Counting My Blessings
Looking back over 2006 I see that on a personal level it was a mixed bag of good and bad, like most every year. I’ll recount a much as my limited memory allows to se which way the scales tip.
I’m ecstatic that I’m retired and that the check arrives every month, usually on time. However, I’m feeling the delayed effects of 30 years on concrete. There is now not a single joint or muscle that doesn’t ache. I have to be primed like a pump in the morning with enough coffee to float an aircraft carrier. It hurts to sit, stand, or move too long. I take as many naps as possible every day.
Nothing major failed or blew up in the house. We just had the ordinary sparking light switches, leaky basement, and endless burned out bulbs, all manageable. I can’t say the same for the beater.
The 1996 Probe developed a habit of getting bulky every fall. It would run like half the cylinders weren’t firing and needed begging to start. I’ve taken to the dealership only to be told for $70 bucks that there’s nothing wrong. Sure enough, a few days later the old beast smoothes out and runs like a purse-snatcher in Central Park.
This year the Black Jelly Bean, as my wife calls it, is eating parts. I’m running out of guesses as to what else I can replace short of the entire car.
I’m one of the few people of a certain age, about 20 years from dead, who doesn’t have to take a single prescription medication. No Lipitor or Xanax for me. I’m not even on aspirin.
On the other hand, I do self-medicate. I have to or people will be hurt, by me. I have a store of comfort food: multi-meat pizza, pizza rolls. Pizza, in any form, when taken with rum and diet Pepsi keeps one calm, sedate, and pliable. Being calm, sedate, and pliable makes for a happy wife. Well, as happy as any woman can be when she’s married to someone not a millionaire, handsome, and/or potent.
I finally have a respectable array of photographic equipment. Nikon will be sending me a “thanks for putting another Lexus in our garage” Christmas card. The only catches are I need to figure out what all those buttons, bells, and menu items do on the new camera, and I still have to pay for it.
As for the first catch, every time I pick up the new camera or lens I find another switch. I have to go back to the stack of manuals to see what it does and then figure out whether I can use it. I’ve never had to read the manual for anything before, but then I never owned a tool that looks like it was created by the same people who design the cockpit consoles of 747s.
About the second catch, Santa was very nice to me this year, but his generosity is leavened by the fact that he’s giving me the bill, too. It’s a good thing those retirement checks are regular.
A super plus is I’m doing something as a vocation that I truly enjoy. Photojournalism is a blast and I look forward to every assignment.
A monstrous minus is I’m still doing all those I hate. Mowing the lawn, cleaning house, putting up with relatives, and driving in any city with stoplights.
A real blessing is my grandchildren are happy and healthy. They are also both a lot smarter than I am having figured out exactly how to manipulate me. With the four-year-old it’s understandable that he’d have noticed that grandpa is the easiest target. I’d rather say, “yes” than see him sad. I could have sworn I was a tough guy and I’m pretty certain I refused my sons. It must be oldvage.
I don’t get where the 9-month-old granddaughter picked up on Papa as the resident sap. If she wants held or needs to make a poopoo on someone, she makes a beeline for me. For the first 6 months of her life, I thought baby girls were supposed to smell like barnyards. It turns out it was just her way of saying, “I like you.”
Well, I guess my life isn’t so bad, which is bad because it’s the source of many a column. So, how do I rate my happiness scale? It’s a good things those checks come on time.

Griswold Family Holidays
My wife and I try to scrape through the silly season as far under the radar as possible. We do enough to keep the kids and grandkids happy, and then skitter into the dark like a couple of cockroaches.
It’s not working out as well as we’d hoped and our holiday, which starts with Thanksgiving and crash lands on New years is taking on the character and comedy of the Griswold family, as in National Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation.”
Thanksgiving is our annual homage to Orville Redenbacher. If it can be made in the microwave, we’ll serve it for Thanksgiving. Of course, at least for now, that excludes the turkey. It still gets the old-fashioned hours long oven time.
This year was special because we had a sort of not fresh turkey. Actually, it had spent a few months buried in the basement deep freezer, it existence and reason for purchase long forgotten.
It was within the serve by date, though I’m guessing few normal people really wait that long to cook a turkey.
I placed said bird in the refrigerator in plenty of time to thaw and, for once, the turkey was fully unfrozen on Thursday morning. However, I was a more than a little surprised to see the blood bath in the pan under the 21-pound fowl. It looked like a scene from ‘Prom Night.”
Undeterred, I proceeded to bath and de-giblet poor Tom. I extricated the neck from the intestinal cavity and went “Last Tango in Paris” on the outside of the gobbler.
Not to lose my train of thought here, but I’ve always found the relocation of the turkey’s neck to the former location of the giblets with its inverse of the giblets where the neck was, an odd and freakish treatment for a former living, though admittedly awfully stupid creature, unsettling. I know a number of people who have achieved the first half of this reconfiguration with their head still attached, figuratively, but this doesn’t mean we should do this literally to innocent raptors.
After committing the bird to Hades in a Frigidaire, I went about the business of adding water, salt, and the magic ingredient in all tasty foods, butter, to dry substances. My wife joined the party and the traditional Thanksgiving meal was on its way.
The instructions for the huge plastic bag into which turkey, onion, celery, and a few sticks of margarine had gone called for 3 and one half hours of roasting for the behemoth bird. It still had nearly an hour to go, but smelled so good I took a peek.
There was a problem. The little red button had popped indicating the drumstick monster was done. This was bad, but I didn’t know how bad until I began carving.
There was a little juice in the breast, but for the most part it was a scene right out of “Christmas Vacation.” A gallon of gravy and liberal amounts of beverages saved the meal, more or less.
Everyone was gracious and said Benjamin Franklin’s choice for a national symbol was fine. The fact that they were uttering those words choking down turkey jerky didn’t seem quite right. Also, the house dogs were bloated like beached whales from all the “scraps” they were handed during the meal, which made me suspect I was not getting honest feedback from my dinner guests.
I promise next year I’ll wait until November to get the object of our tryptophan fantasies. Perhaps, I’ll go to a farm to watch the reenactment of the French Revolution just to make certain it’s a fresh avian.
I’m also going to watch that movie again and take a few notes. There is a lot of misfortune in that film and I’d like to avoid one or two of them, if possible. In fact, I’m a bit worried about our steel and plastic artificial tree. It is about 28 years old and is starting to resemble Charlie Brown’s Christmas twig. It has also has the same light strings that have been hanging from it for 15 years. (I’m too lazy to remove them.)
There might not be a lot of sap, but I’m thinking any flame-retardant property that Christmas tree may have had expired long, long ago. Unfortunately, the wife says I go before the tree does. The tree has sentimental value, which apparently trumps sanity and having a tree that requires getting oneself a tetanus shot before touching it.
At least I’m better prepared for Christmas than Thanksgiving. I’m inviting myself to someone else’s home for dinner and the fire insurance policy is paid up.

Corporal Punishment: Getting to the End
One painfully obvious difference between child rearing in the 21st century and the long ago era when I grew up is how kids are disciplined. Really, it’s a matter of the avenue of rehabilitation. Today, we work on the kid’s brain. In my time the target was a bit lower on the anatomy.
My parents and their ancestors going back to the trees were reasonably certain a child’s backside was for walloping. My dad recounted a few times how he had to fetch a switch from a weeping willow for his mom. I’m not certain why he went into the detail of how a thinner switch left bigger welts than a thick one. I guess we were supposed to feel lucky we got a nice wide belt used on our cans. Or, maybe he was letting us know that dear old Dad was a slow learner and took a few trips to the wood shed with a wispy switch in hand before he wised up.
My mom, on the other hand, said she got a free pass on corporal punishment because she was a girl. I have no idea what difference the gender of the buns would make amidst the flailing of wood or leather, but it gave me my first indication the world wasn’t fair.
Also, it didn’t help my younger sisters when it came time for our yearly beating. We three older kids got “the belt” maybe once a year, usually around Christmas. It had something to do with helping us behave so Santa might bring us toys instead of lumps of coal and a few sticks. I think we might have warmed to the burning glow of those lumps and twigs if we’d been able to sit during Christmas dinner.
Our yearly beating generally came after many warnings of “I’m going to tell your father what you did.” Inevitably, one of us, usually me, would finally cross the line and Mom would go from the threat to, “when your father gets home, you’re going to get it.”
And we would. As the eldest, I always went first for what was never a butt whooping. My father never once hit me on the gluteus maximus. For all his smarts he never noticed that the length of the belt added to the length of his arm made for the end of the belt landing well south of its intended target. Honestly, I tried explaining this to him once and his retort was, “then don’t give your mom a reason for me to beat you.”
Not great logic, but quite effective.
Really big at the time I was in high school, though it was being challenged, was the public education version of the parental beating, or the “principal’s paddle.”
The paddle at Firelands in the very early 1970s looked like a something from a 1950’s shop class project gone horribly wrong. It was a huge chunk of oak that took two hands just to lift and it easily propelled the recipient of said “swats” right out of the principal’s office.
At least this was my personal experience with that medieval weapon of mass destruction. The only truly unfortunate part was I was sort of innocent.
The incident involved a firecracker, a former girlfriend’s locker, and an idiot to open and close the locker because a “friend” asked him to. Playing the part of the idiot, I had no idea of the locker’s owner or of the firecracker. Instead, I got another lesson in the unfairness of life and 2 swats.
Briefly, each swat feels like a wave of pressure starting at the point of contact and ending at the tips of your ears. It doesn’t hurt all that much, but I believe one or two organs swapped positions and never returned to their original location.
I didn’t continue the yearly beating tradition, though at times it would have been nice. I just yelled a lot. I mean really, really a lot.
Now, that I’ve seen two extremes of disciplining children spanking and ranting, I feel qualified to comment of the better method.
Is abuse of the tuckus something best left to those dark years of involuntary standing? Does screaming at the offending youngster have any effect?
My belief is that neither does a bit of good. You’ll do just as well calmly talking to your charges and perhaps taking away a privilege or two.
Ultimately, there is a much better punishment for the young and stupid. It gives pleasure to those of us who watch it administered, it lasts for years, and it is excruciatingly painful.
There is no more vicious a penalty than when those evil children you’d like to have beaten within an inch of their lives have children of their own.
Perhaps life is fair.

Referees and Umpires: Brave or Addled?
I’ve been trying to keep up with high school sports as a photographer and correspondent for almost 3 years now. I’ve met parents, coaches, athletes, sports and school officials. The group I can’t figure out is the refs and umps.
I’ve observed a great number of these officials and they are a pretty nice bunch of men and women. They are dedicated and caring, doing their best to call the games. They may also be the definition of masochist.
There have been games where the ref or ump would have been in less danger smacking a mama grizzly bear on the butt without having a slower moving friend along. (You don’t have to out run the bear, just your friend.)
Let’s start with soccer referees. They have to wear funny shorts, and trust me they don’t have the legs for it, while trying to keep 22 kids from kicking each other to death. Some of these guys are obviously on a steady diet of Krispy Kreme donuts, but can still run for and hour and 20 minutes, or approximately an hour and 19 minutes longer than I can.
Soccer refs don’t have yellow rags they can toss dramatically for an infraction. Instead, soccer referees have to hold up a tiny yellow or red card, and then write something mean on their tiny notepad. It just doesn’t have the same effect as a lead weighted piece of cloth thrown at the head of the offending player.
Volleyball is an odd game for the referees and corner judges in that they look like mimes pushing against invisible walls or like they’re doing a rendition of “This Little Light Of Mine.” Team parents never question whether a ball is in or out, but rather whether they are witnessing a game decision or watching someone doing the “robot.”
Basketball refs have to decide when one of the 10 individuals on the court, who are pushing, shoving, and slapping one another like the Three Stooges on speed, have finally gone too far and made an infraction. Basketball is supposed to be a non-contact sport, but most games resemble a mosh pit gone berserk.
There are no flags or cards for basketball leaving the poor referees to wave their arms about frantically accompanied by much whistle blowing.
In a football game the referees try to control the mayhem of a group of oversized boys body-slamming each other as hard as they can. During the elbows and spiked shoes chaos they have to pick out the guy that does something unkind for a penalty. Half the stadium boos them for every decision and at least one coach enters the field to explain to the ref what the rulebook says.
There is the added danger on being splattered by one of the teenaged behemoths. The only protection the ref has is that little yellow hanky and the hope that the charging bulls of Pamplona notice it’s not red.
Umpires on the baseball field are all called “Blue.” I used to think this was a term of endearment related to the Navy blue color scheme the umps wear. It turns out to be code for “Mr. Magoo” and a preface to all complaints about the umpire’s calls.
You can question an umpire’s intelligence, attention span, or whether they are viewing the same game as everyone else. Just call them, “Blue” when you do and you get a free pass.
Perhaps the least explicable “it hurts so good” bunch is hockey referees. They are caged with 12 fully padded, stick carrying, razor-sharp bladed kids who eat too much red meat. What do the refs have to ward off bullet fast pucks, slashing sticks, and hulking skaters: a 1940s style football helmet and air.
Hockey does have that nice plexiglass to hold back the fans, but it also means the only choice the referee has is the spot he’s going to bounce off of.
In spite of all this these hardy souls show up game after game in all kinds of extreme weather just to have insults, and objects of every size and description thrown at them. They are either the bravest bunch of civilians ever, or they should have worn that helmet like their mother’s told them to.

On Being the First-Born
My grandson just became a big brother with the arrival of his baby sister this March. He thinks she’s pretty cool, but he’s only pushing the age of four so he has no idea of how this little interloper is going to alter his life forever. He is about to enter the “first born zone.”
I have extensive experience in this area and can tell him with certainty that all of the following will happen.
The first-born male, I’d like to believe it doesn’t work this way with girls, is the good and the bad example for subsequent siblings. Everything he does will be scrutinized and used to steer the younger sibling, which means he is the Wily Coyote of the family. After he blows himself up, falls of a cliff, and gets flattened under a boulder the parents will point out to the kid sister the inadvisability of these miscalculations while brother gets the “you have to set an example” routine.
The same goes for whatever he does right. This is where his adoring little sister will become annoyed with the suggestion that she follow in his foot steps. She’ll take it out on him, at least until she needs bailed out of her mischief.
Why would brother rescue sis? Well, though he’d like many times to introduce her to the underside of a firmly held pillow, she’s still his sister. He knows how big of a deal the parents will make of a bad situation. Instead of just solving it there will be the sermon, the out of proportion (in a kid’s eyes) punishment, and then the constant reminders of the incident until the parents are senile. Basically, the big brother has no choice.
The eldest also gets to do a lot of fun, but stupid things. We big brothers do all the wildly wrong acts of mindlessness we can think of since our parents haven’t yet learned what can occur at a school dance, private party, every time a male is left to his own devices or hangs out with other boys, or behind the wheel of a few tons of steel.
When I think back I’m quite certain I was a complete, and opposed to an incomplete, idiot. I remember standing inches from blaring speakers at sock hops and head banging like a woodpecker until I had a splitting headache and blurred vision.
I distinctly recall my feeble attempts to make out at parties held by unsuspecting parental units. I managed to swap saliva with a girl or two, but was too frightened to risk a violent and painful death should I be caught doing anything more. I did, however, perfect falling head over heels down stair steps to liven up a party. (I told you I was an idiot.)
The surest route to disaster, police sirens, and long prisons terms is ever allowing teenaged boys to do anything unsupervised. I say this with all sincerity and the vivid memory of the stupidity I engaged in. I cannot remember a single time I was with a group of males of similar age that we didn’t do something illegal, illogical, or ill begotten. I wasn’t much better when I flew solo.
I won’t go into detail here since the statute on limitations may not have run out on all of my misadventures, but I’d say my parents had enough of an idea of what I was up to that they kept my sisters and younger brother under lock and key until they were married and had left the nest.
Every first born male that reads this and had a driver’s license when he was less than 45 years old knows it was nothing shy of miraculous that he didn’t kill or maim himself while driving a car.
I shudder recalling the times I passed several cars at a time on a two-lane road or saw just how fast I could take a curve without kissing a tree. As you may remember I did this on retreads or nearly bald tires in a car the insurance company declared not worth repairing. I guess my pops didn’t want to risk a car with any resale value.
My trail of speeding tickets and automotive parts that fell off haunted my younger stepson and me when his big brother got his operator’s license. The younger brother was terrified and refused to even attempt driving until he was 21 after seeing the slow motion wreck that was his brother’s first years on the highway. My stepson’s misdeeds will surely taint the time, thankfully far in the future, when my grandson takes his turn at the wheel.
I feel empathy for my grandson and I hope he has a lot more sense in his term as the big brother than I had. It’s not possible for him to have any less.
Being the eldest XY chromosome carrier is inherently dangerous, so I’d recommend that parents either have a girl first, or skip the first born and go right to the second.