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

Family

His First Time With A Woman

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I miss so very many things about my grandfather. I miss watching the fights with him. I miss the stories that he told about the Jewish fighters. I miss his jokes and I miss the quiet moments in which we said nothing but enjoyed each others company.

I miss the trips to the steam room to schvitz and I miss going to the movies with him. I miss talking to him about my job and my life.

I miss the card games and the stories about the great battle of Victorville. I miss the tales of his time in the carnival and the adventures he had in New Orleans.

I miss the stories about how Kowalski showed up at my grandparent’s door demanding to take my grandfather on in another round of pool and all the yarns about life in Chicago in the ’20s.

I miss the stories about his friend Blinkie and so many others including his first time with a woman.

Grandpa was one hell of a storyteller. I only wish that I had half his ability.

Does Blogging Make You Feel Obligated?

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The question of the moment is do you feel obligated to produce new content on a regular basis? Some of my blogging pals have said that although they enjoy blogging it has come to a feel like work.

The reason for this is that they now feel that they have an obligation to respond to all of the comments and a responsibility to continue to produce new content for their readers.

What do you think?

I Should Be Sleeping

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I should be sleeping. I am overtired and cranky. Normally sleep comes quite easily. I begin snoring before my head hits the pillow, but tonight it escapes me.

So here I am at the keyboard, listening to the Blue Man Group. I know, it is not exactly the kind of music that relaxes you. OTOH, when I feel amped up like this I kind of need some kind of beat to listen to. It is counter intuitive, but the pound and pump has a way of bringing me back to where I want to be. Or more simply put it slowly takes the edge off.

My daughter is heading towards 2.5. She is smart, beautiful and all attitude. Right now she is a little queen, a mistress of the household. It is one of the very few times in life that most of us get to act like that and get away with it. The sad thing is that we don’t appreciate it.

Today she demanded cookies for breakfast. When I refused to submit to her will she screamed at me and then told her mother that “daddy is a very bad boy.”

I had to laugh. I told her that if it made her feel better she could be angry with me. Here is my late night confession. That is standard fare from Jack. There are millions of people who have heard that line and the one that follows, “I won’t lose any sleep over it.”

Men, you are welcome to use it but be prepared for the response. I have yet to meet a woman who wasn’t incensed by it. Maybe that is why I use it. 😉 Or not. I’ll leave the self-analysis for a different night.

My son told me that he is the smartest person in the house because he is the only one who goes to school. I reminded him that his sister goes to school as well and then he said that her brain doesn’t work right. So I asked him how he knew this and he said that everyone knows that 1, 2, 3, and 4 year olds have brains that don’t work right. Funny how it stopped at his current age.

So then I told him that I never have stopped learning and he said that he was still smarter because everyone knows that adults have old brains. Maybe that is why I am not in bed sleeping, my old brain.

My niece suggested that if I bought her a gift for her birthday I would be her favorite uncle. So I asked if he she had made the same suggestion to her other uncles and she said yes. Ah, the beauty of a four year old, the lack of duplicity is refreshing.

My eldest nephew told me that he wishes his mother would stop kissing him goodbye. He is a big boy now and she needs to leave the baby stuff to his brother. Can’t wait to tell my sister. She is not going to like it at all. Of course I could leave it to my self, but what fun would that be. More than 30 years ago I told her that as her big brother I was legally entitled to tease her forever. I don’t want to look like a liar.

Ok, I am going to try and catch some sleep now.

Walking With The Dead

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English:
English: (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The beauty of a child’s desire to ask “why” is that it forces you to take a hard look at your own beliefs. Do you tell your daughter that she was carved from Adam’s rib or do you explain that she evolved from monkeys.

When my grandfather died this past June I knew that it would be a source of many questions for my son. So when I told him that grandpa had died I tried to do the best that I could to make it easy. At 5.5 there is no reason to overly complicate things, but at the same time I do my best to be quite honest with him. I don’t want him to be afraid to live his life. I want him to savor and enjoy it and part of that comes from removing the mystery of the things that scare us.

But that is easier said than done and not something that you can accomplish with the snap of a finger or the roll of the dice.

One of the things that my son has been mulling over is the cemetery. It is a place that he was intrigued by. In his mind it was frightening, but at the same time his curiosity made him want to go visit.

As I mentioned above I think that part of the way that we overcome fear is to try and understand whatever it is that frightens us. So with this in mind I thought that it made sense to take him to the cemetery. At the same time I wanted to be certain that he was truly comfortable with it.

During a conversation a couple of weeks ago he asked me again if I would take him on a special trip to see grandpa and I agreed to do so. I then intentionally waited a while to try and gauge where he was at, not to mention that my work schedule conflicted with the hours that the cemetery was open.

We finally got a chance to go and I have to admit that it was with some trepidation that I set out with him. My concern wasn’t because of my son. I was confident that he would be alright and we both agreed that if he changed his mind I would turn the car around.

No, it was because of me.

I hadn’t been back to the grave since the day of the funeral. And in some respects I wasn’t ready to go and see the place where grandpa was buried. As I drove along the 405 I felt myself get a little choked up and I found myself lost in memory.

I turned on the radio and Vin Scully’s voice helped bring me some peace. My first Dodger game was with grandpa and my dad. The Dodgers beat the Padres. There were fireworks, Farmer John Hot dogs (if you are a Dodger fan how can you not associate Scully and Farmer John) and peanuts and so much fun.

By the time I entered the cemetery and was headed up the hillside I was ready to handle any question that the little boy threw at me. So I parked the car and walked over to the grass.

We held hands and walked towards the grave. I looked down and saw a somber face taking it all in.

“It is really green here dad.”

“Aye, it is.”

Don’t ask me when I became Scottish or began saying “aye.” I just know that for a moment or two it was what came out of my throat.

We reached the grave and I sat down. He came around and sat on my lap and together we read the name on the marker and then the name on the tombstone of the grave next to it.

“Hey, that is grandma.”

“You are right, it is.”

“I wish that I could see grandma now”

“Do you still remember her?”

“No.”

“Well, you were only 2.5 when she died. She really loved you and so did grandpa. As I said that there was a big sigh from both of us and he buried his little head against my chest. We hugged each other tight and sat quietly for a moment.

And then suddenly he stood up and asked if we could go on an adventure. I said yes and together we walked down the hillside looking for bad guys. In no time at all I had to explain to him that it wasn’t ok to hop from tombstone to tombstone.

He smiled and said “ok, we can just walk with the dead.”

It was an interesting response, but I knew that what it really meant was that he felt comfortable. The cemetery was no longer such a scary place to him.

As we walked back to the car I turned back and looked graveside. I was hoping to see grandpa standing there waving goodbye, if only in my mind. But all I saw were the leaves blowing in the wind and the long branches of a tree swaying.

It may not have been what I wanted but my son felt better and that was enough.

Grandpa, Dad and I

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In the prior post The Pain In My Grandfather’s Eyes I spent a few minutes reminiscing about my grandfather and an experience that I shared with him. This post should in theory be a little bit different, hopefully I won’t muck it up too badly.

Growing up I didn’t know anyone with the same last name. It wasn’t until I got to be teenager that I even came across someone with the same name and we couldn’t figure out any sort of relationship.

My grandfather was one of five but his only brother never married and never had any kids. My father’s younger brother died twelve years ago. He didn’t have any children either. So for those of you keeping score that made me the keeper of the line, a responsibility that is now being passed on down to my son.

While I consider myself to have been very close with all of my grandparents, it was a little different with my grandfather. In part it is the shared name. In part it was because I remember the time after my grandmother died and before he got remarried. In part it is just because of the nature of how things work.

My father and his father were very close and I was very close with both of them. It is easy for me to see how they both impacted me. I have habits that I can attribute to both of them. Physically I am much bigger than my grandfather was, in that I more closely take after my father. But aspects of my temperment are far closer to my grandfather than my father.

I am a blend, a mutt. And should my other grandfather read this he should know that I definitely have my share of his traits as well. And you know grandpa that I don’t say things like that just to say them.

Anyway…With the new year approaching I naturally have been thinking about what has happened and where I have been. And I find that I miss my grandfather more than ever. I miss the friendship that we had developed.

We were always close, but after I became a father our relationship changed. As I came to understand what it meant to be the sole source of income and to understand the awesome challenge of raising children it grew deeper.

I miss having him around to bullshit with. I miss just sitting in the living room with him and my father. Sometimes the three of us would say nothing, just stare off into space or drift off into sleep in our recliners. The silence was never awkward. It was natural.

I miss the road trips that the three of us would take, the trips to Dodger games, movies and more. I miss the secure feeling that I got just knowing that if I had a problem I could call either one of them.

Back in that crazy summer of ’04 I spoke with him about what it would be like after he was gone. He smiled and told me that I shouldn’t worry about it. I told him that I didn’t, but that I would miss having him around.

He smiled again and told me that even though his own father had died close to thirty years earlier he still missed being able to speak with him. And then he said that I would just figure it out.

And that my friends is in some respects the quintessential summation of our philosophy for living. Life isn’t fair and it isn’t always easy. Get over it and figure it out.

I have to print that out and give it to my kids. In another 20 years or so they’ll really appreciate it.

The new year is coming and I can feel the chill of his absence but the memories warm my soul. Time for this old man to run.

Lailah tov from LA.