For Father's Day, and with your indulgence, I'm re-posting what I wrote last year (lightly modified, as necessary). Because yeah, it was just that good. If I may say so myself. . . ;)
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In honor of Fathers Day, I'd like to tell you about my dad. My father has been, in many ways, the rock of my life. Mothers have come and gone for me, over the years (strange as that is to say, and I really don't mean it in any way to denigrate any of them); my family has moved from town to town, and from house to house even when we stayed in the same town; I have changed schools; friends have come and gone. But from the time I was adopted around my first birthday, my dad has been one of the few constants in my life.
As well as it being Fathers Day, his 89th birthday was this past Friday; it has not been unusual for his birthday to fall on Fathers Day (as it will again next year, on his 90th). Actually, I count myself extremely fortunate that my dad is still with me - his two brothers were 47 and 58 when they died, and his own father didn't live to see 70, either. Ever since Dad turned 70, I've been mentally preparing myself for him to leave anytime; even so, I know that when he does, it will be an utter earthquake in my life. That he is still living midway through my 50s is a blessing of the highest order.
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Dad was born and raised on a farm in central Michigan, the oldest of five children - three boys, two girls. He attended a rural one-room schoolhouse (to which, of course, he walked five miles through the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways). Those were the days before Rural Electrification; chores were done, and so was schoolwork, by kerosene-lantern-light. Electricity didn't come to my grandpa's farm until Dad was in his teens.
By a combination of genetic endowment and abundant hard work, Dad grew into a large man - he's 6'-4" tall. When he was young, he was rail-thin - about 180 pounds or so (by the time I came into his life, he was a fair bit bigger than that) - but his 'Popeye-esque' forearms bespoke many cows milked, and a good deal more physical strength than might first meet the eye. When I was in high school, and doing weight training for football, I got pretty proud of how strong I was becoming, and so I challenged my dad to arm-wrestle. The fruit of all my training was that I could then 'hold him off' for a second or two before he slammed me. Even to this day, I don't want to arm-wrestle him; I don't think my ego could take getting slammed by an 89-year-old man.
Dad is one of those 'Greatest Generation' guys, whose lives, well into their 20s, were defined by the Great Depression and World War II. As a boy growing up, my grandpa always had the farm, but there were significant stretches of time during which the family lived in a larger city about an hour away, where grandpa ran a gas station, when farming wasn't so lucrative. Eventually, even that bit of provision went away, and they returned to the farm. My aunt recalls her dad saying that, as long as they had the farm, they wouldn't go hungry.
Dad graduated from high school in 1940, part of a graduating class of eight. He went to college 20 miles from his dad's farm. He wasn't the first of his family to go to college - both his parents had attended college, although neither of them had earned a degree. After two years, he transferred down to the larger school which I later attended, to study Chemical Engineering.
He only completed one semester there before he was drafted, and became the lucky recipient of an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe, courtesy of the US Army. He was in an artillery unit, which was probably fortunate for him, in that he generally stayed 15-20 miles behind the front lines, and so, besides firing his own big guns, he was not often being shot at in anger. He doesn't tell many 'war stories', but he has a few about being strafed, and diving for his foxhole. And during the Battle of the Bulge, the front lines got considerably closer to his position than was usual, or comfortable.
Dad survived the war (obviously), and even stayed on after the war for two years, working for the US State Department in the post-war reconstruction. During that time, he met and married my 'first mother', returning stateside in late 1947. He finished college on the GI Bill, earning his BS degree in Chemical Engineering in 1949. I have his college yearbook, and I was amused to find among his fellow-graduates a future head basketball coach at our mutual alma mater, and a future governor of Hawaii.
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The one huge, overriding lesson that my dad taught me, by example much more than by anything he ever said, was a commitment to duty, and the deep connection of duty to love. Dad always - ALWAYS - did his duty, and I came to understand that 'duty' was how my dad expressed love. He is not the most outgoing of people (although he can be 'social' when he has to), and I often longed to just sit down and engage in a relaxed, flowing conversation with him, but, with few exceptions, Dad just doesn't do 'relaxed flowing conversation'. But he has shown his love to me hundreds of times over, often as not without saying a word.
He and my 'first mother' were married for nine-plus childless years before they adopted me. I had a conversation with my aunt - Dad's sister - not long before she died, and she told me that adopting hadn't been his idea - that his wife had dearly wanted children, but he'd been ambivalent about adopting. But, out of care and concern for his wife, he'd signed on for it, and I came into their life. A year or so later, they adopted my brother. All of which became almost bizarrely ironic after Christmas of 1964, when my mother left him, and, in the process, my brother and me. I have no idea exactly why she left him, or exactly what her grievances were. I will say that, as I've known my dad over the years, he has not always been the easiest of men to live with. But, even so, he is, at one and the same time, the best man I've ever known.
So anyway, my dad, who'd been ambivalent about adopting in the first place, was suddenly a single father to two boys. We moved out of our house on Lake Huron (which, while we'd lived there, had been a pretty good working model of heaven), to a house in town where my brother and I could look after ourselves a bit easier. For a year, we ate a lot of mac-n-cheese, and I got introduced to kippered herring; Dad was not exactly a gourmet chef.
In the finest fashion of doing his duty for us, he quickly set about finding a new mother for us (and not incidentally, I'm sure, a new wife for himself), and by the following fall, he was engaged to the woman who would be his second wife, and my-brother's-and-my 'new mother'. She was a divorcee herself, with three kids, two girls and a boy. So when they were married in 1966 (just before my tenth birthday), Dad was suddenly the father (step or otherwise) of five children, spanning less than three years in age. Which was pretty intense right from the start, as we were all trying to figure out how to live together. To say nothing of what it was like when all five of us were teenagers at the same time.
In the next five years, Dad and Mom had two more boys together, so my dad, who might have been content to be a childless husband in the mid-50s, was, by the end of 1970, a father of seven. Without going into brutal detail, I'll just say that blended families have a unique set of challenges all their own, and Dad, in the course of doing his duty to his new family, endured more grief than he deserved, for trying to do right by his new wife, and seven kids. It is a testimony to his and Mom's love and perseverance that today, 45 years later, our family is intact and strong.
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Dad was my baseball coach for much of my youthful 'career'. Not because he was so deeply versed in the subtleties of baseball; he wasn't, and the 'baseball guys' in our town tended to regard him with a degree of mild contempt (but come on, he wasn't as dumb as they took him for, either). But, as our dad, he knew instinctively that he wanted to have his hand on our lives, and coaching our Little League teams was just obviously a really good way to do that.
He was also very solicitous of our schooling; one of my enduring memories, especially of my young childhood, was that I had all the books I ever wanted, and maybe even a few more besides. It wouldn't surprise me, though, to find out that he got into the whole baseball thing when he started thinking I was becoming too much of a sedentary nerd. . .
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As my own family has grown, and I have endured the trials that come along with raising my own kids, I have come to understand and appreciate my dad in new ways. As I've coped with my own kids' troubles, it has occurred to me, many times, that Dad had endured similar stuff, and at the hands of kids who weren't even 'the fruit of his own loins'. And he did it without complaining. Honestly, I never once heard him whine about the latest outrage that one of his kids had perpetrated, or the latest of their messes that he'd had to clean up after. I am sure that he grew from the experience, and is today a kinder, gentler man than he started out being.
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As I said above, my dad is the best man I've ever known - by far. His quiet strength, his patient endurance, his utter faithfulness to his duty, no matter how unpleasant, have taught me volumes. I know that I am not, nor will I ever be, even half the man he is, but if I can even get close to being half the man my dad is, I'll have done well, indeed.
Happy Fathers Day, Dad. Being your son has been a privilege. . .
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Jim Northrup, RIP
The timing of events leads me to post this today, even though I put up another post just yesterday. I try to keep things more-or-less well-spaced around here, and I rarely post twice in the same week anymore, much less on consecutive days. But do be sure to go back and catch up on yesterday's post, if you haven't seen it yet. . .
And those of you who aren't sports fans, you'll indulge me this, won't you? I mean, I post about sports maybe a couple times a year. Besides, this is about my own boyhood, almost as much as the specific subject-matter. . .
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This morning's news brought tidings of the passing of Jim Northrup, at the age of 71 (and seriously - I'm supposed to just blithely accept that my boyhood heroes are in their 70s? When did that happen?). Mr. Northrup was a member of my beloved Detroit Tigers during the 1960s-70s, and in particular the 1968 World Championship team. He was a personal favorite of mine - one of those guys who was a pretty key player on the team, a good player, and key contributor to the team's championship; but outside of Michigan, he may not have attracted much notice at all. The thing about Jim Northrup, which was also true of several members of the '68 team, was that he was a Michigan kid, who grew up to play for the Tigers, which was the cherished dream of every kid who grew up in this state.
Northrup grew up in Breckenridge, which is a small town roughly between Saginaw and Mt. Pleasant (he graduated from high school when I was roughly two years old); he attended Alma College, and was drafted by the Tigers in 1960. He played his first game for the Tigers in September of '64, and by '66 he was getting 400+ at-bats.
By 1968, Northrup was essentially the everyday right-fielder, when Al Kaline went down with a broken arm from being hit by a pitch (in fact, when Kaline finally returned from his injury, manager Mayo Smith had to figure out what to do with his Hall-of-Fame outfielder, since Northrup was playing too well to sit him down). Northrup led the team with 153 hits and 90 RBIs. Of his 21 home runs in '68, four were grand slams; two in one game against the Indians, and another five days later against the White Sox (the three grand slams in a week are still a major-league record). Northrup himself told the story of how, in that latter game, he actually came to bat yet again with the bases loaded, and thus an opportunity to hit his fourth grand slam in a week, but he struck out, swinging over-anxiously at three bad pitches.
In the '68 World Series, Mr. Grand Slam struck again, putting the crowning touch on the Tigers' 10-run third inning in Game 6. Then in Game 7, Northrup had probably the defining moment of his entire major-league career, hitting a two-run triple to deep center off Bob Gibson (who barely gave up any runs at all in '68, and in World Series games, most especially; it was the only triple that Gibson surrendered that season), in the seventh inning of what had been a scoreless pitchers' duel between Gibson and Mickey Lolich, and propelling the Tigers to the World Championship.
Northrup continued to play well for the Tigers; from '68-'71, the peak years of his major-league career, he hit for a .273 average, and averaged 21 homers and 77 RBIs. He was never an All-Star, a fact that has always struck me as a bit odd; there are certainly lesser players than him, who have been All-Stars at least once in their lives (and speaking of which, here's one of my favorite baseball trivia questions: who's the only MVP who was never an All-Star? answer below. . .). . .
When Billy Martin became the Tigers' manager in '71, Northrup's days as a Tiger were probably numbered. He was a fairly acerbic and outspoken person, and Martin always seemed to take particular delight in putting Northrup 'in his place', which Northrup, by his own nature, was not about to suffer quietly. So he ended his playing days as a member of the Baltimore Orioles.
For a while in the 80s-90s, Northrup was a color-commentator on the Tigers' TV broadcasts, but his penchant for acerbically calling it like he saw it eventually rubbed his bosses the wrong way, and that gig ended (during a time in Tigers history when there was no lack of things about which to comment acerbically) (I'm really liking the word 'acerbic' today; can you tell?)
(OK, Answer to trivia question: Kirk Gibson (you just knew it was gonna have something to do with the Tigers, didn't you?), who was the NL MVP in '88, but never an All-Star)
But just because he played for the Tigers, and played such a key role in one of the high points of my own boyhood, I've always harbored a fondness for Jim Northrup.
And may he rest in peace. . .
And those of you who aren't sports fans, you'll indulge me this, won't you? I mean, I post about sports maybe a couple times a year. Besides, this is about my own boyhood, almost as much as the specific subject-matter. . .
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This morning's news brought tidings of the passing of Jim Northrup, at the age of 71 (and seriously - I'm supposed to just blithely accept that my boyhood heroes are in their 70s? When did that happen?). Mr. Northrup was a member of my beloved Detroit Tigers during the 1960s-70s, and in particular the 1968 World Championship team. He was a personal favorite of mine - one of those guys who was a pretty key player on the team, a good player, and key contributor to the team's championship; but outside of Michigan, he may not have attracted much notice at all. The thing about Jim Northrup, which was also true of several members of the '68 team, was that he was a Michigan kid, who grew up to play for the Tigers, which was the cherished dream of every kid who grew up in this state.
Northrup grew up in Breckenridge, which is a small town roughly between Saginaw and Mt. Pleasant (he graduated from high school when I was roughly two years old); he attended Alma College, and was drafted by the Tigers in 1960. He played his first game for the Tigers in September of '64, and by '66 he was getting 400+ at-bats.
By 1968, Northrup was essentially the everyday right-fielder, when Al Kaline went down with a broken arm from being hit by a pitch (in fact, when Kaline finally returned from his injury, manager Mayo Smith had to figure out what to do with his Hall-of-Fame outfielder, since Northrup was playing too well to sit him down). Northrup led the team with 153 hits and 90 RBIs. Of his 21 home runs in '68, four were grand slams; two in one game against the Indians, and another five days later against the White Sox (the three grand slams in a week are still a major-league record). Northrup himself told the story of how, in that latter game, he actually came to bat yet again with the bases loaded, and thus an opportunity to hit his fourth grand slam in a week, but he struck out, swinging over-anxiously at three bad pitches.
In the '68 World Series, Mr. Grand Slam struck again, putting the crowning touch on the Tigers' 10-run third inning in Game 6. Then in Game 7, Northrup had probably the defining moment of his entire major-league career, hitting a two-run triple to deep center off Bob Gibson (who barely gave up any runs at all in '68, and in World Series games, most especially; it was the only triple that Gibson surrendered that season), in the seventh inning of what had been a scoreless pitchers' duel between Gibson and Mickey Lolich, and propelling the Tigers to the World Championship.
Northrup continued to play well for the Tigers; from '68-'71, the peak years of his major-league career, he hit for a .273 average, and averaged 21 homers and 77 RBIs. He was never an All-Star, a fact that has always struck me as a bit odd; there are certainly lesser players than him, who have been All-Stars at least once in their lives (and speaking of which, here's one of my favorite baseball trivia questions: who's the only MVP who was never an All-Star? answer below. . .). . .
When Billy Martin became the Tigers' manager in '71, Northrup's days as a Tiger were probably numbered. He was a fairly acerbic and outspoken person, and Martin always seemed to take particular delight in putting Northrup 'in his place', which Northrup, by his own nature, was not about to suffer quietly. So he ended his playing days as a member of the Baltimore Orioles.
For a while in the 80s-90s, Northrup was a color-commentator on the Tigers' TV broadcasts, but his penchant for acerbically calling it like he saw it eventually rubbed his bosses the wrong way, and that gig ended (during a time in Tigers history when there was no lack of things about which to comment acerbically) (I'm really liking the word 'acerbic' today; can you tell?)
(OK, Answer to trivia question: Kirk Gibson (you just knew it was gonna have something to do with the Tigers, didn't you?), who was the NL MVP in '88, but never an All-Star)
But just because he played for the Tigers, and played such a key role in one of the high points of my own boyhood, I've always harbored a fondness for Jim Northrup.
And may he rest in peace. . .
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Busy Days in Us-Ville
These are some busy days around here. Truth to tell, for the last few years (and by 'few' I mean 'somewhere between five and ten') June has been Family Psychosis Month, as it seems that the Universe has conspired to use June as its Dumping Ground for Calendric Excess. Just to give a few examples.
- 5M graduated from high school this year. We couldn't be prouder of him; he's a great, solid young man, and he even got a couple of nice scholarships to help get him launched into his college career. But (at least in our local culture, which is considerably different than it was in the days when I was graduating from high school), that also entails the hosting of the Graduation Open House. Jen and I having the meager organizational gifts that we do, we've learned over the years that it behooves us to join forces with one or two other families-of-graduates to throw a combined Open House. But this year, our open-house compadres had some trouble distinguishing between what constitutes a 'Graduation Open House' and what constitutes a 'Wedding Reception'. Detail piled upon detail, and nifty frill upon nifty frill (we had a 'slushie' machine, which required over an hour to get to Full Slushy Freeze Mode, rather than the advertised 15-20 minutes), all of which constitute (a) expenses, and (b) grist for the mill of Murphy's Law; both of which seemed to escape the thinking of our friends (fortunately, we established early on a financial limit which we would not go beyond, and the other families were fine with leaving us to our penuriousness, so the cost overruns mostly missed us). Among the things we learned, was that chicken wings are a really bad idea for open-house fare; at least if you expect to have teenage boys at your open house. 75 minutes into a 3-hour open house, there were no more wings (and this after making an emergency run to the local wing joint, which basically shut down the restaurant until the following Monday); you really need something that the teen boys can't just pile up on their plates, heedless of any guests who might be so unfortunate as to arrive after them. . .
- Pursuant to the whole 'graduation' thing, my birth-mom and her husband came to visit us for nearly a week. Which, I hasten to say, was wonderful, and greatly appreciated. But it was more 'things to do/deal with', and threw the calendar into another Chaotic Order of Magnitude.
- 6F is feverishly preparing for her summer mission trip to Costa Rica, for which she leaves in just over two weeks. Today, for example, Jen is taking her to the Health Department for her Central American Jungle Fever vaccinations. She also had to get a passport, but we wanted to wait until her 16th birthday (in late April) to apply for it, since 16+-year-olds get 10-year passports, but 15-and-unders only get 5-year passports. So, we were sweating, just a little, that her passport would arrive in time (and while I'm thinking of it, I'm not sure if my own passport is current, or if I need to re-up it. . .) Plus all the planning/packing/sundry-getting-ready-to-travel stuff, like collecting a separate suitcase full of shoes to donate to the orphanage where she'll be working. . .
- Jen and I are preparing for a four-day conference a couple weeks hence, which includes listening to four on-line preparatory talks, complete with homework assignments. 6F is flying out on the third day of the conference; we haven't quite figured out how we're gonna work that out, yet.
- It seems that all of the summer youth sports leagues play their games in June; some extend into early July, but for our purposes here, in the midst of the above-delineated calendric chaos, 7M has two baseball games each week, plus two practices for his summer-basketball team, which plays out-of-town tournaments nearly every weekend. We wouldn't normally have him on two teams, but a friend's father offered to pay his registration fee for the basketball team, and drive him to all the tournaments, as an inducement to his own son to play on the team. So that's nice, but we still have to manage 7M's day-to-day schedule, and all the days when basketball practice overlaps with baseball games.
- Also, Jen is running a four-day Day Camp for 5-7-year-olds next week, the planning for which is always stressful, since administrative gifts are not hers in abundance (it's one of those 'somebody's-gotta-do-it' things). Probably more than tending to the 5-7-year-old 'campers', she also has to ride herd on the 12-13-year-old 'counselors'. Please pray for her. At least, this is her last go-round with the Day Camp; after this year, she's retiring, and passing it on to younger moms. . .
On top of these, there are other 'Details of Life' which I'll decline to go into right now (suffice it to say that, just because your older kids are Out of the House and Living On Their Own, doesn't mean that they no longer add to the familial chaos levels; and that's about all I'm gonna say about that). And Laundry still needs to be done, Meals Prepared, etc, etc, etc (and we're still working on the kids doing their own laundry, without prodding from Parental Units). . . So we're kinda in Zombie Mode these days - just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and wait for the calendar to flip to July. . .
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On the plus side, we've done a couple of home-maintenance projects. The back roof needed to be replaced, which provided the perfect opportunity to install a pair of skylights in our family room that I've wanted for a while. Which was quite cool - the day they were installed, I came home from work, walked in the back door, and reached for the light switch, because the room was that much brighter than before.
Had some work done on my car the other day. I drive an '06 Chevy Aveo that has 217,000 miles on it, and still running strong. The heater fan had ceased to work, so I was having that fixed. In the course of just checking the car over, the mechanic found a serious problem in my suspension that he fixed by tightening a few bolts on the control arms, for no extra charge. Then, they found a wire that had been chewed by a critter, causing the AC to go out. I'd been driving the car without AC for two years, figuring that was just how things went with econo-cars that have 200,000+ miles on 'em. But for under $200, I got the AC rendered operative again. And not one moment too soon, with the mercury hitting 90F+ both yesterday and today. . .
God is good.
- 5M graduated from high school this year. We couldn't be prouder of him; he's a great, solid young man, and he even got a couple of nice scholarships to help get him launched into his college career. But (at least in our local culture, which is considerably different than it was in the days when I was graduating from high school), that also entails the hosting of the Graduation Open House. Jen and I having the meager organizational gifts that we do, we've learned over the years that it behooves us to join forces with one or two other families-of-graduates to throw a combined Open House. But this year, our open-house compadres had some trouble distinguishing between what constitutes a 'Graduation Open House' and what constitutes a 'Wedding Reception'. Detail piled upon detail, and nifty frill upon nifty frill (we had a 'slushie' machine, which required over an hour to get to Full Slushy Freeze Mode, rather than the advertised 15-20 minutes), all of which constitute (a) expenses, and (b) grist for the mill of Murphy's Law; both of which seemed to escape the thinking of our friends (fortunately, we established early on a financial limit which we would not go beyond, and the other families were fine with leaving us to our penuriousness, so the cost overruns mostly missed us). Among the things we learned, was that chicken wings are a really bad idea for open-house fare; at least if you expect to have teenage boys at your open house. 75 minutes into a 3-hour open house, there were no more wings (and this after making an emergency run to the local wing joint, which basically shut down the restaurant until the following Monday); you really need something that the teen boys can't just pile up on their plates, heedless of any guests who might be so unfortunate as to arrive after them. . .
- Pursuant to the whole 'graduation' thing, my birth-mom and her husband came to visit us for nearly a week. Which, I hasten to say, was wonderful, and greatly appreciated. But it was more 'things to do/deal with', and threw the calendar into another Chaotic Order of Magnitude.
- 6F is feverishly preparing for her summer mission trip to Costa Rica, for which she leaves in just over two weeks. Today, for example, Jen is taking her to the Health Department for her Central American Jungle Fever vaccinations. She also had to get a passport, but we wanted to wait until her 16th birthday (in late April) to apply for it, since 16+-year-olds get 10-year passports, but 15-and-unders only get 5-year passports. So, we were sweating, just a little, that her passport would arrive in time (and while I'm thinking of it, I'm not sure if my own passport is current, or if I need to re-up it. . .) Plus all the planning/packing/sundry-getting-ready-to-travel stuff, like collecting a separate suitcase full of shoes to donate to the orphanage where she'll be working. . .
- Jen and I are preparing for a four-day conference a couple weeks hence, which includes listening to four on-line preparatory talks, complete with homework assignments. 6F is flying out on the third day of the conference; we haven't quite figured out how we're gonna work that out, yet.
- It seems that all of the summer youth sports leagues play their games in June; some extend into early July, but for our purposes here, in the midst of the above-delineated calendric chaos, 7M has two baseball games each week, plus two practices for his summer-basketball team, which plays out-of-town tournaments nearly every weekend. We wouldn't normally have him on two teams, but a friend's father offered to pay his registration fee for the basketball team, and drive him to all the tournaments, as an inducement to his own son to play on the team. So that's nice, but we still have to manage 7M's day-to-day schedule, and all the days when basketball practice overlaps with baseball games.
- Also, Jen is running a four-day Day Camp for 5-7-year-olds next week, the planning for which is always stressful, since administrative gifts are not hers in abundance (it's one of those 'somebody's-gotta-do-it' things). Probably more than tending to the 5-7-year-old 'campers', she also has to ride herd on the 12-13-year-old 'counselors'. Please pray for her. At least, this is her last go-round with the Day Camp; after this year, she's retiring, and passing it on to younger moms. . .
On top of these, there are other 'Details of Life' which I'll decline to go into right now (suffice it to say that, just because your older kids are Out of the House and Living On Their Own, doesn't mean that they no longer add to the familial chaos levels; and that's about all I'm gonna say about that). And Laundry still needs to be done, Meals Prepared, etc, etc, etc (and we're still working on the kids doing their own laundry, without prodding from Parental Units). . . So we're kinda in Zombie Mode these days - just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and wait for the calendar to flip to July. . .
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On the plus side, we've done a couple of home-maintenance projects. The back roof needed to be replaced, which provided the perfect opportunity to install a pair of skylights in our family room that I've wanted for a while. Which was quite cool - the day they were installed, I came home from work, walked in the back door, and reached for the light switch, because the room was that much brighter than before.
Had some work done on my car the other day. I drive an '06 Chevy Aveo that has 217,000 miles on it, and still running strong. The heater fan had ceased to work, so I was having that fixed. In the course of just checking the car over, the mechanic found a serious problem in my suspension that he fixed by tightening a few bolts on the control arms, for no extra charge. Then, they found a wire that had been chewed by a critter, causing the AC to go out. I'd been driving the car without AC for two years, figuring that was just how things went with econo-cars that have 200,000+ miles on 'em. But for under $200, I got the AC rendered operative again. And not one moment too soon, with the mercury hitting 90F+ both yesterday and today. . .
God is good.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Forget Me Not
My friend Xavier posted a hilarious piece a while back about a 'missing' child. In the comments on that post, I told an 'abridged' version of this story. And now I'm re-telling it in the 'full version' for all of you. . . (Somehow it seems sorta 'ironically apropos' for Memorial Weekend) (or is irony inappropriate on such an occasion? I hope I'm not giving any offense; I certainly don't intend any. . .)
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"Can a woman forget her nursing child, or have no compassion on the child of her womb? Even if she may forget, yet I will not forget you." (Isaiah 49:15)
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When 2F was three or four years old, and we had three children, Jen's sister, with her four kids, came to our house for a visit. While they were here, we took the kids to a science museum, one of those 'hands-on' places that are just great for kids. We had a great time, although with three adults and seven kids, the oldest of whom might have been eight, it was, at least for the adults, largely an exercise in crowd control (the old commercial about herding cats comes to mind). Even so, we had a great time; when it was time to go, we collected everybody up, counted noses to make sure we weren't missing anybody, piled into the van, and drove home.
It was not long after we got home that it occurred to Jen that she hadn't seen 2F since we'd gotten home. Jen called for her, but she didn't come running. We spent a few minutes looking for her, but she was nowhere to be found. And none of the other kids had seen her recently, either.
We wracked our brains, trying to figure out what could have happened. We had counted heads at the museum, so we were pretty sure that she'd come home with us, so where could she be? Then 1F (who'd have been six or seven at the time) said that she didn't think that 2F had been in the van.
What? But we had made sure that we counted everybody before we left the museum. But, just to be safe, Jen called the museum, and asked if, possibly, they had a little girl there.
"Well," said the very kind woman on the other end of the phone, "I do have a little girl here. What's the name of the girl you're looking for?" Jen told her that we were missing a three-year-old girl named 2F.
"Well, then, I have wonderful news! We have a three-year-old girl named 2F standing right here!" (It turned out that, after we'd done the head-count in the museum lobby, 2F had decided she needed to go to the bathroom, and left without telling anyone what she was doing. And six kids in a van doesn't look all that different from seven kids in a van.)
The very kind woman asked Jen if she'd like to talk to 2F; Jen said yes, she would absolutely like to talk to her. So the kind woman handed the phone to 2F.
"Mo-o-o-om?"
"Yes, 2F?"
"Did you forget me?"
(*tears and snuffles, from both ends of the phone*)
"Ummmmm. . . yes?"
Fortunately, it was only about a mile from our house to the museum, so she was safely back in our arms in just a few minutes. But it was one of those hilariously heart-breaking things that abound in large families. . .
-------------------------
"Can a woman forget her nursing child, or have no compassion on the child of her womb? Even if she may forget, yet I will not forget you." (Isaiah 49:15)
-------------------------
When 2F was three or four years old, and we had three children, Jen's sister, with her four kids, came to our house for a visit. While they were here, we took the kids to a science museum, one of those 'hands-on' places that are just great for kids. We had a great time, although with three adults and seven kids, the oldest of whom might have been eight, it was, at least for the adults, largely an exercise in crowd control (the old commercial about herding cats comes to mind). Even so, we had a great time; when it was time to go, we collected everybody up, counted noses to make sure we weren't missing anybody, piled into the van, and drove home.
It was not long after we got home that it occurred to Jen that she hadn't seen 2F since we'd gotten home. Jen called for her, but she didn't come running. We spent a few minutes looking for her, but she was nowhere to be found. And none of the other kids had seen her recently, either.
We wracked our brains, trying to figure out what could have happened. We had counted heads at the museum, so we were pretty sure that she'd come home with us, so where could she be? Then 1F (who'd have been six or seven at the time) said that she didn't think that 2F had been in the van.
What? But we had made sure that we counted everybody before we left the museum. But, just to be safe, Jen called the museum, and asked if, possibly, they had a little girl there.
"Well," said the very kind woman on the other end of the phone, "I do have a little girl here. What's the name of the girl you're looking for?" Jen told her that we were missing a three-year-old girl named 2F.
"Well, then, I have wonderful news! We have a three-year-old girl named 2F standing right here!" (It turned out that, after we'd done the head-count in the museum lobby, 2F had decided she needed to go to the bathroom, and left without telling anyone what she was doing. And six kids in a van doesn't look all that different from seven kids in a van.)
The very kind woman asked Jen if she'd like to talk to 2F; Jen said yes, she would absolutely like to talk to her. So the kind woman handed the phone to 2F.
"Mo-o-o-om?"
"Yes, 2F?"
"Did you forget me?"
(*tears and snuffles, from both ends of the phone*)
"Ummmmm. . . yes?"
Fortunately, it was only about a mile from our house to the museum, so she was safely back in our arms in just a few minutes. But it was one of those hilariously heart-breaking things that abound in large families. . .
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Quote of the Day
"Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring.
Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating."
-- Simone Weil
Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating."
-- Simone Weil
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Random Thoughts on Mother's Day
For Mother's Day, a collection of random thoughts, most of which I've posted before, in one form or another. . .
-------------------------
I have always been in awe of women, for several reasons, probably foremost among them the capacity of their bodies to nurture within themselves a complete, distinct PERSON, and to feed and sustain that person from their own resources after its birth. When I think about that, it seems to me that it touches on the holy. . .
I've also said to Jen many times that reproducing ourselves together is simply the coolest, most amazing thing we've ever done. I'll beg your indulgence if I say, just one more time, that I am still blown away to look at my kids, and realize that each one of them is made of US - literally, they are made of Jen-stuff and me-stuff. Stevie Wonder's song, 'Isn't She Lovely?' has always resonated with me - "Isn't she lovely, made from love?" There is a line of 'Trinitarian' theology that speaks of the Holy Spirit as the Love between the Father and the Son - that the Love between the first two persons of the Holy Trinity is so concrete, so intense, so REAL, that it is a whole 'nother person in itself. And, in the spirit of the late pope's Theology of the Body, I wonder if that isn't yet another sense in which we are made in the Image of God - that the love between a husband and wife - heck, between Jen and me - can issue forth (and in fact, has) in another person (or, you know, eight of them). Awesome. . .
I also recall, in the aftermath of my reunion with my birth-mother, a growing appreciation of Motherhood, and what it means - that what I'd seen of our kids growing in Jen's belly, and felt of them kicking her from inside herself, was also true of me and this very woman; I had never related to Motherhood in quite such a REAL way before, at least as pertaining to myself. It was a mild disappointment to me, after our reunion, that she had no photos of her pregnant self from 'back in the day'. Completely understandable, of course - she (and her family probably all the moreso) was in no mood to capture the experience for posterity - but it would have given me an odd comfort to see a picture of her bulging belly, knowing that I was inside. . . Anyway, it was simply amazing to me to realize that she, at last, was the woman who, at whatever cost to herself, had given birth to me - at the most basic, earthy level (and you know how I love the earthiness), she was the woman between whose legs I entered the world. . .
And as much as I love Jen for the wonderful, amazing woman that she is, and the love that has grown between us over 30+ years of marriage, it is made all the richer for me to understand what it means that she is the Mother of My Children - I wouldn't be a father if she weren't a mother; and being a father is about the biggest and best and noblest thing I've ever done. . .
So, Happy Mother's Day to my Beloved Wife, Jen - the Mother of My Children, and the Love of My Life. . .
-------------------------
And Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers among my blog-friends - I honor you for your sacrifice, for your love for your own children, and for the (how shall I say it?) intrinsic wonderfulness of your femininity. . .
-------------------------
A friend sent me this (which is more-or-less a sequel to this), which I'm happy (even eager) to share with you all. . .
-------------------------
I have always been in awe of women, for several reasons, probably foremost among them the capacity of their bodies to nurture within themselves a complete, distinct PERSON, and to feed and sustain that person from their own resources after its birth. When I think about that, it seems to me that it touches on the holy. . .
I've also said to Jen many times that reproducing ourselves together is simply the coolest, most amazing thing we've ever done. I'll beg your indulgence if I say, just one more time, that I am still blown away to look at my kids, and realize that each one of them is made of US - literally, they are made of Jen-stuff and me-stuff. Stevie Wonder's song, 'Isn't She Lovely?' has always resonated with me - "Isn't she lovely, made from love?" There is a line of 'Trinitarian' theology that speaks of the Holy Spirit as the Love between the Father and the Son - that the Love between the first two persons of the Holy Trinity is so concrete, so intense, so REAL, that it is a whole 'nother person in itself. And, in the spirit of the late pope's Theology of the Body, I wonder if that isn't yet another sense in which we are made in the Image of God - that the love between a husband and wife - heck, between Jen and me - can issue forth (and in fact, has) in another person (or, you know, eight of them). Awesome. . .
I also recall, in the aftermath of my reunion with my birth-mother, a growing appreciation of Motherhood, and what it means - that what I'd seen of our kids growing in Jen's belly, and felt of them kicking her from inside herself, was also true of me and this very woman; I had never related to Motherhood in quite such a REAL way before, at least as pertaining to myself. It was a mild disappointment to me, after our reunion, that she had no photos of her pregnant self from 'back in the day'. Completely understandable, of course - she (and her family probably all the moreso) was in no mood to capture the experience for posterity - but it would have given me an odd comfort to see a picture of her bulging belly, knowing that I was inside. . . Anyway, it was simply amazing to me to realize that she, at last, was the woman who, at whatever cost to herself, had given birth to me - at the most basic, earthy level (and you know how I love the earthiness), she was the woman between whose legs I entered the world. . .
And as much as I love Jen for the wonderful, amazing woman that she is, and the love that has grown between us over 30+ years of marriage, it is made all the richer for me to understand what it means that she is the Mother of My Children - I wouldn't be a father if she weren't a mother; and being a father is about the biggest and best and noblest thing I've ever done. . .
So, Happy Mother's Day to my Beloved Wife, Jen - the Mother of My Children, and the Love of My Life. . .
-------------------------
And Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers among my blog-friends - I honor you for your sacrifice, for your love for your own children, and for the (how shall I say it?) intrinsic wonderfulness of your femininity. . .
-------------------------
A friend sent me this (which is more-or-less a sequel to this), which I'm happy (even eager) to share with you all. . .
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Facial Hair
My old friend Xavier recently put up a post, a tiny little thing, really, urging upon his male readers that they try, at least once in their lives, to grow a beard, calling it "one of the manliest things in the world".
I had to smile at that, because I've worn a beard more-or-less continuously since the end of my sophomore year of college, and therein lies a tale. . . or two or three. . .
I've always been one of those hairier-than average guys. Certainly not the hairiest guy you've ever seen, by any means, but more than average. I've known a few of 'Those Guys' - the ones with nicknames like 'Bear' or 'Ape' - who, when they take their shirts off, you can't quite see their skin; the guys who have to choose a more-or-less arbitrary line where they stop shaving, because their chest hair just flows continuously up onto their chins. That's not me.
But I started shaving when I was twelve (I wrote about it here, once-upon-a-time), and, without getting any cruder than I have to, I was one of the guys who made a mild sensation in the after-gym-class showers in seventh grade. I made my first efforts at growing a mustache when I was 15, and by the time I was 16, my upper lip had disappeared forever, never to be seen again, to this very day.
As I said, I first grew a full beard toward the end of my sophomore year of college. It was 1975; Grizzly Adams was a popular TV show, and Loggins & Messina were at the height of their popularity. I grew my first beard mainly because I was curious what it would look like (and, to be candid, there was certain 'hippie/natural' vibe that I found appealing, as well). It took me about a week-and-a-half to not look just scruffy, and like I really meant to have a beard. And I liked how it looked, so I kept it.
I understand what Xavier is saying about beards being all 'manly' and all - facial hair is one of the most outwardly-visible things that distinguishes us men from women, for sure (I suppose I should say 'most men' and 'most women' but I really don't wanna go there) (at all). But that didn't really loom all that large in my thinking; it's not like I was insecure in my manhood, or trying to prove my manliness. Mainly, I just liked how it looked on me. I have a bit of a 'weak chin', and the beard did a nice job of, um, hiding that fact, aside from projecting a certain 'rugged' image. And besides, I reasoned, if God went to all the trouble of putting hair on my face, I couldn't quite see the logic of going thru all the time/hassle/irritation of cutting it off every day for the rest of my life. . .
After I first grew my beard, I can recall cutting it off twice - once, during my junior year, when I had a job washing dishes in the dorm, and they told me I'd have to wear a mask unless I shaved. So I shaved my chin, leaving behind a 'Gay-90s-style' set of mutton-chops that flowed smoothly into my mustache. When the school year ended, and I didn't have to care about public-kitchen hygeine rules, I grew it right back.
The other time I shaved it off was toward the end of my Master's program, when I was interviewing for jobs; in 1978, the association of facial hair, especially beards, with 'unbusinesslike' was still fairly strong, and I thought it prudent not to unnecessarily provoke any of my more, uh, conservative interviewers (cowardly, yes, but I got a good job). After I'd been on my new job for three months, and was past the 'probationary period', I went to my boss and asked if there would be any objection to me growing a beard. He said it wouldn't bother him at all, and he didn't think it would a problem for any of his bosses, so I grew it back, and I've had it ever since. Within six months, half-a-dozen other engineers in our office sprouted beards; probably the only time in my life that I've ever been any kind of fashion trend-setter. . .
I've had women ask me, "What does your wife think of that. . . that thing?" apparently imagining to themselves (and in pretty unfavorable terms) what it might be like to kiss a man with hair on his face. But I have to tell you, she loves it (even if she does occasionally have to pick a stray beard hair out of her teeth). Given the time-line of when we first met, and when I had a hairy chin or not, Jen has certainly seen me without my beard. But it was all before we were married, or even dating, so she doesn't have many major associative mental images of me without my beard. One time, after we'd been married maybe five years or so, she happened to pick up my high-school yearbook, and of course, she flipped right to the page with my picture on it. Instantly, she gasped, then turned to me and said, "DON'T YOU EVER SHAVE!"
Uh, well, gosh, Sweetheart, I wasn't planning to. But, uh, you know, that's still me in the photo. . .
I have five sons, and three of them are grown enough to shave; and between the three of them, they can barely push out five hairs on their faces and chests, combined (Jen comes from a, uh, smoother gene pool than I do; although the 'smooth' genes do seem to have a certain tenacity). Which doesn't keep them from trying, to occasionally humorous effect. But whatcha gonna do? Anyway, 7M is a newly-minted teenager, and he's showing some promising signs of hirsute-ness (hirsutitude?), so maybe there's hope yet. . .
-------------------------
On a (possibly) related note - my kids got me this T-shirt as a Christmas gift a couple years ago. . .
I like it. . .
I had to smile at that, because I've worn a beard more-or-less continuously since the end of my sophomore year of college, and therein lies a tale. . . or two or three. . .
I've always been one of those hairier-than average guys. Certainly not the hairiest guy you've ever seen, by any means, but more than average. I've known a few of 'Those Guys' - the ones with nicknames like 'Bear' or 'Ape' - who, when they take their shirts off, you can't quite see their skin; the guys who have to choose a more-or-less arbitrary line where they stop shaving, because their chest hair just flows continuously up onto their chins. That's not me.
But I started shaving when I was twelve (I wrote about it here, once-upon-a-time), and, without getting any cruder than I have to, I was one of the guys who made a mild sensation in the after-gym-class showers in seventh grade. I made my first efforts at growing a mustache when I was 15, and by the time I was 16, my upper lip had disappeared forever, never to be seen again, to this very day.
As I said, I first grew a full beard toward the end of my sophomore year of college. It was 1975; Grizzly Adams was a popular TV show, and Loggins & Messina were at the height of their popularity. I grew my first beard mainly because I was curious what it would look like (and, to be candid, there was certain 'hippie/natural' vibe that I found appealing, as well). It took me about a week-and-a-half to not look just scruffy, and like I really meant to have a beard. And I liked how it looked, so I kept it.
I understand what Xavier is saying about beards being all 'manly' and all - facial hair is one of the most outwardly-visible things that distinguishes us men from women, for sure (I suppose I should say 'most men' and 'most women' but I really don't wanna go there) (at all). But that didn't really loom all that large in my thinking; it's not like I was insecure in my manhood, or trying to prove my manliness. Mainly, I just liked how it looked on me. I have a bit of a 'weak chin', and the beard did a nice job of, um, hiding that fact, aside from projecting a certain 'rugged' image. And besides, I reasoned, if God went to all the trouble of putting hair on my face, I couldn't quite see the logic of going thru all the time/hassle/irritation of cutting it off every day for the rest of my life. . .
After I first grew my beard, I can recall cutting it off twice - once, during my junior year, when I had a job washing dishes in the dorm, and they told me I'd have to wear a mask unless I shaved. So I shaved my chin, leaving behind a 'Gay-90s-style' set of mutton-chops that flowed smoothly into my mustache. When the school year ended, and I didn't have to care about public-kitchen hygeine rules, I grew it right back.
The other time I shaved it off was toward the end of my Master's program, when I was interviewing for jobs; in 1978, the association of facial hair, especially beards, with 'unbusinesslike' was still fairly strong, and I thought it prudent not to unnecessarily provoke any of my more, uh, conservative interviewers (cowardly, yes, but I got a good job). After I'd been on my new job for three months, and was past the 'probationary period', I went to my boss and asked if there would be any objection to me growing a beard. He said it wouldn't bother him at all, and he didn't think it would a problem for any of his bosses, so I grew it back, and I've had it ever since. Within six months, half-a-dozen other engineers in our office sprouted beards; probably the only time in my life that I've ever been any kind of fashion trend-setter. . .
I've had women ask me, "What does your wife think of that. . . that thing?" apparently imagining to themselves (and in pretty unfavorable terms) what it might be like to kiss a man with hair on his face. But I have to tell you, she loves it (even if she does occasionally have to pick a stray beard hair out of her teeth). Given the time-line of when we first met, and when I had a hairy chin or not, Jen has certainly seen me without my beard. But it was all before we were married, or even dating, so she doesn't have many major associative mental images of me without my beard. One time, after we'd been married maybe five years or so, she happened to pick up my high-school yearbook, and of course, she flipped right to the page with my picture on it. Instantly, she gasped, then turned to me and said, "DON'T YOU EVER SHAVE!"
Uh, well, gosh, Sweetheart, I wasn't planning to. But, uh, you know, that's still me in the photo. . .
I have five sons, and three of them are grown enough to shave; and between the three of them, they can barely push out five hairs on their faces and chests, combined (Jen comes from a, uh, smoother gene pool than I do; although the 'smooth' genes do seem to have a certain tenacity). Which doesn't keep them from trying, to occasionally humorous effect. But whatcha gonna do? Anyway, 7M is a newly-minted teenager, and he's showing some promising signs of hirsute-ness (hirsutitude?), so maybe there's hope yet. . .
-------------------------
On a (possibly) related note - my kids got me this T-shirt as a Christmas gift a couple years ago. . .
I like it. . .
Friday, April 22, 2011
Good Friday. . . And Resurrection
But He was wounded for our transgressions;
He was bruised for our iniquities
Upon Him was the chastisement that made us whole,
And with His stripes we are healed.
(The Book of Isaiah, Chapter 53, verse 5)
-------------------------
(edit Easter Sunday morning, April 24)
The rest of the story -
"Death is swallowed up in victory."
"Where, O death, is your victory?
O death, where is you sting?" (I Corinthians 15:54-55)
". . . he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus
and bring us with you into His presence." (II Corinthians 4:14)
I wish a very happy and blessed Easter - the Feast of the Resurrection - to all my friends.
(Here is last year's Easter post, if anyone is interested;
and here are three more, from my old blog.)
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(The photo is one I took myself at Cross In the Woods, up north at Indian River, MI. The cool 'cloud/halo effect' is completely serendipitous, as the sun, which was very bright against a richly blue sky that day, was just outside the frame of the photo. In my efforts to get a good angle on the crucifix (I wanted Jesus to be more-or-less 'looking down at' the viewer), while keeping the sun out of the picture, I got a reflection inside the camera, and the effect was simply golden. . .)
Thursday, April 14, 2011
If I Had a Hammer
I was sorting through some old family photos recently, and I came across one that has a funny story attached to it. A story which I told once, way back when, in my old blog. And so I thought you all might get some enjoyment from me re-posting the story, and this time with the photo attached. . .
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When he was little, our son 4M (now 20) was fascinated by 'working man stuff' - tools and machinery and suchlike. One summer, the city re-worked our sewers, which meant that the street was torn up all summer, and a whole menagerie of heavy equipment passed in front of our porch the whole time. 4M was in juvenile testosterone heaven.
Hammers, in particular, held a kind of 'Jungian archetypal' fascination for him. A hammer was like a symbol of power for him - "I hammer, therefore I am". Jen bought him a little tack-hammer, and he carried that hammer around with him like it was the Mighty Hammer of Thor.
Of course, this also took us into the realms of parental nonsense - "I gave you this hammer, but don't hammer anything." I eventually gave him a 2-foot chunk of scrap two-by-four and a little box of nails, so he could hammer away to his little heart's content.
One time I was working on some minor maintenance project, which required the use of my hammer. I brought 4M along with me, thinking that I could give him a few small hammering jobs where he could actually be helpful, and he was. But he also noticed that Dad's hammer was bigger than his, which made perfect sense in his three-year-old cosmology - Dad was bigger and more powerful than he was, so it only stood to reason that Dad would have a bigger hammer. And it was hard to miss the vaguely (or maybe not-so-vaguely)phallic uh, Freudian aspect of it.
That year for Christmas, we went to my parents' house for the holidays. One day while we were there, the wheels got to turning in 4M's head - if Grandpa is Dad's dad, then. . . He went to my dad and asked, "Grandpa, how big is your hammer?" My dad didn't understand the question, and asked him to repeat it.
"How big is your hammer, Grandpa?"
My dad gave a little chuckle, got up from where he was sitting, and went down into the basement, calling "I'll be right back" over his shoulder as he went. A minute later, he returned, carrying a 12-pound sledge-hammer.
4M's eyes bulged out of their sockets. "Oh, Grandpa - you've got a BIIIIIG hammer!"
"That's right," my dad told him. "And don't you forget it!" While we all rolled on the floor. . .
-------------------------
And please join me in wishing a very Happy 13th Birthday to 7M, thus restoring our family to its traditional allotment of three teenagers. . .
-------------------------
When he was little, our son 4M (now 20) was fascinated by 'working man stuff' - tools and machinery and suchlike. One summer, the city re-worked our sewers, which meant that the street was torn up all summer, and a whole menagerie of heavy equipment passed in front of our porch the whole time. 4M was in juvenile testosterone heaven.
Hammers, in particular, held a kind of 'Jungian archetypal' fascination for him. A hammer was like a symbol of power for him - "I hammer, therefore I am". Jen bought him a little tack-hammer, and he carried that hammer around with him like it was the Mighty Hammer of Thor.
Of course, this also took us into the realms of parental nonsense - "I gave you this hammer, but don't hammer anything." I eventually gave him a 2-foot chunk of scrap two-by-four and a little box of nails, so he could hammer away to his little heart's content.
One time I was working on some minor maintenance project, which required the use of my hammer. I brought 4M along with me, thinking that I could give him a few small hammering jobs where he could actually be helpful, and he was. But he also noticed that Dad's hammer was bigger than his, which made perfect sense in his three-year-old cosmology - Dad was bigger and more powerful than he was, so it only stood to reason that Dad would have a bigger hammer. And it was hard to miss the vaguely (or maybe not-so-vaguely)
That year for Christmas, we went to my parents' house for the holidays. One day while we were there, the wheels got to turning in 4M's head - if Grandpa is Dad's dad, then. . . He went to my dad and asked, "Grandpa, how big is your hammer?" My dad didn't understand the question, and asked him to repeat it.
"How big is your hammer, Grandpa?"
My dad gave a little chuckle, got up from where he was sitting, and went down into the basement, calling "I'll be right back" over his shoulder as he went. A minute later, he returned, carrying a 12-pound sledge-hammer.
4M's eyes bulged out of their sockets. "Oh, Grandpa - you've got a BIIIIIG hammer!"
"That's right," my dad told him. "And don't you forget it!" While we all rolled on the floor. . .
-------------------------
And please join me in wishing a very Happy 13th Birthday to 7M, thus restoring our family to its traditional allotment of three teenagers. . .
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Some of My Favorite Recordings
A while ago, my friend Suldog posted a pair of lists of 15 Recordings (analogous to the book lists that were going around a year or two ago), both his own and his swell pal Cricket's. Worthy lists, both of 'em, and of course, it got me to thinking what a similar list of my own might look like (I did post this, once-upon-a-time, but that was single songs, rather than complete albums). I left a long comment at Suldog's, but it probably should've been a post in its own right, and so I'm here to set that particular little wrinkle in the space-time continuum to right (and because I'm just lazy enough to copy my own comments on someone else's post into a post of my own, knowing that some of you never go to Suldog's, and would never know the difference).
I'm sure that my music collection is nowhere near as large or as varied as either Suldog's or Cricket's. Both of them complained of the rigors of trimming their list down to only 15 entries. I would have the opposite problem - putting together a list as LONG as 15 that isn't just 'Everything the Beatles Ever Did' (and that doesn't get you to 15 by itself, anyway). But then, I'm the guy whose list of 15 Books expanded to include a few dozen, distributed over three posts; counting (or maybe just social co-operativeness) has never ranked high on my list (HAH! 'list' - get it?)
So I'll do what I always do, and just give a kind of impressionistic hodge-podge of some of my favorite stuff (however many of them there may be), and see how it slides down the wall. . . (in no particular order)
Abbey Road is, of course, a given. As Cricket mentioned, there is a worthy discussion to be had as to the relative merits of Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper and Revolver (and there are those who would include the White Album in that discussion; but seriously - "Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine. . ."?; there are a few wasted track there. . .) But AR is the greatest band of all time at the pinnacle of their craft.
Band On the Run; is it OK for me to put a McCartney album on the same list as The Beatles? Honestly, though, I think this is a great album - not a single weak track on it. (I'd like to give a mention to Sir Paul's Ram, as well; I think it's a much better album than it generally gets credit for. . .)
Best of Dark Horse, George Harrison; are you picking up a trend here? I'd generally resist including a 'best-of' compilation in a list like this, but I found this one in a used-CD shop, and just found it irresistible. And, since I had basically stopped listening to George after Living In the Material World, this came to me as utterly fresh (and it was good to know that he actually had some good stuff left after 1975. . .)
I also love John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band; it's so simple and raw (though I don't particularly endorse his theology, here or on Imagine).
OK, I won't try your patience with any more Beatle or ex-Beatle stuff (unless you need me to mention Ringo, just for the sake of ex-Beatle completeness; which was a nice album, don't get me wrong. . .) (And I haven't even mentioned any of the live albums, like McCartney's Tripping the Live Fantastic, or the Concert for George. . .)
A few of my favorites of what might be called 'classic rock' (at least those are the stations that would play 'em anymore. . .)
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Simon & Garfunkel; 'The Poet and the One-Man Band'. Love their urban-folky style, and Artie's sublime voice and harmonies. I might rather include one or another of their many 'greatest hits' collections, but for just one original album, this is probably my favorite. . .
Cosmo's Factory, Creedence Clearwater Revival; Creedence is just plain fun (which, come to think of it, is also why I fell in love with the Beatles in the beginning). And what I said about S&G is true here, as well; I could probably just include a 'greatest hits', but this is my favorite of their original albums. . .
Tommy, The Who; the original rock opera. I can't tell you how many hours I spent in my teens, listening to this record. "I climb the mountain, I get excited. . ." Classic rock at its finest. . .
Brain Salad Surgery, Emerson, Lake and Palmer; I love ELP's rock/classical synthesis, and Keith Emerson's keyboard virtuosity most especially (in my college days, I was more of a piano/keyboard player). A story - one day, when I was in grad school, I was in an electronics lab, and they had us doing stuff with a frequency generator. When the lab was over, I had a little extra time to fiddle around with the equipment, and I saw a pair of headphones in the equipment box, so I plugged 'em into the freq-generator, just to see what the different-shaped waves sounded like. They were mostly pretty unremarkable, until I got to the square wave, which had a unique, buzzy sound that I could swear I'd heard before. Suddenly, it hit me - 'Lucky Man'! Emerson's keyboard solo in 'Lucky Man' was a square wave! So I spent the next 20 minutes twiddling the dials on the freq-generator, trying to play the 'Lucky Man' solo. Man, I was such a wild man in college. . .
Aqualung, Jethro Tull; you might think I include this purely for the lyric, "Snot is running down his nose. . ." and I admit, that's a powerful attraction, but mainly, I love Ian Anderson's rocked-out take on the Bach Bouree. . .
I love fingerstyle acoustic guitar music; three of my favorites -
LJ, Laurence Juber
Only, Tommy Emmanuel
Beyond Nature, Phil Keaggy
Each of these guys is simply a wizard on six strings (and having seen each of them in concert, I can testify that most of the stuff that sounds like three guys are playing, is being played by one guy, all by himself, at the same time. . .)
And some smooth jazz -
One on One, Bob James and Earl Klugh; a shout-out to Jim and Dick, a pair of college buddies of mine, who put me onto smooth jazz, and Earl Klugh most especially. His Late Night Guitar, Naked Guitar, or Solo Guitar could also be included on this list.
Since I keep mentioning my favorite rock/classical syntheses, maybe I should mention my favorite classical pieces. Which would start with Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor (his Prelude in G Minor is also a favorite of mine), and continue with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (which is actually called Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia, or something like that). Neither of those are album-length pieces, though (I do have a recording of Beethoven's three great piano sonatas - the Moonlight, the Pathetique, and the Apassionata; so you can count that if you really require only full-album recordings). Anyway, as you can see, I like my classical music on the dark and brooding side . .
So - what do you think?
I'm sure that my music collection is nowhere near as large or as varied as either Suldog's or Cricket's. Both of them complained of the rigors of trimming their list down to only 15 entries. I would have the opposite problem - putting together a list as LONG as 15 that isn't just 'Everything the Beatles Ever Did' (and that doesn't get you to 15 by itself, anyway). But then, I'm the guy whose list of 15 Books expanded to include a few dozen, distributed over three posts; counting (or maybe just social co-operativeness) has never ranked high on my list (HAH! 'list' - get it?)
So I'll do what I always do, and just give a kind of impressionistic hodge-podge of some of my favorite stuff (however many of them there may be), and see how it slides down the wall. . . (in no particular order)
Abbey Road is, of course, a given. As Cricket mentioned, there is a worthy discussion to be had as to the relative merits of Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper and Revolver (and there are those who would include the White Album in that discussion; but seriously - "Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine. . ."?; there are a few wasted track there. . .) But AR is the greatest band of all time at the pinnacle of their craft.
Band On the Run; is it OK for me to put a McCartney album on the same list as The Beatles? Honestly, though, I think this is a great album - not a single weak track on it. (I'd like to give a mention to Sir Paul's Ram, as well; I think it's a much better album than it generally gets credit for. . .)
Best of Dark Horse, George Harrison; are you picking up a trend here? I'd generally resist including a 'best-of' compilation in a list like this, but I found this one in a used-CD shop, and just found it irresistible. And, since I had basically stopped listening to George after Living In the Material World, this came to me as utterly fresh (and it was good to know that he actually had some good stuff left after 1975. . .)
I also love John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band; it's so simple and raw (though I don't particularly endorse his theology, here or on Imagine).
OK, I won't try your patience with any more Beatle or ex-Beatle stuff (unless you need me to mention Ringo, just for the sake of ex-Beatle completeness; which was a nice album, don't get me wrong. . .) (And I haven't even mentioned any of the live albums, like McCartney's Tripping the Live Fantastic, or the Concert for George. . .)
A few of my favorites of what might be called 'classic rock' (at least those are the stations that would play 'em anymore. . .)
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Simon & Garfunkel; 'The Poet and the One-Man Band'. Love their urban-folky style, and Artie's sublime voice and harmonies. I might rather include one or another of their many 'greatest hits' collections, but for just one original album, this is probably my favorite. . .
Cosmo's Factory, Creedence Clearwater Revival; Creedence is just plain fun (which, come to think of it, is also why I fell in love with the Beatles in the beginning). And what I said about S&G is true here, as well; I could probably just include a 'greatest hits', but this is my favorite of their original albums. . .
Tommy, The Who; the original rock opera. I can't tell you how many hours I spent in my teens, listening to this record. "I climb the mountain, I get excited. . ." Classic rock at its finest. . .
Brain Salad Surgery, Emerson, Lake and Palmer; I love ELP's rock/classical synthesis, and Keith Emerson's keyboard virtuosity most especially (in my college days, I was more of a piano/keyboard player). A story - one day, when I was in grad school, I was in an electronics lab, and they had us doing stuff with a frequency generator. When the lab was over, I had a little extra time to fiddle around with the equipment, and I saw a pair of headphones in the equipment box, so I plugged 'em into the freq-generator, just to see what the different-shaped waves sounded like. They were mostly pretty unremarkable, until I got to the square wave, which had a unique, buzzy sound that I could swear I'd heard before. Suddenly, it hit me - 'Lucky Man'! Emerson's keyboard solo in 'Lucky Man' was a square wave! So I spent the next 20 minutes twiddling the dials on the freq-generator, trying to play the 'Lucky Man' solo. Man, I was such a wild man in college. . .
Aqualung, Jethro Tull; you might think I include this purely for the lyric, "Snot is running down his nose. . ." and I admit, that's a powerful attraction, but mainly, I love Ian Anderson's rocked-out take on the Bach Bouree. . .
I love fingerstyle acoustic guitar music; three of my favorites -
LJ, Laurence Juber
Only, Tommy Emmanuel
Beyond Nature, Phil Keaggy
Each of these guys is simply a wizard on six strings (and having seen each of them in concert, I can testify that most of the stuff that sounds like three guys are playing, is being played by one guy, all by himself, at the same time. . .)
And some smooth jazz -
One on One, Bob James and Earl Klugh; a shout-out to Jim and Dick, a pair of college buddies of mine, who put me onto smooth jazz, and Earl Klugh most especially. His Late Night Guitar, Naked Guitar, or Solo Guitar could also be included on this list.
Since I keep mentioning my favorite rock/classical syntheses, maybe I should mention my favorite classical pieces. Which would start with Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp Minor (his Prelude in G Minor is also a favorite of mine), and continue with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (which is actually called Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia, or something like that). Neither of those are album-length pieces, though (I do have a recording of Beethoven's three great piano sonatas - the Moonlight, the Pathetique, and the Apassionata; so you can count that if you really require only full-album recordings). Anyway, as you can see, I like my classical music on the dark and brooding side . .
So - what do you think?
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