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 February 2015

Will You Always Need Your Father

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father wisdom
The Shmata Queen says I love quotes and I won’t disagree because I do.

Some of it is because I love words and stories and looking for ways to connect them all but it is also because I love learning.

A good quote doesn’t have to have any substance to it. Sometimes it is just funny but my favorites are usually those that give me something to think about and learn from.

Will You Always Need Your Father

There is no punctuation at the end of that line. It is intentional because I am not sure how I want to it to read yet and even if I come up with an answer I may leave it for the reader to decide what should be there.

Yesterday I called my father and asked for some help. I wanted to borrow a couple of tools so that I could work on some projects at my house and I wanted to talk to him about some of the other crap that has been going on in my life.

Dad and I have always had a good relationship but like any parent/child relationship there have been moments where we wanted to kill each other.

Most of them are long ago but there have been a few in recent years that have been far more difficult probably because when you hit your mid forties you are less tolerant of some things.

Still I will never forget The Best Thing My Father Ever Said To Me not just because of how good it was to hear but I recognized I could ask dad for advice or just chew the fat with him without wondering if he was going to give me a lecture about how or what I was doing.

Indulge me for a moment while I mention that it was my friend Leon of The People We Meet Online fame who provided me with an article about parenting that I used as part of the post about the best thing my father ever said to me.

It really is too bad Leon is gone because I would have written him today to mention his influence again and how it ties into the Mark Twain quote above but such is life, sometimes we miss opportunities.

*****

Dad surprised me again yesterday by telling me I am putting too much pressure on myself and pushing me to slow down a bit.

When I told him some of this is his fault and that I am reflecting the lessons I learned as a kid and teenager he laughed.

“Yeah, I told you to take responsibility for your life and to work hard. I told you to run through the walls when you had to and push hard but it’s different now.”

When I asked him what was different he told me that  thirty years ago he worried about giving me too much leeway to not work hard and family history bit me again.

“Remember when you were tested in school and we found out that you were gifted? You stopped working as hard in school and you took some shortcuts. Your grades were still good but you didn’t always apply yourself the way you could have and I didn’t want that to continue.”

I looked at him and shook my head.

“C’mon dad, that didn’t always happen.”

He laughed.

“No, not always. When you wanted something you worked harder than everyone but you were stuck in the too smart but not smart enough contradiction. If you put that effort in consistently your grades would have reflected it. But that is in the past and there is no point discussing it.

The point is that some of the stuff you are going through now has nothing to do with you as a person. Not one thing is tied into you other than you are experiencing it. So you need to figure out how to dial back that intensity or you’ll make yourself sick.”

Dad and I went back and forth for a bit and talked a bit about his dad and grandfather and what they would have said and then I left.

The sunshine of the prior days had been replaced with rain which lent itself to thinking so I drove around the corner and parked the car to consider it all.

Dad had mentioned how sometimes he missed talking to his dad and I thought about how my grandfather had mentioned he missed talking to his.

It made sense to me. All of my friends who have lost their fathers have told me they miss them. I hope to get another 50 years before I join that club.

Books, Wisdom & Fathers

A few moments before I left my parents’ house I asked to borrow a computer because it is easier on my eyes.

Mom asked if I have started using reading glasses and I told her only when I am very tired or in very poor lighting.

She smiled and told me not to tell my middle sister because “she is blind without her reading glasses. I don’t think she likes being in her forties.”

I laughed and said I was on the fence. Some of it has been rough and some of it has been awesome.

****

Reading is a passion and I never have enough time for it.

I have a stack of books and magazines on hand at home at all times. Outside of the house I rely on my phone and apps or laptop if I have taken it with me.

Given a choice I prefer to be surrounded by books because like Twain said I can’t help but feel like wisdom and knowledge is seeping into me.

That is part of what fathers are good for. Repositories of knowledge and wisdom that can be shared for whomever is wise enough to ask and understand.

Voodoo Magic & Witch Doctors

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Understand
I have this sneaking suspicion that I need surgery but since I haven’t seen a doc I am not entirely sure.

If you came to me and told me this I would verbally slap you around and tell you it is a mistake to wait and that if there is a problem waiting might make it worse.

But you see I operate off of the ‘do as I say and not as I do’ code and that absolves me of all guilt. Besides I figure I can try seeing the local witch doctor or using some Voodoo magic on myself because nothing could go wrong if I did that.

And this my friends is what happens when you are an educated man with responsibilities and no health insurance.  It is not like I have been without it for long because I haven’t but I ran into some financial challenges and killed mine so that my kids would keep theirs.

It is not like I am going to drop dead tomorrow and if I did, well that would wreck my golf game now wouldn’t it.

Of course I haven’t played a round in quite some time and when I did I wasn’t particularly good at it so it is not really wrecking my game.

The Grim Reaper and Jack

The Grim Reaper and I have met a few times. He got pissed off at me years ago because we were hitting on the same chick and I got her.

Truth is he wasn’t much competition. I looked at her and told her she could never drink enough to get beyond his skull and bony appearance.

Not to mention his personality is awful and when I want to be I am not only charming but funny.

Humble too.

I remember after my father’s heart attack I rolled into his hospital room and did a quick sweep of the room to make that reaper dude wasn’t skulking around.

He wasn’t there on the first day but two days later dad’s ventilator gurgled and the other machines whistled and beeped enough times to make me recognize something was wrong.

I found that bony motherfucker messing with the cables so I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and defenestrated him.

Later that night I caught him again but this time he was wearing that Angel of Death costume. I am guessing he thought it might fool me but I am the reason the Devil went down to Georgia because Lucifer knows damn well that I am not someone you should trifle with.

Anyhoo I grabbed that Angel by his wings, stomped on his feet and then headbutted him into the land of Nod.

That was kind of fun for me, mainly because all those people who told me my hard head would get me into trouble learned the hard way they could suck it.

That hard head of mine came in handy then.

I Want To Understand

I live my life based upon a mixture of science, faith and gut feelings.

It is an accurate description of how I write too all you need to do is look  at this post or read some of my fiction to see the truth in it.

There are moments where I work off of a plan and follow the outline I have developed and then there are the times where I just live.

That is because I have been fortunate to follow the beat of a drummer who has no rhythm. Really if you ask me to pick a card I am going to find the Joker every time.

Neither of those are good or bad, they just are.

The net result is I often take the road less taken and that sometimes makes my progress through life a little more interesting than it does for others.

It is also what leads me to ask why I am lucky enough to live during interesting times and rail about not understanding how I have ended up in certain situations that I have actively tried to avoid.

Ask me to explain it and I’ll shrug my shoulders and say I must be responsible for some of this and yet I know damn well not all of it is my fault either.

This is when I tell the Shmata Queen that I Know Things and that even though I can’t always explain them it doesn’t mean they aren’t true.

What I know for certain about this moment is that it sucks but that I am going to weather the damn storm and come out on a distant shore with more stories and more cash than ever.

Can’t tell you the particulars but I can say it is going to happen and since I believe in the joy of the journey I am going to do my best to be present for all of it.

Churchill taught

If I ever run into Winston in heaven I am going to light up a cigar and thank him for articulating this and a few other things for me.

And that my friends is how you incorporate Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and Voodoo into a post.

The 198,873nd Coolest Dad Blogger

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reflect
If I asked do you miss old fashioned blogging you might wonder if I am trying to be the grumpy old man of the blogosphere and I wouldn’t blame you.

Flip through the 10,000 posts here and you’ll find more than a few thoughts and comments about blogging. You’ll see the posts about why blogs fail, my complaints about how sometimes poor writers gain fame because they are good marketers and all sorts of other snarky comments about bloggers.

Hell if you like that kind of thing I invite you to check out the posts that are listed under the blogging category, such as:

Some of those are pretty alright and they help prove that in spite of what you hear commenting isn’t dead yet. You just have to work a bit harder to get them.

Hard work, or working harder seems to be a general theme of my life and many of my friends. I’d like to say it refers to our work ethic and talk about how our willingness to put in extra effort has yielded significant dividends but that is not what I was thinking about.

Don’t get me wrong, we work hard and we often outwork other people but what I was really thinking about is how lately it feels like we have to work twice as hard to get half as much as we used to.

What Kind Of Blogger Do you Want To Be?

When I started blogging in 2004 it wasn’t because I had dreams of becoming the first dad blogger to publish a book or get a movie deal.

I stumbled into it.

Started blogging on a whim and then when my dad had a major heart attack and ended up on life support I used the blog as a place to clear my head.

I didn’t have any real plan so I wrote about politics and religion and started sharing stories about the things my barely out of diapers son did.

Some nights I typed with one hand and tried to rock my infant daughter in my other arm.

And like everything else in life I learned as I went along and figured out what I liked to write about and what I didn’t.

As time passed and my children grew my writing evolved and how I approached blogging changed.

The writing about politics and religion gradually disappeared, the fiction increased and there were more posts about writing.

For a long while the anchor posts here seemed to be my thoughts about parenting and stories about things my kids did but as they got older that changed somewhat too.

That is because as the children grew the boundaries surrounding the topics I could write about changed. I focused on trying to protect their privacy and started thinking about kind of blogger I wanted to be and what kinds of stories I wanted to tell.

Some of those are things you’ll find on my About Me page but not all.  If you asked me for examples I could give you a bunch but I would be worried about not providing a complete list.

That is a random sample of pieces recent and older including some of the ones that I consider turned me into a blogger.

Stream Of Consciousness

If this feels disjointed and awkward it is because it is a pseudo-stream-of-consciousness piece.

That means I am not working with an outline and but I am taking a few moments here and there to search for links to posts that I think will add value to the story I am trying to tell here.

It means I am sorting out my thoughts as I go along and when you do that sometimes the finished product is less polished than you would generate if you worked off of an outline.

Truth is I almost never work off of an outline so this should be a bit tighter but it is well after midnight and the back of my mind is filled with the murmuring that comes with being concerned about other things.

A few days ago my son was presented with some awards for making the honor roll at school. Later on we sat down and talked a bit about the future and I couldn’t help but think about how much he has grown.

The boy who asked me not to die is long gone and now there is a kid who is capable of much more sophisticated thought.

During our conversation I shared the Mark Twain quote above and extolled the virtues of being willing to swim upstream and of knowing when to go with the group.

We talk all the time about how our children grow but we don’t often talk about how we have grown or our blogs.

But it is almost 1:30 AM so we’ll save that conversation for a different day. See you in the morning.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

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fallensoldiers2

That headline isn’t meant to be snarky or salacious nor am I making any references to pirates. This time it is simple, the dead tell no tales.

The music above accompanied the post I wrote about the picture.

We were walking through Newark in June of 201o when we saw a group of people staring at something out the window and curiosity made us stop to see what it was they were looking at.

What you can’t see is the casket dressed in an American flag and the mix of soldiers and police surrounding it.

Words will fail to convey the feeling that came over me, the solemnity of a moment unexpectedly shared with strangers passing through an airport.

All I can do is tell you it hurt us to see that casket because we knew somewhere people were waiting to say their final goodbye to a son or daughter whose life was cut short.

But we didn’t know anything about that person. We couldn’t tell you if the world lost an average Joe or the man/woman who would cured cancer or brought peace to the world.

Instead we were left with questions and an urge to hug our children tighter.

Churchill taught
I didn’t intend to write about that moment at the airport. Tonight I was thinking about sharing some thoughts about trying to figure out what posts I want to represent me.

The past week or so has seen a significant increase in traffic so I was thinking about ways to try and capitalize upon it.

Was thinking about what posts would convince the new folks this is a good place to hang their hat and in the midst of tooling around in the archives I came across the post with the picture of the casket and it touched me.

The boy I wrote about here is going to be 15 this year.

When 9/11 hit he played with blocks in front of the television and I watched the towers fall and wondered what the future would hold.

We went back into Iraq when he turned three and I wondered again what that would mean.

I was in college during the first Gulf War and I remember saying goodbye to some of the guys but that was really different.

Not just because we rolled through the country like a hot knife slicing through butter but because when you are a kid in college the future seems endless and you have no real responsibilities.

The second time was different for me and not because of politics but because I looked at my little boy and realized that my parents weren’t ever going to worry about whether I would want to or need to serve.

I was too damn old, my time was done.

If the draft ever came back and grabbed me it was going to be because things had really gone to hell.

Tonight when I thought about that day at Newark and then looked at my son I realized he is three years away from signing up for Selective Service.

I remember when I went and how I felt old but figured it was no big deal because we weren’t at war and if we happened to go to war I figured I would just enlist because I wanted to support my country.

I Still Support My Country

I still support my country but there is a different approach now because it is not my ass on the line. This time around I am looking at my children and it is just so very surreal.

If they told me they wanted to enlist in one of the branches of the military I don’t know exactly what I would say.

Certainly I would be proud of them but part of me wonders what I would do because the idea of them putting themselves in harms way frightens me.

But I can’t ignore that people do it every day and that someone’s child is out there risking their life for my family. Someone is out there doing what is required to help protect our country.

Soldiers don’t write policy but they sometimes enforce it.

But this isn’t a political post, this is a man thinking out loud about his life and a father thinking about his children.

*****

The moment in the airport obviously stuck with me but this time around it touched me in a different way.

I have the utmost respect for our troops. These men and women deserve our respect.

Tonight I showed my son the picture and asked him if he remembered the moment and he didn’t. I told him it is easy living far away from all the chaos to forget about it.

I told him that when people talk about Iraq and Afghanistan the conversation often turns into a political battle about who did what and what should or should not have happened.

When he asked me to tell him my thoughts I said we would set aside time to have a deeper discussion but summed it up by saying freedom isn’t free and there have been both popular and unpopular wars where people died to help us live as we do today.

And that we should respect the sacrifices they and their families made.

In a few moments I’ll shut off the lights and go to sleep and wonder some more about who was in that casket and what their story was.

Life may be challenging at times, but every day that we keep standing offers us another chance. It is a privilege not everyone gets to enjoy.

What Kind Of Friend Do You Want To Be?

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friend

My son who is a mere four months away from graduating from middle school and moving on to high school is in the midst of a friend crisis.

The not-so-wee lad I sometimes refer to as Steiner the minor is learning the hard way that sometimes the people you think are your friends aren’t and that sometimes those that are choose to walk a different path than the one you are on.

It is awkward, uncomfortable and painful to wonder if someone you considered a friend has decided you aren’t.

If you asked me to compare these moments to the crazy sleep-deprived nights that came when he was a baby I’d tell you this time is much harder than then because I can’t protect him.

Can’t stop the stripping of another layer of innocence and the growth that comes with it. Can’t prevent his heart from getting a little harder or stop him from growing a little more cynical about people.

*****

When I wrote The Kind Of Friend You Want To Be I did so with the intent to make a comment about social media and with an eye to a future conversation to be had with my children.

It didn’t require prescience or insight to know a day would come when they would tell me about a rift in a friendship or hard moments with others.

I knew it would happen because I had lived through those moments as a kid and an adult and knew they would too because it is something we all experience.

None of that made it any easier to listen to his story or provided me with great wisdom to dispense.

Part of me was torn by it because I don’t believe in bubble wrapping our kids. I don’t believe in protecting them from everything because we can’t always be there.

They have to learn how to advocate for themselves and how to deal with adversity. They need to know what happens when they fall and how to deal with failure.

But at the same time I wanted to make sure they felt supported and to try do what I can to see they remain compassionate.

What Kind Of Friend Do You Want To Be?

That was the question I asked him and when he answered I told him that was the kind of friend he should focus on being.

But I also told him to remember not everyone would treat him well or the same. I told him he needed to figure out when to pull back and when not to.

Sometimes you have to go with your gut and follow your heart. But I also told him that if he felt like someone fooled or mislead him he shouldn’t let that make him think his heart didn’t work.

And I told him that a day might come when someone might break his heart and that he would figure out a way to put it back together.

“Friends shouldn’t break your heart.”

“No, they shouldn’t but if find the kind of friendship I want you to have they might. I hope they don’t, but if you don’t open yourself up you never get to enjoy the depth of a friendship that are possible.”

What I want for my kids is simple. I want the kind of friendship you see between Kirk and Spock.

You know, the person that has your back and will go the distance.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a friend(s) like that but we all have the chance. The thing is there is no schedule involved here.

Can’t say when, where or how many times it will happen. All you can do is be open to the possibility so when the opportunity comes you are able to take it.

Kirk: Spock!
Spock: The ship out of danger?
Kirk: Yes.
Spock: Don’t grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh
Kirk: the needs of the few
Spock: Or the one. I never took the Kobayashi Maru test until now. What do you think of my solution?
Spock: I have been and always shall be your friend.
[Holds up his hand in the Vulcan salute]
Spock: Live long and prosper.
Star Trek- Wrath Of Khan

Is Suicide Really Painless…

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Stupid
“Have you ever thought about killing yourself?”

I let the question linger in the air for a moment and nodded my head.

“I have.”

“So why didn’t you?”

If I told you the reason why was because I didn’t want to hurt family or friends it would be true and if I told you it was because I am too damn stubborn to give up it would be true.

It would be true if I said I didn’t want to find out that I was one minute away from moving from the depths of my hell into my own paradise.

Why Would You Think About It?

If you know me well you know I am curious about a million different things.

You would know the reason I want to live to be a thousand is because I want to know what it would be like to be a doctor, lawyer, scientist, astronaut, writer, teacher and more.

Can’t do it all in a short lifetime so I have to pick and choose carefully.

When I see signs that say “don’t press/touch/do” I want to do whatever I am told not to do just to see what happens.

Suicide is supposed to be a sin, but how do we really know? How do we know if there is a heaven or a hell without dying?

The explorer and curious man inside says you can’t figure it out unless you do it but the very rational part says you don’t cross the streams unless you are fully prepared to deal with the consequences.

What if you die and you can’t come back?

What if you die and you find out that you are going to spend eternity being punished?

I push the envelope in many areas and am willing to deal with the consequences of my actions but there is nothing that makes me angrier than getting pinched for doing something really stupid.

But the voice inside says what happens if there is nothing after this. End it and you won’t have to do your homework, pay your taxes or deal with feeling like crap.

Except that doesn’t negate the unwillingness to hurt others that way or the fear that I am so close to grabbing that brass ring.

Tried to dunk the ball 198 times and didn’t succeed until 199. If we gave up at 198 we would never know the joy that came with 199 and the idea of missing that irks me.

Not to mention not being around to see the kids grow.

Writers Plumb The Depths

Flip through the pages and posts here and you’ll see one of my major goals in in life is to become a better writer.

I want to be the guy who can make anything interesting and who knows how to tell a tale that captivates you. I want to write for the cycle, to prepare something funny and insightful as well as to put something out that leaves you breathless.

The kind of work that makes you sit back in your seat and wonder what just hit you.

I don’t think it comes without risk and without a willingness to delve into authenticity in a way that scares us.

There is truth in this.
There is truth in this.

One day my kids may read these words but I hope they recognize the deeper conversation here.

It is an admission that there have been moments where dear old dad felt like life had kicked his ass. An admission that the tough guy who didn’t lose a fight wondered if maybe he had.

An admission that sometimes parents feel like their losers who can’t get it right and wonder why everyone else seems to have figured it out when they haven’t.

But it is also clear that dad recognizes that when life punches you in the mouth you wipe your lip and smile because every time you get back up you get one step closer to winning that particular battle.

It is recognizing that life is cyclical and that down is followed by up and if you don’t stick around you don’t get to benefit from the joy that comes from surviving the crap that was just flung at you.

There is no reward without risk and no light without darkness.

Sometimes I hate those platitudes because they are so easily said. Sometimes I hate hearing them from people who seemingly have faced no adversity but I do my best not to compare.

Maybe everyone is fighting a battle and maybe they aren’t, it doesn’t necessarily make my battle harder or easier.

lug
Went looking for the right picture or quote to insert her and came across the picture of that big lug above. It has been years since I had to write about The Final Goodbye but when I came across it I had to read it again.

That picture doesn’t do a proper job of showing you how massive his head was and doesn’t come to close to showing a heart that was 1000 times larger than any you can imagine.

But when I see his face I remember.

And I remember running and wrestling with him…joy incarnate.

It reminds me that I have experienced that sort of joy more than a few times since he left us and that there is no doubt I will again.

Those moments outweigh and outnumber the hard ones.

When I watch the kids play with our dog now I see they get it and I know they understand the attachment I had with the big lug and the one that we have developed with the little guy we have now.

Camus was right.

presence