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thorntonkrell-blog-blog · 5 years ago

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EARLY BOOMER, LATE BLOOMER

I chose my Christmas gift 25 years before I was born. I chose wisely. On that day, Mary Keenan, who had just arrived bag and baggage in Rochester, New York from County Cork Ireland, gave birth to her first child…and named her Mary.

I sent that child the twinkle in her Irish eyes. Young Mary went on to celebrate another 91 Christmas birthdays. I was around for 67 of them as she was glad to see my father and her husband who saw my twinkle when he returned from the Philipines at the end of WW2 which made me part of a significant demographic excess known as the Baby Boom. When my father was in the Phillipines and during his entire time in the service, my mother wrote him a letter every day.

 I am an early Boomer and a late bloomer. When she was child, she raised her brother and two sisters as her father died suddenly when she was in high school. She lived to be near the bedside of all of ‘em when they passed. Same with my father, she comforted him till he died in her arms.  I was the oldest of her three children. She loved me and supported us, every day of our lives.

 I never bothered to ask her to thank me for choosing her above millions of candidates to be my mother while I was in my first infinity before my vacation before my next and final infinity. And I know I’ll see her again. 

The stars twinkle.

 Mary’s granddaughter is our youngest child. Of course we named her Mary. Yes, Mary Dear. Your twinkle brought your Mom and I together thirty years ago. Thank you for that. 

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. 

Yes, there’s ANOTHER theory that this has already happened. I have a theory that it happens over 300 millions times every day in the United States alone.  The initial discovery is called death and the something even more bizarre and wonderful is called birth. The vacation in between is called life or some say “lipstick land.” All of us on earth at this moment share a common state of inexplicability which we project as the “universe” or “reality”. We create this reality as we go along living our lives in a state of mass hypnosis, love and wonder. Eventually we straighten things out, kick the bucket and re-awaken with only a vague memory of what we knew before. This vague memory is called our subconscious. With each awakening we discover a brand new universal puzzle to contemplate along with a brand new set of people also contemplating the same puzzle with slightly different kaleidoscopes. The most immediate, influential people we call our parents. 

And you, dear Mary, call me Dad. The tools that worked best the last time, even though we don’t remember them, are called aptitudes. When we discover them, we use them to explain the universe to ourselves and others particularly our children. I get the feeling I’ve written this before. I get the feeling this is what all writers are writing about all the time. All singers singing about all the time etc. I get the feeling you’ve read this before, Mary. Of course it’s all just a theory. I am still alive, honey.  Aren’t I ? 

MIDNIGHT MARY

Today is the first day in Rochester that we can all wear shorts. Thank God.

Today is also the 25th birthday of my youngest daughter Mary.

Mary was born at midnight so it's always hard for me to figure out which day that was as midnight I can go either way so I celebrate for two days and even that is nowhere near enough. The celebration should be continuous.

The hospital listed her birth at 11:58 but I noticed that the clock in the delivery room was a few seconds past midnight when the antenna emerged. I joked to the delivery doctor that we just made it for the extra day in the hospital. About an hour later, I discovered that they had declared her birth at 11:58. Around here, you get two days in the hospital for a birth. Because they listed the birth at 11:58, they counted that whole day as a birth day which meant in reality we got one day and two minutes of hospital service.

Bastards

Health Care

Two minutes which weren't legitimate in the first place.

I know she was born at midnight. I have video to prove it but didn't bother to fight the bureuacracy in the midst of such joy.

So Midnight Mary came into being wearing an antenna on her head. The doctors were monitoring her heartbeat in the womb and had attached a heart beat monitor to her head which looked like an antenna when she emerged at Midnight.

Yeah

25 years ago.

Now flash back four months ago right after the biopsy. I learned I had cancer and bone scans would determine how far it had spread. The interim of waiting for the bone scan results was the most "spirtitual" time of my life.

I was ready to go if go I must but I prayed to be around to celebrate the birthday of Midnight Mary and to be wearing shorts while celebrating.

I prayed for this day right here

My prayers were sincere

So pardon me while I celebrate

And forget all sorrow

Today is worth the wait

And so is tomorrow.

AVA”S SHOWER

When we moved to Tumbleweed, we had to enroll Mary in a brand new school. She was in third grade and had a broken leg. She arrived in time for school pictures. When the class pictures came out, I noticed this little girl with big glasses. Her name was Ava. I pointed her out to Mary and said “She looks like she’d be a good friend.” Sure enough, they became besties and remain so to this day almost 30 years later.

 This is the story of Ava’s shower.  I know this wasn’t a dream because when I dream I always try to snap in the dream the picture but the camera never works. It was my first bridal shower. My gender had always rendered me ineligible for such celebrations but this shower was co-ed. We were enjoying our drinks and conversation downstairs when I noticed that the main female stars were missing.  Ava was trying on her wedding gown upstairs.

I’m not sure who invited me but somehow through the grapevine I came too know that I would be welcome in this room and so would my camera. This happens often in my dreams but in my dreams, the camera she don’t work. I walked up the stairs and entered the room. I was the only male but everyone seemed to welcome me.  Everyone was admiring Ava in her dress. Ava was radiating joy and reflecting the admiring glances that were coming her way. The dress was perfect. Everybody knew it.

 I’ve been taking Ava’s picture ever since she was a little girl. I wanted to get a great picture of Ava at this moment. All of my years of photography had led to this moment. It wasn’t gonna come again. Ava noticed me. She looked into the camera. I snapped. The camera worked. This was no dream.  Mine wasn’t the only camera in the room. Ava seemingly picked up on all of the lenses by not concentrating on any of them but rather enjoying her moment of celebration. A model of decorum. I got my pictures. Everybody got their pictures. The cameras disappeared. I lingered with my lens. 

At that moment, at that second, in about the time it takes a car to swerve a deadly swerve, Ava’s expression changed. For an instant.. memory, vulnerability and sorrow flashed through her entire being in a collision of joy and pain. I imagine she was thinking of her older sister who was not in the room.

The older sister Abby who ended up on the deadly end of an unsignalled swerve on a dark Halloween night almost 10 years ago. A tragedy that changed everyone. Suddenly Abby was in the room.  I didn’t see Abby but I did see Ava seeing Abby as did my camera. For one split second grief and recognition flashed across Ava’s glowing face. In that split second I had to make the decision whether or not to snap the picture and “capture” this exceedingly private, candid, personal and vulnerable moment. I was almost certain that the camera was going to malfunction revealing the entire scene as one more dream forever undocumented. I snapped. 

The camera worked. Ava’s expression returned to joy. A few weeks later, I told Ava about the picture. I told her this story. I told her I wanted to write about it but couldn’t do that unless she approved. She said it would be an honor. The wedding is this weekend. This writing is in honor of Ava and of Abby.

   HEADING FOR FRONTIER AT LAST

  Today’s the day. Last night was the night. I only had to steal one mirror last night so I got my first half way decent shuteye in months. At this moment I am resisting the urge to hit the sack and indulge in fatigue.

 I’m thinking about the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Nightmare on Elm Street. In both of those flicks, sleep was to be avoided unless you wanted Freddy to slash through your walls or wake up as a pod, a poisoned pod. 

Those movies always bothered me.  I hate the feeling of falling asleep when I don’t want to fall asleep. This used to happen to me all the time, particularly on Wednesday nights when I was young.  Because I was big fan of horror films, my parents used to let me stay up “late” to watch Shock Theater which played all of the Lugosi, Karloff and Chaney films. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Raven, the Mummy, the Black Cat, The Invisible Ray,The Ghoul,The Werewolf of London etc. The show came on came on past my bedtime so it was quite a privilege and quite a challenge.  Plus, I was actually scared by the movies or at least I expected to be. 

I would take my position on the carpet in front of our timy teevee set. The movie would start and before too long, I would realize that I was falling asleep. I learned to recognize the feeling and the “oh no” that accompanied it. I would invariably choose to “rest my eyes” for just a minute during a commercial. I learned after awhile that once I started to rest my eyes, the rest periods would increase in frequency and duration until at last I was asleep on the floor and had to be carted of to bed all the time insisting “I’m awake, I’m awake”

 The morning came and I awoke with a sense of failure and a determination to make it all the way through the next week. I realized that once I started to “rest my eyes”, it was all over. I would make a conscious effort to “resist the rest” but week after week I failed. I wasn’t used to failure back in those days and it frightened me more than the movies did.

I was learning about temptation and my inability to resist it. This was my first previews of fatigue but I really didn’t know what fatigue was until a few months ago. There’s a difference between fatigue and being tired, passing out, blacking out, dozing off or being exhausted. For the past few months, I’ve suffered fatigue and it’s a lot different from “resting my eyes” because in fatigue I’m not even interested in the “movie” that is my life. All I want to do is sleep, well not exactly sleep but more like escape but even in the escaping there is the over-riding sense of failure and guilt as days melt away and merge with nights. Fatigue sucks. 

So as I write these words, I am resisting the urge to “rest my eyes” and to go downstairs to my cave/pit. The urge is strong but not as strong as yesterday and yesterday wasn’t as strong as the day before. They told me after my last blast of radiation that sometimes the fatigue starts to go away after a week and a half but sometimes it can continue for three or four months or in some cases forever. 

Today is exactly a week and a half since my last blast. I’m gonna go the distance. I’m not goin’ downstairs. I’m not gonna turn into a pod person again today. No way. I’ve charged up my camera. I’m snapping flowers. I’ll be leaving for the ballpark in three hours. I’m gonna look good. This is the day I marked down on my calendar for the beginning of my comeback and I’m not gonna rest my eyes until I get back from Frontier Field. My brother is my best friend and I haven’t seen him during this whole situation. I want to see him now. I want him to see me snapping pictures, keeping score, drinking a beer and rooting for the old home team. Freddy Fatigue can’t get me at Frontier Field if I keep my eyes on the ball. 

THE OLD BALLGAME 

One of my colleagues, a guy named Fred, got into as much trouble as I did for having classrooms that were not quiet. Neither Fred nor I thought the criticism and penalization were justified but we did have “long hair” at the time and we were considered “popular” by the students. 

 Eventually, thank God, the concept of beautiful noise in the classroom began to take hold. Beautiful noise means the kids were buzzing and working with each other and with the teacher. Nothing on earth sounds like productive buzzing.  It was a far cry from the spray and pray method formerly preferred by the fearful badgers of the ruling realm and their supportive administrators. Quiet in the classroom was no longer a guaranteed good thing. 

Suddenly, Fred and I were seen as “innovators”. People started imitating us and when they got good at it, they began to instruct us on how to do what we had been doing all along, since we had already moved on to the next thing which they were currently against but soon would be imitating and then instructing. On and on and on and on etc.

 Meanwhile, my classes were getting busier and buzzier so I was headed for trouble. Quiet is so much quieter when it’s surrounded by buzz.  One day Fred and I and about fifty teachers were at a workshop run by a consultant who hadn’t taught a public school class in years but who was paid more than we were to look at our watches and tell us what time it was. The consultant was also on the lookout for new ideas which he could steal and profit from when he took his carnival on the road., always searching for a new parade to jump in front of and declare himself the leader etc.

 So the consultant called on teachers to “share” new ideas that they had. Most of the “sharing” consisted of ideas that people like Fred and I had been criticized for by the same people who were now “experts” at whatever “technique” they were sharing. The consultant gushed over every “insight” no matter how unremarkable.

 Meanwhile, Fred was in the back of the room trying to stay serious. Fred was a big, dark haired dark eyed handsome guy who wasn’t lacking in self confidence and didn’t need or want to be drawn into this festival of self congratulation. Even though Fred hadn’t raised his hand to volunteer a response, the consultant decided to call on him. “Do you have a technique, Fred, that you’d like to share?”, the consultant asked in an overly friendly way. 

Fred said “Well, I guess I could share what I call 'the old ball game’.

  The consultant perked up. "I’ve never heard of that technique, Fred. It sounds very interesting. How does it work?”

  Possibly a new parade was forming. 

“Well” said Fred, “if I see a kid’s not paying attention, I throw a tennis ball at him/her. That usually gets their attention.” 

Fred was serious. I looked at Fred’s face. Fred was looking at the consultant’s face. The consultant had no idea what to say. Nobody ooohed or aaahed. I burst out laughing which broke the silence.(I had used the same “technique” myself" on quite a few occasions except I didn’t use a tennis ball. I used a bunch of tinfoil that I had rolled up in a ball for my version of “the old ball game”. I called my tin foil ball “the egg of unexpected courage”. The kids called it THE EGG.) 

Back to the seminar…… Fred started laughing. The consultant sorta smiled Once again, Fred and I were operating on the same page even though we weren’t aware that we were until Fred answered the consultant. I had no idea that Fred also used “the old ball game”. This is one of my fondest moments because “the old ball game be it tennis or tinfoil” actually worked and probably still does today. I am afraid, however, that a few months after this moment…..some consultant somewhere was instructing teachers on the effective use of what has become known as “the old ball game”. 

Beautiful.

   ADVERB ANGST 

Call me Very.  I’m an adverb. I’m angry about that. I’m common. I’m used and abused all the time. I don’t even get the complimentary “ly” that some of my mates get. My ancestors had it for awhile when people knew how to talk. Remember “verily” or “yea verily”.  Those days are gone.

 Now, I have to submit to those fancy pants “ly” adverbs e.g. “very quickly”. “Quickly” at least gets to modify a verb, an action word of some kind, maybe even a passionate action like “kissed”.

Then I arrive. I diminish the kiss by making it even less soul driven, less selfless, less sensual, more furtive, dismissive and distracted.  See, I hate situations like that. I’m jealous of “quickly” who’s nothing but a verblicking sycophant passing himself off as an expression of time.

 It’s a bit more tolerable when I submit to an adjective. At least an adjective bows to a person, place, idea or thing; tangible, usually visible, often alive, occasionally intelligent almost always miraculous.

 Action verbs are my cup of tea but let’s face it action verbs ain’t exactly nouns. Action verbs need nouns to give them meaning. Nouns don’t need action verbs they can exist quite well l thank you on verbs of being. After all, what is a human but “being”.  Even when modifying an action verb I usually need an “ly” to make any sense  I am uncomfortable modifying verbs of being. “very are” won’t cut it. Neither will “very is”, “very was” nor wishes neither not "very could" or “very would”. Speaking of the subjunctive, I wish i was more existential. Hell I’m barely essential. I’m actually an add on although ever since teevee came along and people forgot how to talk, a lot more “very” are in use today.  I’m designated Very Mask Neg Neutral which means I am the very that can be only used to describe Masculine Negative to Neutral Adjectives, verbs or other adverbs such as  cumbersome,lethargic, immature and

uncommunicative incompetent self-absorbed smarmy frantically and sloppy Making them each a little worse. My girlfriend is also an add on. She’s a Very designated Fem Neg Neutral. She gets to work with feminine negative to neutral adjectives, verbs such as  bitchy bloated perfunctory over-sensitive Superficial Moody Slutty Vengeful and air headed. The classes above us are Very Mask Positive And Fem Positive. They work with courageous dedicated authentic Athletic Intelligent Capable gorgeous resplendent intuitive sensual supportive nurturing and erotic 

Do you see why I’m upset?

Very upset. They’ll terminate us low class adverbs when and if we stop being over used. When and if people stop watching teevee and texting. When and if people start articulating and valuing vocabulary rather than gloss. In other words, we’ll be around a long time.  A very long time. Some of the higher class verbs were even used as adjectives for a bright, shining, glossy time as in “She is soooo very”

 I once had to modify a very Pompous adjective, negative implication of course as in “He’s very, VERY”  Thank God that particular trend, that monstrosity has retreated for awhile. My woman, Very Fem Neg Neutral has a real bad attitude. She gets it from her job. Look what she works with bitchy, bloated, hyper-critical etc. Still between my anger and her attitude we still managed to get busy and have babies. Our babies are the “kindas”. They’re even more inarticulate than my woman and me. I’m kinda afraid. Kindas are the adverbs of the future. I am very kinda afraid. 

CROSSWORDS

  Way back in another lifetime, when I was teaching kids how to write, my class used to do the New York Times crossword puzzle together every other Monday. The puzzle gets more cryptic, arcane and oblique as the week continues. Monday is fair game for high schoolers working in tandem. Tuesday’s puzzle maybe. Saturday’s forget about it. Maybe that’s why we don’t have school on Saturdays except for Breakfast Clubbers who are puzzled and puzzling enough with or without crosswords.

Crossword puzzles serve as an exercise not only in vocabulary and exactitude but also in breadth of knowledge. Crossword puzzles are to writers what shadow boxing is to boxers or what ping pong is to tennis players or driving ranges to golfers, a truncated version of a more pervasive obsession.

Aside from their value as literary barbells, crosswords teach one of life’s most valuable lessons. If you have one wrong word or a right word in the wrong place, it screws up the rest of the puzzle. We can’t insist that a word is right if it is wrong. Will power only extends so far. It can’t be right simply because we want it to be right and we’re good people. That’s called willfullness. In the words of Johnny C, “if it don’t fit, you must acquit”.

Somewhere in all puzzles, before we abandon original thinking or stick with our misconceptions, we confront wavering allegiance to a shady word choice. Since most of our lives are spent re-inforcing our own biases, wavering allegiance is a frightening flourish of vulnerability. In America, especially in politics, it’s all about being “right” first and then sticking with that righteousness in the face of hell or high water, fire and fury. Wavering allegiance is a forerunner to change. All change includes loss and all loss requires mourning. Who wants to mourn? Who wants to admit a mistake?

In politics, to flip is to flop. So when we stick with wrong words in Crosswords, we never solve the puzzle or the problem contained within the puzzle, a problem that grows more pressing with every passing day. Usually national problems come in the form of dollars and cents, bread and butter, black and white , war and peace, red and blue. Hey if we come to a cross roads where we should turn right and instead turn left, don’t worry if we drive completely around the world we’ll end up going the right, right way. Once upon a time on my way to Iowa from South Dakota, I made a wrong turn and drove halfway through Minnesota. With a crossword puzzle, we can just take out an eraser. With a war, with poverty, with racism, with recession, with division we need something more than rubber at the forgiveness end of a pointed stick of lead. Every day seems like a Saturday crossword.   

ALI, FRAZIER, CHUVALO AND EVELYN 

Slides. Remember slides? You’d throw your slides into a Kodak Carousel and voila…a light show up against the wall. Needless to say I threw quite a few slides against quite a few walls over the years as I told my Ali stories. I liked one of the slides in particular.

 I made a nice 11 by 14 print from that slide . Ali and Joe exchanging punches during their second fight at Madison Square Garden. 

We all got older as the years passed. It seemed like Ali and Joe got older faster than everybody else. What else could we have expected?

 During this time of great decline, George Chuvalo added to the pugilistic tragedy.  George Chuvalo The Croatian Crusader. The Heavyweight Champion of Canada. The human punching bag and common opponent for the vastly more talented Ali and Frazier. The man who could not be knocked down. The man whose face had launched a thousand fists. George Chuvalo had a face that had been sculpted by other fists into the face of a fist

. And then after George retired, life stepped in and continued the battering. He lost his wife and sons to suicide. Heroin was very involved. Still George refused to hit the canvas. Word got through to his old opponents, Ali and Joe, that George was hurt and staggering but that he refused to go down. A boxing organization in Rochester decided to throw a benefit dinner for George. Yeah it was a band aid on a shotgun wound but every little bit helps. 

Joe Frazier decided to attend and waive any fee. So did another wounded warrior name of Muhammad Ali. Ali was shaking from Parkinsons and Joe could barely see. Joe and Ali didn’t usually appear together. Bad blood existed. People wondered why after all these years bad blood still existed between Ali and Frazier. The answer is simple. These guys tried to kill each other three times in front of the whole world and they damned near succeeded. He jest at scars who’s never felt a wound.

 There was a lot of laughter that night but nobody was laughing at the scars. I was there too. The Chuvalo benefit cost a hundred bucks to attend. My ringside seat at Ali-Frazier fight also cost $100. So much had changed. One thing hadn’t changed. The 11 by 14 photograph that I took at Ali Frazier 2 looked exactly the same. The two of them stalking each other in the middle of the ring, young and heallthy and with all the lights shining on them. I brought the picture to the benefit.

 I had met Muhammad, Joe and George individually but I never thought that I’d see all three of them in the same room at the same time. Yet, here we were for the common good of Chuvalo In the lobby, I got a chance to visit with boxing expert Burt Sugar and HBO analyst Larry Merchant. They both reacted to me as if I had pissed myself while wearing a white suit.. Arrogant and a million miles away from Ali in terms of engagement and humility, these two celebrities brushed off my questions about the sweet science with an insolence worth mentioning here. Vampires I left those “famous guys”. I was relieved to leave. I entered the main room.

I found my table. My name was still not Sinatra nor for that matter Sugar or Merchant so my $100 dollar table resembled my “ringside” seat in terms of physical distance from the action. And I wasn’t even at the same table as the Son of Sanford.  I shared a “way in the back” table with another human who also had connection/complexion problems; a stunning middle aged African American woman named Evelyn. We had the only two seat table in the place.

Evelyn and I chatted for awhile about the value of our $100 as compared to the $100 spent by the more connected, very Caucasian, very male attendees flaunting upfront and uptight. We figured we were outsiders. We bonded. I showed her my 11 by 14 photo. She liked it and said “be careful with that. It’s valuable”.

 Evelyn had a mission of her own. Evelyn told me that she knew Joe Frazier and the last time Joe was in town, she really got to know him and he got to know her. She planned on having a little chat with Joe later in the evening about his previous method of leaving town. She assured me that Joe would be paying attention.

 All the stars were already seated miles away at the main table. All the stars that is except for Ali.  It’s only fitting that the champ enters last. All of the other guys had entered from the front of the venue. When Ali and his entourage entered the room, they came in from the back. As soon as he entered the room, the whole environment changed for the better. He walked very, very slowly. Since he came in from the back, the first table he passed was the distant table for two.

He stopped at our table. He looked right at me and although it seemed impossible, I got the distinct feeling that he remembered me from our morning at Deer Lake decades before.  Evelyn noticed the look and asked me after Ali had passed us, “does he know you”.  I told Evelyn that I had spent some time with him a long time ago. Whether he recognized me or not, he once again gave me that wonderful feeling that I was cool with him and that our table was the best table in the house. and that, once again, made me feel cool with myself  although he couldn’t possibly have remembered. I guess that’s what charisma is all about.

 Like I said, I had met Sugar and Merchant, ten minutes before they took their upfront seats. I’m sure they had already forgotten about me and their vibe would have amplified that disregard. Not with Ali. I started feeling great.  Important The whole room turned back to see the old champ. I got the feeling that everybody in the room started feeling great for different reasons. Uplifiting Transcendent . Eliciting smiles and cheers with every step, the Champ caned his way to the front. Everybody in the place was experiencing rampant, contact joy. I don’t think that Frazier was feeling that joy although he probably remembered feeling a lot of contact. It was obvious that Joe was feeling pretty dang great before he even entered the place, if ya know what I mean.

 Obviously, a lot of feelings fly around a room when Ali enters that room and walks toward a partying Joe Frazier.  The dinner began. Neither Ali nor Frazier addressed the audience; for different reasons. Chuvalo expressed his gratitude towards both men for showing up and making his benefit such a success. Weirdly enough if a three man boxing match broke out, Chuvalo would probaly win even though both Joe and Ali had batterred him in the past. 

Merchant and Sugar blabbed some and sucked a bit of energy from the room although their wisdom has slipped beneath the radar screen of both my memory and contempt. When the program concluded, the master of ceremonies, a born bullshitter named Jerry Flynn announced that for a half an hour the head table participants would be willing to sign autographs. 

Immediately the rush to the front began led by the people sitting in the front. 

From the way back table, we watched the crowd in front gain full advantage. We only had a half hour and it looked as if there were two hours of people in front of us. We did a little spontaneous human calculus. Evelyn headed towards Joe. She had more than an autograph in mind. She had a piece of her mind in mind and she was about to give that to Joe.

 I headed for Ali, by far the longer of the two lines. Somehow, my 11 by 14 print caught the eye of somone in Ali’s entourage. He asked me to identify the picture. “Ringside, Madison Square Garden, Ali-Frazier II” “Diju take dat picture?” “Yes I did” “Champ prolly like to see it. C'mon” 

He escorted me towards the front of the line, not the very front but a definite improvement on my table rank. Ali and I were in the same force field. I knew he’d have time for me even as the minutes ticked away. With about 10 minutes left in the opportunity, our chance came. I put my picture in front of the Champ. He considered it carefully. He was in no rush whatsoever. Then the familiar whisper that he either said or sent. I’ll never know which but the message was clear…“choo take this?” “Yeah Champ I did’ Another whisper/send "it’s good” Then the eye contact. Ali and me eyeball to eyeball again. Same eyeballs that had been eyeball to eyeball with Martin King, John Lennon, Sonny Liston, Elvis Presley, Nelson Mandella, Joe Louis, James Brown, Stallone, Duvall, Carson, Borgnine, Malcolm X, Ross, Chamberlain and infinite others were inviting me to come on in and stay a minute. Make yourself comfortable Join the crowd. Maybe u been here before He gave me his beautiful Parkinson’s signature. Very slow, very painful, looking up every few seconds directly in my eyes as if this were the first signature of his career given to his best friend. Ali had signed another piece for me at Deer Lake decades before. Like the man himself, Ali’s signature had changed dramatically over the years. His Parkinson’s signature took a good twenty seconds to make with five separate lookups and included only the fragments of four letters….. M…a…l….i. Ironically he made his mark over Joe Frazier’s image in the ring in my picture. He hit me with the feint again although this feint was very faint yet still overwhelming. I thanked the champ. Again the eyes. Again the illusion of recognition. Again the electricity. So long champ. 

Still five minutes of the half hour remained. Wow Pause Shift Recalculate I got a shot at Joe. Where’s Evelyn. There she be. Evelyn chillin’ with Joe “Hey Evelyn” from fity feet away with four minutes left. “Hey Ice, c'mon up here and meet Joe.” Once again the Red Sea miraculoulsy parted. The Red Sea thought Evelyn was Joe’s wife and I was a friend of Joe’s family. I got to the table with time to spare. Evelyn said “Joe, this is my friend. Sign his picture” I put my picture in front of Joe. Joe looked at my picture. “dijoo take this picture”

“Yeah I did, Champ” “good picture” Ironically, Joe signed over the image of Ali in the ring in the light at Madison Square Garden, young and beautiful. Floating Getting ready to sting forever. Evelyn gave Joe a peck on the cheek. Joe took a sip from his beer. I gave Evelyn a peck on her cheek. It was the last time that I ever saw any of them. Time was up. Ring the bell. 

   FAMOUS MIKE CAN DRAW

 Some stories are so lovely that I hesitate to write them. Some legends are so fragile and delicate that I’m reluctant to reveal them. Here’s a lovely story and a delicate legend all in one.

 I’ll try to do them justice before the memories fade completely as the blur increases every day. I remember his first day in class. He was fresh off the boat. I mean that literally. He was a boat person from Viet Nam. He was in my English class. He didn’t speak a word of English. I didn’t know what to do with him that first day so I somehow signalled/sent him to the main office to pick up an attendance sheet. 

The secretary at the main office was expecting a student from another class named Mike. When my student arrived, whatever his name was, it wasn’t Mike. Helen asked my new student if his name was Mike. He didn’t know what Helen was saying but he knew a question when he heard one. He nodded his head up and down. Helen said “Here, Mike”, and gave him the papers. He returned to my classroom a few minutes later without the attendance sheet but with whatever administrivia Helen was supposed to give to “Mike”.

I took the paper from him. I said thanks and asked him what his name was.

He said “Mike”

 I said “Hi, Mike”

 That’s how Mike got his name. Aside from the single word “Mike”, Mike spoke no English. We were a pair, Mike and I.  Mike would come into class, take his seat and listen with great patience and attention to the academic tumult engulfing him. I knew something of the concept of linguistic immersion wherein a person learns a foreign language more quickly by surrounding himself with it. I believed this was happening with Mike although I didn’t know for certain. I did know that in this case English was the “foreign” language to Mike and he was surrounded. 

One day after a couple of weeks, I noticed that Mike was taking “notes” of what I was saying. I couldn’t imagine what Mike’s notes looked like so I casually made my way to his desk to sneak a peek. Mike’s “note” was a surreal and photographic drawing of a rose. As I looked at the rose, I was amazed as much by its sensitivity of rendering as I was by its virtousity. Near the drawing, I wrote the word “rose.” Then I said the word “rose” I spelled the word “R..O..S..E”

 Mike smiled and said “rose”

 I took a risk. I had a feeling the risk would be approved by Mike. I announced to the class. “Check this out, everybody. Mike can draw.” Everybody crowded around Mike’s desk. Everybody look at the rose. Everybody flipped out. 

Everybody started saying “Mike can draw” Eventually Mike got the message. He spoke his first English sentence in English class. This is what he said. “Mike can draw” He smiled. Time stood still. I’m here to tell you, Mike could draw. Many scholars praise the efficient linguistic style of Julius Caesar, how much he could say with how few words. All of France is divided into three parts. Has anyone ever said more with fewer words at the beginning of his story. This is the beginning of Mike’s story.

 Mike not only continued to draw but he also continued to listen with purpose and intention. Mike observed not only with his eyes but also with his heart and mind. Mike’s vocabulary began to grow as he listened and observed. Nouns first then verbs then adjectives. Here’s the story of the first adjective I can remember. One day, I walked over to Mike’s desk and noticed that he had been sketching a portrait of himself. On his portrait, I wrote a bunch of nouns with arrows like “mike” and "nose" and “eyes” and “ears"and "head” and “neck” and “body”. I pointed to each word and said it. Mike repeated the word with me. Then I added the adjective. I wrote “famous”; drew an arrow to the picture of Mike and said the word. 

Mike hesitated a second and then asked “Mike famous?”

 I said “Yes, Mike is famous” Mike startled me with his reply.

 “No, Mike not famous. You, Mr. Rivers…you famous.”

  I realized that Mike’s language skills were blossoming with as much beauty as his drawing skills. From that day on, every time I saw Mike I would always say. “Here’s the famous Mike.” And Mike would always say, “Mike not famous. Mr. Rivers famous.” We would laugh. We were connected. Sure enough, Mike WAS becoming famous, at least in my class.

I was running the school newspaper at the time. I asked Mike, still using arrows, objects and printed words if he would draw a comic strip for the paper. He drew the strip. The school read Mike’s comic. His character was a lion, The school loved it. Mike’s fame grew. His audience expanded. By this time, everybody in my class knew something rare was happening with Mike and his art, kids were always crowding around his desk to see what new drawings were coming alive

. About this time, I suspected that had Mike developed a crush on Kathy.  I discovered this when Mike showed me a picture of Kathy that he had been drawing. Mike was stylizing Kathy rather than photographing her with his rendering. I immediately recognized Kathy even with her stylized, over sized Disney girl eyes. I wrote “Kathy” on Mike’s paper and drew an arrow. Mike blushed and smiled. I could tell Mike wanted another word from me, an adjective perhaps so under Kathy, I wrote “beautiful” and drew another arrow. Mike put the drawing away. His portrait of Kathy was not an image that he intended to show to the class. Not only were we connected; we had a secret.

 A couple of weeks passed and Mike’s language skills kept growing. One day, he took out the picture of Kathy and showed me something new that he had added. He showed me that he knew how to change and adjective into a noun. Under my printing of “beautiful”, Mike had printed a word of his own. This is the word that Mike had printed in painstaking calligraphy.

 Beauty 

Beauty is truth and truth is beautiful. I was facing a beautiful truth in my professional life as well as a crossroads. I was given the opportunity to write a grant under the auspices of the Federal Career Education Incentive Act Grant Program, the purpose of which, as the name suggests, was to help secondary education become a better link to careers.  I proposed my very first grant. The proposal was funded for $500,000. In my proposal I visualized the creation of an intern program. The idea was radical at the time. I was chosen to be the administrator for the project. I would have to leave the classroom. Leaving the classroom was the crossroads and a difficult factor in the decision. When the kids heard what I had done. They were proud of me.

Mike came to me and said “Mike not famous, Mr. Rivers famous.”

 I left the classroom.  I left Mike in the capable hands of the Art. Dept particularly Larry Pace. Larry had served his country as a Marine in Viet Nam.

The day that I left, Mike showed me his private sketchbook. In his sketchbook were dozens of drawing of Kathy.  Underneath each sketch; a single printed word: Beauty.  

By the time I got the Intern Program running smoothly, moving it from dream to imagination to realization, Mike was back in my life. Mike had made breathtaking progress in language and art and had begun to crystallize his dreams. Mike had grown to love classic Walt Disney cartoons and wanted to become an animator.  I had heard that fantasy from other students before and I would hear it again but with Mike…well he had a dream, spectacular discipline and dedication. I had an intern program. Uh, let’s put two and two together and see if it comes out four, twenty two or five.

 I contacted the only artist in town who specialized in 16 millimeter matte animation, a guy by the name of Brian. I told Brian about Mike. I told Mike about Brian. I brought the two of them together at Brian’s downtown studio. With Brian’s encouragement and equipment along with the ongoing help of the high school Art Dept, Mike created his first animated cartoon. He had even learned to play the guitar well enough to supply his own music to the animation. In Mike’s cartoon one of the characters was a lion. Mike asked me, because I was “famous” to provide the voice for the lion. Mike’s cartoon was eventually selected in an extremely competitive national cartoon contest to be shown on Nickelodeon. Mike’s cartoon was one of the best student cartoons in the country. Little ol’ famous lion voice me was roaring on television sets across America. 

Mike was only a sophomore in high school but he was already thinking about college and colleges were thinking about him.  Anything was possible including truth , beauty and fame. Mike was most interested in beauty. He had discovered that the Disney studios regularly hired interns from the California Institute of the Arts. Mike knew about internships. He had completed four of them in high school.  In the meantime Mike had taken all the art courses at the school plus four more at Rochester Institute of Technology and had aced them all. Mike spoke a lovely version of the English language, the direct, clear, soft and kind version rarely used by native speakers. Mike could draw.  Mike could talk. Mike could write, words and music. Mike could play the guitar. Mike had a resume full of A’s, internships, art work, awards and a cartoon that had played nationally on Nickelodeon. Mike applied to the California Institute of the Arts. We were all happy but not surprised when Mike was accepted and scholarshipped.

 Mike was ready for another journey. I was on a bit of a journey myself. My first marriage was breaking up although I didn’t realize it or perhaps was denying the realization. Mike had never been to a rock concert in his life so at the end of the school year, the night after his graduation I invited Mike as our family guest to see the Moody Blues at the Canandaigua Performing Arts Center. Mike accepted the invitation. You’ll hear more about THAT later. After the concert, Mike left for California.

I haven’t seen him since. Here’s the last few things I heard about Mike. In college, his skill and interest continued to blossom. As an undergraduate, he applied for and completed an internship at Disney Studios. Upon graduation from college, Mike was hired as an animator by Disney. His first screen credit appeared at the end of the Little Mermaid, listing Mike as an animator of Ariel.

Apparently Disney liked Mike because his next assignment was a substantial promotion. Mike would be one of the main designers for Beauty and the Beast Mike was helping to create Belle.  By now, everybody knows WHAT Belle looks like. Only a few of us know WHO Belle looks like.

Beauty, if you will, looks exactly like the sketches of Kathy that Mike labored over so mightily, so beautifully, so passionately, so innocently and so truthfully during his junior high days. Kathy is Belle. Kathy is  Beauty. 

Some stories are so lovely that I hesitate to write them. Some legends are so fragile and delicate that I am afraid to relate or reveal them.  Remember? Well, I tried. As I tried, I kept flashing back to the writers who brought us the legends of the Old west, those scribes who turned big nosed, shiftless, violent, alcoholic William Hickock into the great Wild Bill, the handsome hero who died, shot in the back while playing poker and holding the deadman’s hand…a pair of aces and a pair of eight . A cardinal rule for those writers was, according to John Ford in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “if you come to a crossroads between truth and legend, write the legend.”

 The legend of Mike and Kathy is the loveliest local legend, I’ve ever personally encountered. I’m part of it; a small part but yes I was there in the very beginning. I can vouch for everything until Mike left for California. I can vouch for the similarities between Mike’s sketches of Kathy and the rendering of Beauty.  Every once in awhile, when I reminisce about my teaching days, I like to think that I was the guy who had something to do with the inspiration for the creation of Beauty. And ya know what?  It’s a beautiful feeling.  Maybe even true. Next time somebody you know mentions truth, beauty or Beauty and the Beast tell 'em this story. That’s how legends grow. 

AFTERNOON ANGEL

I know for sure it was a Tuesday afternoon. I don’t know if it was the first time I smoked weed, such moments are hard to pinpoint.

Today is also a Tuesday afternoon. Today I found out that Ray Thomas, the flautist for the Moody Blues had passed away from prostate cancer. I know something about cancer. The beauty of metaphysiction is its ability to go flash forward and backward at the same time while flirting with the eternal and the imaginary. 

The Tuesday afternoon that begins this story happened fifty years ago. I was shooting footage for a film that I was making in graduate school. My idea was to simply walk around and shoot whatever came into my lens on this Tuesday afternoon and call whatever came out “Tuesday Afternoon” It was during this activity that I might or might not have smoked a joint because I know the guy with me was a “weirdo” at the time who definitely smoked the rope. I had shot enough weird footage so I was confident that within the images, I could find 10 solid minutes that would represent what a Tuesday afternoon looked and sounded like and that it would probably be interesting to watch in say 50 years so that I could clearly remember what fifty years ago looked and sounded like. 

Yeah, maybe I was loaded as I recall that thought process. 

We were driving back to campus. We turned on an FM station. By this time I was an album guy and FM was the album station. I was trying to figure out what music I would use in the background of the film when on the radio came “Tuesday Afternoon”. I had never heard anything like it before. When the song was over, the announcer said “that was Tuesday Afternoon by the Moody Blues from their new album Days of Future Passed” 

Days of Future Passed might as well have been the name of my mind set on that Tuesday afternoon with Tuesday afternoon playing. I hoped that I would see the Moody Blues in the Future and at that time, remember the past which would naturally include the moment I was living.  I knew the Moody Blues. I knew of their hit “Go Now” which I wasn’t crazy about. I didn’t know that the personnel of the band had changed and they had gone from THAT to THIS. Ray Thomas was in both versions, I learned later.  Shocked, stoned and stunned by synchronicity, I became a Moody Blues fan. In other words, I too was a weirdo. At the time you had to be a little weird to like the Blues. They were hanging with LSD guru Timothy Leary and proud of it. I couldn’t believe that “drug music” could be so beautiful or that a simple Tuesday afternoon could be so profound . 

I had the music for my film. I found my film in the music. 

Now let’s fast forward 15 years. My first marriage was breaking up although I didn’t realize it or perhaps was denying the realization. I know I felt like I had a ton of bricks on my back. The “famous” Mike had never been to a concert before and he loved the Moody Blues. I invited Mike and a couple of friends to join my family at the Moody Blues concert at the Canandaigua Performing Arts Center. Mike accepted my invitation.

 The night of the Moody Blues arrived. I had purchased a dozen tickets for the show.  The day of the night of the Blues was very hot. I ran ten miles that afternoon trying to lighten my load. My brother, my sister, my wife, a few of our friends, my son Beau, Mike and I made the short trip. We walked to the gates. I took out the tickets. I only had eleven tickets. Everybody was looking at me. I counted the tickets only eleven again. I was going to have to exclude someone from the concert. I looked around at the faces. I knew I would exclude myself.

I looked at the tickets again. I counted the tickets. I looked at Mike. My marriage was falling apart. Mike was on his way to California. I had screwed up the tickets. I had ruined Mike’s first concert. I could feel the earth spinning. I said something incoherent to my brother. He looked at me with concern and said “whaaa?” I spoke again and once again sounded like Gregor Samsa after his metamorphosis. I started to stumble. The tickets fell out of my grasp. I looked directly into my son’s eyes as the weight on my shoulders flew off and I fell in slow motion towards the ground. As I looked into his eyes, I realized that I was watching a son watch the death of his father. I wondered how this would affect him him. I heard my wife scream “he didn’t go to his physical”

 I hit the ground I knew I was dead. When I opened my eyes some time later to see what heaven was like I saw two faces. One face was of a beautiful, elderly woman. The other was Mike. This was Mike’s first minute at his first concert. In the background Moody Blues music was playing. The elderly woman whispered her phone number in my ear. It went right into my permanent memory She told me to call anytime and that the more I called, the more I would want to call. Eventually I wouldn’t even need a phone. I still remember the number. I call it everyday. The number is/was a prayer. I called it before I started writing this, seeking help to get this right. Phone? I don’t need no stinken phone. 

They wanted to call an ambulance. I didn’t want that I wanted to go where the music was, where the angel was. Somebody picked up the tickets and found all twelve. We went inside the Shell and heard the Blues. The woman had disappeared once it became clear that I was going to live. The last time I saw her, she was listening to the show. The Blues may or may not have been playing Tuesday afternoon when our eyes met. 

Flash forward Today, Tuesday, I learned that Ray Thomas had died. Ray was 76 years old. I’m 71. How could all of those future days have passed. 

I’m calling the number.  The number is a prayer.

 IN THE PACKAGE 

Mr. Baseball remained in his coma for months. It was the bottom of the ninth and his team was behind by 100 runs and there were two out and two strikes on Mr. Baseball. One more strike and he was out. Game over. That was the situation the last time that I visited him at the Community hospital. 

Time passed. Mr. Baseball kept fouling off pitches, his faithful loving wife Rosie by his side. Rosie figured that maybe things would improve if they moved Baseball to his home ball park. Still in his coma, Mr. Baseball was transported to his home. 

Home plate. 

His home plate was far away from my homeplate. We didn’t visit in person, overwhelmed as were with our own ballgame. 

When he got home, minus a few tubes and some drugs that hadn’t worked, Mr Baseball out of nowhere, hit a homerun. He came out of the coma but remained bedridden. We didn’t know about the rally, we had left the game a little early. We knew that he was home and we had his phone number.

One day, Lynn called the number and Rosie answered. The rally was still going on. Therapists were pitching now and Mr. Baseball continued to swing away always bolstered by Rosie who was as encouraged as she was encouraging. She told Lynn that a speech therapist was pitching at the moment. She whispered to Mr. Baseball that Lynn was on the phone. He understood; another base hit.

Rosie put the phone up to Mr. Baseball’s face.

Lynn said “Hello, Mr. Baseball.”

  Lynn’s 'hello’ was like a hanging curve ball. Mr. Baseball took a mighty swing and said in a slow, soft, labored voice “Hi Lynn.” Home run. Grand slam.  

Rosie took the phone back and explained the progress Baseball had been making. He was scoring on the coma. His therapists were amazed.  He scored 200 runs and beat the stroke.

 Meanwhile he had developed cancer. It was the cancer, not the coma that finally ended the incredible rally. 

We went to the funeral. Mr. Baseball looked good almost as good as he looked the time he caught a foul ball barehanded at Frontier Field. In my dreams, he shows up at his funeral and he, Rosie, Lynn and I go off to dinner as if nuthin’ had happened. He even makes fun of me for imagining that everything wasn’t perfect. We paid our condolences to Rosie.  

A week later, we got a package in the mail with Mr. Baseball’s address as the return.

 In the package was the fiber optic bear.   

 NON-FICTION IS THE NEW FACTION

In my dreams, my camera is always broken at times like this.  My camera was shattered. That suggested, I might wake up so I decided to go with the dream a little further to see what would happen. I went to my video camera. It seemed to be working. Uh Oh. This might not be a dream. 

Whatever it was, if I could tape it…it might help. I turned on the camera. It worked. The semi had come to a stop about 150 yards in front of us. The driver was still in the cab.  I pointed the camera in the other direction and noticed a person coming towards us. I kept the camera aimed at his face so I got a closer up look than I would have without the camera. I focused on his eyes. His eyes told me that he thought he was looking at a couple of ghosts. When he got within speaking distance, I put down the camera. “I saw the whole thing. I thought you guys were goners? Are you okay?”

 I wasn’t sure. We walked around to the side of the van. Lynn was leaning up against it. I kept the video running.  The tape would later be seen at least three times on national teevee.  Moments later, the police arrived. Lynn explained the collision with astounding calm and clarity. I was no longer taping. They arranged for our totaled van to be removed from the median. They gave us a ride to a nearby hotel. They explained our situation to the folks at the front desk who set us up with a room although all of our belongings were still in the van.They lent us a room pro-bono. Everybody told us not to worry.

 We found out that we were in La Grange, Indiana.  All we had was the clothes on our backs. And the aid of better angels.

 I was teaching summer school. I was a teacher all the way. I taught twelve months a year. No house painting for me. I had been going twelve months a year for ten years with only one break in between. I didn’t teach in the summer of 87, the year that I met Lynn. Lynn was a single Mom when we met. She was raising three daughters. I was a single Dad raising a son and a daughter. Her kids liked me and my kids liked her. We spent a lot of time together especially on the weekends when I had custody of my two. Lynnn was working part time at First Federal Bank. She was good with change. She balanced every day. She could find the errors when someone else failed to balance. She didn’t stand for a lot of bullshit that’s why she was checking the boat when I suggested a road trip test. 

My prior experience as a road warrior had convinced me that you don’t really know a person until you’ve been on the road with them. I had made the trip from ocean to ocean three times before I got married the first time. I regretted the fact that I hadn’t road tripped with my first wife before we got married. Although two children had to be born, we might have saved ourselves some nightmares. I had rushed into that first one and wasn’t gonna rush into this one. Two years had already passed with Lynn and me….our bodies were at rest and would tend to stay at rest unless acted upon. Times of indecision. We had both already been married. We both carried the scars. 

We had met one enchanted evening when she walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to dance. The first song we danced to was “Hurt so Good”….John Mellencamp. The second was “Loving You” by Elvis. The third was “It’s All in the Game” by Tommy Edwards. When Tommy was about to sing the words “then he’ll kiss your lips” I decided to take the chance. I kissed her lips. She kissed me back.  We had been together every day since and it was going on two years. Two wonderful years.

Time to clarify.  Lynn made a decision. She said we should get married at the local justice of the peace. She called it to question one afternoon when we were having lunch at Mario’s on East Avenue our favorite Italian restaurant.

 Justice of the peace was no place for me or for us as far as I was concerned. She took it as a rejection of her love which was the opposite of my intention.  For the first time, we began to wonder about the future of the relationship. Yet, we had booked a trailer for a weekend at Darien Lake. We decided to make the trip.  We had a couple of our kids with us. They were having a lot more fun than we were. They were outside the trailer when Lynn handed me a tiny article from the Democrat and Chronicle. The article said “The Field of Dreams is a real place.” 

All of a sudden it was clear to me. I am a person of intuition which means I have a tendency to say out loud exactly what is flashing through my mind at the exact time that it flashes. The flash came on. “ Hey Lynn, If we were ever to get married, it would have to be at the most beautiful place in America. Our love deserves it. If you’re willing to travel to Iowa and if we can find this place and if it’s real we could get married on the spot….right at home plate.” 

She made a face that I couldn’t decipher so I didn’t take it as a rejection. Then she said “Great idea. I’ll call up Iowa and tell them we need a marriage license to get married at an imaginary place at an undetermined time.”

 I found out later that she thought I was nuts and bullshitting her at the same time. We had seen the movie together earlier in the year. we both thought it was great. In one scene, Kevin Costner (Ray Kinsella) asked his wife Amy Madigan “is this heaven or is this Iowa” as they relaxed one starry evening on the diamond that he had carved into his cornfield. The location was so exquisite that I thought perhaps it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. This was the place for us. Plus we would give the relationship the test….a test that I firmly believed had to be taken by any couple in the tentative situation that we occupied.

I enjoyed teaching summer school because I got a chance to pay attention to the kids who had been lost along the way during the regular school year. I was always amazed with the progress they made when given that second chance. So the question lingered, if we were going to take a road trip when would it be. Lynn had her schedule at the bank and I had mine at the high school.

During the regular school year, I taught twelfth grade English as well as Creative Writing. I also taught an elective called Cinematic Literacy. I created that one myself and it was a great success. I was approaching the peak of my teaching career. I had ten days at the end of August, beginning of September. 

Lynn had a week of undefined vacation saved up. We had originally met on July eleventh 1987 or as we called it 7/11.

On our two year anniversary, we went out to dinner at the very restaurant where Lynn had made her first proposal a month before. Midway through the meal she said “I sent away for a marriage license in Iowa. The field is located in Dyersville which is near Dubuque. We have a license waiting for us in Dubuque.” Of course I was surprised but since I hadn’t been bullshitting her about the road trip idea, I said “that’s great. Good job.”

 I didn’t know if she had actually procured a license or if she was reality testing . I was mystified when she said “so if we break up this summer at least we can always say that at one time we had a marriage license in Iowa when we tell our story”. 

All through the month of August, we came up with reasons to take the trip and those reasons were roadblocked by objections, obstacles and realities. If Lynn wasn’t exactly rocking the boat during those weeks, she was damned sure checking for leaks.

 One night, we watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We loved the flick and mixed it into our plan. If we headed west we would go as far as Devil’s Tower in Wyoming and if we hadn’t made up our mind to get married by that time, we would head back and know that we had tried goddamn it, we had tried and we had a Iowa Marriage license to prove it. 

It was also becoming clear that if we hadn’t made up our mind to try the road trip before school started, it meant that we probably should wrap up the relationship as painlessly as possible. On August 25th, I called Lynn from my apartment and said “I was ready to go if she was”. 

She wasn’t ready and she hung up sorta pissed off. This was the last possible day to make the trip and be back in time for school. A couple hours later, I heard a knock on the door. It was Lynn. She told me the van was in the parking lot, packed and ready to go if I was serious. I ran into my house, packed a few things. I climbed into the van. “Let’s go”.

I said. “I’ll drive” I drove the first leg. We found rest area deep in Ohio. We napped for a few hours. Then we went into the rest area and washed up. Lynn came out first and went behind the wheel. I started to climb into the van when an impulse struck me. As I was leaving the rest area, I saw a machine selling bio-rhythm cards. I decided what the hell…I went back and bought a card for that day. It only took maybe an extra thirty seconds. I didn’t like what the card said so I threw it out. That thirty seconds would be crucial as we were headed for a blind spot that we might have missed if not for the card.  We managed to arrive at the blind spot exactly on time. Yeah, the whole crazy pilgrimage was my idea. I talked her into it, yet it was her van that was smashed to bits.  

One way or another, the journey was over. We were alone together in a motel in LaGrange, Indiana not far from Touchdown Jesus and the Golden Dome of Notre Dame. I was beginning to get a grip on death. As we traveled from the wreckage to the hotel, I asked what time it was. When we got to the hotel, it was a half hour before the time it was when we were on our way to the hotel. Someone explained that we had crossed the line separating one time zone from another. We had left Eastern Daylight Savings Time. That’s when I began to realize what death is/was. This was eternity. When you’re dead, you’re in Indiana and you keep crossing between time zones and Touchdown Jesus forever. 

Time stabilized for awhile in the hotel. I was expecting hysterics, blame or disassociation from Lynn. Instead, I got calm, composed, courageous capability.She started working the phones. She had a handle on what happened. She called her auto insurance company back in New York. She explained the situation…..car totaled, hotel in Indiana, etc. They wanted to know what her plan was. To my astonishment, Lynn told them that she wanted to continue on with her journey. She outlined what she needed and what she expected to make that continuation possible. Following that she called the American Automobile Association and got from them what we needed to continue the journey. A few minutes later, a rental car appeared at the motel. We drove around a bit, looking for a place to eat. We lost and gained two or three hours in that fifteen minute search.  

After “lunch” we made our way to the junkyard to take a look at the van. “Yep, it’s totaled”, the junkman asserted. We gathered our belongings from the van and loaded them in the rental. I could not have been more impressed by any companion. Even though I wasn’t sure whether we were alive or not, it was clear that we were inhabiting the same realm. It was a realm, I wanted to remain in for the rest of my life/death.

I got down on one knee in that junkyard and asked Lynn to marry me. She accepted. August 26, 1989. What a day. What an eternity. And the pilgrimage was still on. We didn’t know if we were dead or alive but we knew we were getting married. We didn’t know where. We had a marriage license in Iowa. We had been looking for the Field of Dreams which we heard was in Dyersville.

We drove through that town. There’s a lot of farms in Dyersville and a lot of corn. We couldn’t find the farm that we were looking for. We were hungry, tired, not sure if we were alive and headed for a place that might not exist. We were in a rented van.

 We saw the driveway to yet another farm and turned into it, past yet another corn field. When we got to the farm itself, it was most definitely not the Field of Dreams farm, it looked more like the Cujo farm. We got the hell out of there but not before some giant thing flew out of the corn, through my open window and onto my chest. I don’t know what the hell it was a bird, a locust, a demon grasshopper? I don’t know, I just grabbed whatever it was and threw it out the window toward the cornfield or the hell from whence it came.

  When we reached the end of the driveway safe from Cujo and the flying thing, I pulled the van off the road. I realized that I had gone crazy. Here we were in the middle of Iowa for God sake. We were lost. We might be as totaled as was our original van. All my fault, all part of yet another crazy dream that I had dragged Lynn into.

 We turned right at the end of the driveway. We drove about a hundred yards.

And then…we saw a paper plate…..nailed to a tree….on the plate two words and an arrow…..Movie site….arrow pointed right. 

We took that right turn and a half mile down the road, there it was….The Field of Dreams. No doubt. Right exactly out of the film and out of my dreams. Perfect. We drove down that long driveway and met a man who was working in the yard. I asked him if he was the owner of the place. He said that he wasn’t but that the owner was out in the cornfield on his tractor. I saw the man on the tractor in the corn and walked towards him. He turned his tractor to meet me.  When we were about ten feet apart, he shut off the tractor and focused his blue eyes on me. “Can I help you?” asked the man on the tractor.

 I said, “I believe you can. We’ve traveled from Rochester, New York. We had a terrible automobile accident yesterday. I’m not sure if we’re alive or dead so tell me, is this heaven or is this Iowa?”

 He looked at me and realized that there was something going on here and he wasn’t sure what it was. Then he answered in the most perplexing way possible. “It’s whatever you want it to be.’

  I said, “whatever it is, it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I want it to be the place where we get married.”

 He said “You can do that.”

 I asked “Would Friday be all right.”

 He said “that would be fine.” 

We shook hands. On that Friday, he would be our best man. His name was Don Lansing. I told Lynn the great news. We got in our car and drove to Devil’s Tower. We had originally said that we would go as far West as Devil’s Tower and if we hadn’t made up our minds by then, well we’d head back home and take a break. Of course, we had already made up our minds thanks to the junkyard proposal. 

That night, we stopped in Sioux Falls. A year earlier Sioux Falls had been the site of a horrifying tragedy. A plane crashed and there were no survivors. The plane crashed in a cornfield. We trucked through the Black Hills and the Badlands of South Dakota.We stopped at Mt. Rushmore where, I almost lost my wallet. We made a late night stop in Deadwood. We wanted to check and see if we were really still alive. They dropped fluorescent eye drops into Lynn’s eyes and checked to see if hemorrhaging had occurred. I’ll never forget looking at Lynn in that darkened emergency room with her glowing, green fluorescent eyes. The eyes were by far the brightest objects in the room. They okayed us for further travel as if anything could have stopped us now.

We stayed the night in Spearfish after spending some afternoon time wading through a few crystal clear South Dakota cascades, getting our feet wet, so to speak.

We returned to Iowa on Thursday night. Don greeted us warmly and invited us into the house. Yeah, the house in the movie. Don wanted to know what we were going to wear. All we had left were our jeans. Don went to the phone and called the local tux shop. They had one tux left. Don asked if we wanted a cake. We said yeah. He got on the phone and called the local bakery. He asked Lynn how big the cake should be. She said big enough for fifty. I laughed out loud. We didn’t know a single person in Iowa aside from Don and the guy who originally greeted us, a guy named Butch who was a caretaker for the field and his wife Annie. 

Then he asked Lynn if she needed a wedding gown. He knew a dressmaker in town. He called Anne Steffen, the local dressmaker. He described our dream and asked Ann if she could help out. She said that she could.

 That evening, we drove into town. The only tux in town fit me perfectly. Next we met Anne. She and Lynn got together and designed a wedding dress. That night we slept at Butch and Annie’s house and the rain poured down ending a drought. The next day, we went back into town. The dress was made. Beautiful like in a dream. We drove to the town office to pick up our wedding license that Lynn had sent away before we left on our pilgrimage. By the time we got to the office the word had already spread. We got our license. They told us that they had heard all about the plan and so had the local television station. The station wanted to interview us.  We met the reporter and she seemed very interested in our story. She had a full camera crew with her.

We told them that we had arranged for a magistrate to do the honors. We told them about the car crash. The town barber had heard about all of this and volunteered to give me a haircut while Lynn tried on her dress.  By that time it was getting late. We stopped at a restaurant to have our last meal as single people. We looked up at the teevee and there we were on the local news. We watched ourselves telling our story. 

We made it back to the house. By this time, a bunch of neighbors had gathered. I went into the room where in the movie Ray’s daughter looks out the window and says “something’s gonna happen out there.”just before the ghost shows up. I had the same view of the field and I knew that indeed something was gonna happen out there. We were gonna get married. The ghosts were gonna show up.

 I made sure I had the wedding ring which we had bought at Wall Drugs in South Dakota. The rings were made from genuine Black Hills gold. By this time about fifty people had gathered. I left the house and walked into the corn in left field. I figured that since I still wasn’t sure that I was alive that I should come out of the corn like the ghosts did.  I made my way to the pitchers mound where I met Don. I was on the mound for a few moments when the fifty people started to ooh and ahh as Lynn emerged from the house. Suddenly everything was in transcendent five dimension. I couldn’t have dreamed of a more beautiful bride. 

She made the long walk past the bleachers and crossed the magical first base line. She didn’t disappear. She met me on the mound and we walked together to home plate where the magistrate awaited. We took our vows with Don standing right behind us. The witnesses cheered. After the ceremony, we went back to the porch. The towns folk had brought fixings. We ate the cake together. They all wanted pictures so we posed for awhile. We drank some champagne that somebody had provided. We bid them farewell. The next day we were home. On the flight back, we told the stewardess our story and she put us in first class. Sitting right next to us was Maury Wills, the ex-Dodger shortstop who had once stole a hundred bases in a season. She told Maury the story and he congratulated us. We made it home in time for the Ring of Fire around Canadaigua Lake. We’re going to be celebrating our thirtieth anniversary next week. We’re still going the distance and easing each other’s pain.    

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thorntonkrell-blog-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Non-Fiction is the New Faction

Young Mary went on to celebrate another 91 Christmas birthdays. I was around for 67 of them as she was glad to see my father and her husband who saw my twinkle when he returned from the Phillipines at the end of WW2 which made me part of a significant demographic excess known as the Baby Boom. When my father was in the Phillipines and during his entire time in the service, my mother wrote him a letter every day.

I am an early Boomer and a late bloomer.

When she was child, she raised her brother and two sisters as her father died suddenly when she was in high school. She lived to be near the bedside of all of 'em when they passed. Same with my father, she comforted him till he died in her arms.

I was the oldest of her three children.

She loved me and supported us, every day of our lives.

I never bothered to ask her to thank me for choosing her above millions of candidates to be my mother while I was in my first infinity before my vacation before my next and final infinity.

And I know I'll see her again.

The stars twinkle

Mary's grandaughter is our youngest child.

Of course we named her Mary.

Yes, Mary Dear. Your twinkle brought your Mom and I together thirty years ago.

Thank you for that.

Yes, there's ANOTHER theory that this has already happened.

I have a theory that it happens over 300 millions times every day in the United States alone.

The initial discovery is called death and the something even more bizarre and wonderful is called birth. The vacation in between is called life or some say "lipstick land."

All of us on earth at this moment share a common state of inexplicability which we project as the "universe" or "reality". We create this reality as we go along living our lives in a state of mass hypnosis, love and wonder. Eventually we straighten things out, kick the bucket and re-awaken with only a vague memory of what we knew before.

This vague memory is called our subconscious.

With each awakening we discover a brand new universal puzzle to contemplate along with a brand new set of people also contemplating the same puzzle with slightly different kaleidoscopes. The most immediate, influential people we call our parents.

And you, dear Mary, call me Dad.

The tools that worked best the last time, even though we don't remember them, are called aptitudes.

When we discover them, we use them to explain the universe to ourselves and others particularly our children.

I get the feeling I've written this before.

I get the feeling this is what all writers are writing about all the time.

All singers singing about all the time etc.

I get the feeling you've read this before, Mary.

Of course it's all just a theory.

I am still alive, honey.

Aren't I ?

AVA’S SHOWER

When we moved to Tumbleweed, we had to enroll Mary in a brand new school. She was in third grade and had a broken leg. She arrived in time for school pictures. When the class pictures came out, I noticed this little girl with big glasses. Her name was Ava. I pointed her out to Mary and said "She looks like she'd be a good friend." Sure enough, they became besties and remain so to this day almost 30 years later.

This is the story of Ava's shower

I know this wasn't a dream because when I dream I always try to get the picture but the camera never works.

It was my bridal first shower. My gender had always rendered me ineligible but this shower was co-ed. We were enjoying our drinks and conversation downstairs when I noticed that the main female stars were missing.

Ava was trying on her wedding gown upstairs. I'm not sure who invited me but somehow through the grapevine I came too know that I would be welcome in this room and so would my camera.

This happens often in my dreams but in my dreams, the camera she don't work.

I walked up the stairs and entered the room. I was the only male but everyone seemed to welcome me.

Everyone was admiring Ava in her dress. Ava was radiating joy and reflecting the admiring glances that were coming her way. The dress was perfect. Everybody knew it.

I've been taking Ava's picture ever since she was a little girl. I wanted to get a great picture of Ava at this moment. All of my years of photography had led to this moment. It wasn't gonna come again.

Ava noticed me. She looked into the camera. I snapped. The camera worked.

This was no dream.

Mine wasn't the only camera in the room. Ava seemingly picked up on all of the lenses by not concentrating on any of them but rather enjoying her moment of celebration.

A model of decorum

I got my pictures. Everybody got their pictures. The cameras disappeared. I lingered with my lens.

At that moment, at that second, in about the time it takes a car to swerve a deadly swerve, Ava's expression changed. For an instant memory, vulnerability and pain flashed through her entire being in a collision of joy and pain.

I imagine she was thinking of her older sister who was not in the room. The older sister Abby who ended up on the deadly end of an unsignalled swerve on a dark Halloween night almost 10 years ago. A tragedy that changed everyone.

Suddenly Abby was in the room.

I didn't see Abby but I did see Ava seeing Abby as did my camera.

For one split second grief and recognition flashed across Ava's glowing face. In that split second I had to make the decision whether or not to snap the picture and "capture" this exceedingly private, candid, personal and vulnerable moment.

I was almost certain that the camera was going to malfunction revealing the entire scene as one more dream forever undocumented.

I snapped.

The camera worked.

Ava's expression returned to joy.

A few weeks later, I told Ava about the picture. I told her this story. I told her I wanted to write about it but couldn't do that unless she approved.

She said it would be an honor.

The wedding is this weekend.

This writing is in honor of Ava

and of Abby.

HEADING FOR FRONTIER AT LAST

Today's the day. Last night was the night. I only had to steal one mirror last night so I got my first half way decent shuteye in months.

At this moment I am resisting the urge to hit the sack and indulge in fatigue.

I'm thinking about the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Nightmare on Elm Street. In both of those flicks, sleep was to be avoided unless you wanted Freddy to slash through your walls or wake up as a pod, a poisoned pod.

Those movies always bothered me.

I hate the feeling of falling asleep when I don't want to fall asleep. This used to happen to me all the time, particularly on Wednesday nights when I was young.

Because I was big fan of horror films, my parents used to let me stay up "late" to watch Shock Theater which played all of the Lugosi, Karloff and Chaney films. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Raven, the Mummy, the Black Cat, The Invisible Ray,The Ghoul,The Werewolf of London etc. The show came on came on past my bedtime so it was quite a privilege and quite a challenge.

Plus, I was actually scared by the movies or at least I expected to be.

I would take my position on the carpet in front of our timy teevee set. The movie would start and before too long, I would realize that I was falling asleep. I learned to recognize the feeling and the "oh no" that accompanied it. I would invariably choose to "rest my eyes" for just a minute during a commercial. I learned after awhile that once I started to rest my eyes, the rest periods would increase in frequency and duration until at last I was asleep on the floor and had to be carted of to bed all the time insisting "I'm awake, I'm awake"

The morning came and I awoke with a sense of failure and a determination to make it all the way through the next week. I realized that once I started to "rest my eyes", it was all over. I would make a conscious effort to "resist the rest" but week after week I failed.

I wasn't used to failure back in those days and it frightened me more than the movies did. I was learning about temptation and my inability to resist it.

This was my first previews of fatigue but I really didn't know what fatigue was until a few months ago. There's a difference between fatigue and being tired, passing out, blacking out, dozing off or being exhausted.

For the past few months, I've suffered fatigue and it's a lot different from "resting my eyes" because in fatigue I'm not even interested in the "movie" that is my life. All I want to do is sleep, well not exactly sleep but more like escape but evdn in the escaping there is the over-riding sense of failure and guilt as days melt away and merge with nights.

Fatigue sucks.

So as I write these words, I am resisting the urge to "rest my eyes" and to go downstairs to my cave/pit. The urtge is strong but not as strong as yesterday and yesterday wasn't as strong as the day before.

They told me after my last blast of radiation that sometimes the fatigue starts to go away after a week and a half but sometimes it can continue for three or four months or in some cases forever.

Today is exactly a week and a half since my last blast. I'm gonna go the distance. I'm not goin' downstairs. I'm not gonna turn into a pod person again today. No way. I've charged up my camera. I'm snapping flowers. I'll be leaving for the ballpark in three hours. I'm gonna look good. This is the day I marked down on my calendar for the beginning of my comeback and I'm not gonna rest my eyes until I get back from Frontier Field.

My brother is my best friend and I haven't seen him during this whole situation. I want to see him now. I want him to see me snapping pictures, keeping score, drinking a beer and rooting for the old home team.

Freddy Fatigue can't get me at Frontier Field if I keep my eyes on the ball.

THE OLD BALLGAME

One of my colleagues, a guy named Fred, got into as much trouble as I did for having classrooms that were not quiet.

Neither Fred nor I thought the criticism and penalization were justified but we did have "long hair" at the time and we were considered "popular" by the students.

Fred was a great teacher.

It was a far cry from the spray and pray method formerly preferred by the fearful badgers of the ruling realm and their supportive administrators.

Quiet in the classroom was no longer a guaranteed good thing.

Suddenly, Fred and I were seen as "innovators". People started imitating us and when they got good at it, they began to instruct us on how to do what we had been doing all along, since we had already moved on to the next thing which they were currently against but soon would be imitating and then instructing.

On and on and on and on etc.

Meanwhile, my classes were getting busier and buzzyer so I was headed for trouble. Quiet is so much quieter when it's surrounded by buzz.

One day Fred and I and about fifty teachers were at a workshop run by a consultant who hadn't taught a public school class in years but who was paid more than we were to look at our watches and tell us what time it was. The consultant was also on the lookout for new ideas which he could steal and profit from when he took his carnival on the road., always searching for a new parade to jump in front of and declare himself the leader etc.

So the consultant called on teachers to "share" new ideas that they had. Most of the "sharing" consisted of ideas that people like Fred and I had been criticized for by the same people who were now "experts" at whatever "technique" they were sharing.

The consultant ooohed and aaahed over every "insight" no matter how unremarkable.

Meanwhile, Fred was in the back of the room trying to stay serious.

Fred was a big, dark haired dark eyed handsome guy who wasn't lacking in self confidence and didn't need or want to be drawn into this festival of self congratulation.

Even though Fred hadn't raised his hand to volunteer a response, the consultant decided to call on him.

"Do you have a technique, Fred, that you'd like to share?", the consultant asked in an overly friendly way.

Fred said "Well, I guess I could share what I call 'the old ball game'.

The consultant perked up. "I've never heard of that technique, Fred. It sounds very interesting. How does it work?"

Possibly a new parade was forming.

"Well" said Fred, "if I see a kid's not paying attention, I throw a tennis ball at him/her. That usually gets their attention."

Fred was serious.

I looked at Fred's face. Fred was looking at the consultant's face. The consultant had no idea what to say.

Nobody ooohed or aaahed.

I burst out laughing which broke the silence.(I had used the same "technique" myself" on quite a few occasions except I didn't use a tennis ball. I used a bunch of tinfoil that I had rolled up in a ball for my version of "the old ball game". I called my tin foil ball "the egg of unexpected courage". The kids called it THE EGG.)

Back to the seminar......

Fred started laughing.

The consultant sorta smiled

Once again, Fred and I were operating on the same page even though we weren't aware that we were until Fred answered the consultant. I had no idea that Fred also used "the old ball game".

This is one of my fondest moments because "the old ball game be it tennis or tinfoil" actually worked and probably still does today

I am afraid, however, that a few months after this moment.....some consultant somewhere was instructing teachers on the effective use of what has become known as "the old ball game".

Beautiful.

ADVERB ANGST

Call me Very.

I'm an adverb. I'm angry about that. I'm common. I'm used and abused all the time. I don't even get the complimentary "ly" that some of my mates get. My ancestors had it for awhile when people knew how to talk. Remember "verily" or "yea verily".

Those days are gone.

Now, I have to submit to those fancy pants "ly" adverbs e.g. "very quickly".

"Quickly" at least gets to modify a verb, an action word of some kind, maybe even a passionate action like "kissed". Then I arrive. I diminish the kiss by making it even less soul driven, less selfless, less sensual, more furtive, dismissive and distracted.

See, I hate situations like that. I'm jealous of "quickly" who's nothing but a verblicking sycophant passing himself off as an expression of time.

It's a bit more tolerable when I submit to an adjective. At least an adjective bows to a person, place, idea or thing; tangible, usually visible, often alive, occasionally intelligent almost always miraculous.

Action verbs are my cup of tea but let's face it action verbs ain't exactly nouns. Action verbs need nouns to give them meaning. Nouns don't need action verbs they can exist quite well lthank you on verbs of being. After all, what is a human but "being".

Even when modifying an action verb I usually need an "ly" to make any sense

I am uncomfortable modifying verbs of being. "very are" won't cut it. Neither will "very is", "very was" nor wishes neither not v"very could" or "very would".

Speaking of the subjunctive, I wish i was more existential. Hell I'm barely essential. I'm actually an add on although ever since teehee came along and people forgot how to talk, a lot more "very" are in use today.

I'm designated Very Mask Neg Neutral which means I am the very that can be only used to describe Masculine Negative to Neutral Adjectives, verbs or other adverbs such as

cumbersome lethargic immature uncommunicative incompetent self-absorbed smarmy frantically and sloppy Making them each a little worse.

My girlfriend is also an add on. She's a Very designated Fem Neg Neutral. She gets to work with feminine negative to neutral adjectives, verbs such as

bitchy bloated perfunctory over-sensitive Superficial Moody Slutty Vengeful and air headed.

The classes above us are Very Mask Positive And Fem Positive. They work with

courageous dedicated authentic Athletic Intelligent Capable gorgeous resplendent intuitive sensual supportive nurturing and erotic

Do you see why I'm upset? Very upset.

They'll terminate us low class adverbs when and if we stop being over used. When and if people stop watching teevee and texting. When and if people start articulating and valuing vocabulary rather than gloss.

In other words, we'll be around a long time.

A very long time.

Some of the higher class verbs were even used as adjectives for a bright, shining, glossy time as in "She is soooo very"

I once had to modify a very Pompous adjective, negative implication of course as in "He's very, VERY"

Thank God that particular trend, that monstrosity has retreated for awhile.

My woman, Very Fem Neg Neutral has a real bad attitude. She gets it from her job. Look what she works with bitchy, bloated, hyper-critical etc. Still between my anger and her attitude we still managed to get busy and have babies. Our babies are the "kindas". They're even more inarticulate than my woman and me.

I'm kinda afraid. Kindas are the adverbs of the future.

I am very kinda afraid.

CROSSWORDS

Way back in another lifetime, when I was teaching kids how to write, my class used to do the New York Times crossword puzzle together every other Monday. The puzzle gets more cryptic, arcane and oblique as the week continues. Monday is fair game for high schoolers working in tandem. Tuesday's puzzle maybe. Saturday's forget about it. Maybe that's why we don't have school on Saturdays except for Breakfast Clubbers who are puzzled and puzzling enough with or without crosswords.

I always told my writing students that writers need to know something about everything and then need the vocabulary to articulate what they know by choosing the exact right word for the right place. Close is good but no cigar. Crossword puzzles serve as an exercise not only in vocabulary and exactitude but also in breadth of knowledge.

Crossword puzzles are to writers what shadow boxing is to boxers or what ping pong is to tennis players or driving ranges to golfers, a truncated version of a more pervasive obsession. Aside from their value as literary barbells, crosswords teach one of life's most valuable lessons. If you have one wrong word or a right word in the wrong place, it screws up the rest of the puzzle. We can't insist that a word is right if it is wrong. Will power only extends so far. It can't be right simply because we want it to be right and we're good people. That's called willfullness. In the words of Johnny C, "if it don't fit, you must acquit". Somewhere in all puzzles, before we abandon original thinking or stick with our misconceptions, we confront wavering allegiance to a shady word choice. Since most of our lives are spent re-inforcing our own biases, wavering allegiance is a frightening flourish of vulnerability. In America, especially in politics, it's all about being "right" first and then sticking with that righteousness in the face of hell or high water, fire and fury.

Wavering allegiance is a forerunner to change. All change includes loss and all loss requires mourning. Who wants to mourn? Who wants to admit a mistake? In politics, to flip is to flop.

So when we stick with wrong words in Crosswords, we never solve the puzzle or the problem contained within the puzzle, a problem that grows more pressing with every passing day. Usually national problems come in the form of dollars and cents, bread and butter, black and white , war and peace, red and blue.

Hey if we come to a cross roads where we should turn right and instead turn left, don't worry if we drive completely around the world we'll end up going the right, right way.

Once upon a time on my way to Iowa from South Dakota, I made a wrong turn and drove halfway through Minnesota.

With a crossword puzzle, we can just take out an eraser. With a war, with poverty, with racism, with recession, with division we need something more than rubber at the forgiveness end of a pointed stick of lead. Every day seems like a Saturday crossword.

ALI, FRAZIER, CHUVALO AND EVELYN

Slides.

Remember slides?

You'd throw your slides into a Kodak Carousel and voila...a slide show up against the wall.

Needless to say I threw quite a few slides against quite a few walls over the years as I told my Ali stories.

I liked one of the slides in particular.

I made a nice 11 by 14 print from that negative.

Ali and Joe exchanging punches during their second fight at Madison Square Garden.

We all got older as the years passed. It seemed like Ali and Joe got older faster than everybody else. What else could we have expected?

During this time of great decline, George Chuvalo added to the pugilistic tragedy.

George Chuvalo

The Croatian Crusader.

The Heavyweight Champion of Canada.

The human punching bag and common opponent for the vastly more talented Ali and Frazier.

The man who could not be knocked down.

The man whose face had launched a thousand fists.

George Chuvalo had a face that had been sculpted by other fists into the face of a fist.

And then after George retired, life stepped in and continued the battering.

He lost his wife and sons to suicide. Heroin was very involved.

Still George refused to hit the canvas.

Word got through to his old opponents, Ali and Joe, that George was hurt and staggering but that he refused to go down.

A boxing organization in Rochester decided to throw a benefit dinner for George. Yeah it was a band aid on a shotgun wound but every little bit helps.

Joe Frazier decided to attend and waive any fee.

So did another wounded warrior name of Muhammad Ali.

Ali was shaking from Parkinsons and Joe could barely see.

Joe and Ali didn't usually appear together.

Bad blood existed.

People wondered why after all these years bad blood still existed between Ali and Frazier.

The answer is simple. These guys tried to kill each other three times in front of the whole world and they damned near succeeded.

He jest at scars who's never felt a wound.

There was a lot of laughter that night but nobody was laughing at the scars.

I was there too.

The Chuvalo benefit cost a hundred bucks to attend. My ringside seat at Ali-Frazier fight also cost $100.

So much had changed.

One thing hadn't changed.

The 11 by 14 photograph that I took at Ali Frazier 2 looked exactly the same. The two of them stalking each other in the middle of the ring, youg and heallthy and with all the lights shining on them.

I brought the picture to the benefit.

I had met Muhammad, Joe and George individually but I never thought that I'd see all three of them in the same room at the same time.

Yet, here we were for the common good of Chuvalo

In the lobby, I got a chance to visit with boxing expert Burt Sugar and HBO analyst Larry Merchant. They both reacted to me as if I had pissed myself while wearing a white suit.. Arrogant and a million miles away from Ali in terms of engagement and humility, these two vampires brushed off my questions about the sweet science with an insolence worth mentioning here.

Vampires

I left those "famous guys".

I was relieved to leave.

I entered the main room. I found my table. My name was still not Sinatra nor for that matter Sugar or Merchant so my $100 dollar table resembled my "ringside" seat in terms of physical distance from the action.

And I wasn't even at the same table as the Son of Sanford.

I shared a "way in the back" table with another human who also had connection/complexion problems; a stunning middle aged African American woman named Evelyn. We had the only two seat table in the place. Evelyn and I chatted for awhile about the value of our $100 as compared to the $100 spent by the more connected, very Caucasian, very male attendees flaunting upfront and uptight.

We figured we were outsiders. We bonded.

I showed her my 11 by 14 photo. She liked it and said "be careful with that. It's valuable".

Evelyn had a mission of her own.

Evelyn told me that she knew Joe Frazier and the last time Joe was in town, she really got to know him and he got to know her. She planned on having a little chat with Joe later in the evening about his previous method of leaving town. She assured me that Joe would be paying attention.

All the stars were already seated miles away at the main table. All the stars that is except for Ali.

It's only fitting that the champ enters last.

All of the other guys had entered from the front of the venue.

When Ali and his entourage entered the room, they came in from the back. As soon as he entered the room, the whole environment changed for the better. He walked very, very slowly. Since he came in from the back, the first table he passed was the distant table for two. He stopped at our table. He looked right at me and although it seemed impossible, I got the distinct feeling that he remembered me from our morning at Deer Lake decades before.

Evelyn noticed the look and asked me after Ali had passed us, "does he know you".

I told Evelyn that I had spent some time with him a long time ago.

Whether he recognized me or not, he once again gave me that wonderful feeling that I was cool with him and that our table was the best table in the house.

and that, once again, made me feel cool with myself

He couldn't possibly have remembered.

I guess that's what charisma is all about.

Like I said, I had met Sugar and Merchant, ten minutes before they took their upfront seats. I'm sure they had already forgotten about me and their vibe would have amplified that disregard.

Not with Ali.

I started feeling great.

Important

The whole room turned back to see the old champ. I got the feeling that everybody in the room started feeling great for different reasons.

Uplifiting

Transcendent

Eliciting smiles and cheers with every step, the Champ caned his way to the front. Everybody in the place was experiencing rampant, contact joy.

I don't think that Frazier was feeling that joy although he probably remembered feeling a lot of contact. It was obvious that Joe was feeling pretty dang great before he even entered the place, if ya know what I mean.

Obviously, a lot of feelings fly around a room when Ali enters that room and walks toward a partying Joe Frazier.

The dinner began.

Neither Ali nor Frazier addressed the audience; for different reasons.

Chuvalo expressed his gratitude towards both men for showing up and making his benefit such a success. Weirdly enough if a three man boxing match broke out, Chuvalo would probaly win even though both Joe and Ali had batterred him in the past.

I assume Merchant and Sugar blabbed some and sucked a bit of energy from the room although their wisdom has slipped beneath the radar screen of both my memory and contempt.

When the program concluded, the master of ceremonies, a born bullshitter named Jerry Flynn announced that for a half an hour the head table participants would be willing to sign autographs.

Immediately the rush to the front began led by the people sitting in the front.

From the way back table, we watched the crowd in front gain full advantage.

We only had a half hour and it looked as if there were two hours of people in front of us.

We did a little spontaneous human calculus.

Evelyn headed towards Joe.

She had more than an autograph in mind.

She had a piece of her mind in mind and she was about to give that to Joe.

I headed for Ali, by far the longer of the two lines.

Somehow, my 11 by 14 print caught the eye of somone in Ali's entourage. He asked me to identify the picture.

"Ringside, Madison Square Garden, Ali-Frazier II"

"Diju take dat picture?"

"Yes I did"

"Champ prolly like to see it. C'mon"

He escorted me towards the front of the line, not the very front but a definite improvement on my table rank. Ali and I were in the same force field. I knew he'd have time for me even as the minutes ticked away. With about 10 minutes left in the opportunity, our chance came. I put my picture in front of the Champ. He considered it carefully. He was in no rush whatsoever. Then the familiar whisper that he either said or sent. I'll never know which but the message was clear..."choo take this?"

"Yeah Champ I did'

Another whisper/send "it's good"

Then the eye contact. Ali and me eyeball to eyeball again. Same eyeballs that had been eyeball to eyeball with Martin King, John Lennon, Sonny Liston, Elvis Presley, Nelson Mandella, Joe Louis, James Brown, Stallone, Duvall, Carson, Borgnine, Malcolm X, Ross, Chamberlain and infinite others were inviting me to come on in and stay a minute.

Make yourself comfortable

Join the crowd.

Maybe u been here before

He gave me his beautiful Parkinson's signature. Very slow, very painful, looking up every few seconds directly in my eyes as if this were the first signature of his career given to his best friend. Ali had signed another piece for me at Deer Lake decades before. Like the man himself, Ali's signature had changed dramatically over the years. His Parkinson's signature took a good twenty seconds to make with five separate lookups and included only the fragments of four letters..... M...a...l....i. Ironically he made his mark over Joe Frazier's image in the ring in my picture.

He hit me with the feint again although this feint was very faint yet still overwhelming.

I thanked the champ. Again the eyes. Again the illusion of recognition. Again the electricity.

So long champ.

Still five minutes of the half hour remained.

Wow

Pause

Shift

Recalculate

I got a shot at Joe.

Where's Evelyn.

There she be.

Evelyn chillin' with Joe

"Hey Evelyn" from fity feet away with four minutes left.

"Hey Ice, c'mon up here and meet Joe."

Once again the Red Sea miraculoulsy parted.

The Red Sea thought Evelyn was Joe's wife and I was a friend of Joe's family.

I got to the table with time to spare.

Evelyn said "Joe, this is my friend. Sign his picture"

I put my picture in front of Joe.

Joe looked at my picture.

"dijoo take this picture" "Yeah I did, Champ"

"good picture"

Ironically, Joe signed over the image of Ali in the ring in the light at Madison Square Garden, young and beautiful.

Floating

Getting ready to sting forever.

Evelyn gave Joe a peck on the cheek.

Joe took a sip from his beer.

I gave Evelyn a peck on her cheek.

It was the last time that I ever saw any of them.

Time was up. Ring the bell.

FAMOUS MIKE CAN DRAW

Some stories are so lovely that I hesitate to write them. Some legends are so fragile and delicate that I'm reluctant to reveal them. Here's a lovely story and a delicate legend all in one.

I'll try to do them justice before the memories fade completely as the blur increases every day.

I remember his first day in class. He was fresh off the boat. I mean that literally. He was a boat person from Viet Nam. He was in my English class.

He didn't speak a word of English.

I didn't know what to do with him that first day so I somehow signalled/sent him to the main office to pick up an attendance sheet.

The secretary at the main office was expecting a student from another class named Mike. When my student arrived, whatever his name was, it wasn't Mike. Helen asked my new student if his name was Mike. He didn't know what Helen was saying but he knew a question when he heard one.

He nodded his head up and down.

Helen said "Here, Mike", and gave him the papers.

He returned to my classroom a few minutes later without the attendance sheet but with whatever administrivia Helen was supposed to give to "Mike". I took the paper from him. I said thanks and asked him what his name was. He said "Mike"

I said "Hi, Mike"

That's how Mike got his name.

Aside from the single word "Mike", Mike spoke no English. We were a pair, Mike and I.

Mike would come into class, take his seat and listen with great patience and attention to the academic tumult engulfing him. I knew something of the concept of linguistic immersion wherein a person learns a foreign language more quickly by surrounding himself with it. I believed this was happening with Mike although I didn't know for certain. I did know that in this case English was the "foreign" language to Mike and he was surrounded.

One day after a couple of weeks, I noticed that Mike was taking "notes" of what I was saying. I couldn't imagine what Mike's notes looked like so I casually made my way to his desk to sneak a peek. Mike's "note" was a surreal and photographic drawing of a rose. As I looked at the rose, I was amazed as much by its sensitivity of rendering as I was by its virtousity.

Near the drawing, I wrote the word "rose."

Then I said the word "rose"

I spelled the word "R..O..S..E"

Mike smiled and said "rose"

I took a risk. I had a feeling the risk would be approved by Mike.

I announced to the class. "Check this out, everybody. Mike can draw."

Everybody crowded around Mike's desk.

Everybody look at the rose.

Everybody flipped out.

Everybody started saying "Mike can draw"

Eventually Mike got the message.

He spoke his first English sentence in English class.

This is what he said.

"Mike can draw"

He smiled.

Time stood still.

I'm here to tell you, Mike could draw.

Many scholars praise the efficient linguistic style of Julius Caesar, how much he could say with how few words. All of France is divided into three parts. Has anyone ever said more with fewer words at the beginning of his story.

This is the beginning of Mike's story.

Mike Can Draw.

Mike not only continued to draw but he also continued to listen with purpose and intention. Mike observed not only with his eyes but also with his heart and mind. Mike's vocabulary began to grow as he listened and observed. Nouns first then verbs then adjectives.

Here's the story of the first adjective I can remember.

One day, I walked over to Mike's desk and noticed that he had been sketching a portrait of himself.

On his portrait, I wrote a bunch of nouns with arrows like "mike" and "nose" and "eyes" and "ears"and "head" and "neck" and "body".

I pointed to each word and said it. Mike repeated the word with me.

Then I added the adjective.

I wrote "famous"; drew an arrow to the picture of Mike and said the word.

Mike hesitated a second and then asked "Mike famous?"

I said "Yes, Mike is famous"

Mike startled me with his reply.

"No, Mike not famous. You, Mr. Rivers...you famous."

I realized that Mike's language skills were blossoming with as much beauty as his drawing skills.

From that day on, every time I saw Mike I would always say.

"Here's the famous Mike."

And Mike would always say, "Mike not famous. Mr. Rivers famous."

We would laugh.

We were connected.

Sure enough, Mike WAS becoming famous, at least in my class. I was running the school newspaper at the time. I asked Mike, still using arrows, objects and printed words if he would draw a comic strip for the paper. He drew the strip. The school read Mike's comic. His character was a lion, The school loved it. Mike's fame grew. His audience expanded.

By this time, everybody in my class knew something rare was happening with Mike and his art, kids were always crowding around his desk to see what new drawings were coming alive.

About this time, Mike develped a crush on Kathy.

I discovered this when Mike showed me a picture of Kathy that he had been drawing.

Mike was stylizing Kathy rather than photographing her with his rendering. I immediately recognized Kathy even with her stylized, over sized Disney girl eyes. I wrote "Kathy" on Mike's paper and drew an arrow. Mike blushed and smiled.

I could tell Mike wanted another word from me, an adjective perhaps so under Kathy, I wrote "beautiful" and drew another arrow.

Mike put the drawing away. His portrait of Kathy was not an image that he intended to show to the class. Not only were we connected; we had a secret.

A couple of weeks passed and Mike's language skills kept growing.

One day, he took out the picture of Kathy and showed me something new that he had added. He showed me that he knew how to change and adjective into a noun.

Under my printing of "beautiful", Mike had printed a word of his own.

This is the word that Mike had printed in painstaking calligraphy.

Beauty

Beauty is truth and truth is beautiful.

I was facing a beautiful truth in my professional life as well as a crossroads. I was given the opportunity to write a grant under the auspices of the Federal Career Education Incentive Act Grant Program, the purpose of which, as the name suggests, was to help secondary education become a better link to careers.

I proposed my very first grant.

The proposal was funded for $500,000.

In my proposal I visualized the creation of an intern program. The idea was radical at the time. I was chosen to be the administrator for the project. I would have to leave the classroom.

Leaving the classroom was the crossroads and a difficult factor in the decision.

When the kids heard what I had done. They were proud of me. Mike came to me and said "Mike not famous, Mr. Rivers famous."

I left the classroom.

I left Mike in the capable hands of the Art. Dept.

The day that I left, Mike showed me his private sketchbook.

In his sketchbook were dozens of drawing of Kathy.

Underneath each sketch; a single printed word:

Beauty.

By the time I got the Intern Program running smoothly, moving it from dream to imagination to realization, Mike was back in my life.

Mike had made breathtaking progress in language and art and had begun to crystallize his dreams. Mike had grown to love classic Walt Disney cartoons and wanted to become an animator.

I had heard that fantasy from other students before and I would hear it again but with Mike...well he had a dream, spectacular discipline and dedication. I had an intern program.

Uh, let's put two and two together and see if it comes out four, twenty two or five.

He had even learned to play the guitar well enough to supply his own music to the animation. In Mike's cartoon one of the characters was a lion. Mike asked me, because I was "famous" to provide the voice for the lion.

Mike's cartoon was eventally selected in an extremely competitive national cartoon contest to be shown on Nickelodeon.

Mike's cartoon was one of the best student cartoons in the country. Little ol' famous lion voice me was roaring on television sets across America.

Mike was only a sophomore in high school but he was already thinking about college and colleges were thinking about him.

Anything was possible including truth , beauty and fame.

Mike was most interested in beauty.

He had discovered that the Disney studios regularly hired interns from the California Institute of the Arts. Mike knew about internships. He had completed four of them in high school.

In the meantime Mike had taken all the art courses at the school plus four more at Rochester Institute of Technology and had aced them all.

Mike spoke a lovely version of the English language, the direct, clear, soft and kind versionrarely used by native speakers.

Mike could draw

Mike could talk

Mike could write, words and music.

Mike could play the guitar.

Mike had a resume full of A's, internships, art work, awards and a cartoon that had played nationally on Nickelodeon. Mike applied to the California Institute of the Arts. We were all happy but not surprised when Mike was accepted and scholarshipped.

Mike was ready for another journey.

I was on a bit of a journey myself. My first marriage was breaking up although I didn't realize it or perhaps was denying the realization.

Mike had never been to a rock concert in his life so at the end of the school year, the night after his graduation I invited Mike as our family guest to see the Moody Blues at the Canandaigua Performing Arts Center. Mike acceptd the invitatiion.

You'll hear more about THAT later.

After the concert, Mike left for California. I haven't seen him since.

Here's the last few things I heard about Mike.

In college, his skill and interest continued to blossom. As an undergraduate, he applied for and completed an internship at Disney Studios.

Upon graduation from college, Mike was hired as an animator by Disney. His first screen credit appeared at the end of the LIttle Mermaid, listing Mike as an animator of Ariel. Apparently Disney liked Mike because his next assignment was a substantial promotion. Mike would be one of the main designers for Beauty and the Beast

Mike was helping to create Belle.

By now, everybody knows WHAT Belle looks like. Only a few of us know WHO Belle looks like. Beauty, if you will, looks exactly like the sketches of Kathy that Mike labored over so mightily, so beautifully, so passionately, so innocently and so truthfully during his junior high days.

Kathy is Belle.

Kathy is

Beauty.

Some stories are so lovely that I hesitate to write them. Some legends are so fragile and delicate that I am afraid to relate or reveal them.

Remember?

Well, I tried.

As I tried, I kept flashing back to the writers who brought us the legends of the Old west, those scribes who turned big nosed, shiftless, violent, alcoholic William Hickock into the great Wild Bill, the handsome hero who died, shot in the back while playing poker and holding the deadman's hand...a pair of aces and a pair of eights. .

A cardinal rule for those writers was, according to John Ford in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, "if you come to a crossroads between truth and legend, write the legend."

The legend of Mike and Kathy is the loveliest local legend, I've ever personally encountered. I'm part of it; a small part but yes I was there in the very beginning.

I can vouch for everything until Mike left for California. I can vouch for the similarities between Mike's sketches of Kathy and the rendering of Beauty.

Every once in awhile, when I reminisce about my teaching days, I like to think that I was the guy who had something to do with the inspiration for the creation of Beauty.

And ya know what?

It's a beautiful feeling

Maybe even true.

Next time somebody you know mentions truth, beauty or Beauty and the Beast tell 'em this story.

That's how legends grow.

AFTERNOON ANGEL

I know for sure it was a Tuesday afternoon. I don't know if it was the first time I smoked weed, such moments are hard to pinpoint. Today is also a Tuesday afternoon. Today I found out that Ray Thomas, the flautist for the Moody Blues has passed away from prostate cancer. I know something about cancer.

The beauty of metaphysiction is its ability to go flash forward and backward at the same time while flirtting with the eternal and the imaginary.

The Tuesday afternoon that begins this story happened fifty years ago. I was shooting footage for a film that I was making in graduate school. My idea was to simply walk around and shoot whatever came into my lens on this Tuesday afternoon and call whatever came out "Tuesday Afternoon" It was during this activity that I might or might not have smoked a joint because I know the guy with me was a "weirdo" at the time who definitely smoked the rope. I had shot enough weird footage so I was confident that within the images, I could find 10 solid minutes that would represent what a Tuesday afternoon looked and sounded like and that it would probably be interesting to watch in say 50 years so that I could clearly remember what fifty years ago looked and sounded like.

Yeah, maybe I was loaded as I recall this thought process.

We were driving back to campus. We turned on an FM station. By this time I was an album guy and FM was the album station. I was trying to figure out what music I would use in the background of the film when on the radio came "Tuesday Afternoon". I had never heard anything like it before. When the song was over, the announcer said "that was Tuesday Afternoon by the Moody Blues from their new album Days of Future Passed"

I knew the Moody Blues. I knew of their hit "Go Now" which I wasn't crazy about. I didn't know that the personnel of the band had changed and they had gone from THAT to THIS. Ray Thomas was in both versions, I learned later.

Shocked, stoned and stunned by synchronicity, I became a Moody Blues fan. In other words, I too was a weirdo. At the time you had to be a little weird to like the Blues. They were hanging with LSD guru Timothy Leary and proud of it.

I couldn't believe that "drug music" could be so beautiful or that a simple Tuesday afternoon could be so profound.

I had the music for my film.

I found my film in the music.

Now let's fast forward 15 years.

My first marriage was breaking up although I didn't realize it or perhaps was denying the realization. I know I felt like I had a ton of bricks on my back.

The "famous" Mike had never been to a concert before and he loved the Moody Blues. I invited Mike and a couple of friends to join my family at the Moody Blues concert at the Canandaigua Performing Arts Center.

Mike accepted my invitation.

The night of the Moody Blues arrived.

I had purchased a dozen tickets for the show.

The day of the night of the Blues was very hot. I ran ten miles that afternoon trying to lighten my load.

My brother, my sister, my wife, a few of our friends, my son Beau, Mike and I made the short trip. We walked to the gates. I took out the tickets. I only had eleven tickets. Everybody was looking at me. I counted the tickets only eleven again. I was going to have to exclude someone from the concert. I looked around at the faces. I knew I would exclude myself. I looked at the tickets again. I counted the tickets. I looked at Mike. My marriage was falling apart. Mike was on his way to California. I had screwed up the tickets. I had ruined Mike's first concert. I could feel the earth spinning. I said something incoherent to my brother. He looked at me with concern and said "whaaa?" I spoke again and once again sounded like Gregor Samsa after his metamorphosis. I started to stumble. The tickets fell out of my grasp. I looked directly into my son's eyes as the weight on my shoulders flew off and I fell in slow motion towards the ground. As I looked into his eyes, I realized that I was watching a son watch the death of his father. I wondered how this would affect him him. I heard my wife scream "he didn't go to his physical"

I hit the ground

I knew I was dead.

When I opened my eyes some time later to see what heaven was like I saw two faces. One face was of a beautiful, elderly woman. The other was Mike. This was Mike's first minute at his first concert.

In the background Moody Blues music was playing.

The elderly woman whispered her phone number in my ear. It went right into my permanent memory She told me to call anytime and that the more I called, the more I would want to call. Eventually I wouldn't even need a phone.

I still remember the number. I call it everyday.

The number is/was a prayer.

I called it before I started writing this, seeking help to get this right.

Phone? I don't need no stinken phone.

They wanted to call an ambulance.

I didn't want that

I wanted to go where the music was, where the angel was.

Somebody picked up the tickets and found all twelve.

We went inside the Shell and heard the Blues.

The woman had disappeared once it became clear that I was going to live.

The last time I saw her, she was listening to the show. The Blues may or may not have been playing Tuesday afternoon when our eyes met.

Flash forward

Today, Tuesday, I learned that Ray Thomas had died. Ray was 76 years old. I'm 71. How could all of those future days have passed.

I'm calling the number.

IN THE PACKAGE

Mr. Baseball remained in his coma for months.

It was the bottom of the ninth and his team was behind by 100 runs and there were two out and two strikes on Mr. Baseball. One more strike and he was out.

Game over.

That was the situation the last time that I visited him at the Community hospital.

Time passed. Mr. Baseball kept fouling off pitches, his faithful loving wife Rosie by his side.

Rosie figured that maybe things would improve if they moved Baseball to his home ball park. Still in his coma, Mr. Baseball was transported to his home.

Home plate.

His home plate was far away from my homeplate.

We didn't visit in person, overwhelmed as were with our own ballgame.

When he got home, minus a few tubes and some drugs that hadn't worked, Mr Baseball out of nowhere, hit a homerun. He came out of the coma but remained bedridden.

We didn't know about the rally, we had left the game a little early.

We knew that he was home and we had his phone number. One day, Lynn called the number and Rosie answered.

The rally was still going on. Therapists were pitching now and Mr. Baseball continued to swing away always encouraged by Rosie who was as encouraged as she was encouraging. She told Lynn that a speech therapist was pitching at the moment. She whispered to Mr. Baseball that Lynn was on the phone. He understood; another base hit. Rosie put the phone up to Mr. Baseball's face. Lynn said "Hello, Mr. Baseball."

Lynn's 'hello' was like a hanging curve ball. Mr. Baseball took a mighty swing and said in a slow, soft, labored voice "Hi Lynn."

Home run. Grand slam.

Rosie took the phone back and explained the progress Baseball had been making.

He was scoring on the coma. His therapists were amazed.

He scored 200 runs and beat the stroke.

Meanwhile he had developed cancer.

It was the cancer, not the coma that finally got him.

We went to the funeral. Mr. Baseball looked good almost as good as he looked the time he caught a foul ball barehanded at Frontier Field. In my dreams, he shows up at his funeral and he, Rosie, Lynn and I go off to dinner as if nuthin' had happened. He even makes fun of me for imagining that everything wasn't perfect.

We paid our condolences to Rosie.

A week later, we got a package in the mail with Mr. Baseball's address as the return.

In the package was the fiber optic bear.

DEAD, ALIVE or DREAMING

We thought we had located heaven but we had to pass through Indiana first. I was wondering why the hell somebody decided to name this state Indiana when we cruised into a blind spot.

The first moment that I realized we were in a blind spot was when I saw the front fender of a semi smashing through the driver’s side window. We were going 70, I don't know how fast the semi was going but somehow the driver never saw us when he attempted to change lanes.

I remember flying up in my seat and hitting my head against the roof of our vehicle.

Then the swerves began as the semi hit the brake while it pushed us down the road. For a moment we were perpendicular with the eightyeen wheeler and taking up both lanes. I remember thinking to myself….I can’t die here. I’ve got to teach next week. Nobody will know who the hell we are….our friends back home will never understand how we came to crash and burn in this weird place.

This can’t be the end but it must be. Nobody ever lives to tell this story.

We disengaged from the semi and the high speed spin began.

The laws of physics must be obeyed.

The swerve into spin continued forever. I lost consciousness. When I came to a second or a minute, an hour or a lifetime later, our totaled van was in the median between the lanes of a four lane highway.

I figured that I had just learned how to die. It was simple really. You hit your head and the video tape called life goes dark for an undetermined time and when you wake up, you’re in a median in Indiana.

Slowly, I got the impression that I might be alive but what about Lynn? She.was driving She must be dead. I saw the fender smash through her window. I saw the flying glass Her head was against the steering wheel.

There was blood.

She had to be dead.

The whole goddamned thing was my fault.

I was the one who thought we could find heaven.

Whatever this was; it didn’t look like heaven. I had a lot to learn about heaven. I had a camera. Soon I would use it. In my dreams, the camera never works. The camera worked. Whatever this was, it wasn't a dream.

to my mortal amazement, Lynn was as alive as I.

To my immortal wonder, perhaps she was as dead as I.

I saw the truck coming through her window.

No way that she could have survived that collision as long as there were laws of physics that governed force, mass, speed and velocity.

If she was alive…these natural laws had been circumvented which put us in the realm of the supernatural where we have remained ever since.

And the blood?

We both had slashes above our right elbow from the shattered glass….nothing serious.

We were able to exit the vehicle without much trouble.

I went to check on my cameras. In my dreams, my camera is always broken at times like this.

My camera was shattered.

That suggested, I might wake up so I decided to go with the dream a little further to see what would happen.

I went to my video camera. It seemed to be working.

Uh Oh.

This might not be a dream.

Whatever it was, if I could tape it…it might help.

I turned on the camera. It worked. The semi had come to a stop about 150 yards in front of us. The driver was still in the cab

I pointed the camera in the other direction and noticed a person coming towards us.

I kept the camera aimed at his face so I got a closer up look than I would have without the camera.

I focused on his eyes.

His eyes told me that he thought he was looking at a couple of ghosts.

When he got within speaking distance, I put down the camera.

“I saw the whole thing. I thought you guys were goners? Are you okay?”

I wasn’t sure.

We walked around to the side of the van. Lynn was leaning up against it.

I kept the video running.

The tape would later be seen at least three times on national teevee.

Moments later, the police arrived.

Lynn explained the collision with astounding calm and clarity.

I was no longer taping.

They arranged for our totaled van to be removed from the median.

They gave us a ride to a nearby hotel.

They explained our situation to the folks at the front desk who set us up with a room although all of our belongings were still in the van.They gave us a room pro-bono. Everybody told us not to worry.

We found out that we were in La Grange, Indiana.

All we had was the clothes on our backs.

And the aid of better angels.

I was teaching summer school.

I was a teacher all the way. I taught twelve months a year. No house painting for me.

I had been going twelve months a year for ten years with only one break in between. I didn't teach in the summer of 87, the year that I met Lynn.

Lynn was a single Mom when we met. She was raising three daughters. I was a single Dad raising a son and a daughter. Her kids liked me and my kids liked her. We spent a lot of time together especially on the weekends when I had custody of my two.

Lynnn was working part time at First Federal Bank.

She was good with change. She balanced every day. She could find the errors when someone else failed to balance.

She didn't stand for a lot of bullshit that's why she was checking the boat when I suggested a road trip test.

My prior experience as a road warrior had convinced me that you don't really know a person until you've been on the road with them. I had made the trip from ocean to ocean three times before I got married the first time. I regretted the fact that I hadn't road tripped with my first wife before we got married. Although two children had to be born, we might have saved ourselves some nightmares. I had rushed into that first one and wasn't gonna rush into this one.

Two years had already passed with Lynn and me....our bodies were at rest and would tend to stay at rest unless acted upon.

Times of indecision.

We had both already been married. We both carried the scars.

We had met one enchanted evening when she walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to dance.

The first song we danced to was “Hurt so Good”....John Mellencamp.

The second was “Loving You” by Elvis.

The third was “It’s All in the Game” by Tommy Edwards. When Tommy was about to sing the words “then he’ll kiss your lips” I decided to take the chance.

I kissed her lips. She kissed me back

We had been together every day since and it was going on two years. Two wonderful years. Time to clarify.

Lynn made a decision.

She said we should get married at the local justice of the peace.

She called it to question one afternoon when we were having lunch at Mario's on East Avenue our favorite Italian restaurant.

Justice of the peace was no place for me or for us as far as I was concerned.

She took it as a rejection of her love which was the opposite of my intention

For the first time, we began to wonder about the future of the relationship.

Yet, we had booked a trailer for a weekend at Darien Lake. We decided to make the trip.

We had a couple of our kids with us.

They were having a lot more fun than we were. They were outside the trailer when Lynn handed me a tiny article from the Democrat and Chronicle.

The article said “The Field of Dreams is a real place.”

All of a sudden it was clear to me.

I am a person of intuition which means I have a tendency to say out loud exactly what is flashing through my mind at the exact time that it flashes.

The flash came on.

“ Hey Lynn, If we were ever to get married, it would have to be at the most beautiful place in America. Our love deserves it. If you’re willing to travel to Iowa and if we can find this place and if it's real we could get married on the spot....right at home plate.”

She made a face that I couldn't decipher so I didn't take it as a rejection.

Then she said "Great idea. I'll call up Iowa and tell them we need a marriage license to get married at an imaginary place at an undetermined time."

I found out later that she thought I was nuts and bullshitting her at the same time.

We had seen the movie together earlier in the year. we both thought it was great. In one scene, Kevin Costner (Ray Kinsella) asked his wife Amy Madigan “is this heaven or is this Iowa” as they relaxed one starry evening on the diamond that he had carved into his cornfield.

The location was so exquisite that I thought perhaps it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.

This was the place for us.

Plus we would give the relationship the test....a test that I firmly believed had to be taken by any couple in the tentative situation that we occupied.

So the question would be, if we were going to take a road trip when would it be. Lynn had her schedule at the bank and I had mine at the high school. During the regular school year, I taught twelfth grade English as well as Creative Writing. I also taught an elective called Cinematic Literacy. I created that one myself and it was a great success. I was approaching the peak of my teaching career.

I had ten days at the end of August, beginning of September.

Lynn had a week of undefined vacation saved up.

We had originally met on July eleventh 1987 or as we called it 7/11. On our two year anniversary, we went out to dinner at the very restaurant where Lynn had made her first proposal a month before. Midway through the meal she said "I sent away for a marriage license in Iowa. The field is located in Dyersville which is near Dubuque. We have a license waiting for us in Dubuque."

Of course I was surprised but since I hadn't been bullshitting her about the road trip idea, I said "that's great. Good job."

I didn't know if she had actually procured a license or if she was reality testing

I was mystified when she said "so if we break up this summer at least we can always say that at one time we had a marriage license in Iowa when we tell our story".

All through the month of August, we came up with reasons to take the trip and those reasons were roadblocked by objections, obstacles and realities. If Lynn wasn't exactly rocking the boat during the previous couple of weeks, she was damned sure checking for leaks.

One night, we watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We loved the flick and mixed it into our plan. If we headed west we would go as far as Devil's Tower in Wyoming and if we hadn't made up our mind to get married by that time, we would head back and know that we had tried goddamn it, we had tried and we had a Iowa Marrigae license to prove it.

It was also becoming clear that if we hadn't made up our mind to try the road trip this before school started, it meant that we probably should wrap up the relationship as painlessly as possible.

On August 25th, I called Lynn from my apartment and said "I was ready to go if she was''.

She wasn't ready and she hung up sorta pissed off.

This was the last possible day to make the trip and be back in time for school.

A couple hours later, I heard a knock on the door. It was Lynn.

She told me the van was in the parking lot, packed and ready to go if I was serious.

I ran into my house, packed a few things.

I climbed into the van.

"Let's go" I said.

"I'll drive"

I drove the first leg. We found rest area deep in Ohio.

We napped for a few hours. Then we went into the rest area and washed up. Lynn came out first and went behind the wheel. I started to climb into the van when an impulse struck me. As I was leaving the rest area, I saw a machine selling bio-rhythm cards. I dec ided what the hell...I went back and bought a card for that day.

It only took maybe an extra thirty seconds. I didn't like what the card said so I threw it out.

That thirty seconds would be crucial as we were headed for a blind spot that we might have missed if not for the card.

Yeah, the whole crazy pilgrimage was my idea. I talked her into it, yet it was her van that was smashed to bits.

One way or another, the journey was over.

We were alone together in a motel in LaGrange, Indiana not far from Touchdown Jesus and the Golden Dome of Notre Dame. I was beginning to get a grip on death. As we traveled from the wreckage to the hotel, I asked what time it was. When we got to the hotel, it was a half hour before the time it was when we were on our way to the hotel.

Someone explained that we had crossed the line separating one time zone from another. We had left Eastern Daylight Savings Time. That’s when I began to realize what death is/was. This was eternity. When you’re dead, you’re in Indiana and you keep crossing between time zones and Touchdown Jesus forever.

Time stabilized for awhile in the hotel. I was expecting hysterics, blame or disassociation from Lynn. Instead, I got calm, composed, courageous capability.She started working the phones.

She had a handle on what happened. She called her auto insurance company back in New York. She explained the situation.....car totaled, hotel in Indiana, etc. They wanted to know what her plan was.

To my astonishment, Lynn told them that she wanted to continue on with her journey. She outlined what she needed and what she expected to make that continuation possible.

Following that she called the American Automobile Association and got from them what we needed to continue the journey.

A few minutes later, a rental car appeared at the motel.

We drove around a bit, looking for a place to eat. We lost and gained two or three hours in that fifteen minute search.

After “lunch” we made our way to the junkyard to take a look at the van.

“Yep, it’s totaled”, the junkman asserted.

We gathered our belongings from the van and loaded them in the rental.

I could not have been more impressed by any companion.

Even though I wasn’t sure whether we were alive or not, it was clear that we were inhabiting the same realm. It was a realm, I wanted to remain in for the rest of my life/death.

I got down on one knee in that junkyard and asked Lynn to marry me.

She accepted.

August 26, 1989.

What a day.

What an eternity.

And the pilgrimage was still on.

We didn’t know if we were dead or alive but we knew we were getting married. We didn’t know where. We had a marriage license in Iowa. We had been looking for the Field of Dreams which we heard was in Dyersville. We drove through that town. There’s a lot of farms in Dyersville and a lot of corn. We couldn’t find the farm that we were looking for. We were hungry, tired, not sure if we were alive and headed for a place that might not exist. We were in a rented van.

We turned right at the end of the driveway. We drove about a hundred yards. And then...we saw a paper plate.....nailed to a tree....on the plate two words and an arrow.....Movie site....arrow pointed right.

We took that right turn and a half mile down the road, there it was....The Field of Dreams. No doubt. Right exactly out of the film and out of my dreams.

Perfect.

We drove down that long driveway and met a man who was working in the yard. I asked him if he was the owner of the place.

He said that he wasn’t but that the owner was out in the cornfield on his tractor.

I saw the man on the tractor in the corn and walked towards him. He turned his tractor to meet me.

When we were about ten feet apart, he turned off the tractor and turned his blue eyes on me.

“Can I help you?” asked the man on the tractor.

He looked at me and realized that there was something going on here and he wasn’t sure what it was.

Then he answered in the most perplexing way possible.

“It’s whatever you want it to be.’

I said, “whatever it is, it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I want it to be the place where we get married.”

He said “You can do that.”

I asked “Would Friday be all right.”

He said “that would be fine.”

We shook hands.

On that Friday, he would be our best man. His name was Don Lansing.

I told Lynn the great news.

We got in our car and drove to Devil’s Tower. We had originally said that we would go as far West as Devil’s Tower and if we hadn’t made up our minds by then, well we’d head back home and take a break. Of course, we had already made up our minds thanks to the junkyard proposal.

We returned Thursday night.

Don greeted us warmly and invited us into the house. Yeah, the house in the movie. Don wanted to know what we were going to wear. All we had left were our jeans. Don went to the phone and called the local tux shop. They had one tux left. Don asked if we wanted a cake. We said yeah. He got on the phone and called the local bakery. He asked Lynn how big the cake should be. She said big enough for fifty. I laughed out loud. We didn’t know a single person in Iowa aside from Don and the guy who originally greeted us, a guy named Butch who was a caretaker for the field and his wife Annie.

The next day, we went back into town. The dress was made. Beautiful like in a dream. We drove to the town office to pick up our wedding license. Lynn had sent away for one before we left on our pilgramage. By the time we got to the office the word had already spread. We got our license. They told us that they had heard all about the plan and so had the local television station. They wanted to interview us.

We met the reporter and she seemed very interested in our story. She had a full camera crew with her. We told them that we had arranged for a justice of the peace to do the honors. We told them about the car crash.

The town barber had heard about all of this and volunteered to give me a haircut while Lynn tried on her dress.

By that time it was getting late. We stopped at a restaurant to have our last meal as single people. We looked up at the teevee and there we were on the local news. We watched ourselves telling our story.

We made it back to the house. By this time, a bunch of neighbors had gathered.

I went into the room where in the movie Ray’s daughter looks out the window and says “something’s gonna happen out there.”just before the ghost shows up.

I had the same view of the field and I knew that indeed something was gonna happen out there. We were gonna get married. The ghosts were gonna show up.

I made sure I had the wedding ring which we had bought at Wall Drugs in South Dakota. The rings were made from genuine Black Hills gold.

By this time about fifty people had gathered.

I left the house and walked into the corn in left field. I figured that since I still wasn’t sure that I was alive that I should come out of the corn like the ghosts did.

I made my way to the pitchers mound where I met Don. I was on the mound for a few moments when the fifty people started to ooh and ahh as Lynn emerged from the house. Suddenly everything was in transcendent five dimension. I couldn’t have dreamed of a more beautiful bride.

After the ceremony, we went back to the porch. The towns folk had brought fixings. We ate the cake together. They all wanted pictures so we posed for awhile. We drank some champagne that somebody had provided. We bid them farewell.

The next day we were home. On the flight back, we told the stewardess our story and she put us in first class. Sitting right next to us was Maury Wills, the ex-Dodger shortstop who had once stole a hundred bases in a season. She told Maury the story and he congratulated us.

We made it home in time for the Ring of Fire around Canadaigua Lake.

We’re going to be celebrating our thirtieth anniversary next week.

We’re still going the distance and easing each other’s pain.

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