The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for March 2011

A Detour

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It is no secret that I have spent more than a few minutes thinking about you, wondering what you are doing and who you are doing it with. If I listened to the experts you’d never hear a word from me or about me. I’d be nothing more than a ghost in time, a memory of someone you once knew.

And if my past was any guide than that is how it would have gone down. We would have said whatever it is two people say to each other before they leave and then I would have walked out of your life and found whatever was waiting for me. That is how it had always gone before so it was more than a little shocking to me that it didn’t happen now.

But who am I kidding, this thing we share has never been conventional, ordinary or normal. It has always been something more. A moment in time that never yellows with age or withers with time. I don’t have to close my eyes to see my girl or stare at your picture. I don’t have to smell your perfume to remember because I always sense your presence. You are always with me, the song of my heart.

The song of my heart you touch those places inside that others are refused entry to. Your smile warms my soul and makes me believe that I can do things that I might not otherwise dare to consider. There is a beauty and grace that you carry with you.

So I suppose that some people would be surprised that we are not together. Shocked that so much love and potential would remain unfulfilled. Dumbfounded that circumstances conspired to prevent us from taking that next step into the world that we still dream of building. Heck, I can’t quite figure out how it is that we haven’t figured out how to bridge the gap.

Faith and hope are what carry me through the night. Little glimpses of things we hold dear to ourselves and to each other serve as reminders. Memories of kisses that made my skin tingle and the ache of the hole that exists when you are not by my side. These things are with me for good or for worse.

Goofy quotes like the one  from A Wonderful Life make me smile.

George Bailey: What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon, Mary.
Mary: I’ll take it. Then what?
George Bailey: Well, then you can swallow it, and it’ll all dissolve, see and the moonbeams would shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair. am I talking too much?

They make me smile because you make me want to try to give you the moon. They make me smile because I try to be cool and suave around you and end up babbling like a fool. Even now years later you sometimes make me stutter and stumble.

Little moments in time surround me. Memories of what was, faith and hope in what could be, they are there too. For now that is all there is and there are no guarantees that it will change. There is no Love Potion number 9 available for sale and even if there were I wouldn’t purchase it. That is not how I want it to be.

For now I hope that you walk in the arms of the angel and carry my blessing and promise. If all goes as we wish then one day this will be nothing more than a small chapter in the story we continue to write. Stay safe, be strong and I will see you in the echoes of our future.


This was for the Red Dress Club. This week’s Red Writing Hood assignment is to write – fiction or non-fiction – about a time when you took a detour. Where had you intended to go and where did you end up?

Your word limit is 600.

His 97th Birthday

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My grandfather turned 97 today. Ninety-seven years-old. I keep repeating that number. He was born during WWI and remembers when the fire engines were pulled by horses. We spent a few minutes talking about the 198,987 changes that the world has undergone since his birth. He is still very alert. He watches the news, reads the paper and interacts with almost everyone he comes in contact with.

I think that the two biggest changes from his 96th birthday is that physically he has slowed down a little bit more and of course this time Grandma wasn’t here to help celebrate. The first birthday without her in almost 80 years. He surprised me by not talking about her. Normally he would spend a few minutes talking about grandma and how much he misses her.

I didn’t take his silence to mean that anything has changed inside his head because that is inconceivable and not in a Princess Bride sort of way. I know that he talks to her all the time. Tonight my mom brought out a picture of Grandma from 1933. She was 19 and less than a year away from marrying grandpa. When he looked at her picture his eyes softened and I think that I might have seen a wistful smile pass across his face.

He used to tell me that I couldn’t see the girl he saw. He would say that I saw an old woman but that he saw the girl he fell in love with. Sometimes I would tease him and ask him what would happen when General Sherman called him back to active duty. He always laughed at that or maybe I should say that he always laughs at it. He is still very much here.

They celebrated 76-six years of marriage and even more birthdays  together. It was quite the run. I am happy and proud to have been around for the past 40 some years to share in the festivities. Just before I left I told him that since he has 23 years left he better get back on the treadmill. I said that if he thinks that 97 is tough just wait until he hits 110.

He laughed and so did his eyes. That made me happy because the laughter in his eyes proved that he was truly happy. Seemed to me like he had a pretty good birthday and at 97 he deserves it.

Japan Wishes It Was Godzilla

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Japan wishes it was Godzilla that caused the destruction because then this would be nothing more than a movie. The loss of life and destruction would disappear at the end of the movie and people would resume their lives as if nothing happened. The scale and the scope of this disaster make it seem surreal. It is hard to wrap our heads around this. I have watched many of the videos many times and been transfixed by them. Today I watched a CNN report about one man who left to do his part to help people out and came back to discover that his whole family had been wiped out.

You can call him heroic for his actions but watch him on the video and you don’t need to understand Japanese to see his profound grief. I can’t imagine it. I am no different than any other parent, the thought of losing a child is the most horrific thing I can come up with. He lost his kids and his grandchildren. Sadly he is one of the many who find themselves trying to come to grips with their new reality. Were I a newscaster trying to tell a story I would play the videos and sit in silence because they tell the story better than my words could.

But I am not a newscaster. I am a father who has had to sit with his children and talk about what happened. I am a dad whose 6.5 year-old daughter is afraid of the beach now. She said that she was worried about getting caught by a tsunami. Her older brother said that he wasn’t worried and then looked at me for support. I could see from the look on his face that he wasn’t 100 percent certain about not being worried, but he didn’t want his little sister to be nervous.

It was another Teaching Moment, but one that I wanted to approach with a softer touch. I have lived through many earthquakes, been through a few 7s and and many smaller than that. If you are familiar with the Richter Scale than you understand that a 7 isn’t anything to turn your nose up at. Talk to those of us who went through the Northridge Earthquake and many will tell you about how it scared them. The difference in size and scale between Northridge and Japan is immense. What happened in Japan is an earthquake of biblical proportions.

And when you add the tsunami plus all of aftershocks I have to say how impressed I am with Japanese engineering. The nuclear reactor situation is quite serious, but the fact that they weren’t just wrecked is amazing to me.

None of that is appropriate for my children. They are not old enough to appreciate the distinction between a big earthquake and one that is enormous. So I told them just enough to make them feel comfortable. I need for them to sleep at night and not to worry about our trips to the beach. So after we talked about it we spent a few minutes talking about whether there were things we could do to help Japan. It fits with our discussions about giving back. It also offers a segue into Big Little Wolf’s post about whether giving is complicated.

She asks whether it is easy to give or complicated. My answer is that it is not hard to give at all. The only complication is trying to decide where, when and how. To me that is the big question, how to sift through it all of the causes and decide who gets what. As a father my primary concern is different. As a father I worry about making sure that my kids understand the importance of looking out for others. I don’t want us to live in a bubble. It bothers me that sometimes the homeless people blend into the street corners and freeway off ramps.

I remember when it was shocking to see them- it is not anymore. There is something very sad about that.

So I see my job as teaching my kids to step out of our bubble. I see my job as making sure that I step out of my bubble. We donated some money to the Red Cross. Truth is that I am not a huge fan, but I wanted to do something for Japan and I know that they are helping. But I also want my kids to see that the solution is not to throw money at problems. So we have helped stock shelves at soup kitchens and participated in other activities that involve our doing something active. Action makes a difference and if I have done my job correctly that is a lesson that the kids will take to heart.

What I Want

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“Always do what you are afraid to do.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Up until now I have done very little vlogging. I haven’t decided whether I intend to make this a regular feature or even something that I do occasionally. But I figured that without trying it there is no way to know whether I like it or think that it adds value. So here goes nothing. This post might be shortlived.

Related thoughts can be found here.

A Father’s Angst

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Sometimes I slip from this world into a place of darkness and shadows. It is the duality of my life this slippage. I move from careless and carefree into a place where the weight of the burdens I carry become oppressive. I stagger under their weight and feel like I am fighting an invisible monster. A demon who knows where the chinks in my armor lie. The demon never hesitates to use his claws on that soft underbelly. He revels in wreaking havoc and whispers in my ear about a future that is masked in darkness. In fear, frustration and anger I lash out at him, demand that he show himself.

I am a fighter and a scrapper of the first order. My hands ball into fists, the vein in my forehead begins to protrude and the adrenalin starts to pump. I refuse to let him pummel me, but though I issue a challenge it is not met. He won’t stand before me. He is unwilling to go toe-to-toe. The challenge is met with derision, ridicule and the sort of laughter that immediately pushes my buttons. Years ago I would I have gone on a rampage through that shadow world. It would have been a seek and destroy mission in which I would burn the villages to the ground and plowed salt into the earth.

Except I stopped being that man a thousand years ago. When I turned 25 I said goodbye to him and tried to walk away. At least that was my intention but intention and reality don’t always share the same bed. Sometimes intentions are led a different direction and you find yourself trying to figure out just how you ended up in the place you are in today.

You see the man I walked away from was/is me. I remember that guy far too well. He wasn’t big on subtlety or finesse. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it because he could. The bigger issue was that it was hard. He was impatient and found much success in being a hard charger. If you couldn’t make the circle fit perfectly in the square it didn’t matter because you could still make it work. He had fewer responsibilities and no real worries. His mistakes wouldn’t impact anyone but himself.

I don’t have that luxury any more. Now I have to consider the impact and import of my actions because these children of mine deserve that. So I grab my palantir and gaze into it and try to see beyond the veil of clouds that obscure my vision. There are major decisions that have to be made in the very near future. They aren’t little throwaway things that are inconsequential.  Some of them will be similar to dropping a rock into a pond-there will be ripples that extend well beyond this time.

That doesn’t mean that I look at these things and think that the wrong decision will wreck their lives or mine. I am truly not worried about that, but my job as dad is to try to make life easier for them. So I cannot help but engage in a bit of angst over these things. It all reminds me of a couple of Satchel Paige quotes:

“I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup, my no windup. I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer, and my bat dodger. Man’s got to do what he’s got to do.”

“You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.”

I like those because they are a reminder that in life you do what you need to do. There are going to be good times and bad times. Sometimes the biggest question is how you choose to respond to them. I know, that is sort of a cliche but has proven to be true. When I open my eyes and my head to possibilities they tend to materialize. The hard part is being patient.

Humpday Happenings- The Roundup

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Here is a list of recent posts that you should read. Don’t forget to click on the headline of this post to reach the links for the stories below.