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

Children

Don’t Tell My Kids

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Don’t tell my kids I am eating Halloween candy for breakfast today or that I had some yesterday.

You probably shouldn’t tell them my apartment is a mess and there is more beer in my refrigerator than food either.

And definitely don’t tell them that half the room watched me leave a building yesterday because I forgot I don’t know how to whisper very well.

Well, it is not that I don’t know how to whisper it is that sometimes there is a rumble to my voice that makes it carry a little further than others.

There aren’t many days where I realize hours after an event that I blew it, but it happened yesterday.

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A Different Kind Of Childhood

Sometimes I compare the life my kids have to the one I had when I was their age and shake my head because I am not sure how I feel about it.

In some ways they have had more experiences and opportunities than Ma & Pa Steiner gave my sisters and I.

But they have had to adjust to many more changes than we did. They have moved and changed schools more than a couple of times now.

Sometimes that makes me feel like I haven’t done right by them and sometimes I think it has helped them learn some valuable lessons.

I don’t spend much time thinking about any of it because so much of it was outside of my control and there is no value in giving energy to that kind of thought.

Doesn’t mean I don’t ever question decisions and choices or ask if I could be a better father because sometimes I do.

Most days I feel pretty good about it all because I handle whatever comes my way and that is a good trait to pass along.

A Different World

Last Thanksgiving I went to an annual event the fraternity puts on to see the guys.

Been going since I pledged in ’87 and have rarely missed it. It is fun to catch up with some of the guys I am not in regular contact with and to see some of other guys in person.

We made the usual cracks about each other and asked the same ridiculous questions we always do about how old we are getting.

When you are an active you don’t realize the majority of your time is going to be spent as an alum nor do you appreciate that the guys who were 7-10 years older than you would eventually become you friends.

Because when you are 18-20 and see guys who are almost 30 you think they are really old and then you get out of school and time passes.

Doesn’t take too long for you to begin to have enough in common with them to have some really good conversations.

Anyway, I remember standing with a group of guys ranging in age from about 43 to 57 and how we all felt like there was a generation gap.

We weren’t all white and weren’t all Jewish or all Christian, but we were all sort of confused by some of the things that some of the thirty-somethings and below were pushing/talking about.

It wasn’t that we couldn’t relate or couldn’t talk to them because we could, but some things just felt different.

And we realized in many ways they grew up in a different world too.

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Differences & Similarities

When the kids and I talk about issues with people I always tell them that people are people.

I believe it to be true and quotes like the one above from Lao Tzu prove to me that some things about us never change.

But sometimes when I listen to my friends who are single talk I wonder a bit.

The guys who are close to age in me tell stories about the women they are dating and  I can follow it all.

Might not have been out there in a good long while, but I can see it.

It is the guys who are ten or more years younger that sometimes tell stories that make me feel like I might be some kind of dinosaur.

Don’t know that any of this really matters, it is just stuff that crosses my mind from time to time.

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Age Is Relative

Don’t tell my kids that I prefer being an adult to being a kid and don’t tell them that I had an amazing childhood.

Don’t tell them if I could relive being 19 and have the same experiences I would step into the time machine now.

Don’t tell them I know everything and don’t tell them I know nothing.

Don’t tell them that sometimes I love the freedom that comes with having my own place and that I know I’ll miss it when we living together again.

Don’t tell them I have stayed out all night or how much it hurt the next day.

Just tell them dad loves them and he is just an ordinary Joe trying to provide for his family.

Tell them I miss them and that I look forward to seeing them soon and ask them again if they can stop growing so damn quickly.

Is my oldest really going to turn 16 and is my baby really halfway through middle school.

No wonder I feel like time is moving at warp speed.

Can I Root For The Cubs?

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Sometimes when people hear me speak they say I have a hint of an accent.

Usually depends where I am at and who I am with, but every now and then someone will say something.

“Chicago, you grew up in Chicago right?”

I smile and make some crack about how you can’t find decent pizza or a good steak there.

Sometimes they realize I am messing around and sometimes they push back so I talk about awful weather and make fun of the Cubs or something like that.

If the conversation has any depth or legs to it we usually reach a point where I tell them about how I am technically not from there but in many ways the city made me.

Can I Root For The Cubs?

My paternal grandfather took me to my first baseball game.

It was in the early 70s at Dodger stadium and I couldn’t have been more excited because I am an LA native, born and bred there.

I bleed Dodger blue.

Grandpa was a Dodger fan too, but if you asked him to name his favorite baseball player he always said Hack Wilson.

Hack was a short fireplug of a man who played for a bunch of teams, including the Cubs.

He signed on with them in 1926 when grandpa was 12.

Grandpa used to tell stories about how he and his friends would sneak into games to watch Hack and the boys play.

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Grandpa also used to tell me stories about how his father, my great-grandfather helped start unions in Chicago and about how sometimes he would fight with cops.

“My father was blonde, had blue eyes and was 6 feet tall.

In those days he was big and no one saw Jewish guys that looked like him. People used to think he was a cop.”

I loved hearing those stories and since my great-grandfather died when I was about 7.5 I do remember him.

I remember his eyes because they were like grandpa and my dads, but mostly I remember him smiling when I saw him.

The tales of his temper were legendary as were tales of my grandfather and so many of those tales were about things that happened in Chicago.

Both Sides

My father was born in LA and lived there until grandpa moved the family back to Chicago.

Dad went to kindergarten on the south side and lived in Chicago for about 8 or 9 years, long enough that he learned to love the city.

Mom was born and raised in Chicago and didn’t leave until she went to college.

Both of her parents considered themselves Chicagoans, in spite of technicalities.

The technicality being my maternal grandpa was born in Canada and didn’t move to Chicago until he was five.

But if you asked him where he was from it was always Chicago.

And if you talked to me as a kid and asked me to tell you stories about my family it was always Chicago…mostly.

That is because we were in LA and though we had some relatives who lived elsewhere, everyone I heard about seemed to be in Chicago.

That city became mythical to me, a place I heard about always but never saw.

A place that my parents and grandparents would go for family affairs but not one I got to see, not because they didn’t want to take us but because of financial reasons.

Chicago belonged to my family and we belonged to it or so I was taught.

Business Trip

A dozen or so years ago I flew to Chicago for a business trip.

It wasn’t my first visit but it sticks out for a variety of reasons.

I stayed at the Hyatt Regency on Wacker and walked all over the city.

One of my most vivid memories is calling both sets of grandparents to talk to them while I walked down Michigan Avenue and to get directions to places I should visit.

Memories of family dinners floated back in which I could hear my grandfathers argue about the where the best place to eat was in 1938 and the stories they shared about their neighborhoods.

I was old enough to understand I wasn’t going to find most if any of those things but I felt like if I walked the streets and listened I might grab some hint of whatever they experienced.

Mom and dad didn’t know each other when they were living in Chicago and as far as I know chances are their paths didn’t cross, but there were moments where I wondered.

Moments where I wondered if maybe they stood close together and watched the U-Boat sail up the Chicago river or if maybe they were at the lake at the same time.

Stranger things have happened.

I Wanted The Dodgers To Win

I didn’t want the Cubs to win.

I wanted my boys to get back to the series so that I could share that moment with my kids. I didn’t want another year of telling my son I remember what it was like to lose in 74, 77 and 78 and how sweet it was when we won.

’81 and ’88 live large in memory and I wanted a new one.

But I suppose given my deep Chicago roots I’ll have no problem cheering for the Cubbies.

A hundred some odd years is a long time to wait for another World Series championship.

Teenagers Are Big Toddlers

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There are secrets that lie behind a big green gate that call out to me and ask to be discovered, shared and understood.

Yet instead of engaging in investigation and exploration of those I am seated at this computer listening to Elvis sing If I Can Dream.

It is an appropriate song for the moment and one of my favorites but it doesn’t make me forget this is the second time this year I have covered this particular topic.

Boundaries in blogging prevent me from writing with the sort of detail I really wish to put down on paper but if you believe people deserve to have some control over their digital destiny this is how it has to be.

Teenagers Are Big Toddlers

I hit the gym last night and glared and grimaced at my reflection but not because I was upset.

Truth is I felt great and those faces aren’t the ones you make solely because of digestive distress or sexual happiness.

They are the ones that come with focus and exertion combined with the clink and clank of metal swinging through the air.

In a place that isn’t as far away from me as a certain person thinks it is, there is a person who is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

They don’t understand that even though I have never been visited this particular place I understand a lot about it because you don’t have to visit the sun to know it is hot.

And because I have visited similar locations I know enough to be concerned about how things play out.

Doesn’t mean I don’t have faith things will work themselves out because my gut says it is going in the right direction but that doesn’t remove the ache in my heart.

Nor does it prevent me from reviewing past events to try and see when the wheels came off of the wagon.

But none of that changes the current reality nor replaces the feeling that sometimes teenagers are like big toddlers.

Too Big To Fail

Someone looked me in the eye and told me how to fix things and I suggested they cease and desist communicating with me about this.

When they asked why I said I don’t feel like I have real support for this and I wasn’t interested in fake platitudes and ignorant comments about how to handle this.

There is a difference between expert opinion and the prattling of someone who read something once that has no relevance to the situation.

Funny thing is I have thought about one of their suggestions more than once but only out of frustration.

I am still strong enough to physically enforce my will and I could make certain things happen but I won’t do it.

It won’t change the situation and the other party in question is so very similar to me I know that two things will come of this.

  1. I will have to hurt them.
  2. It will break pieces and parts of both of us.

The days when I could tuck them under one arm and make things happen are gone and that is ok.

Fear is what drives much of this and saying things like too big to fail isn’t helpful. Doesn’t matter if it is true or not.

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Unexpected & Unwanted

I rage and rage against it all.

Always have and probably always will.

Been told more than once I am far too intense and that it is too hard to hang out with me because I wear people out and exhaust them.

Some of those who left made me sad and I have missed or maybe even still miss them but I keep going because not everyone is made to walk with us.

There are people who journey with us and who don’t find the intensity off putting because it is charming or familiar.

So much of life has been unexpected and some has been unwanted, but that is how it goes.

Took a long time for me to not just realize that but to accept and understand.

It is a lesson I have tried to share and pass along but I don’t know how well I have taught it or if it is something that can only be appreciated after it has been experienced.

Told that teen I love him a million times and in the silence I heard the echoes of myself and remembered.

Where To Focus

Telephone calls and text messages aren’t the way I wanted or intended for this to go.

I never expected or anticipated that one day this would be how I had to do things and when it happened I figured it wouldn’t forever.

And it wasn’t but then it happened again.

Can’t tell you why or how things got to be as they are.

Sure, we could go back and look at the past and point out how things led down this path but they wouldn’t really explain it.

Wouldn’t matter if you took engineers, scientists, doctors and spiritualists either because this is where we are.

And because my heart says it is the right path and that if I keep walking through the night I’ll reach daylight and the cycle will repeat.

Told that kid to look inside and find a particular thing.

Said if he could find it I could show him how to use it to walk through the woods at night with nothing more than moonlight to guide us.

Said I could teach him how to use his birthright to walk through fire and swim through rough seas as easily as calm.

The toddler had blind faith and would run towards outstretched hands but the teenager is more circumspect.

So I stand here trying to figure out where to focus my energy because this sort of multitasking diminishes my ability to do all that I have to do for all of us.

Can’t focus on just one nor can I ignore what I see.

All I can do is as I have done and if it doesn’t work, well I guess I’ll just pivot, dodge and duck until I find another way.

How Trump & Clinton Broke America

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I can’t decide if my headline is real or if it is linkbait any more than I can determine if this election is real or part of some wacky dream.

Can’t decide how to explain to my children how crazy this election is and that when I say I have never seen its like before it is not something I smile about.

They can’t really see two candidates who believe the way to win the election is to hit below the belt and to sling mud as if the person who does it best, hardest and longest is the winner.

Maybe I am just naive or trying to be pollyannaish to say it is not as bad as it looks and that our system of checks and balances will help to right the ship.

Maybe I ought to just jump in my magic Cadillac and sell off to Lothlorien.

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This Is Not What Sherman Meant

Maybe I am living in lollipop land and I am the one who is confused.

Maybe I need to teach my children to fear everyone else and to strike first because if they don’t the other guy is going to get one over on them.

Nah, I can’t do that, can’t accept it and I won’t.

I have worked hard to make sure they are kids of character and integrity. Worked hard to make sure they understand they are someone special and that their self-esteem isn’t tied up in what others say or think.

We have spent lots of time trying to talk and understand the world is not always a simple place and that there are contradictions people can live with.

I don’t believe in safe spaces and microaggressions and I think the conversations about privilege are a tool many use to silence real discussion.

Sometimes we have to tear off the scabs and have real discussions with people about things that are hard, raw and painful but you don’t get beyond if you never leave the edge of the pool.

They know we need to treat others as we want to be treated and yet what do we see from our candidates but a William Sherman like approach to war.

War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.

I am very hawkish and if we are talking about real war, well I agree with Sherman. When you fight you fight to win but this is an election and not war.

We All Deserve Better

I am not going to give a 1,000 words to ranting about the election or how disappointed I am because if my FB feed is accurate it doesn’t matter.

Clinton supporters are convinced she won the debate and Trump supporters are convinced he won.

Haven’t seen anything about it being a draw or heard much from the middle ground, unless you consider the third party people to occupy that particular place.

It disappoints me not because we can do better but because we deserve better.

Our children deserve to see something more than we have shown them.

I don’t know about you, but the way things currently operate I wouldn’t want my kids to run for president.

Wouldn’t want them to undertake a venture where their lives are torn apart and dissected so that every stupid comment, foolish mistake and or misstep is used to make them look like fools.

There is no room for error here, we keep asking for perfection.

It disappoints me.

There is another way and we can do better.

I am not giving up and I don’t believe the country is one the verge of disintegrating the way some others do because we are a long way from that

But it is time to move from possibility and opportunity and do something more.

We deserve it and we need it.

How To Teach Your Boy To Pee Like A Man

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Friends, sometimes I forget there was a time when many of the posts you find here were written as a public service.

Yes, way back in the stone age of my blogging career somewhere around 2005 I wrote a post about The Germophobe.

It is a very fine piece that I recommend you take a moment to read because it covers urinal selection strategy and FPS, or “Frightened Penis Syndrome.”

Undoubtedly few if any of our female readers will be familiar with these terms or know much about some of the others covered in the post so maybe this will help shed light on unfamiliar territory.

Some men suffer from FPS, or “Frightened Penis Syndrome.” There is a long clinical description of this in JAMA and a number of other medical journals, not to mention the classic Mayo Clinic study, but rather than get too technical here is a basic description.

In its native habitat the penis is primarily a nocturnal creature who operates with stealth and guile under the cover of darkness. Sometimes when it is surprised it attempts to hide by trying to blend in with its immediate surroundings. In abathroom situation that involves immediately cutting of the flow of urine so as not to make any noise or leave a trail that can be followed by hunters or animals employed by hunters such as the penis hound. But I digress, back to our story.

If you want to learn more about the dread Germophobe and useful tips for how to teach your boys to pee like a man click here.

Go on now, urinal selection strategy is no joke and should be mastered sooner than later.

When Is International Punch-A-Clown-In-Da-Face Day?

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I was there and I saw what I wanted to see, not what was really happening.

Hope blinded me to reality and maybe even a double dash of ego too because I felt confident that we had turned a corner except we hadn’t.

Instead of slowing down to confirm and look around I sped up and went harder and faster figuring we could adjust on the fly but all I did was make the crash hurt more.

If a friend came to me and shared the full details of the same thing I am experiencing I’d tell them to be kinder and gentler with themselves than I am being with me.

But I am not ready to offer that sort of kindness or compassion to myself yet.

It might come in time, but I need to complete my own internal examination to see what happened and decide what comes next.

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When Is International Punch-A-Clown-In-Da-Face Day?

Every day I walk through the woods and spend some time outdoors so that I can clear my mind and exercise my body.

Sometimes I hit the trail right after I have read or watched the news and seen the bit about the people dressed up as clowns that are wandering around the country.

They are making people nervous and I am not entirely sure what we ought to do about them besides be aware they are around.

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My daughter walks to and from school.

She is smart, capable and independent.

If you see her on the soccer field you’d say she is tough too. She’ll run through you to get to the ball and isn’t afraid to mix it up when she needs to.

Some parents disagree with letting her walk and tell me it doesn’t matter that it is a safe neighborhood and that she goes in daylight.

I tell them they are entitled to their opinion and maintain I have to teach my children how to live in the world and not make them fear to live.

That doesn’t mean I don’t worry or that there aren’t moments where I wonder what kind of father I am.

Moments where I question it all and wonder what the hell I am doing and what the hell is going on.

Most days I don’t let these doubts slow me down or prevent me from doing what I need to do, but there are moments.

Days where I wonder when International Punch-A-Clown-In-Da-Face day is because I would feel better if I could take this negative energy out on some clown.

Maybe it is time for me to buy a new heavy bag. It is a great workout and there is a lot of stress relief that comes with throwing combinations.

Ride That Merry-Go-Round

I had one of those Godfather 3 moments the other day where I muttered something about how just when I thought I was out they suck me back in.

Had to do with the willful blindness I mentioned above and how I feel it is tied into parenting.

A moment where I wanted to scream with frustration because I have worked my ass off to make good things happen and seen the fruits of my labors come with a particular challenge.

A challenge that has made it exceptionally hard to celebrate the victory and feel good about having done something that is going to be so good for my kids.

Because life has a sense of humor and shoved me into a furnace and said, “here’s an ice cream cone. We know it is a zillion degrees so you better eat it quickly.”

I threw the cone back at life.

“I am lactose intolerant you jackass. If I am going to have to walk through the damn furnace I’ll do it, but I am not going to make it harder than it needs to be.”

Had to squint for just a moment, but I could see water on the other side.

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The joy of riding that merry-go-round are the ups and downs that come with it.

Some days are good, some are bad and some are somewhere in between and they are all part of life.

I figure the bad helps make me appreciate the good more but acknowledge that sometimes it is something I say because it makes me feel better.

But I don’t have any problem with that because we all need to figure out what tools help us get through the darker moments.

I never regret or wish I wasn’t a father but dammit, sometimes it is really hard.