Sentimental recollections of our home's 10-year anniversary

(796 words)

Ten years ago today there was an inch of ice glazing about a foot of snow, crunchy conditions the kids loved and I feared. I was concerned I’d slip on the ice and pulverize a liquor box of plates or heirloom sippy cups.

You might wonder just how I remember the conditions so clearly.

Ten years ago today was moving day.

After 15 years of living in a cozy little “starter” house — paid it off in 12 — our new baby meant we needed bigger digs. We weighed our options. Untethered occupationally, we could move our family any where we wanted.

New York was an option. I had recently been offered a senior editor position with Glamour magazine. It was very odd because the job description included three words — senior/editor/glamour — I never dreamed would apply to me.

I declined.

With the whole world at our feet, we found a place 1.1 miles away up the hill. We love Latrobe (Baggaley Elementary in particular)  and had no intention of straying.

Val found a little split level up in the woods. It had two acres and a roaring creek out back that even today always makes me wish I was 8 again. She asked me to take a look.

The homeowners were selling it themselves. The wife met me at the door and took me down to the basement to introduce me to her husband. He was sitting at a bar watching college football. There was a fire in the fireplace that equaled in warmth his friendly greeting. He asked if I liked beer.

I told him I did.

Two hours later, I hadn’t seen any more of the house and had momentarily forgotten the reason I was there.

Oh, yeah … 

We’ll take it!

I make a big deal out of the anniversaries and birthdays involving inanimate objects.

I started doing when the guy who installed our hot water heater wrote “3-3-11” on the front where I can see it every time I stroll past. Our water heater is a Pisces.

Tonight, I’ll bring out a cake and we’ll sing Happy Birthday to the house. And I’ll ask its occupants to list three things they’ll most remember about the house from the past 10 years, a sensible request they’ll viciously mock then ignore.

It’s a pity. It’d be a great tribute to a place so full of fun and happiness the girls express reluctance to go out on the weekends.

So I’ll share with you my list, but because I love the place so much and it’s my blog my list’ll be closer to three dozen.

I’ll remember sitting by the fire with family in winter, on the porch in summer and reading baby books in bed with the little cuddlers.

I’ll remember the times there were mice in the pantry, stinkbugs on the ceilings and bears in the trees. I’ll remember the cutthroat pingpong matches in the garage, the chaotic renovations and the night Val and I stayed up ’til 3 a.m. when we got instantly hooked on “Breaking Bad.”

I’ll forever treasure the crooked Sharpie lines on the basement door jamb that mark the growth spurts of the birthday girls. I’ll remember the hammock, the trampoline and the day I nearly fell out of the big oak when I was putting up the tire swing. I’ll remember waiting for the school bus and giggly dinner conversation around the cramped kitchen table. I’ll remember stringing popcorn for the Christmas trees, hiding Easter eggs, and the joyful Thanksgiving dinners where my thankfulness came from deep in my heart. I’ll remember the serene sound of Mommy practicing church hymns on the basement organ so she'd be flawless again for the Sunday services.

I’ll remember the sound the crib made when the girls started to rattle awake, all the music we played, and the movies we watched. I have happy memories of explaining baseball to the girls. I’ll remember the night the 140-foot poplar came crashing down and just missed taking out the living room.

The ’10 snowfall that was so massive it marooned us for nearly a week is something I won’t forget. I’ll remember a thousand little games and jokes we played on one another and years from now they’ll make me smile in traffic at the surprise recollection.

Houses are like hookers in that they don’t become yours simply because you pay for them.

These things take time. Given enough of it, combined with ample love and laughter, and the most humble home can become a memory mansion.

I’ll be 54 next week, an age when it’s fair to speculate where I’ll be when I croak. Will it be inside this house? 

I have no idea.

But I’m glad that 10 years ago today Val and I took steps that’ll ensure everyone will know where I truly lived.

Related …

My affections for inanimate objects

Death to boring dinner table deaths!

Piranhaconda on Copperhead Road

Snow plow smashed my mailbox

‘twas a Merry Christmas in July

America's Last Undecided Voter .... Me!

(790 words)

If I have the guts to pull it off I’m pretty sure you’ll hear about it, which means I’m pretty sure you won’t.

It’s too bad, too, because I imagine it would be a dandy practical joke.

Like all great practical jokes there’s nothing practical about it. I’d do it because I think it would be funny.

It would involve hours of standing, pained expressions, flop sweat and torrents of relentless public ridicule.

As I’m already a married father, I’ve got most of that down pat.

See, this has been the year of the undecided voter. 

Those of us with the ability to make up our minds -- and apparently that’s 99 percent of us -- have endured two years and $2 billion dollars of obnoxious ads trying to persuade about 1 percent of the electorate to vote for this one or that one.

They say after all that, after the debates, the ballyhooed jobless reports and robo callers, they -- gee whiz -- just can’t up their minds.

I want to be that guy.

Few people understand the news media better than I. That’s not as boastful as it sounds.

Having worked for many of the most high-profile media organizations in the world (and been rejected by the rest), I have a unique grasp on what the media are seeking today.

And did you notice I used the grammatically correct media “are” instead of the commonly incorrect media “is?”

Told yinz guys I knew my shit.

I know that the biggest story of today, bigger than even who wins, is the identity of the undecided voter. Why’d they vote for who they did?

Every news outlet will be camped outside of the polling places all day trying to find these electoral kingmakers.

And I have a plan to ensure national exposure, which I’d then use to obnoxiously promote “The Last Baby Boomer.”

Interested in that kind of publicity? Here’s what you do:

Walk into the voting booth  . . .

And never leave.

Camp there. Stay all day. Make them call the police to throw you out.

The reason I probably won’t do it is because I know all the people at my polling place, am shy about causing a scene, and fear my shenanigans would harm my shameless attempts to get anyone to buy my book.

It’s a pity because for the past eight years our polling place down at the local elementary school has been perfect.

We used to have those proper booths with the levers that pulled the drape shut behind you. The privacy made me feel secure.

Now our voting booths are those little electronic stations that leave voters fully exposed. I spend my whole time glancing over my shoulder in fear that some angry Trumpster is going to see I’m voting the straight Democratic ticket and pound me over the head with his big bag of gold bars Sean Hannity advised him to buy.

But the visibility in this case lends itself perfectly to my scheme.

I’d walk in, nod hello, sign my name and be ushered to the voting station. It would be perfectly nondescript.

Then time would tick by. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. Hundreds of other voters will come and go . . . and I’ll still be standing there.

But I wouldn’t be standing there still.

No, it would be performance art of the highest order. I’d pace in a little circle. I’d look pensive. I’d look thoughtful. I’d look more anguished than James Dean in the scene from “Rebel without a Cause” where he falls to pieces screaming, “You’re tearing me apart!”

All of this would alarm the polling workers who would clearly see they’re dealing with an undecided voter. They wouldn’t know what to do so they’d call their supervisors. The media would show up to broadcast live reports of the man inside who can’t make up his mind.

“One official said this middle-aged man has spent six hours at his voting station,” the reporter will say. “Sources say he spent a 30 minutes doing Eenie-Meanie-Minie-Mo before bursting into tears. He’s remains truly undecided.”

I’d be seen praying for guidance and asking aloud questions to both Donald and Hillary like they were there floating there above my head. I’d ask the polling workers if it was against procedure to have someone deliver me a pizza.

Interest would be at fever pitch as the seconds ticked down. Every major network would be waiting outside to hear from how I’d voted.

Then with just moments to spare, I’d do what I’m guessing by now every still-undecided voter in America is bound to do to settle this momentous matter.

I’d flip a coin.

It’s Election Day and it’s tearing me apart.

Related . . . 

Trump vs. Fiorina: Who’s our ugliest president?

Someone needs to yank Trump’s rug off

Trump’s no jackass; he’s under-qualified

Who’ll take on Trump and what Cher has to do with it

Farewell, Sarah, America’s flirt

Who can help me quit caring so much?

I’m an America-hating liberal (2008)

Vote for Barack Obama (2008)

Cheers to National Teacher Inebriation Day (from '13)

(719 words)

I should have realized something was amiss by the parking lot. It was overflowing. Thursday afternoons at The Pond are usually what I’d call comfortably crowded. This had the makings of elevator so packed you decide it’s better to hike the stairs.

I walked in and the place was rowdy with happy strangers. And happy was an understatement. It was like a parolee party at the bar nearest the front gates of the state pen.

My buddies, the bar regulars, were all in a stupor. This may sound routine for men who spend about five or six hours at a stretch in a tavern, but it was only 5 p.m., about two full hours before their usual stupors set in.

What gives, I asked.

“Last week of school.”

Ah, I’d forgotten.

Happy National Teacher Inebriation Week!

This is the week where teachers from three or four different area schools pack The Pond to celebrate the fact that they’d made it through another year of inflicting compulsory education on our darling young morons.

As a parent, my urge was to buy them all a drink to thank them for their excellence. 

I do believe our daughters, recent Baggaley Elementary graduates from 6th and 1st grades, have enjoyed wonderful teachers and are getting a great education that will forever brighten their futures.

Of course, my old man believed the same thing about me and look how that’s turning out.

But I didn’t want to impose on their collegial reverie. They were having such a great time.

And these weren’t Baggaley teachers anyway. They were from a rival elementary school and might have taken it as an insult if I’d have gushed about how great the Baggaley teachers are, implying they were a bunch of stiffs by comparison.

I’m sure, too, a parent talking about education was the last thing they wanted to hear.

But I was disappointed in myself that I couldn’t muster the courage to ask them just how they did it.

Not teaching, certainly. I’ve taught. I was for four years teaching graduate students creative non-fiction at Point Park University. And it was all going swell until the state decided -- experience be damned -- teachers should not be less credentialed than their students.

Can you believe it?

What I really wanted to know was how they stayed sober so long.

I have two children I adore and many aspects of fatherhood drive me to guzzle hootch about three or four days a week. 

Of course, I’m a writer and many people expect writers to drink and I wouldn’t want to do anything to disrupt the stereotype.

This is true: When I tell people I’m a writer with an office above a bar, it’s not uncommon for some to say I’m just like legendary drunken writer Ernest Hemingway.

I don’t deny it either. In fact, if you take away all his prestige, success, money, his 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature and his Key West mansion full of polydactyl cats, it’d be difficult to tell Papa and me apart.

I think if I were a school teacher I’d need to be about 20 percent drunk about 70 percent of the time.

People say you have to really love kids to be a teacher.

Wrong. You have to really love kids to be Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar.

Spending nine months with the kids of 20 strangers is an entirely different matter. And it’s not just the kids, which I think would be doable.

Worse, is that these kids each have hovering parents who stay up nights thinking of ways to ensure you are doing your best with their precious little Einsteins.

So teaching is like preparing a Thanksgiving dinner with about 50 in-laws crowding the kitchen, each one offering advice on how to roast the perfect bird.

So hat’s off to our nation’s teachers.

You can now sleep off your annual hangovers and go back to a long summer of house painting and fending off bitter personal attacks from taxpayers who resent subsidizing your overseas sabbaticals and three-month summer vacations.

Me, I’m going to spend the day seeking out the giddy watering hole of the only professionals whose habitual sobriety surprises me even more than your own.

You see, it’s also National School Bus Driver Inebriation Week!

Related . . .

An exercise in ironic education

Taking my worms to elementary school

Regular bar patrons need personal seat licenses

I fail the 4th graders: I didn't chew the poo

(797 words)

Regular readers have heard me audaciously boast about my many successes as a public speaker. They’ve read me brag about audience hosannas, huge paydays and the time that drunk said I cured his hangover.

So it’s only fair to report last week I bombed. Laid an egg.

For the first time ever, attendees came up to me afterwards and said I’d disappointed them.

Why the failure?

I decided against gobbling down the fake worm poo.

It was a rare case of ignoring something that didn’t smell causing a real stink.

Yes, last week was the 8th annual year for me to bring my worm composting bin to Baggeley Elementary School. Lucy’s in the 4th grade and, like years before, they asked if I wouldn’t mind telling my Earth-friendly composting stories to the entire grade, about 60 children.

No problem. I had this in the bag, I said. Or bin, as it were.

The worms are the stars of the show — and it takes a heck of a straight man to admit he’s second fiddle — actually, given their multitude, about thousandth fiddle — to the noble Eisenia Fetida.

And just try saying that Latin mouthful next time you’re wandering the aisles at the local bait shop.

But your typical 4th grader loves worms, especially the boys.

In fact, I stopped letting the kids handle the worms years ago after I suspected one of the lads had eaten one.

I thought about investigating the suspects, but realized the only way I could succeed was to find a child with baited breath.

See, that's part of the problem. I’ve by now got a million worm jokes.

It’s made me cocky, and worm cockiness is a debilitating hubris and I think a potential side effect of certain over-the-counter ED remedies.

So I thought this year I’d coast on my riffs and skip the worm poo consumption bit.

The gag — and it is a huge hit — involves me pretending a handful of dark chocolate chips in a baggy is actually nutrient-rich worm poo.

I hold the bag aloft and expound about its supple benefits, its agricultural advantages and how truly it helps save the planet.

“Not only that,” I say, reaching into the bag, “but the stuff tastes great.”

The first time I did that it got the greatest reaction to anything I’d ever done.

The girls shrieked, the boys cheered and out of the corner of my eye I saw one sensitive teacher double over like she was going to heave.

It was sensational.

And that’s what they all wanted.

Instead, what they got was me eating lunch.

I didn’t want to reprise the same joke. Like any real artist, I couldn’t resist the urge to stretch.

So instead I brought out a little picnic basket and proceeded to remove items and quiz the kids as to what was acceptable for worms to eat. The discards included banana peels, apple cores, tea bags, shredded newspaper, etc.

All that went into the worm bin.

Then I took out a cut of leftover pizza and asked, “Would this be good for the worms?”

“No!” the kids screamed.

So who gets it?

“Mr. Rodell gets it!”

The call-and-response took a few rehearsals, but I soon had them yelling “Mr. Rodell gets it!” as I wolfed down a pretzel, a slice of cheese, some pepperoni, a Vienna sausage and a Hershey bar. It was so much fun I was chagrined I didn’t bring a can of beer and a lit cigar.

Then, as usual, I opened it up to questions, which meant the kids spent the next 20 minutes asking if worms could eat shoes, buttons, bikes, baby sisters, etc.

My favorite question was from a tow-headed kid who asked in all seriousness if a worm had ever eaten a fish.

I told him, honestly, I didn’t know, but I could see the future and knew beyond doubt that one day he’d make a really fine blogger.

But my self-conviction it had been a smashing success was immediately shattered when two of Lucy’s classmates came up and asked why I hadn’t eaten the worm poo.

I told them, in effect, been there/done that.

“But that,” one said, “was the best part!”

Worse, Lucy said she heard the same thing from other classmates and if there’s one thing I cannot abide it’s the thought of classmates taunting my darling that her Daddy does NOT eat worm poo.

I surrender.

So if they have me back next year, I promise to happily, proudly and with gusto chow down on fake worm poo.

The 4th graders made me realize me not eating worm poo is like Springsteen not playing “Born to Run.”

And you gotta give the people what they want.

Related …

I cure hangovers

Chewin’ on Earth Day and warm worm poo

Frank Burns eats worms

My one-man neighborhood trash crusade

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

I pranked the trash man yesterday