Dads often expect children to follow their favorite sports team. Or their college. Or even their favorite beer. It can be fanatical. Extreme. “You will get that Gator tattoo or you’re grounded!” “But dad, I’m only 7!” I’ve never been like that. Except … I do have one demand of my 8-year-old daughter. And it’s non-negotiable. She must be a “Star Wars” fan. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to make it happen. I was thinking about this while reading a story about the next installment of “Star Wars.” It told me nothing — only that it will be released in 2015 and is set 30 years after the original series. I read the story over and over again, hoping it held more information. Maybe a secret message. Maybe if I read it upside down. Maybe if I had a “Star Wars” decoder ring! In an instant I was blasted back to a galaxy far, far away. I was 4 years old in 1977 when the first “Star Wars” came out. I consider it my TRUE birth day. For the next decade I dreamed of light sabers. Millennium Falcons. Princess Leia sweeping me off my feet and feeding me grapes (imported from the Dagobah System, of course.) But my daughter couldn’t care less. So whenever I get the chance, I try to reel her in. Like when we’re buying something for a friend’s birthday. “We should get him a ‘Star Wars’ toy!” I suggest. “Oh yeah,” she says. “He’ll love […]
Goodbye to the Mustang
It was my first car. A white 1965 Ford Mustang. I was 15, and couldn’t even drive it alone. It had a puny 6-cylinder engine. It would have struggled to beat a sewing machine in a head-to-head race. And if it was uphill, forget it! My mother intended it that way. She didn’t want her boys to have speed. My brother had a nearly identical Mustang — just as glorious to look at. Just as slow. But, man, you felt good driving down the road in that thing. Like you were the coolest thing in the world. Windows down. Elbow propped on the door. Other arm stretched across the passenger seat. Maybe there was a lady over there. (Usually there wasn’t.) Cool wind through your hair. Good tunes on the radio. People watching as you rolled by. Man! Then a hubcap would break loose, sprinting into traffic and causing automotive chaos. Like all old cars, my Mustang had its quirks. It could lose a hubcap while standing still. There were other “eccentricities.” The carburetor was prone to asthma attacks. The car would leak even when it wasn’t raining. And when it did rain, the brakes flipped a coin to decide whether to show up for work. Tails you lose … goodbye red light! What a car. I’ve kept it all these years. For the longest time it had been parked at my brother’s house, unused and forgotten. Needing work. Needing love. Needing someone to drive with an elbow out the […]
Overcoming pre-spring yard depression
I really tried. I ventured out into my winter-burned, long-forsaken yard last weekend with every intention of sprucing it up. Trimming back the dead butterfly bushes. Raking up the Himalayan-sized mountains of leaves. But it’s sad, isn’t it? Even depressing? Spending a beautiful weekend trying to improve a brown, sickly-looking yard that resembles a Siberian waste dump. So if you’re like me — suffering from pre-spring yard depression — you need some tips to overcome those landscaping blues: • Don’t take the comments of neighbors personally when they say things like, “Boy … um … you really nailed the Colorado wildfire look!” Just shake it off. Maybe they mean it in a nice way. Like how a forgotten Gateway to Hell might actually appeal to some people. Besides, positive thinking will help you with great comeback lines. For instance, “Boy, your hair stylist really nailed my dead bougainvillea look!” • Recognize it’s not your fault. That’s half the battle. The other half the battle is recognizing it IS your fault. That your precious plants wouldn’t have burned in the freeze if you had covered them like your neighbors. Or if you had raked, say, once the entire winter. Or if you didn’t have a dog who runs through wood chips like a demon-possessed bull. Instead, put the blame where it’s due: global warming or Southern pine beetles or Yankees. The more irrational and absurd, the better you’ll feel. • Do some yoga or mediation (maybe acupuncture) before you try to […]
Traffic hell and the joys of small town living
Maybe it was the box spring that took flight. That might have been the moment. It had been strapped to the roof of a car driving down one of Tampa’s endless roads. They used dental floss and shoe knots to tie it down. Must have because it leaped to its feet and took to the air like a kite. Yippeee! Fly away little box spring! Straight up, and then straight into traffic. Life will teach you a lot of things, but it won’t prepare you for flying box springs. Surprisingly, that’s never been a question on the DMV’s driving test: What do you do when bedding races toward you? For those wondering, the answer is: Gasp. Swerve. Curse. Change underpants. Cross another off the list of “things I never thought I would have to survive.” And just another day on the roads of Tampa. I was there with my family last weekend, running the Gasparilla 15K and visiting my dad and aunt. Tampa used to be home — the city where I grew up. Going back always made me nostalgic. Driving down bayshore. Passing my old high school. The soccer fields where I used to collect sandspurs in my rear end. The train tracks I walked with my brother. How the 150 percent humidity can drown you while standing up. There’s plenty of time to think about it as you drive. And drive. And drive. Or should I say, sit. And sit. And sit. Roads are crowded parking lots. Cars […]
Goodbye, 40. I hardly liked you
I spent a lot of time last year telling myself a lie. “Brian,” I said like a father to a son. “Don’t worry about turning 40. It’s no big deal. Wait until the hair grows out of your ears like tentacles. Then freak out. But this? This will be easy!” Then I turned 40 and spent most of the year staring at myself in the mirror, looking for ear hair tentacles. It wasn’t vanity. It was the realization that it was all slipping away. That of all the things I can control, time is not one of them. I can save up money. I can give up regular beer for carrot beer. I can combine yoga and tai chi with self-inflicted acupuncture, all while dangling upside down from the ceiling. But while it will make me healthier (or kill me!) it won’t slow things down. Forty made me freak out. Isn’t that what those milestone, decade-ending ages do? They usher us into a new, uncharted realm. They dispatch something we were very comfortable with — our 30s, our 40s, our 50s, our 60s. They leave us pondering what it all means, and really, where it all went. But a wonderful thing happened this week: 41 showed up. Oh, wonderful 41. Where have you been all my life? It’s a fresh start. Where 40 was the end of something, 41 is just the beginning. A renewal. A chance to be young again. The baby of the 40-year-olds. Like a new recruit. […]
A Floridian’s take on the Sochi Olympics? Ice for iced tea
I Floridian. Ice for iced tea. It’s a mantra of sorts. I find myself repeating it each night as I sit down to watch the Winter Olympics. Spills don’t get me. Crashes on the luge? Limbs flying by? I can handle it. But show me a close-up of some ice — of that Sochi winter slush — and I cringe, burrowing deeper into a blanket. “Oh, this is horrible!” I say. “How can they show this in primetime? Children are watching!” I Floridian. Ice for iced tea. I grew up in Tampa. You find record heat inside freezers there. I remember when the NHL first awarded the city its hockey team. My mother was incensed. “How can they play that here!” she demanded. “It’s not right. It goes against the laws of nature. I’m writing my congressman.” We knew little about ice skating. There was a rink at one of the malls we used to go to. As kids, we would fumble around with the other pathetic Floridians, crashing into each other like bumper cars. The rink attendants skated about with a wheel barrow to cart off the wounded. Each session came with a free ankle brace and a coupon for the ER. I went on to marry a woman from Long Island. As legend tells it, she was born in the snow, was strapped into snow shoes and then sent off to the store in a blizzard for milk. Northerners are a hardy breed. She tells stories of the […]
The great Grandma Evie armadillo hunt
“Oh, darn it,” said my daughter. “I have my armadillo meeting tomorrow and I haven’t done my papers!” “You … um …” I stuttered. “OK, what?” “My armadillo meeting! With Grandma Evie!” Jeez, dad! Don’t you remember anything. You know, Grandma Evie? Your mom? The woman who has been calling here every day for the past week because she says there’s an armadillo in her yard. Digging holes. Eating all the worms. In downtown St. Augustine. Which is more improbable than, say, green alien squirrels mining gold in the Castillo. But there it is. The agricultural extension lady came out, looked at at the holes and said that’s what it was. Or it’s where the alien squirrel mother ship landed. Only at Gandma Evie’s house! “So what’s this meeting you’re having?” I asked. Another dumb question. Eight year olds are a tough crowd. “Seriously?!?” she said. “I’m part of the armadillo staff. I have to do research. I have to look up what armadillos eat. I have to design traps. I have a meeting tomorrow with Grandma Evie. We need to look around the neighborhood. We have to measure the holes in the yard. We have to see if there’s an armadillo under the house. We have to build a trap. That’s a lot of pressure, you know.” “Yes, yes it is,” I said. “Did you say ‘under the house?’ Your grandmother’s not going to make you crawl under there, is she?” “Dad, you don’t honestly think SHE’S going to […]
No really, I’m not old. I’m just lazy
I’m not old. I’m just lazy. That’s what I told myself. That’s how I justified it. I ran the Matanzas 5K last weekend. First race I’ve run in almost two years. I felt pretty well at mile one. I ran pretty well through mile one. And if they had called the race right there, say for some freak weather event or Godzilla attacking the harbor, I would have done pretty well. Only they didn’t call the race. I kept running. My pace took a slow vacation somewhere south of Cabo San Lucas. It still isn’t back yet. Where are you when I need you Godzilla! Runners know that clocks are cruel. Time pieces snicker as they tick off the seconds while you slowly steam to the finish. They know it sticks the knife a little deeper. Ouch-ouch. Ouch-ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I finished nearly a minute off my last 5K time two years ago. When I was younger. “Will someone be a dear and go find my walker!” I exclaimed to the race officials. I imagined someone muttering under their breath, “Keep the defibrillator handy for this guy.” Thanks for the confidence, brain! My mother doesn’t pull any punches. If Godzilla does storm our beaches, the mayor will surely deputize her to deal with the situation. And she might. She could talk him to death. She was at the finish line with my wife and daughter. She knew just what to say. “Well, you are getting older, Brian,” were her […]
Learning from the dog that everywhere is there
So I’m tugging on this dog of mine. “Come one. Come on!” I tell her. “It’s cold. You just sniffed that. You’ve sniffed it for like 15 minutes. You sniffed it yesterday. It’s the same spot. It hasn’t changed. It’s just pee. Come on!” I do this all the time. Pull, pull, pull. Tug, tug, tug. She doesn’t seem to mind. Or notice. Or even care. “I’m sorry, did you say something?” her eyes seem to ask as she … Wo! Wait a minute. I gotta’ sniff this. A walk for my dog is like a trip to the perfume counter. “Oh, this is nice. Very nice. Hints of corned beef hash and vinegar.” I love walking my dog. But it’s like dragging concrete … that’s already been set in the ground. And it must look ridiculous to strangers. This crazy man standing in the street saying things like, “Come on, you meathead! Let’s go! Let’s get there! Don’t you want to get there?” I pull on the leash like I’m trying to rip a tree stump from the ground. The dog? An immovable object. Oblivious. Un-fazed. “I’m sorry, did you say something?” We move. Freely. Gracefully. Quickly. For 3 seconds. She finds another spot. “Wo, wo, wo! Can’t miss this one. I think it’s a little cat throw up!” To be a dog. I have to stop and explain things to her. In the nicest tone I can muster. I say, “Now listen here, Lily. You can’t stop at […]
Parental panic as child turns ‘halfway to 16’
Math has never been my thing. I can do simple arithmetic — two plus two stuff. Put a couple numbers together and see what comes of it. Like this one: 8 + 8. You know what that one is? It’s 16. Eight plus 8 equals 16. SIXTEEN! I came to this conclusion over Christmas break when my daughter turned — GASP! — 8. She’s lived 8 years already. When she lives another 8 she will be … no, I can’t say it again. It’s too horrible. Too terrible. The big 1-6. The age. It’s just over yonder. That’s been my reality the last couple weeks. Thinking about how my wife and I now have a daughter halfway there. It’s all psychological, of course. The damage caused when we get hung up on what we think numbers mean. I remember when I was 6 looking up to some 8-year-old girls in my neighborhood. I shouldn’t say “looking up.” I should say “idolizing” or “dreaming about” or “drooling all over myself.” They were “big kid” girls. Older. Mature. Wise. And (as much as a 6-year-old knows something about this) super cute hotties. “Man, I can’t wait until I’m 8,” I remember thinking. I was probably staring out the window. Head propped on my wrists. Sighing. Cooing. (I cooed!) Little pink hearts floating above my head. Everything would be better when I was 8. Everything would seem different. I would get a mortgage. Start reading the newspaper over morning coffee. Start wearing suits […]