rustypants speaks

conversation with my dad at a vietnamese restaurant this past saturday:

*sign on counter: No Longer Accepting Checks*

Dad: That’ll disappoint Lech Walensa.
Me: The dude who coached Nadia Comaneci? He’s Romanian.

as a boy, our backyard contained a myriad of flowers and plants thanks to my parents’ green thumbs. one gorgeous flower we had is known as the 4 o’clock plant. it looks like this:

but the seeds were what were fun to my little brother and i. they looked like little hand grenades and to get to them you had to squeeze the pod of the plant and it would pop open! way cool! the seeds look like this:

we loved to go into the yard and frolic and play, popping 4 o’clock seed pods and pretending they were grenades, throwing them at each other and our friends.

it was all in good fun until the day one of the seeds blew up in poor ralph’s hand.

cruel mother nature.

when i was growing up, my family had a big above-ground swimming pool in the backyard. i don’t remember enjoying swimming a lot, but it was always fun getting into the pool. parties, family get togethers, saturday afternoons, hot and sticky summer days - i have a number of neat memories from this pool.

but the memory i have that sticks out the most is this:

i was young - maybe seven or eight years old.

we had early bedtime, even in the summer. this is difficult for kids, isn’t it? the sun is still up, and there you are - getting ready for bed. gah! it’s like being tortured! all that time lost sleeping when you could be pursuing treasure or beating up on your little brother in the backyard or any number of worthwhile adventures that have to be put on hold so you can go to sleep.

one night after we had already gone to sleep, my dad came in and woke us up. it was dark out and i remember being puzzled at the awakening. we were to put on our swimsuits and come out into the backyard! wha??

mom was in her suit already and we were excited, but concerned. it’s chilly out! isn’t this going to be too cold to swim in? dad told us that the water would still be warm from the sun beating down on it all day. i remember not believing him, but once we got outside and went to the pool…

the perimeter lights were on. as we walked into the pool area and stuck our hands in the water - hey! it IS warm! swimming at night, the stars out, the crickets chirping, family close-by.

we swam for a while and had a really good time. the fine details are long lost, but the emotional sensations remain - it was a really neat time together. after we swam, my dad asked me if i wanted to ride with him to baskin robbins in his ‘55 t-bird (with the top down - woo-hoo!) and pick up some ice cream.

this whole evening was so out of the ordinary and was so much fun - it surely wasn’t more than an hour or two in length but it has stuck with me ever since.

when lise and i were talking a few weeks ago about family memories, this one was a close second in cool things from my parents - this one with dad in particular.

lise asked me this afternoon at lunch what the coolest thing my mom ever did for me when i was younger.

it surely wasn’t the coolest thing of all time, but the very first thing that popped into my mind was this:

when i was growing up and going to school K-4th grade, we lived under the 1 mile mark from school. this meant that we walked to school most days. not a big deal. i remember getting rides when weather was crummy and getting picked up, etc. but i remember walking to and from more often than not.

the one day that stands out took place back in 3rd grade - 1977. i remember leaving school and being surprised to see my mom’s car out front! she told me that she had a surprise and we had to get going… i smelled popcorn in the car and this was definitely strange.

we arrived at kenwood theater and mom bought tickets to see Oh, God! with george burns and john denver. she hid the paper bags of popcorn in her coat and in we went! i remember a couple of funny scenes from the movie but what i remember most was mom surprising me by picking me up from school and taking me to a movie in the middle of the day. it was exciting and fun - a real adventure and so out of the ordinary that it’s stuck with me ever since.

my mom is cool, what can i say?

we weren’t allowed to watch popeye…

 …but we had rock-em-sock-em robots.

as a kid, i remember going through my dad’s record collection and playing a little of everything. he had a cool box that was big enough to hold a number of 45’s (or singles) - he had a card for each one and a short description included on the card - and he had a whole lot of stuff from when he was growing up (50’s and 60’s).

one in particular that will always remain lodged in my brain was called Delicious! and it featured Jim Backus, of Gilligan’s Island / Mr. Magoo fame.

it was the stupidest thing i’ve ever heard. lush, romantic piano background, corks popping, inebriated individuals laughing, carrying on and on and on…

i remember as a kid listening to this and laughing hysterically! dad would listen, too, and he would laugh as well and by the end we couldn’t stop!

and i still can’t help but laugh with them. it’s so damn funny. and stupid.

but it would be unfair of me to tell you about this and not share, so click below on the Audio MP3 button to hear the actual 45 of Delicious! but please listen responsibly - do not operate heavy machinery while under the influence of Backus and crew.

Download Delicious!

i’m in cincinnati for a couple days hanging out with family, celebrating birthdays, driving to toledo to get lise, and having a good time in the cooler weather.

saturday was a birthday party over at my aunt diane’s house - my cousin chris and her astute, five-year-old offspring camden came in from south bend. cam and i had some interesting conversations about coinslots, cute girls, and tattoos. while creating artistically stunning designs using rubber stamps, cam and i gave each other some gnarly tats of our own.

i gave cam a snoopy tat, thinking that snoopy’s free-wheeling, fun disposition matched his and would make a definite statement to the world about what he’s all about.  i dropped, popped, and locked that sucker right on his face and we were both quite pleased with the result.

cam chose a flower tattoo for me. i can only imagine that he was thinking that my budding optimism, my flowery opinion of the human condition, my blooming love for all God’s creatures, the spring in my step, the buzz of creativity flying through my mind - i must match that flower and by golly i’m gonna wear it proudly!

the rest of the afternoon was spent showing off our sweet tats, having mini-food fights, teaching each other new tricks and phrases, and taking pictures. when we parted, cam and i agreed to never have laser surgery done to remove our gifts to each other, and would always proudly display them to all we encountered! it was a heartwarming, uplifting show of love and admiration for each other and the bond we had formed.

my hopes and dreams were dashed the following morning. my assumption that we had used permanent ink shows my naivete - my tat was last seen circling the drain in the shower. the memories are fading. my pride, collapsed.

cam - it’s time to come visit pensacola.

this past tuesday was quite cool.

my dad and his wife karen came into town for the afternoon. they and my brother and his wife were in biloxi for a couple days on vacation - lise and i took the afternoon off work and they drove the two hours into p-cola and we had a great, but too brief, time together.

we unloaded the truck of our chest of drawers and two bicycles and an added treat of several cans of skyline chili and several bottles of montgomery inn sauce - all welcome additions in our home. we hung out at the apartment for a bit and caught up (and caught our breath).
then we hit mcguire’s irish pub for a fantastic meal of corned beef sandwiches, reubens, and monster-sized burgers - add a couple bowls of their famous bean soup and two pitchers of homemade root beer and you’ve got a great couple hours of food, fun, and talk.

next to the beach where the wind was blowing hard enough to lean at a 45 degree angle without falling over. sadly, it was too windy and cold for karen and we didn’t get her picture this time around. :-( a quick picture and a visual for them both of where we spend most of our free time (and what brought us to pensacola in the first place) were had and we were off.

a drive to my school and lise’s place of work, then back to the apartment rounded out the afternoon. we had a great time and it sucked to say goodbye but it was great to see them both and catch up.

and i have to remember to bring karen a reuben from mcguire’s when i hit cincy at the end of march!

mile 50 (12-21-07):

dolby and i are on the road to cincinnati. lise flew to toledo on the 19th. i had school until 11am (when my principal, who could kick your principal’s butt, told me i could take off). i got home, loaded up dolby and we hit the road. we’re in the car chillin, although dolby’s not particularly happy after about 200 of the 750 miles. poor guy.

mile 750 (12-22-07):

it’s 2am. i’m dead. we arrive at the house after too many stops for pooping and eating and running around. dolby’s thrilled. i’m just dead. everything’s vibrating.

mile 780 (12-22-07):

christmas dinner at my brother’s house in Monroe, Ohio. good time. good food. good company. debbie (sister-in-law)’s parents were there. my niece. my mom and her man. it was a good time. everything’s still vibrating.

mile 810 (12-23-07):

on the road again. this time 210 miles north to toledo to spend the day with lise’s family and pick her up to come down to the house. everyone was there but for her brother, sean, who has taken up long-haul trucking on a temporary basis to stockpile some cash and pay off some bills. he was missed, but we did have a good time! the picture to the right is NOT how i felt after 6 hours with the in-laws, but simply a mask one of my nephews left laying around. the switch is actually a comb. or is it? come a little closer, family!! muuuahahahahahaaaa…

mile 1245 (12-24-07):

had christmas eve dinner with my mom, her man, and my uncle. had a good time with untraditional christmas cooking that included some of the best potato soup i’ve ever had (even o’charley’s!). we played ping pong (got my butt kicked - damn this tennis elbow and carpal tunnel) and hung out for the evening.

mile 1290 (12-25-07):

christmas day was spent with my dad and his wife’s family - good food, good company again - i swear i’ve gained 4-5 lbs of the 50 i’ve lost back. gaah! we had a great time hanging out with everyone and catching up.

on the way there we stopped and bought Hot Fuzz, one of the funniest movies i’ve seen in all of 2007. seriously, i’ve not laughed like this over a movie in a long time. if you’ve not seen it, pbbbtthhh! jog on! mom had a coupon for hollywood video, and we got the thing for $7 and change. woo!

mile 1331 (12-26-07):

my friend mark meyers and his excellently cool wife melinda came in from minneapolis, MN and they spent the day with us on wednesday - i miss mark a lot. and his excellently cool wife is so excellently cool! we hung out, grabbed mexican food, drove to mt. adams and snapped disturbing photos of misunderstood minnesota rituals (such as the one at left, “face licking”) and concluded our day by playing simpson’s monopoly (how did this end? well, let’s just say that when lise tried to set mark up for the win, melinda and i formed an air-tight alliance and brought mark down to his knees). we were sad to see them go, but then SOMEONE has to go back to minnesota and freeze their asses off for the local economy.

that evening, several of our kids (ha ha - they ain’t “kids” anymore - “college attending adults”) from youth group past came over (including rocky and racecarr, seen left) for pizza, hilarity, hot fuzz (the movie, duh), and lots of talking. i’m so proud of these kids that i could pop. i love hearing about how growing up, college, jobs, etc. are going. rocky and i talked long into the evening about politics, school, christianity, and family - it was a great time.

mile 1402 (12-27-07):

today was a day of running around, relaxing a bit, making a trip to steve and barry’s for some shirts and stuff, getting things done around the house, and seeing my mom. lise got her old small group together and went out to dinner, then back to the house for fun, food, and games. they had a great time! christy came over that night for a couple hours and filled us in on her life and times, and then we kicked her out to get some sleep.

mile 1474 (12-28-07):

mom and i went to jungle jim’s today and bought staples (read: sauces and stuff you can’t get anywhere else, at least not in p-cola) and had donato’s for lunch. this evening was spent over at my brother’s house in Middletucky, OH with the family. definitely a good time eating, talking, and playing Rock Star. there exists some footage of my dad playing this game that will no doubt end up on youtube at some point.

mile 1540 (12-30-07):

back on the road again. i’ve said this before, i’ll say it again: i’m getting too old for this shit. driving 750 miles in one clip is too much for my ragged old body. but here we are again. the house is cleaned up and taken off the market. everything’s shut down and put away. the car’s been packed since the night before. the dog sits in the back seat looking sad (HE knows it’s 12 hours cooped up in the cramped car) and i’m getting ready to eat a blackberry jam cake muffin leftover from the previous weeks partying.

mile 2263 (12-31-07):

the drive is as long and painful as anticipated but it’s good to be home. we pull in late on the night of the 30th, unpack the car and pass out where we land. first thing next morning, we log mile 2263, ending at pensacola beach where it’s in the mid 60’s. the water’s warm, the air is warm, and the company is just right. we’ve had a great holiday visiting with family and friends that we sorely miss. now it’s good to be home and relaxing together before the craziness of real life returns.

this past saturday was our 17th anniversary and we decided to celebrate pensacola style.

we slept in that morning (always a good thing!) and lounged around a bit before taking off. we gathered the dog and his stuff up and took off in the car for the afternoon.

our first stop was J’s Pastry Shop on the east side of town (about a dozen blocks from my school). J’s has been rumored to have the best sweets and pastries in all of p-cola and lise and i have to concur: if you’re in the area and you neglect to stop in on this icon of our town and treat yourself to a sweet, well you’re just plain crazy, i reckon. a couple maple walnut pastry thingies kept us held over while we skipped lunch.

we then took a drive around this area as it’s near escambia bay. almost all of the waterfront is taken by houses but it’s a pretty drive and the houses are gorgeous. there’s a dog park on this bay as well but i didn’t understand at the time that it was several miles further south than where we were. oh, well - dolby didn’t complain when we took him to my school playground and ran him around with the frisbee and sticks.

he’s a good dog and we love having him around. he loves his frisbee (to death) and running around like a nut is a specialty of his.

we got him plumb wore out (like my southern-speak here?) and hung out together a bit longer before cruising around a bit more and heading home to drop him off.

then the real party could begin.

we gathered all our beach things and hit the road to p-cola beach. we’ve been sad lately because of the early sunsets that prevent us from visiting the beach as much during the week. being on central time here has messed with our internal clocks - the sun sets around 4:45 and lise works til 5:00, so we’re limited for the next few months in when we get to sit and watch the sun go down and the waves crashing.

but watch we did - and get in, too.

the locals are funny in the way that temperatures hit the low 70’s and everyone says, “oh, beach season is over. bummer.” and they abandon the gulf. me? i don’t get it. we hadn’t intended on getting into the water but the conditions were right, the shells were washing up and down the water and there just was no denying the inalienable right to strip down to one’s underpants and get into the surf in the name of a couple cool seashells. my apologies to anyone offended by my boxers.

oh, hell. deal with it.

well, the water was a bit cold and really, for all the shells floating around out there, not a WHOLE lot was caught. but we had a good time. it was overcast so our evening sunset was somewhat canceled, but it was replaced by a cooler sight: a great blue heron that has been following us around on the beach the last couple weeks.

it was back in maryland where we first fell in love with great blues. they were all over the place - they live mainly in wetland areas on the east coast and there was plenty of wetland in our location. pensacola is a semi-tropical region and has a good amount of wetland areas as well.

this heron has flown up within 10 yards of us several times in the last few weeks and it’s an awe inspiring thing to see. most herons we’ve ever even gotten within 20-30 yards of have flipped out and taken off. not this guy. the above picture was taken with him about 15 feet from where we were standing. he stood still long enough for me to take this shot and a couple blurry others, then walked off. we were also rewarded with a brief flash of color in the sky behind him before the sun disappeared for good. we spent a little time reflecting on all the things we’ve done over the last 17 years, watched the sky and the heron a bit more, then took off.

our last stop for the anniversary day was Landry’s Seafood House. we’re not rich folks and we don’t go out eating expensive chow very often, but for special occasions, you’ve got to splurge a bit. landry’s serves some delicious seafood with a very nice, attractive but informal atmosphere. service has been great each time we’ve gone and this night was no different. lise’s mahi-mahi was good and my broiled seafood platter was exceptional. topping it all off was a free piece of chocolate erection cake (ok, ok - it’s actually “chocolate eruption but we shared a huge laugh with the server when we went on lise’s birthday when she talked about another server who kept mispronouncing the name of the cake to customers - it’s stuck and we can’t stop laughing about it). this 7-layer chocolate beast came swimming in a delicious custard sauce that was out of this world.

decency laws and basic respect prevent me from posting pictures of what happened next when we got home, but you can imagine that after 17 years together, we’ve learned how to have a good time. it was a great day and it’s been a great 17 years.

can’t wait to see how the next 17 years unfold.

briefly:

• lise’s job = awesome. she loves it. (frickin’ YES!!!)
• things at school continue to get better - not just because my homeroom size is smaller but because certain realizations have taken place. these realizations exact a change in my thinking, causing me to change my teaching / attitude / discipline, all making things better for the students AND for me.
• lise, sadly, has to work M-T-W next week - my school is on fall break, so i’m leaving for cincinnati friday immediately after school gets out. looking forward to being with family and friends again - sad about being away from my sweetie for almost a week.
• this marks the first year in… 15? that we will not be with our friends barb and joe in maryland for thanksgiving. we’re sad, but looking forward to a possible trip there in december.
• am reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough. never ever would have thought something so seemingly boring could be so interesting.
• we’ve now rented and watched seasons one and two of Scrubs - holy crap, this is a freakin hilarious show!
• saw the blue angels last weekend on their homecoming show here in p-cola. pretty cool. got a few pictures but none of them turned out incredibly great - it’s hard catching super-sonic jets on film!
• a second leaf changed color yesterday.
• it’s still hitting the low 80’s here. am i ready to wear PANTS again during this visit to cincinnati? probably not, although weather.com tells me the high tomorrow will be 43 and the low as i pull into town will be 30. brisk, baby!
• the house = still not sold.
• scott = dead tired.
• goodnight.

• many thanks to the folks calling, emailing, texting to make sure lise and i were ok after the tornado ripped it’s way through pensacola on thursday. it got within 8 blocks or so of my school and we lost power from 10:15am through the end of the school day, but there was no damage and no one was hurt. definitely made for an interesting day, though!
• funny thing about the tornado: lise and i had NO IDEA that a tornado was going through until my dad sent me a text message saying he saw on the news (in CINCINNATI!) about it and wanted to make sure we were ok. even at the school, we didn’t know.
• many folks are asking how we’re doing since the news we received last wednesday and the answer is: we’re as ok as we can be. we’ve decided to stay the course down here and see where it leads us, but it won’t be without pain and (obviously) sacrifices we weren’t thinking we’d need to make. we’re ok.
• i finished reading Roots by Alex Haley a couple weeks ago. i remember watching the miniseries on TV waaay back in the 70’s when i was a wee lad and it must’ve made an impression on me - as i read the book i very easily visualized scenes and remembered in some cases what was coming next. it was a very good book, despite the apparent “controversies” surrounding Haley and the writing. recommended reading.
• florida has a Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award that is voted on and given each year. our librarian walked each class through this years books and i was so impressed that i took some of our classroom money and bought a couple copies to read aloud and share with the students - two standouts from the list include The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and A House of Tailors. both are excellent books with edward tulane being my favorite.
• we’ve kept with our decision to not watch any television and have been watching a lot of movies recently. we’ve also discovered Scrubs again for the first time. we’ve seen maybe one or two shows a season but always seemed to be busy the night it’s on - we rented season three and laughed our butts off. i love dr. cox.
• hollywood video is going out of business in several locations here in p-cola, and i stumbled on their liquidation sale at one store - all dvd’s were $1.99! now, there weren’t that many left, but i did end up with 12 movies, several of which are absolute favorites - the biggest of them being Cinema Paradiso. this movie won the best foreign film Oscar back in 1988 - lise and i saw it last year for the first time and we were totally floored with how incredible it was. what a sweet and touching movie! finding the director’s cut version for $1.99 made my week.
• red tide has hit the gulf coast in our area and it’s made it nearly impossible to go to the beach this week. we went last saturday and as we got out of the car, i said, “something doesn’t smell right” - dead fish floating all over and the water was a murky brackish green color. it’s spread up and down the coast and is still affecting the water. seafood friday is still on the schedule for tonight but i’m not sure how long we’ll be on the beach. :-(
• no bites on the house yet. may end up dropping the price yet again - at this point we’re losing more money than it’s worth, but dropping the price means we’ll lose even more. gosh, we just didn’t think it’d take this long!
• we’ve got a birkenstock store here in pensacola that’s bigger than any we’ve been in yet. it’s called comfort zone and one thing that makes it unique is that they have a LARGE “discount” section - we’ve NEVER seen this before from a birk dealer. i found a pair of waterproof birkenstock sandals, normally priced at around $180, for only $19.95. they’re fantastic! woo!! nothing like being flat broke and being able to say you bought a new pair of birkenstocks, yo.
• i’m heading out of school to hit maria’s seafood for some shrimp, then heading home to pick up the wife. be well and thanks for reading.

lise and i love the beach. duh.

one thing we learned early on is this: no matter how much you want it to, the face of the beach never stays the same. we’ll be at a particular spot one night and find tons of cool seashells, then go back the next night, same spot, and everything’s gone.

the waves come and churn everything up, move everything around, slide things up and down the shoreline, and change the face of the beach hour by hour. if you’ve ever stood and watched a particular shell get tossed up on the beach by a wave, try and rush to grab it, only to have it disappear as fast as you saw it, you know that the beach changes in a matter of seconds, too.

yesterday we received news that, at the time, seemed catastrophic to our hopes of staying here in pensacola. the world came to a screeching halt yesterday afternoon. we’ve both been crying and upset, trying to figure out why this is happening and why things that seemed to be going along ridiculously well at first, now are not. how are we going to manage to work this out with everything seemingly hinged to a few things that are falling apart?
so after we got the depression & self-pity out of our systems last night we spent the morning re-working our gameplan and trying to see where we can go from here.

and this afternoon, i went to the beach to decompress. and i watched tiny shells come and go. and i watched the waves moving everything around. and i watched the face of the beach get changed and rearranged. and i learned (again) that life has a habit of doing this same thing to us. we want things to be accessible and familiar and easy to swallow, but this rarely happens. life shifts, ebbs, and flows and things get moved. we reach for something we see moving around in life, but it gets moved out of our reach, buried in the sand. and then something else comes along and we reach and grasp it with success.

we’re going to continue on our path down here in pensacola and rearrange our hopes and expectations. will it all work out? or will more waves come and scramble the face of our lives again? dunno.

life will continue to be a beach sometimes, this much we can depend on.

it was great seeing family and friends today at the house before we left

but all these goodbyes are killing me - i forgot how much it hurt

we leave tomorrow morning

she cut this out of the paper and gave it to me.

and i laughed for about 5 minutes over it.

and then i laughed more over it since then.

pathetic?

maybe.