Trump Card

This little five year old boy did not “fight a battle with cancer” –  he trumped it with a full house thanks to Marvel Comics.  Nobody who is so brave and fights so hard loses a battle with cancer.  They win because they don’t give up.

At first glance one may think these men

In their colorful suits

Did something special for the boy

–But quite the opposite is true.

Five year old Brayden Denton belongs to all of us.  Our little Super Hero brought out the best in humanity and the gift is real.  He held on to faith in the good guys.  He inspired us to aspire.

He accomplished something in five years that takes many of us a lifetime–he transformed us into something bigger than ourselves.  He mattered.

Today, Brayden is skimming stones across blue water ponds and collecting lightning bugs in a jar.  He is righting wrongs and playing cards with the biggest SUPERHERO of all time.  Through HIS Superpowers, Brayden is sitting on his Mom and Dad’s shoulders–an innocent angel, living life in full color.

~Dedicated to Rick Carmichael who lives two lives.  One for himself, and one for his little boy angel.

You Don’t Know Nothin’ About Machinery

Colloquialisms or expressions/slang that our parents abused used on us while we were busy growing up on the south side of Chicago in the 1960′s and 1970′s have scarred us for life.   These sayings were meant to show us how little we knew of life.

No matter the project or the explanation, Uncle Ted Laszczewski would come back with, “Ahhh, youse guys don’t know nothin’ about machinery.”   But, on the outside chance we did know a little something about nothing, he would remark, “Chihauhua,”  –his one size fits all acknowledgement.

Bad words were only used by kids who wanted to end up at St. Charles or “CharlieTown”,  the juvenile detention center.  We were always being sent there.  Parents posted the phone number to the North Pole next to the rotary phone and threatened to call the Abominable Snowman on us if Santa was busy.  Yeah, Richie Cunningham never experienced “The Chicago Way.”

Economics dictated a lot of what we got in trouble for.  “Turn off the lights!  We don’t have stock in Edison.”

• Get off the phone–it’s long distance!
• Close the front door, you’re letting out the heat.
• Close the refrigerator, you’re letting out the cold.

Then there was the ‘ol collect call trick used when we reached our final destination.  Our parents would tell us, “When you get there, call home collect and then hang up when I don’t accept the call.”

Things told to a ten year old:

Quit your dilly-dallying.   I don’t care if everybody is doing it, you’re not everybody.  I’m not going to tell you twice.  When you are big enough and tough enough, we’ll talk.   What was that?  It sounded like a bomb went off.   I thought I told you not to do that.   Go disappear.    Yeah, well people in Hell want ice water.  Don’t make me take off my shoe.  I’ve seen better heads on lettuce.   You have two legs, walk!    That’s enough from the peanut gallery.  I have eyes in the back of my head.  Stop it or I will give you something to cry about.   Keep your hat on so your head won’t fall off.  Wipe that smile off of your face!  If you had brains, you would be dangerous. You’ve got more excuses than Carter’s has pills. I don’t want to hear a peep out of you.   Use your noggin.  Don’t make me come up there.  I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.    Stop it or you’ll poke your eye out.  Because I said so. Do that and you’re headed to Hell in a hand basket.  Get out of my hair. If your friend jumped off of a cliff, would you?  Don’t call your Mother a “she”.  Oh for cry-eye!  Close the door; you weren’t born in a barn.  Mind your P’s and Q’s.

Things told to a seventeen year old:

“E” does not stand for Enough…if you run out of gas, don’t call home.  Aint isn’t a word.    They’ll never buy the cow if they get the milk for free.  I asked for a reason, you gave me an excuse.   This is not a popularity contest.  You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground.   Money doesn’t grow on trees.  “Hey” is for horses, grass is cheaper.  Keep your knees together if you don’t want to get pregnant.  Who do you think you are…The Queen of Sheba? or King Farouk?  Make sure your underwear is clean.  See, there’s the problem…you were thinking again.  Don’t let that change burn a hole in your pocket.  Guess what…the world doesn’t revolve around you.  If bullshit was music, you’d be a brass band.  You’re going to break that mirror if you keep looking in it.  This is not a flop house.  That outfit leaves nothing to the imagination. You don’t know shit from apple butter.  Here’s a nickel, go call someone who cares.  This job needs a bigger hammer;  or, get me a left-handed screwdriver.   “You smell like a French whore”  (if we wore too much perfume).  If you think I’m going to say yes, you have another thing coming. “I don’t know” is not an answer!

The Theory of Relativity:

• Lose a game?  We could count on being cheered up with, “Well, when it rains, it pours” or “Cry me a river” or my favorite, “Go play in traffic.”
• Confused?  Then you don’t know whether to shit or go blind.
• Want your dad to get moving?  He says,   “I can’t.  I have a bone in my leg.”
• Want a dog?  “Go pet your brother, Pete.”
• Need stitches?  “Time to get the chainsaw out.”
• Blocking the view of the only TV?  “Your dad wasn’t a glass maker, Move!”
• Bullied?  Go kick ‘em where it counts.
• Making faces?  “Cut it out or your face is going to stay like that.”
• Need to use the restroom?  Go bomb Tokyo or go see a man about a horse.

Moms had their own mafia.  One mom would catch you up to no good and cuff you for it.  Then, when you got home, your own mom would double down.  After that, you’d have to explain it to your father when he gets home.  We went to bed without supper.  We were made to fix what we broke and return what we stole.  By the time our parents got done with us, we knew just enough about machinery to not be dangerous.

Harmony

Bright blue, blinding cotton-candy skies shifted above me, demanding sunglasses.  A light, cooling breeze drifted across my forehead as I navigated a Kevlar clad canoe around the rocky outcrops and pebble beaches of the Michigamme Reservoir on an eighty degree June day. 

It was a day when the sun’s rays beat the waves into submission and they penetrated my bare shoulders until my skin emitted a summer, smoky smell.

Way up in a solar glare, birds with wing spans of four feet soared this way and that on the breeze; hang-gliders!  Deer, driven out of their grassy beds by mosquitoes, stood in the open, at the water’s edge, quenching parched throats with long, protracted sucks as though through straws.  Bees buzzed in the wildflowers and jumping frogs escaped from shore.

Harmony.  The swift, silent canoe blended into nature’s scene and through its silent glide, it afforded me the opportunity to observe nature undisturbed.

It lifted my soul as we (my faithful dog, Remi, and I) paddled from island to island one glorious afternoon last year.

She sitting forward and not a jiggle.  I paddled.  On this day, though, it occurred to me to experiment with the dog by pulling up to a beach, off loading her, and then resuming my paddling to see what her reaction would be.

Harmony.  As I maintained a distance of about ten feet from the shoreline, she continued to run along with me, happy as a clam. 

We were both confident in this new endeavor and the resulting partnership was fun. She proved herself a true athlete, climbing cliffs and swimming in bigger water, next to the canoe, when we had to get to another island.  I marveled at her busy feet, stroking to an internal count, underwater. Her gait was steady, confident, and strong.

We traveled in silence, each under our own power.  We were a team.  We were on an adventure.  We learned to trust.

Harmony.  A very special day for both Remi and me.

Conehead, the Barbarian

Zipping through open fields on a frosty winter morning, hunting Birdies in Michigan, is all fun and games until someone ends up sporting a cone. 

Miss Priss had been working those ditch rows for pheasants, racing for hours with the grace and agility of a pronghorn antelope–or maybe it was like the “seven lords a leaping,” ~you decide.

At times, she was only wild ears flopping and rapid-fire recon eyes with a heart that wouldn’t quit.  The switchgrass is so tall; she was essentially running blind and bursting up through it.  She made course corrections this way.  You don’t have to teach a dog to hunt, you have to teach a dog to listen and to obey.

All day, she cut right or left to the whistle and aligned herself with the shotgun and the man that would ultimately produce her prize.  Teamwork.  After a couple of productive hours, our son, Adam,  had six birds in the bag. 

 Then there was the blood.  On the floor.  That night.   Diagnosis:  a torn front foot pad. 

We put a little bootie on her foot and added a blow up donut ring around her neck for “insurance.”  Everyone went to bed.  In the morning, the bootie was gone.  She ate it.

Next up, the cage muzzle.  We didn’t have one so I ran to two pet stores to find the best fit. This way, I thought, she could get around easily, heal up, and it would prevent  her licking the paw to death me from having bruised shins and calves (if we had to go nuclear with a cone).  I tied extra straps to it for “insurance” and confidently went to work.  I am an overachiever, after all.

When I came home, she was at the door with an angel face–but the devil is in the details:  she was dragging all the yarn, five miles of medical tape, and the muzzle from her collar.  The foot was inflamed,  raw meat was hanging off of it, and she crapped a blue bootie, too.   Next stop, the vet’s office.

Yes, Remi,

my industrious

German Shorthaired Pointer,

my liebling gummibärchen,

you have earned that cone of shame.

Pussy Galore

Six days of searching for any big cat sign, hunting in the wilderness five hours east of Vancouver, in Canada,  yielded little more than some minor chaffing and disappointment.  My husband was smelling ripe after wearing the same clothes ever since his outpost cabin burned down.  Admittedly, he was jinxed getting a lynx.

On the last day of the hunt, in the last hour, he heard a big Tom screech.  His mind’s eye flickered with a flashback to the old Mercury car commercials….it was the throaty growl of a confident cougar!  High stepping in stealth mode, John stalked it.  When he was within 50 yards, he realized that this old boy was about to mount a female.  Two cougars!

He turned off the safety, gingerly raised the barrel, took aim through the scope, and expertly blew that big Tom right off of the back of his woman.  185 lbs. of muscle and mean collapsed and fell to the ground.  He thought about letting the cat have his fun first, but he thought, “Oh, this cat is screwed already.”  With daylight fading, he really had no choice but to pull the trigger.  BOOM.   John gutted it and flanked the hide over his shoulders for the walk out.

The next morning, he transferred his trophy from the outfitter’s truck to the roof of a rented Alero and headed for the border.  There was six inches of fresh snow on the road and a blowing arctic wind swirled mercilessly with whiteouts; visibility was less than 20 feet and it was pitch-black-out-early.  No moon.  He had lots of luck on this trip, but it was mostly bad.

Now it is one thing to travel internationally with a rifle, a load of bullets, and some raw meat and quite another to do the same without identification, luggage, or money and projecting an aroma much like Pig-Pen’s from the Peanuts Comic Strip.   The fire had reduced all of his worldly possessions to ash.  He had no real shelter, no water, and no  civilization for a week. There were tracks as wide as I-75 in his under britches and his socks smelled of something that died a long time ago.  He was technically destitute in a foreign country and had to prove  he was a U.S. Citizen to the Consulate in Vancouver by knowing the full names, dates of birth, and cities of birth of both of his parents and his wife.  Successful, he was then photographed in his filthy clothing and his sprouting, grey beard.  New Passport in hand, he had what he needed to claim a seat on the next flight home.  I was thankful not to be anywhere on that airplane.

With his usual luck, the next best flight home hopscotched across the country in every direction with three big layovers and four connections lasting two days.  He landed in hot climates wearing his only shirt, a heavy woolen one, which caused beads of sweat to fester between his shoulder blades and roll down into his butt crack.  He soldiered on in his wet pants and heavy boots, arriving in Detroit 20 hours later.  I saw a lady being wheeled out with an oxygen mask and wondered, “Coincidence?”

Borrowed Underwear

I’m curious to find out if he comes home with whitey-tighties or silky boxers.  Just what do our friends in the great north wear under their Mackinaws?  My destitute husband is living in borrowed underwear and outerwear ever since his spike camp burned to the ground in Canada while he was hunting a Lynx.  In a very Theodore Roosevelt kind of way, he has soldiered on.

He and his guide were five hours north of Vancouver, off grid, in the bush, spotting cats and killing time.  Then all hell broke loose.  Over the ridge, in a valley, blue smoke belched skyward.  Their horses spooked.  Nervous energy filled their lungs.  The two men split up.  John stayed in the mountains, glassing sheep and cat hunting, while the guide circled back to camp.  An hour later, the truth came riding back with just a sad look.   Up in smoke went the tales:  his worn Pendleton merino-wool shirt with the shoulder repair after a near miss with a wolverine, the spare boots that saved his life in the arctic circle after he went all Chuck Norris on a polar bear with a roundhouse kick to the jaw, and gone, sadly, is his lucky rabbit’s foot whose luck, obviously, ran out.

So far, as he tells it, he is getting by by the skin of his teeth.  They are trapping their meals and doing everything short of going all “Brokeback Mountain” to stay warm.   He has a smart horse this time, which is about the only good thing that has happened.

There will be no more word from him until Monday, January 4, 2015.