was concerned when she said I would not get them back until Ashlyn was discharged. I wanted to ask her why, but I was a little concerned that she was related to the “Soup Nazi” of Seinfeld and might say “no Emergency Care for you!” For the good of my daughter, I kept my mouth shut.

We had barely taken our seats in the waiting area when Ashlyn’s name was called out from across the room. We excitedly stood and made our way toward the sound of the voice but could not find where it came from. There were about five doors on that side of the room and none of them were open. We stood there dumbly, wondering if all three of us had somehow imagined it together.

After a few awkward minutes of feet shuffling, one of middle doors cracked open and a man’s head poked out. “Ashlyn Warford!” As soon as he said it, his head disappeared and the door shut again. It was a little disconcerting. Were we supposed to go in there? Or was he just practicing name pronunciations?

I went to the door and knocked. The man quickly opened the door and said, “Warford?” We nodded yes and he let us in. Once inside, he did not seem so anti-social, and even joked some with Ashlyn, who was smiling and laughing despite her abdominal pain. His tag said he was an RN, and he took Ashlyn’s vitals and description of her problem. He agreed that the symptoms appeared to suggest Appendicitis, and then informed us that they had received several ambulances in the last hour and had no beds available. They would get to us as soon as they could.

We returned to our seats in the waiting area and spent the next three hours watching a parade of interesting, sort of scary, oddly dressed characters come and go. I was surprised at how many came in wearing their pajamas, and mentioned to Connie that I would have to bleeding profusely or passed out not to throw on some clothes before going out in public.

While we and a few others walked in with a dazed and confused look on our face, searching for signs to tell us where to go and what to do, most of the people who entered that evening looked like they were visiting their grandmother’s house. They seemed to know where everything was, and several even knew each other. I felt like we had stumbled onto a reunion of some sort.

To keep ourselves occupied as the hours passed, we tried to guess which person of each new group was the actual patient in need of Emergency care. It was more difficult than you would think.

A young woman came in carrying a sleeping baby and was followed by a heavyset, older woman pulling an oxygen tank. The woman with the tank moved slowly and wheezed with each unsteady step. To the untrained eye she was the obvious patient, but I was a quick learner that night and put my money on the infant. I was right.

After signing in, the three sat nearby and I was amazed that the baby could continue to sleep over the constant hacking cough and coarse, honking whistle that accompanied every labored breath the woman made. The only time there was some quiet from that side of the room was when the woman staggered her way back outside to smoke a cigarette.

There were an abundance of “coughers” in the waiting room that night, and I told Connie that if a person wasn’t sick when they got there, they would almost definitely have something before they left. One woman was there before we arrived and continued to wait; called back at the same time we were, minutes after midnight. We tried to guess her ailment, but except for an occasional cough (which she refused to cover with her hand), she seemed in good health. She spent most of her time on her cell phone, laughing and talking. We could not understand why anyone would sit for so long if they didn’t have an actual “emergency” concern. I think I could wait until morning to see someone about a cough, but that’s just me.

After a while, it became obvious that this was not necessarily an “emergency room” for many of the people there that night, but their only form of health care available. Without insurance they couldn’t afford to see a doctor. Here, they could show up for almost anything and receive treatment.

A man and a boy who looked to be around ten years old had been waiting since we arrived and Connie and I were both touched by the father’s attentiveness. The boy was definitely sick. Pale and weak, he lay down beside his father and slept most of the evening. The father would occasionally lay his hand on the boys shoulder or carefully touch his brow. At one point he gently shook him and said that he had to go the bathroom and was sorry to wake him but he didn’t want him to be scared if woke up and he was not there.

Later, after hours of waiting, the boy sat up and his father felt his forehead with the back of his hand. “I think your fever has broke,” I heard him say. The boy said that he felt better. They waited twenty more minutes and with a quiet look at each stood and walked silently to the door and into the night. I nudged Connie and said, “They either heal you here or make you wait long enough to get better on your own.”

When the clock struck midnight and my patience neared a breaking point, we got called back to a room. While we thought that we were at last making progress, we had merely switched tracks to another slow train to nowhere. The waiting with a different view had begun.

Pondering...

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:38:00 +0000

I am a fortunate man. I may not have great looks, wealth or fame (or many of the other attributes that people associate with men of good fortune), but when I take the time to stop and look around, I know that I am blessed beyond what I deserve.

I consider myself fortunate for many reasons, such as the fact that not only are both my parents still alive, but they are still married and living together (in the very same house I grew up in). Although they bicker a bit and don’t seem to communicate with each other in a way that I fully understand, they go together like biscuit and gravy. It’s as if they always were…and always will be.

The relationship of child to parent is much different now than it was when I was growing up. My parents did not feel the need to entertain us or be our friend. I can’t remember ever being asked my opinion on where to go out to eat or where to go on vacation. Of course, I can count on two fingers the number of times we went out to eat as a family prior to my sixteenth birthday, and vacations usually consisted of visiting family in Indiana.

No, my parents didn’t read a book on how to raise a child. They didn’t get advice from Dr. Spock or a government study on child psychology. There weren’t people on the news every morning telling them what they were doing was wrong, and if there were, my parents would have been too busy to watch. They fed us, clothed us, took us to church and made sure we brushed our teeth. If we had homework, we were expected to do it, no excuses. We had chores. We didn’t get an allowance. We got clothes and a couple of toys from Santa Claus at Christmas and a new pair of jeans and a toy on our birthday. It was more than enough.

I never worried when I was a child…about anything…and that might have been my parent’s greatest gift. I lived under a dome of their protection. I somehow knew, despite it never being said or even thought about, that they would keep me safe and taken care of. I wasn’t smothered in hugs at home, nor told each day that I was loved, but there was never a doubt in my mind that either one of them would have died to keep me safe. I slept well in my parent’s house.

I don’t sleep as well anymore. Worry is strong caffeine. I have the weight of my own children’s well-being upon me. I worry that I can provide what they need and nurture their self-esteem. I worry about the choices they will make and what outside influences will affect those choices. I worry about the diminishing list of things I can control and the ever-expanding list of things I cannot.

I also worry for my parents. Age and health issues have gradually chipped away at them, as it will to all those fortunate enough to see time pass. Dad survived a bought with cancer ten years ago, and steps a little slower after the fight. Mom has suffered through heart surgery, poor vision, high blood pressure and back problems. They have their good days and their bad days.

I was able to spend most of Mother’s Day weekend with my parents in Kentucky. Each year I tell myself that I will make it a priority to go there more often, and each year I fail miserably. I had not been “home” since late December, hindered from returning sooner by many seemingly reasonable excuses. Like most things that keep us from doing what we should, each excuse made sense at the time.

Sunday morning, as Connie and the girls hurried to get dressed for church; I stood at the back door and watched my parents walk to the car on the way to Sunday school. Mom walked slowly…eyes down and watching the familiar sidewalk as she carefully took each step. She could not afford a fall. Her bones are too fragile now and her skin prone to tear. A broken hip could take her independence in a matter of seconds, and recovery would be difficult. I pray that her feet continue to land firmly and her balance stays true.

I worry too about my father driving. At 81 he’s still much sharper than I about many things, but when I see big SUV’s and trucks speeding through town and weaving through traffic, I worry about his reaction time. How much longer can he keep his focus on the road, and who will tell him to hand over his keys? Will I do the right thing when the time comes, and protect them like they have for so long protected me?

It’s very hard to live so far away from my Mom and Dad. It helps to know that my brothers are close by and willing to do anything necessary, but I feel guilt over that too. I want to do my share. Despite the fact that my parents have cared for me my entire life with no expectations and no interest charged, I owe them that.

I am fortunate that my children have gotten old enough to have good memories of my parents. They know the warmth of my parent’s home, and I know they feel comfortable there. They love their “Mamaw and Papaw,” and I know that they will carry that love and those memories for the rest of their lives.

I hope that for however long I am blessed to have my parents on this Earth, they know how much I love them and how much they mean to their family. I hope they can forgive me for the stupid things I’ve said and the stupid things I’ve done; those things were “in spite of” not “because of” anything they taught me. They’ve placed me in the frustrating position that when I do stumble, I don’t have the excuse of saying, “I didn’t know better.”

Because of their example, I have always known better.

And on the seventh day...

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Tue, 04 May 2010 22:28:00 +0000

I don’t remember it myself, but I’ve been told that I was first taken to church when I was two weeks old. Since it was my mother telling the story, I tend to believe it. From then until I got married, I didn’t miss a lot of Sundays, and very few Wednesday nights. Church was as much a part of our life as eating or breathing. I never knew anything else.

Our church was small, averaging sixty or seventy in the congregation each Sunday morning, and if you weren’t related to them in some way or another, then you at least knew their business. Most were hard working, God fearing folk. The men wore suits, with blue ink pens and a pack of camels in the pocket of their crisply ironed white shirts. The ladies wore dresses and shoes with low, sensible heels. Their hair was always perfect, held in place with enough bobby pins to shield them from a nuclear blast. When I got older and realized that half of the older ladies were wearing wigs, it was almost like learning that there was no Easter Bunny.

As a child, I remember going to the front of the church for “Children’s Choir” after Sunday school. It was not really a “choir” since we never rehearsed ahead of time. I’m still not sure of the point of what we were doing other than to show off our miniature suits and ruffled dresses, but it was always fun to sing the songs; “This Little Light of Mine,” “Zacchaeus,” “The B-I-B-L-E,” and my personal favorite, “The Happy Day Express.”

If it was just a “dog and pony” show of “see how cute they are,” then we were extremely willing participants. Besides, I can attest that forty years later I remember the words to every single song.

As kids we were never allowed to wear jeans to morning service. It was just not done. We were also expected to behave. No talking, laughing or cutting up was allowed. It was rare, but I did see a few young boys taken by the hand and solemnly led outside by their Daddy, only to return some time later with splotchy, tear streaked faces and a much more subdued attitude. That usually only had to happen once.

We were a small, independent church…full of independent people. We were “interdenominational,” which means we were not affiliated with any specific religious organization. We weren’t Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic or Pentecostal. As I got older and more cynical, I sometimes joked that “interdenominational” meant that we didn’t know what we believed, but that was far from true.

In those days we used the King James Version of the Bible. Now most people say that it is too hard to understand, but even as a child, I didn’t have a problem grasping the central concepts. I think the fact that the language was different than the way we speak made us think about it more. It’s sort of like the way kids today are allowed use calculators in math class: if you make it too easy, people tend to miss the basics.

I always worry a little about some of the various translations of the Bible. I’m sure that they are all well intentioned, but how many different ways can you say the same thing without losing the original intent? Also (and here’s my cynical side coming out), what if a complete lunatic wrote a translation and people actually believed it? I might know that it would be a bad idea to do a Bible study using “Billy Jim Joe Bob’s Bible Translation,” but some people are always looking for what’s new and different, so I wouldn’t put it past them to take take every word as fact.

When I met Connie, I didn’t know quite what to expect. First, she was a Baptist. Second, she was a preacher’s kid. At the time I didn’t know much about Baptists, except that whenever a stray Baptist joined our little Interdenominational Church they tended to stir up trouble. But I had heard about “preacher’s kids,” and was told that they could go to extremes either way. Either they were “holier than thou” sticks in the mud, or rebellious hellions bent on a campaign to shock and awe.

Connie threw both my preconceptions out the window and was a perfect balance of a good hearted person who was also full of surprises. The only shock was how she filled me with awe and inspiration. We had a Baptist wedding in a Baptist Church presided over by her Baptist Preacher father. Whether I wanted to accept it or not, I was now “Baptist by marriage.”

When we moved to Tennessee in 1988, we weren’t in a hurry to join a church. We had spent most of our young lives attending church services, and although we both treasured those memories, we started to enjoy the freedoms of a church free Sunday. We slept late and took day trips. We communed with nature. There was always an excuse not to go. It was our rebellious period.

In early 1990, when we learned that Connie was pregnant with Shelby, we knew that it was time to settle down and return to church. We visited a few churches in the area and were almost afraid to keep looking when on three consecutive Sundays at three different worship services, the Pastors resigned. It made for an awkward visit. By the third resignation we began to joke that we might be some kind of jinx, but in the back of my mind I had to wonder if our mixed marriage of “interdenominational” and “Baptist,” along with our prolonged break from church-going, had somehow offended God. It was a little un-nerving.

We finally found a new church home at Robertsville Baptist Church, and they welcomed us with open arms. Connie and I joined the choir and became involved in Sunday school. We developed a close bond with a group of other young married couples and made some of the best friends of our lives.

As I tried to acquaint myself with “Baptist ways” I realized that there were many similarities with my old home church. Primarily, both churches shared a strong preoccupation with all things food. Whether it was a major event like Homecoming, Revival or Vacation Bible School, or just fact that it’s the second Wednesday night of the month, church people can always find a reason to have a meal.

At a certain point I realized that we were going to be raising our kids "Baptist," and I had to come to terms with that. Any qualms I had were quickly over-ruled by the fact that Connie had turned out pretty well, so between us (and a lot of prayers) we might end up with some well rounded Christian kids.

(...there's much more to this train of thought, and I might even write about it)

Through the looking glass...

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:31:00 +0000

Probably before the doctor spanked my bare, chubby newborn bottom someone had placed a pair of glasses over my visually impaired eyes. I can’t remember a time when I haven’t worn them; from the black plastic “kick me” glasses of elementary school and the massive face shield models of the late seventies to the smaller John Denver inspired wire rims I tend to wear today, they are the first thing I reach for in the morning and the last thing I take off at night (…sorry for any disturbing images that might have created).

My eyes have always had a weakness for distant viewing. Anything further than six or seven feet was slightly off clear and past fifteen or twenty feet was full on fuzzy. Fortunately, I had been able to see up close, and have been able to read with both my glasses on or off. Until now.

Last summer I got new glasses with the same basic prescription that I have had for years. For about three months everything was perfectly normal (or at least normal for me). Then one morning in September I woke up in a Bethesda, Maryland hotel and put on my glasses…and the world was different. I didn’t know it until I opened the door to my room and picked up my complimentary copy of USA Today, but as I brought it up to look at the headlines, I realized that there was something wrong.

After a few minutes of unscientific testing I came to the conclusion that I could no longer see clearly within a couple of feet of my face while wearing my glasses. Just outside that range and beyond my eyesight was still clear, but I could no longer read while optically enhanced.

When I returned home I made an appointment with my optometrist and was soon sitting in his office, demanding new glasses. I argued that obviously my prescription was wrong and the glasses were faulty. He humored me long enough to perform a quick exam, then kindly shook his head and explained that my eyes had “changed,” and that as we get older it is bound to happen. I told him that I understood and expected my eyesight to shift with age, but this “change” was not only fairly drastic, but had also occurred overnight. He put a hand on my shoulder and gave me his best Marcus Welby impression of concern. “It happens,” he said.

He went on to explain in more technical detail about the degeneration of my eyes and then suggested that I probably needed bi-focals. I told him that I could still read just fine without my glasses, so why would I want bi-focals. He said, “So you won’t have to take off your glasses to read.” I didn’t buy it. I made the decision right then that as long as I could read with or without my regular glasses, I would not get bi-focals. I had to make a stand somewhere, and that was where I drew the line.

Since that day I’ve become very accustomed to taking off my glasses. I was surprised to learn just how often throughout the day I actually read things that are not what I normally consider “reading.” It’s not just picking up a book or a magazine; there are menus, memos, business cards, package descriptions, pill bottles, instruction booklets, etc., etc., etc.

Aging is a funny thing. When I first open my eyes in the morning, I don’t feel all that different than I did in high school or college. My mind dances with dreams and possibilities. I feel alive with the promise of a new day. Then I start to move and the aches and pains I’ve accumulated tap me on the shoulder, back and knees. I remember quickly that I am no longer so young and have somehow jumped into a vehicle that seems to be racing downhill with no brakes.

It reminds me of a comedian I once heard talking about growing older. He said that when you’re a kid it seems like forever between special events. You’ve got Birthdays and Christmas, New Years and Valentine’s Day. Then there’s Easter, Memorial Day, July 4 and the long wait until Labor Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving. The year seemed long in a child’s eyes.

As you get older, they fly by in dog years. Pretty soon, the comedian said, the calendar turns so quickly that it’s “birthday, birthday, birthday…you’re gonna DIE!”

I thought his joke was funny when I heard it, but I was much younger then. Now I think about it and realize that despite its humor and supposed accuracy, it’s far too cynical a concept to let yourself fall into. Yes, the years might be spinning by a bit faster than I would wish…and my body might be slowing down or “changing,” but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up just yet.

I’ve decided that there can be a gracefulness and elegance in removing my glasses to read. (Occasionally, if no one is around, I whip them off with a dramatic flourish, just for the fun of it). I’m trying to look on the positive side, which has not always been my strong suit, but is something I will probably need to cultivate as I get older.

Because even with my bad eyes, I still want to see my daughters grow up and start their own families. I want to see the faces of my grandchildren. I want to watch many sunsets with my agelessly beautiful wife. I don’t want to do all these things with a frown of worry on my face. I want to enjoy each day for the amazing gift that it is…and I’m going to try very hard not to lose sight of that.

...it will last longer

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:14:00 +0000

It’s no surprise to my daughter Ashlyn that I am preparing a slideshow for her upcoming 16th birthday party. In fact, she reminded me not long ago that she was expecting one. She didn’t need to worry. I have been planning it in my mind for quite some time, and was already gathering pictures when she mentioned it.

I did my first slideshow on video for our tenth anniversary. Back then I had to set our big, clunky camcorder on a tripod and then carefully zoom in and film individual photos as I counted “1001, 1002, 1003.” After the video was complete, I had to copy it to another video tape, feeding in a separate audio line to give it a soundtrack. It was quite the complicated procedure, and I’m very glad that I can now do it on a computer with software that makes me look much smarter than I am.

Three years ago I did a slideshow for Shelby’s 16th birthday. As I’ve learned throughout the growth of my three girls, anything I do special for one is required to be done for the others. Some things I do grudgingly, despite the equality of love for them all, but the slideshows are not like that. It is with a great, gleeful and selfish pleasure that I make them.

In the last several weeks I have sifted through several thousand photographs from the last 16 years. The early photos were stored in boxes and albums, hidden in closets and drawers. Every time I thought I was done, I’d find more. Those had to be scanned, rotated, cropped and cleaned up for the pc. It took a while.

We got our first digital camera in 1998; a cheap little Wal-Mart Polaroid that I thought was the greatest thing ever. Throughout the years our photo quality improved with our camera upgrades (Polaroid to Kodak; Kodak to Fuji; Fuji to better Fuji; then a couple of Canon’s and a Nikon). As I searched through the yearly backups of digital photos, I eventually got to the obnoxious 2008 and 2009 sections where there were folders called:

-Bruce’s Fuji March
-Connie’s Canon Spring
-Shelby’s Canon
-Shelby’s Nikon
-Ashlyn Camera
-Taylor’s Camera

In the last couple of years, we have stored thousands of photos of virtually the same subject, which are practically identical except taken from five slightly different vantage points. We take our responsibility to document our lives very seriously. However, as I opened folder after folder, year after year of visual memories, I wished we had taken even more.

We’re encouraged not to live in the past. We are reminded to “look to the future” and “live in the now,” but there’s an incredible comfort in visiting the warmth of days gone by. My mind was flooded with memories as I perused the pictures of Ashlyn’s life, and I willingly, blissfully drowned myself in them.

I beat myself up sometimes (quite often, in fact) for my failings as a father. My travel schedule keeps me away from home too much, and I’ve missed things that I’ll never get back. Worse than that, I sometimes return home a stranger; too many nights alone in a DC hotel room can makes me anti-social and chilly, even to the welcoming smiles and hugs of my family. Sometimes I thaw out quickly, but other times I can be the Snow Miser for days, and the women in my home have sadly learned that I am best left alone.

I’m a loner by nature; most comfortable in my own sullen company where I don’t have anyone to disappoint or bother except myself. Comfort, however, does not necessarily equate to happiness, and in looking through those sometimes awkward, crazy family moments that we’ve captured through years of photographs, I quickly realized that there has been no greater joy in my life.

The weight of responsibility that parents feel to provide for the needs of our children can sometimes pull us down, growing so heavy that we can’t even lift our heads to look around and see what it is we’re working for. I love doing these slideshows because they are a hammer to my head and a jolt to my system. They wake me up and remind me of just how blessed I am.

Photos are moments frozen in time, capturing birthdays, Christmas’s, vacations, camping trips, or just silly moments around the house. Each image jogs my memory and takes me to that place; hearing voices and laughter, smelling campfires or fresh baked cookies.

While I finished Ashlyn’s slideshow this week, sitting in my quiet hotel room, I was overwhelmed by the beauty and spirit of my four ladies. It’s not that I don’t love them all the time, but as I watched their faces flow across the screen, it almost seemed that a window had opened and a fresh breeze blew through me. Like the Grinch, I felt my heart grow three sizes that day. I hope it stays all swelled up with the love I feel right now. It’s a fantastic feeling.

Orlando...epilogue

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:54:00 +0000

One of my strongest memories of the Orlando trip is the overpowering smell that emanated from the boys rooms which surrounded ours. Each morning and evening Connie or I had to do rooms check to make sure that they were where they were supposed to be. Even that very first morning the rooms had taken on the epic smell of a locker room, and each time the door swung open we were blasted with the stale, sweaty smell of teenage boys mixed with a fog of Axe body spray and Right Guard.

After one morning’s check, Connie came back to our room laughing, explaining that as she checked the room next door one of the boys quickly closed the bathroom door. He said, “Sorry, Mrs. Warford, we’ve been trying to see how long we could go without flushing.” Then he added, “Lots of Testosterone in here!”

Living with four women, it was my first time around that many males in a long time. I didn’t know what to expect, but considering that teenage boys are the sworn enemy of a father of three girls, I was fully prepared to hate them all. That didn’t happen. I was actually surprised by a few of them.

At the theme park on Friday, Connie and I noticed some of our boys standing off to the side of a ride when a group of inappropriately dressed young women (not a part of our school) walked by. Although our rules were fairly explicit about the type of clothes that were allowed and not allowed on this trip, it was obvious that many other groups and families did not care. For most teenage boys (and a lot of adult men) it could have been like being in a candy store. As a Dad, I was always shocked, and very glad that my girls prefer baggy t-shirts and long, loose shorts. Of course, I would not allow them to dress the way many of these other girls were dressing.

As these scantily clad girls walked by, we overheard one of our boys say “LD” to the others. I understood that this was some kind of “guy code” to alert the others of the presence of the young women. It was a “code,” but not in the way I thought. The boys dropped their heads and did not do the typical ogling. “LD” meant to “Look Down.”

I heard some of the boys talking later about church and their girlfriends who were not on the trip. It gave me hope. Every father wants the best for his daughters. They want her to date a young man who will respect her and treat her right. I had almost given up on the possibility of that happening. Now I realize that there just might be some boys out there who have good intentions and honorable hearts.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t be watching them like a hawk.

Orlando...part four

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:07:00 +0000

The morning of the competition we had an even better breakfast that the day before, highlighted by some of the most perfect bacon I have ever had. Crisp and flavorful, I was tempted to pack up some for later, and if I’d have had access to some fresh tomatoes and soft bread, I’d have done just that. A nice BLT (without the L for me, I prefer my salad in a bowl, not on a sandwich) would have made a great lunch or dinner. I ate bacon until I was embarrassed to get more and then sadly left for the bus, looking back one last, wistful time at the chafing dish which was still nearly full.

Connie, meanwhile, was having a tougher trip than I. She had strained her back a few days before we left, so she was either drugged or in pain for the drive down and the first day at the park. I had suggested that she might feel better not going at all, but she would have none of that. She had looked forward to this trip for quite a while, and was determined to go. I guess she figured that if she could put up with me for over twenty-three years, she could deal with some pain for a couple of days.

Her back was much better that Saturday morning, but the medicine had upset her stomach. Unbeknownst to me, sleeping soundly in my separate bed, she had been up sick a few times in the night and had no interest in food that morning. I felt really bad for her, especially considering how amazing the hotel bacon had been, but she ate nothing and insisted that she wanted to go to the competition. I definitely married a trooper.

The competition was being held at Apopka High School, in the small town of Apopka, about twenty miles from Orlando. The school was beautiful and newly renovated, with an exceptionally nice auditorium where the competition would be held. We were early and went inside to watch some of the other groups perform.

The other groups performed fine, but I wasn’t overly impressed. The music they had chosen was much simpler than what our choirs normally perform, and even then I didn’t think they did them particularly well. One school from some place I can’t remember had two choirs and a group of Handbell performers. I chuckled to myself when I read about the Handbell choir in my program. That’s even lower on the “gonna get a date” scale than tuba players. (No offense meant to either “handbell” performers or “tuba” players. I’m just stating a fact. I can do this because I was a charter member of the AV and Chess clubs, so of these things I know only too well).

I sat there like those parents who sit on the sidelines of kid’s softball and baseball games, ready to root my team on to victory. It was a competition after all. Then, as our confidence swelled, someone read the program notes detailing the biographies of our judges. None of the three were choral judges. They were all “band directors.” What the heck?

We were fairly stunned. We had no idea how this would impact their decisions. Only half the participants in the festival were bands, the other half were choral. It seemed incredibly unrealistic to expect these judges to fairly score our half of the competition.

The Women’s Choir performed first, singing better than I’ve heard them all year. The Ensemble Choir, whose membership included my beautiful and talented daughter, sang thirty minutes later, and the difficulty of their music put them in an entirely different category from the other choirs competing. At 1pm the Men’s Choir finished our section of the competition and maintained a superb level of performance. There was little doubt in my mind that all three choirs had represented Oak Ridge well enough to win the overall school prize. (Not that I was prejudiced).

But I was still concerned about those band judges…

The kids changed clothes quickly and we got back on the bus for the return to Universal. Today we would go to the Movie Studio theme park, my favorite of any of the parks in Orlando. It was nearly 3pm by the time we got to the park, through the gates, retrieved everyone’s tickets and made the plan for dinner.

If I needed a reminder to NEVER go to Orlando during Spring Break season (which I did not), it was loud and clear in the park that day. There was a roiling ocean of people flowing through the wide streets and walkways. Flashing signs warned that lines for the new Rock-It roller coaster was over two hours long, and other big rides had a wait of nearly ninety minutes. The kids were going to have a long afternoon.

The six chaperones watched as the last of the kids disappeared and then agreed that since we had skipped lunch we needed to find some food. We waded into the crowds and found our way to the New York section of the park and Finnegan’s Irish Pub, where we hoped we might find something bland for Connie’s sensitive stomach other than the burgers and hot dogs vended at most of the other shops. Like everything else, there was a wait for a table, but that gave me time to watch the Blues Brothers show taking place in the street outside. I got a few stares when I joined in on singing “Rawhide,” but I didn’t care.

Connie got some potato soup and crackers, which made her feel much better, and I had some delicious Irish Beef Stew. When we finished eating, we looked at our watches and realized that in slightly over an hour we would be meeting the kids to go to Bubba Gump’s for dinner. Our timing was impeccable.

We got in line for the “Twister” experience, which is not a ride, but designed to put you into a scene from the movie. Since it is one of the older attractions in the park, the line was only fifteen minutes, leaving us plenty of time to meet the kids. If you like the movie, don’t mind a little breeze and want to see a cow fly, I highly recommend it.

I thought most of the kids would have eaten something, but they had much more self-control than the adults did and they were ready for Bubba Gump’s. Still stuffed with stew, I wasn’t hungry at all, and neither were the other chaperones. Unfortunately, our meal vouchers would go to waste if they weren’t used, so we all ordered shrimp platters and handed them into the next booth full of teenage boys who were just finishing their own meals. The shrimp and fries were vacuumed up in minutes flat.

Back in the park, we laughed through the Shrek 4D show and rode a bike with ET, the Extraterrestrial. After dark, we got on my favorite movie ride in the park: Jaws! It’s probably the oldest ride in the park, and some of the kids called it “cheesy,” but they are young and therefore prone to moments of complete stupidity. I love Jaws, however, and could easily do it twice in one day. In fact, I have.

At 9pm we gathered to watch the Mardi-Gras parade that runs through the park. The floats are beautiful and elaborate, with costumed workers who throw out a constant hail of beads. I caught quite a few sets of beads and shared them with some of the height challenged kids around me. When I asked one of the workers if I’d get more beads by removing my shirt, he told me that he’d give me a case full if I wouldn’t. I think I’ll try to sell them on EBay.

After the parade, all of the festival participants gathered in a nearby amphitheater for the results of the judging. As each group was introduced, screams and cheers erupted, and the anticipation was rising. Each choir received a “participation” trophy as their score was announced, and we were thrilled when all three of our choirs achieved “superior” ratings.

The overall school award was announced last, and I’m sure that each school felt that they were deserving of the honor. For some it was a form of positive reinforcement. For others, it was merely delusion.

I was more than a little concerned when the announcer said that the difference between the first and second place schools was only 4/10’s of a percentage point. I didn’t think anyone of the groups I had heard was anywhere near that close to our school. Then I remembered who had made the decision: band judges.

Surely, I thought, even these three odd acting, older men who had probably lost most of their hearing over thirty years of deafening blasts from trumpets and the thumping of bass drums could appreciate the difference in quality that should be obvious to even the most tone deaf listener. (Not that I was prejudiced).

The crowd hushed and the festival chairperson opened the envelope with a dramatic flair. The seconds crawled by like hours and after an interminably long clearing of the throat, the overall winner was announced.

It was a long trip back home to Oak Ridge. Orlando was fun and I love the theme parks, but we had all tasted the bitter pill of injustice, and we didn’t like it.

Stupid handbells.

Stupid “band judges.”

Orlando…part three

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:38:00 +0000

.

Friday morning we gathered for breakfast in a banquet room of the hotel. After a surprisingly nice meal of scrambled eggs, sausage, fruit and coffee, we got back on our charter bus for the short drive to Universal Islands of Adventure theme park.

Part of our trip package included a two day pass to the park and a meal voucher to provide one semi-sustaining meal per day. It was decided by the choral director that once inside the park, tickets should be taken from the kids. This was logical for multiple reasons. One, they couldn’t lose their ticket and endanger their entry on the second day, and two, they couldn’t leave the park without our knowledge since they knew they couldn’t get back inside.

After entering the gates and retrieving all of their tickets, the students were informed that they had three hours to roam free (with their required buddy), until our mid-day check-in. Once released, they scattered like roaches when the kitchen light turns on. Connie and I grabbed our cameras and tried to follow, hoping to document the adventure for posterity, but they were too fast for us. They were soon lost in the maze of rollercoaster’s and spring break crowds. I snapped a few pictures of the fast moving Hulk ride and said, “There are probably some of them on that one.”

With my proclivity for motion sickness, I don’t do rides that drop, spin or swoop. That pretty much eliminates all the rides at Islands of Adventure. Fortunately, Connie has lost interest in those rides as well. Marriage, kids and life in general is usually enough of a rollercoaster that we don’t need a manufactured thrill ride. She’d much rather go on a hike.

For those of you who can’t read between the lines, I’ll spell it out: we’re getting old.

Still, I love the look and feel of the Orlando theme parks. Although I hate the crowds (and I can’t emphasis enough how much I hate the crowds), I’m absolutely fascinated by the detail and quality that Universal and Disney put into their parks. I love walking around, overwhelmed by the colors and sounds, intrigued by the shops and tantalized by the aroma of the multiple food vendors. Also, despite the fact that I don’t partake of the thrill rides, I love to watch them.

My girls love the rollercoaster’s, and I’m glad. They don’t have any of my physical issues or mental phobias. They don’t mind getting dizzy; it goes away with giggles and screams. They don’t mind when their stomach is forced into their upper chest, because it always settles back into place. They don’t mind the ridiculous speed as they are launched into a triple loop and tossed toward the sky only to plummet dangerously back toward the concrete below. They have complete faith that everything will be okay. God bless them for that.

Ashlyn had been hoping that the World of Harry Potter section of the park would be open when we got there, but we learned on the way down that it would not open until mid-June. Still, we could see the towering spires and impressive scale of Hogwarts Castle and the torturously teasing snow covered roofs of Hogsmeade. She is already planning a return trip when it is open.

Connie and I made our way through the jungles of Jurassic Park, past the dinosaur adventure ride that I was coerced into riding a few years back. My kids still laugh at the memory of my face grimacing as we dropped 85 feet from the jaws of a T-Rex into the pool of certain death at the bottom. I did it once to prove to my kids that I wasn’t scared. Then I threw up and swore I’d never do it again.

Eventually we found ourselves in the Doctor Seuss area of the park, which proved more my speed. Our first official ride in Islands of Adventure was the “High in the Sky Seuss Trolley,” which was actually not as humiliating as you would think. Of course, the bar of my personal humiliation scale is set pretty high. It helped considerably that there were as many adults on the ride as there were kids (and some of those adults didn’t have kids with them).

At our mid-day check-in meeting, it was decided that we would use our meal vouchers to have dinner together at the Hard Rock Café which sits on the boardwalk outside of Islands of Adventure. Since someone needed to get reservations for our group, Connie and I volunteered to take one for the team.

In truth, we were happy to step outside the park. We were ready for lunch and the Margaritaville restaurant in the CityWalk area had been calling our name. There’s nothing like a “Cheeseburger in Paradise” when you’re in Paradise. With Jimmy Buffett music still drifting through our minds, the rest of the day was a pleasant blur of sun and breeze and the roar of distant coasters.

As we gathered at our meeting place late in the afternoon, the kids slowly returned from their day of long lines and death defying acts. Most of them had not been to Universal before, so I was curious what they thought. I remember my first time at Disney, and my first time at Universal, both as an adult, and how I walked around with my jaw hanging open most of the time. These teens were much more jaded than I. They didn’t seem overly impressed. I overheard one say that it was “a little boring” and I couldn’t believe it. I was a little saddened for them. What would it take to surprise them? What would it take to make them happy?

Then I saw the beaming face of Ashlyn, bouncing like Tigger with a huge smile on her face. She was having a great time and it was obvious. She ran up to me and hugged me like she hadn’t seen me in weeks, not caring a bit that she was surrounded by her peers. I love my girls. All three of them still have the wonder of childhood in their hearts. They see the world with fresh, clear eyes, not through the dark screen of sullenness surrounding most of today’s youth. They give me hope.

On the ride back to the hotel after dinner, the Choir Director reminded us that there would be a rehearsal that evening in preparation for the festival competition the next morning. It took me a moment to remember that there was another purpose for being in Orlando besides the Universal Theme park. Tomorrow the kids would earn their keep.

...to be continued

Orlando part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:39:00 +0000

.

We stopped a few times for bathroom breaks and at a cluster of fast food restaurants somewhere south of Atlanta for lunch. Just before the Florida line James stopped to refuel at an older, run-down TA truck stop and I’d venture to say that it was the first time most of the kids had ever been in a truck stop bathroom. Even some of the boys came out wide-eyed and holding their noses. It takes a lot to make a teenage boy notice a nasty smell (more on that later).

The closer we got to Orlando, the more excited we all got. I was once again stressed over James’ apparent lack of understanding of Toll Booths. He never seemed to know which lane to get in, never had the right change, and once drove through without paying, saying simply “I’ve already paid enough.” I’ll be curious how the charter service feels about that when they get the ticket.

I had noticed that although he was using a GPS, he didn’t seem to understand it well. At one point, after pushing buttons and not finding the answer he wanted, he took it off its cradle and laid it in his lap. Occasionally I could hear the muffled sound of a female voice telling him what lane to be in or where to turn, so I assumed that both it and he knew where we were going.

The GPS informed us that we had reached our destination at the bottom of a ramp in downtown Orlando next to a lovely, landscaped pond with sparkling fountains and a nice walking track around its perimeter. I had been to Orlando enough to know that we were still miles from our hotel, but James kept looking around as if the entrance was going to rise out of the water and a doorman would step out to tell him to park on the grass.

Our choir director and her mother were sitting in the seats across from Connie and me. They too realized that we were apparently lost and made some quick phone calls, getting directions which took us down roads most tourists never see. Disney, it was not.

We arrived at the Florida Mall Hotel and Convention Center around 6:30pm. Oddly, in the way that most things in Florida seem kind of odd and different from the rest of the nation, the Hotel was actually a part of the mall. After dropping our bags off in our perfectly sufficient sleeping rooms, we met in the lobby to go to dinner. The back of the lobby opened up into the expansive mall and we followed our tour guide past department stores, specialty stores and jewelry kiosks through what seemed like two or three Tennessee sized malls, until we reached one of my favorite fun places to eat: Buca di Beppo.

I first visited a Buca in Washington DC, and felt like I’d walked into a Dean Martin movie or one of the lighter episodes of The Sopranos. Their garlic bread is addictive, and the meatballs are the size of baby heads. In fact, I’ve tried to use that as the description enough that I hope to someday change the language of their menu. I can see it now: Spaghetti with a side of a “baby head meatballs.”

Between the atmosphere and the great service, the exhaustion of the long ride drifted away. Laughter and conversation filled the room. The food at Buca is served “family style,” so they kept bringing out bowls of bread, delicious salad, pasta and Chicken Parmesan. For dessert we were served cheesecake, and by then we weren’t sure we could walk back to our rooms.

Curfew was announced as 11pm, which gave the kids about two hours after we returned from dinner. This allowed the kids to mingle, but with certain specific restrictions. No one could go anywhere without a “buddy.” They could not leave the hotel. Kids found outside of their rooms alone would be punished with immediate curfew. Boys were allowed in girl’s rooms and vice versa, but the outer doors must be completely open. Any infraction of this rule would result in immediate curfew for all involved (and possible flogging if my daughter were in the room).

Unlike my usual and frequent stays in hotels, I realized that I could not simply come into my room and relax. I couldn’t kick off my shoes and lounge on the bed. As a chaperone, I had to be available. We had to leave our door open. We had to check the halls and make sure the rules were being adhered to. This was actually like work!

We were very lucky, however, since our trip fell during March Madness. The boys congregated in their rooms, cheering their teams (but not too loudly). A few of the girls ventured in, but the doors stayed open and nothing inappropriate was occurring. Finally, eleven o’clock arrived and we did our final room check. Connie and I were assigned four rooms with four boys in each. They were incredibly respectful, calling us “Mr. Warford” and “Mrs. Warford.” It was very strange, and although I still didn’t trust them with my daughters, I was beginning to like them. A little bit.

Connie and I had taken one look at our room and decided that we would each have our own bed. We have grown spoiled with a larger bed, and these rooms provided only full sized beds. We had basically cuddled all day on the cramped bus, so we were ready for some space to kick around and stretch. As we lay in our separate beds, watching the strangers on the Orlando local news, I felt like Rob and Laura Petrie from The Dick Van Dyke Show.

It struck me too that in each of the four rooms around us, there were two sets of high school boys trying to comfortably sleep in these small beds. I could only imagine how awkward that must have been. God forbid you wake up spooning. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as I stretched out and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

…to be continued

Orlando

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:15:00 +0000

With the exception of my own kids, I’ve never been good with teenagers. In fact, I’m not always that good with my own. It’s brutally obvious to most teens that I am not “cool.” They don’t get my humor and I get the overwhelming impression that they think I’m a dork. Generally, I try to stay of their way and hope that they stay out of mine.

Connie has a theory (which she loves to share with others) that the reason I don’t relate to teenagers is because I was never a “teenager.” She jokes that I’ve been an adult, using adult logic, since I was ten years old. If that were true, it would explain a lot, but I don’t think I was some freaky Kentucky version of Star Trek’s Spock. At least, I hope not.

This past weekend, Connie and I chaperoned forty-six high school choral students on a trip to Orlando, Florida. I’m not exactly sure why I agreed to do this, other than the fact that my middle daughter Ashlyn was going and Connie planned to go whether I did or not. It was many months ago when I was asked and agreed, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I admit to some apprehension as we neared our Thursday morning departure. I hadn’t been on a bus since High School, and I had never ridden on a charter bus. I didn’t know what to expect. The concept of eleven hours in a confined space with that many teenagers seemed as foreign and uncomfortable to me as spending the night in a cave full of grizzly bears.

I shouldn’t have worried about the kids. We arrived Thursday morning at 6:30am and began loading our bags into the underbelly of the bus. Although there was a current of excitement flowing through the crowd over the prospect of the trip, in general we all still looked half asleep. Once we loaded the bus, pillows and blankets sent the kids into peaceful slumber. For the first several hours of the trip, all I heard was an occasional snore, cough or snort. It should have been a pleasant drive.

I have to stop here for a moment and explain my twisted history with “charter buses.” Although I had never been on one, I had seen a Dateline NBC story about a tragic bus accident in Atlanta in which several college baseball students were killed when they were thrown out of the massive windows of their bus during an accident. I was shocked to learn that seatbelts are not required on buses, and retrofitting them is considered “too expensive.”

The story made a considerable impression on me, and with the knowledge that my kids were soon travelling to the beach for a church youth trip and would be riding in one of these death machines, I vowed to do something. Searching the Internet, I was able to procure two portable seatbelts, capable of slipping over the back of the bus seat and securing the rider in place. Although I was thrilled with my purchase, my kids were not happy…at all.

Using my “parent card” (which I rarely resort to), I told them that they would use them on the trip or they would not be allowed to go on further trips. I also told them I would ask the chaperones to check on them to make sure they were wearing them. Connie tried to reason with me, but I used my “Head of the household card” (which I frankly didn’t know I even had), and she solemnly and begrudgingly took my side.

I didn’t actually ask their youth leaders to check on their seatbelt usage, because I was pretty sure they wouldn’t enforce it anyway. They had a lot of kids to watch out for, and satisfying the psychosis of one over-protective Dad would not be high on their “to-do” list.

That was a few years back, and I still pull out those belts when the kids go on trips. Each and every time they look at me like I’m crazy, and maybe I am. I don’t know if they actually use them, since I can’t be there to make sure, but I feel better knowing that I’ve tried. I hope that they know why I do it, and maybe they understand that although I don’t want them to look weird around the other kids or be uncomfortable; my top priority is to try to keep them safe. That’s what Dad’s do.

Which brings me back to Thursday morning: I’m sure that Ashlyn thought that I had forgotten, but she didn’t look terribly surprised when I pulled out the belts just before we left the house for the school. Connie, on the other hand, did look surprised when I handed her the second belt. She gave me a look that said, “You don’t expect me to wear this, do you?” I gave her a look that said, “Yes, I certainly do.”

It was brought up that there was not a belt for me, and I told them that if I had a third belt, I would wear it, but since I did not, I would bear the risk and leave the belts to them. I was prepared for a longer argument, and had planned to say that I had been too busy to think about the fact that I would need a belt. If pushed, I could also resort to the ugly implication that if they cared for me as much as I cared for them they would have ordered me one in advance. Fortunately, it did not come to that, and I’m sure that if it had, I would have found myself riding with the luggage under the bus.

We left the Oak Ridge High School parking lot a few minutes before 7am. Connie and I had prime seats, right in front, on the side opposite the driver. I had a clear view of the driver, speedometer, gauges and GPS. Before we reached the Interstate, I realized that this was not a good thing.

Our driver, James, was a very nice, soft-spoken older gentleman with a kind spirit and easy-going manner. He also scared me to death for most of the trip. Several times early in our drive he pulled out a small notebook and pen to make notes, apparently about our timing, gas usage or bird species we were passing along the way. Much as I have an issue of texting, putting on make-up or playing Jenga while driving, I am not crazy about people using both hands to write while they precariously guide the steering wheel with their knees.

After pointing this out to Connie, she became aware of my growing tension and grabbed my arm whenever James pulled out his pad and pen in an effort to keep me from yanking him out of the driver’s seat. Finally, somewhere past Chattanooga, I decided that I should simply let the man do his job and go to sleep. This was the first of many attempts over the next few days to let go of my controlling tendencies and try to relax. Sad to say, few of those attempts actually worked.

…to be continued

Birmingham...part two

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:54:00 +0000

My Dad could drive for hours and hours and never need to stop for a bathroom break or for a drink or food. I’ve climbed into a truck with him in Shelbyville and not gotten out until we arrived just north of Chicago nearly eight hours later. From years of driving over the road, he was used to it (and I think he must have had an excessively large bladder). A little of that has been passed on to me, but I have also learned that making good time is not as important as having happy passengers and a wife that will speak to me when we reach our destination.

I like breaking up our trip in reasonable places. I am goal oriented, so I like to reward myself with a stop after reaching a certain point in the journey, like achieving the “half-way” point, or at least one hundred miles. Also, I like to drive a little hungry and a little cold. It keeps my edge. Warm and full makes me sleepy.

After many years of marriage, Connie and I have come to an understanding. If I say that we are going to “stop and eat” along the way, she now understands that I don’t mean within twenty miles of leaving home. She also knows that she needs to bring blankets for the car. I keep the air temperature at slightly above sub-artic. The girls have followed suit and they all have their “car blankets” and “car pillows.” Once they get cozy, I can put some miles behind us.

With four women, the need and frequency of bathroom breaks on road trips has been an issue. Connie and Shelby are pretty reasonable. They go when the opportunity presents itself and only request an emergency stop in dire situations (usually after several glasses of iced tea at the Cracker Barrel). Taylor is like a camel. We could drive for six hours without stopping and she would still say that she didn’t need to go. It’s a little scary.

Ashlyn, up until recently, was our problem child on trips. She could use the bathroom before we left the house, then ask to stop before we got to the other side of town (and our town ain’t that big). We quit giving her drinks before trips so we could drive at least thirty minutes without stopping. Worse yet, it was never “when you get the chance, I need to stop,” it was always “you have to stop NOW!” Fortunately, she seems to have outgrown this in the last few years, and we can now travel on a reasonable schedule.

I had told them to eat a snack before we left Oak Ridge and that we would stop near Chattanooga for dinner. This would not be quite half way, but I didn’t think I could push eating much past 9pm. I didn’t want to take the time for a sit down meal, so I told them that it would be fast food and for them to be thinking about where they wanted to go. I knew this was a waste of time, and I don’t know why I ever give a choice anyway.

Shelby likes Arby’s, but Taylor does not. Long John Silver’s, Krystal’s, KFC, etc. are deemed too greasy, could make them queasy. Taylor likes Taco Bell, but I refuse to feed them beans or any variation of Mexican food on a car trip. No one likes Hardees’s. The answer is almost always the same: McDonald’s.

Although there were a few McDonald’s on the north side of Chattanooga, my secret plan was to get to the other side before stopping. I knew that on I-75 there were lots of small towns just below the state line, so I assumed it would be the same on I-59. I was wrong.

I-59 connects interstate 24 out of Chattanooga with Birmingham. As soon as we exited off I-24 and started south, I realized that we had entered a dark, desolate stretch of road with little traffic and even less civilization. My family was not happy.

Connie is typically a warm, cheerful person and a joy to travel with. As we drove further from the lights of Chattanooga, however, I could feel a chill coming from her side of the car that had nothing to do with the cool driving temperature I preferred. She was getting hungry, and I didn’t blame her. It had been a long time since our light lunch at 11:30am and it was now nearing 10pm. My stomach was grumbling like an old tractor and I was really regretting my decision not to stop sooner.

The girls began asking when and where we would eat, how much further, and why had I betrayed them? My eyes searched each passing road sign for any hope of a Big Mac, Chicken McNuggets or Filet of Fish. Fearful of a mutiny, I sadly realized that I would settle for almost anything at that point, even Taco Bell or Beulah’s Big Bountiful Bowl of Beans. My fatherly responsibility was to feed my family, and I was failing miserably.

Finally, about thirty-five miles into Alabama, we reached a town whose road signs promised a McDonald’s. Gleefully, we exited the interstate and made our way the 1.2 miles down the road to the bright yellow arches and the small red and white building. It was an older restaurant, maybe one of the first McDonald’s from the look of it…and quite possibly the only place within an hour’s drive to eat. It was completely packed.

Shelby looked out the car window and with her usual dry tone said, “Let’s keep going. I don’t want to go there.”

I couldn’t believe it. For the last hour I had been in fear for my life, and now the mood had changed to “no big deal.”

I gauged from other comments that while the feeling was not completely mutual amongst the family, it was also just fine to continue searching. I reminded them that I had no idea how much farther we would have to go to reach another eating establishment, but the image of that tiny packed restaurant must have outweighed the hunger at that moment, because they all agreed to keep driving. “On the plus side,” Shelby said, “we’re in the Central Time Zone now, so it’s not as late as you think.” Our stomachs felt much better knowing that.

Forty miles further south we hit a mother-lode of fast food restaurants, and of course, another McDonalds. We stopped, hurried to the bathroom (except for Taylor), and with Combo meals in hand, grabbed a corner table and vacuumed up our food in an embarrassingly record amount of time.

Back on the road, everyone was in a better mood. There seemed to be a new energy in the car just knowing that we were out late on a Friday night, driving toward a city we had never been. Even I felt somewhat better, which could have been the food or maybe because the anti-biotic was finally kicking in. Whatever it was, the next few hours were peaceful and fun; road trip nirvana.

Birmingham...part one

noreply@blogger.com (Bruce) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:52:00 +0000

I’ve learned that even though I’m in the vicinity of a conversation at my house, I am not often considered an integral part of it. After numerous polite reminders that I was not expected nor desired to participate, I eventually developed what the girls have now dubbed “Dad hearing.” This is something I no doubt inherited from my father. He was a Ninja master.

The ability to tune out or ignore chunks of or entire conversations is both a blessing and a curse. Although my girls would prefer that I stay out of any discussions involving boys, clothing, shopping, Twilight or homework, when I fail to respond immediately to the utterance of my name, I am thrown to the gallows, where deadbeat, uncaring fathers go to be punished and die.

It’s not really a fair system, and there is no way I can win. Invariably if I speak, it’s at the wrong time…and if I don’t speak, it’s assumed that I don’t care.

I surprised everyone a few weeks ago when Shelby mentioned how a planned weekend trip to Birmingham to visit her best friend Christine was going to be a problem because of her work schedule. The plan, which I was only vaguely aware of, was that Christine’s mom and another friend, Jori, were going to leave early on Friday afternoon. This created a conflict for Shelby since she does not get off work on Friday’s until after seven.

The surprise came when I made the offer, without being prompted, bribed or threatened, to take her to Birmingham myself. I didn’t realize at the time that my offer was so shocking, but apparently (or so I’ve been told since) this was an uncharacteristically generous and spur of the moment proclamation on my part. I had no idea I had such a stodgy reputation.

Time passed, and although I hadn’t forgotten my offer, it wasn’t at the forefront of my thoughts. My initial idea was that I would drive her down right after work on Friday night, grab a room to get a little sleep, and then return home early Saturday morning. Easy enough. Shelby could ride back to Knoxville with Christine’s mom. It was a really good plan.

No, it wasn’t.

Last Monday, Connie calls while I am in DC and mentions the upcoming weekend, asking if I had reserved a rental car and gotten a room. I told her that I had not, but I would. Then she said something that made me backtrack over the entire conversation and every conversation we have had since I made the offer. I don’t know what she said exactly, but I suddenly realized that she had planned for all of us to go to Birmingham…and stay the weekend. I needed a new plan.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love a good road trip with my girls. Despite the fact that eighty percent of it is full of arguments over seating arrangements, what music is being listened to, and who has taken off their shoes, the twenty percent when everyone gets along can almost make you forget the rest. The spectacular harmony of them all laughing at the same time is a symphony that Mozart, Chopin and Bach could only dream of.

Let me explain about the rental car. We have three vehicles that run well and get us where we need to go, but like everything else, there are issues. All three have over one hundred thousand miles, and the only one that all five of us can ride in together (our minivan) has over one hundred and sixty. Like I said, it still runs great, but I don’t really trust it for long trips.

Now, I’ve crunched the numbers on getting a new car, but it doesn’t really make sense. On the rare occasion that we have to go on a road trip, it’s cheaper to rent than to take on the additional monthly cost of a car payment and insurance. Also, most of our trips are on weekends, so I use Enterprise and their half off weekend specials. It’s a great bargain…most of the time.

Back to our story, already in progress…

I reserved a car and a hotel room for the two nights we would be in Birmingham, and then I got sick. While still in Washington, I began to feel the familiar pressure and general yuckiness that leads into a sinus infection. Sort of like flu, but not likely to get you any sympathy, a sinus infection starts with a low-grade fever, stuffy nose, sore throat and the aching body of boxer after losing a fight. By the time I flew home on Wednesday, I was fairly miserable.

I was desperately hoping that a winter storm system would sweep through the south and cancel our plans, but our perky local meteorologist assured me that it would be a BEAUTIFUL weekend. Just my luck.

Connie generously offered to let me stay at home, saying she and the girls would go without me. Although I knew that this was a sincere offer, not some kind of test or trick, I couldn’t do that. With all my travel, time with family is rare enough. I couldn’t wimp out over what is perceived by most people to be a minor cold, not the horrifying dance with death that it actually is.

Friday came and I fumbled through my work day, hoping the anti-biotic and Tylenol would perform a miracle. By late afternoon I was a little better, but exhausted, so I threw a few things in a travel bag and took a nap until Shelby got home from work.

It’s funny how people can know they are going to do something, be reminded multiple times that they are going to do something, and even respond that they completely understand that they know they have to do something, yet when that time comes be completely unprepared. Ashlyn and Taylor knew the entire week that they were going to Birmingham. They knew before I knew that they were going to Birmingham. Despite the fact that they should automatically know that a weekend trip would require packing and a slight bit of thought as to what they might want to take, they were still reminded by their mother, and then by me, and then by both of us together. Nevertheless, in that last thirty minutes before we left, there was a mad scramble, arguments, and desperate searches for IPods, chargers, DVD’s and headphones.

The car was finally packed, so as soon as Shelby got home and changed clothes, we piled into our seats and buckled up. It’s a rare trip that I don’t have to go back inside the locked house at least once after we’ve all gotten in the car. There’s always something forgotten or unsure. Some light or appliance that needs to be checked. I don’t even mind anymore. It’s just another piece of the journey. This was one of those rare trips when I didn't go back.

We were fortunate that our rental car was a Kia Borrego, fitted with a third row seat. On the weekend special rentals I never know when I reserve a car what I’ll get. It’s kind of like Russian roulette when I pick it up. Sometimes we get a regular sedan, like an Impala or a Camry, but other times we get a mid-size SUV. Having a third row seat is a big deal when you have three kids. Separation equals peace, or at least more peace than if they are all crammed into one back seat.

At 7:30pm, with 267 miles to go, a low fever and four females who, unbeknownst to me, had synched up their monthly schedules and were all at the beginning of what I call “the cranky,” I pulled out of our driveway in Oak Ridge and headed southwest toward Birmingham, Alabama.