I’m done.
I don’t care anymore.
I am done with NFL football.
Kim and I went to church yesterday morning.
We had our day planned to go out to western Loudoun and do some antiquing and maybe some wine tasting.
After church we decided to go home and change. Once home I realized the Steelers game was listed as available on CBS on Youtube TV.
So, I got changed into my Steelers garb, put on my Steelers long sleeve tech shirt and my new Steelers sleeveless hoodie and got ready for the game.
We busted out the cheese with the cranberries and the cheese with the pears inside and the special crackers.
Then I popped open my lemon seltzer and waited for the kickoff.
The Buccaneers received the opening kick and after a bad to the bone sack on third down, had to punt.
Following a short punt that included a great Steelers bounce, the Steelers were in great field position.
But alas, after a wasted opportunity and a three and out, they had to punt.
Shortly after that came the announcement on my tv that went something like: Your 15-minute trial is over; you can watch the rest of the game by signing up for Youtube NFL Sunday Ticket.
What?
Are you kidding me?
I got all the gear on…
I got the cheese with the cranberries and the pears…
And I got crackers.
And a lemon seltzer I just opened.
And I just got cut off?
Kelce Swiftie or Swiftie Kelce and Mahomes?
I don’t care.
I am done.
Watching the NFL is now going to be like playing golf to me.
It sucks up a lot of time.
And it costs a lot of money.
There are better things I can do with my time and money.
So, I turned off the TV.
Went upstairs and took off my long sleeve Steelers tech shirt.
I took off my new sleeveless Steelers hoodie.
I put them back on the shelf.
Because I don’t care.
I put on my Monmouth Park Racetrack hoodie, because horse racing never disappoints, and with that, Kim and I headed out to western Loudoun as we had originally planned.
But now I had Kim in the passenger seat offering play by play “Steelers are tied.”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s going into overtime.”
“I don’t care.”
“Twenty six to nineteen, Steelers win in overtime”
“I don’t care.”
I am done.
And when February comes and it’s the Super Bowl, even if it is the Steelers, I am not watching.
I will watch a Hallmark movie instead.
Or Maine Cabin Masters.
Because, I don’t care anymore.
I am done.
No NFL Kings!
The heck with healthcare, how about:
My word of the day on Monday morning was “dryasdust.”
Pronounced, as you might expect like “Dry as Dust.”
Seriously?
Yup.
I was curious.
As a noun it means: “A boring, pedantic speaker or writer.”
As an adjective it means: “dull and boring.”
Yikes.
I started to think…
Dryasdust.
Is that me?
Am I dryasdust?
Am I “a boring, pedantic…writer?
I wasn’t sure right away, because I didn’t know what the word “pedantic” meant.
So, I looked it up.
Pedantic: “someone who is overly concerned with minor details, formal rules, or showing off specialized knowledge, usually in an annoying way.”
Oh no.
Is that me?
I don’t know.
I don’t think so.
Since I don’t follow any formal rules, maybe not.
And I certainly don’t have any special knowledge about anything to show off, unless you want me to talk about the moles I have in places you can’t see, I am safe there as well I think.
So, I don’t know about pedantic, but boring, still boring maybe.
I mostly write about things in my life, like my family.
But I don’t necessarily think my life is boring. Maybe compared to some.
I have three daughters.
How can life be boring?
How can one be dryasdust when you have three girls to write about?
Brokeasdust maybe.
Drivemetodrinkasdust possibly.
But not so dull and boring.
I remember writing Christmas letters and getting grief because I mentioned one them in sequence, before one of the others.
Or that I wrote more detail about one than I did the other, “you wrote more about her than me!”
After that one, I actually started counting words and making sure all three daughter paragraphs balanced.
Then, I decided to quit mentioning any of them in my letters to avoid these kinds of concerns.
But then I got told that I needed to start writing more about family and grandkids, and less about the cranky old guy stuff I have been writing about.
And then just recently I got this text from one of them “you always write about everyone but me” (sad face emoji included).
Yeesh, I can’t win.
Dustinthewind maybe.
Again, this year I missed the National Daughters Day social media opportunity.
When I sat down and started to write this, it was Monday, September 28, and I was only a few days late. Before I knew it, it was Wednesday, and I was still trying to wrap it up.
And now it’s Wednesday evening, and where was I going with this?
Oh yeah, dryasdust, “you never write about me,” and daughters.
Daughters are important.
Thanks to daughters, I have three grandsons to write about too Cameron, Christian, and Ethan (in no particular order of importance), and most recently, a little “grand dog.”
I haven’t written about Chester yet…hmm…maybe that’s why he barks at me.
But I am sure I will.
So you see my life is not dull and boring.
Earlier I mentioned Dust in the Wind, a song by the band Kansas most of us are familiar with. It was one of my brother Carl’s favorite songs.
According to something posted on the internet, the underlying message of the song is that “While the song expresses melancholy and despair regarding our physical mortality, the unspoken takeaway is an implicit call to appreciate the present and recognize what truly matters before our time runs out.”
We all know about time running out.
And what truly matters before out time runs out in addtion to family?
Well, Jesus of course.
I also read that Monday, in addition to being a few days late for National Daughters Day, was National Sons Day.
And I do appreciate those that truly matter in the present, and some from the past that still truly matter and present in my heart.
So happy “National Whatever Kid Day” to all my kids; Donny, Savannah, Hayley and Alexa (in no particular order of importance of course).
As they say now, “I appreciate you.”
I once wrote in one of my essays: “I often have fun writing about my kids and I have said before they are all good sports. The truth is my daughters have taken their share of lumps in life but they continue to rise up. They have had some life experiences probably shared by many daughters. And then they have had some I hope no child ever has to go through…Yet they are resilient. They are women now, some with their own kids (though no daughters thank God). And unlike the rest of the daughters out there, they have to put up with me. And they do a pretty good job at that too.
Even though I never write about them.
Postscript:
So I got this from the internet, it explains where the word “Dryasdust” originated from:
While the definition of “dryasdust” is literally “dull and boring,” the story behind the word is not. Sir Walter Raleigh Scott was a 17th- and 18th-century writer, considered the inventor of the historical novel. “Ivanhoe,” a historical novel concerning the life and times of a Saxon knight, opens with a “dedicatory epistle to the Rev. Dr. Dryasdust.” This fictitious character served as the intensely dull, but extremely informative, book antiquarian who supplied Scott with the necessary details to write his book (and also featured in the introductions of some of Scott’s other works). The word “dryasdust” has persisted as both a noun and adjective for a boring, pedantic sort.
In case you were wondering who this charming addition to the family is, this is Chester, sporting his raincoat. Hayley and Malcolm’s new addtion. “The Grand Dog”.
Today, September 11th is a special day.
Because it’s Grandparents Day.
No, you are correct, it is not Grandparents Day.
But, if you are a follower of my daughter Alexa’s social media, as I am of course, you would think that today is Grandparents Day.
Because in case you didn’t know, I am the proud father of the President of the Partin Elementary School PTA.
And as an influencer, Alexa is showing some promise.
In addition to successfully squeezing a couple of dollars in donations out of me, she had me believing today was Grandparents Day.
And since I am a grandparent, which means I am old and a little slow on the uptake, I didn’t immediately process the fact that this was Grandparent’s Day for the school and the kids to celebrate, and not the actual Grandparents Day.
No, I didn’t realize that until I Googled it.
The fact is I should have known that because I wrote about it just three years ago in Ethan’s Guernica.
But since I am old, and a little slower lately, I had to look it up again.
So, in case you want to know, Grandparents Day is always the first Sunday after Labor Day.
This year, that is September 13th. I will save you other old folks the hassle of figuring that out.
And Google even confirmed that, “Yes, many schools still celebrate Grandparents Day” and “Events vary by school. Some align with National Grandparents Day in September, while others hold their events in the spring.”
And the official flower of Grandparents Day is the Forget-Me-Not.
But then, I learned that on this past July 26th, World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly was celebrated.
Wait, it’s on September 11th, it’s on September 13th, it’s on July 26th, it can be in September aligned with National Grandparents Day, or…it could be in the spring?
It’s starting to sound suspiciously like National Daughters Day, which I determined once could be any day, or maybe every day of the year.
The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, it turns out, is a celebration, which coincides with the Feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, who were the grandparents of Jesus.
Jesus’ grandparents, I didn’t know that either.
And Pope Leo XIV chose a verse from Isaiah as its theme.
The theme of this year’s celebration was, “I will never forget you,” from Isaiah 49:15.
I like that, “I will never forget you.”
I heard an interview recently where the speaker quoted the Roman philosopher Cicero, “Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.”
I liked that too.
We must treasure and guard our memories.
My mom often speaks of her relationship with her grandmother Flora. I have written about Flora before. The Brooklyn Dodgers, the Bronx Zoo and riding on an elephant, the way they would share and enjoy cucumbers and onions together, and how she would slice the cucumbers really thin.
I have nice memories of my grandparents too.
My grandfather Carl winning the blue ribbon for his portrait of John F. Kennedy at the art show at the Church of the Presidents in Long Branch N.J. in the late 60s, after my friend Matt and I may have stuffed the ballot box just a little. But he was happy, and that was important.
My grandmother Eleanora taking us kids to the beach at North Long Branch in the ’57 Chevy or the ’53 Pontiac. And the time she took us to Bahrs Landing in Atlantic Highlands when my parents were attending the Fireman’s Convention in Atlantic City and let us order whatever we wanted. I ordered a lobster and was mortified when the waiter made me wear a bib. C’mon, I was six, you don’t wear bibs when you are six.
And my Norwegian grandma Sofie pointing out my father’s new jacket when she couldn’t pronounce her “J’s” properly and always replaced it with a “Y”: “Carl, you got a new yacket, Carl.”
Yesterday I got this reminder through my text messages from Seven Eleven:
“Fuel up and fill up tomorrow! Swing by to redeem your 50 cents OFF/gal. Find a store…”
You see Seven Eleven has a promotion going if you sign up for their rewards program, that on the seventh and the eleventh of September and October, you can fill up your tank and get 50 cents off a gallon.
Pretty good deal, I filled up Kim’s car on the 7th.
I have been waiting all week for September 11th to fill up my truck.
So today I got up, put on what I felt was an appropriate tee shirt, went and filled up my tank at the Seven Eleven, ran a couple of errands, and then came home and finished this story.
Because you know, this story was never about grandparents or saving fifty cents on a gallon of gas.
But it is about Forget-Me-Nots and not forgetting.
And it is about that quote from Isaiah,” I will never forget you.”
Because today, September 11th, if you are an American and older than 35 years old, you probably remember exactly what you were doing twenty-five years ago.
And what they did.
And we can never forget that.
Or them.
“The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time. Anyone who was given love will always live on in another’s heart.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
“She got ruby lips, she got shapely hips, boy she makes ole Roy flip,
I got a woman mean as she can be, sometimes I think she’s almost mean as me.”
( From Mean Woman Blues, written by Claude Demetruis, recorded by Roy Orbison 1963)
I haven’t had the opportunity to work very hard on my travel writing career path.
But on a recent road trip back out to the Eastern Shore, I was able to enjoy some of my favorite 60s Gold music on Sirius XM. That is thanks to my sweet co-pilot. All was going fairly well, other than a couple of muttered “Shoot me’s” that I casually ignored.
Fairly well, until this song came on:
Roy Orbison’s version of “Mean Woman Blues.”
“Okay, this is jacked up!” she said sounding irritated, followed by something about the need to listen to something else.
On that note, I put on some County music.
Oh well, it’s a process. We are working on it, I am sure we will get there.
I’ve seen many social media posts recently with parents posting photos of their children heading off for their first day of school. It’s fun, I like seeing my grandkid’s photos as I guess I have done for the last many years.
We didn’t have social media back in the 1960s and 70s thankfully.
Yeah, that was probably a good thing.
Somehow, I can’t see my parents wanting to put photos of us kids heading off to our first day of school.
I could just imagine…this photo and…
My dad posting something like; “Okay I don’t care what day of the year this is, if you happen to see this kid, tell him he needs a haircut and to get his ass home, dinner is ready.”
Yeah, I don’t think my first day of school’s photo post would be as charming as this one:
Or this one:
I recently finished another book. It was titled “Grandma Gateway’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail.”
Emma Gatewood, in 1955, at the age of 67 years old, mother of eleven and many grandchildren, hiked the entire 2197 miles of the Appalachian Trail.
Not only that, two years later she would do it again. And she is credited with completing the entire trail a third time but the third was accomplished in sections and not as a thru hike.
Like Emma, my father liked to backpack and as a result my brothers and I did as well. An activity that started in the 1960s in Boy Scouts, we continued to hike as a family really, as we got older with trips that included my dad, my brothers Gary and Carl, my brother-in-law John, and my nephew Jason. We would try to do a section of the A.T. each spring. I guess it was our version of the “Hippie Trail.” When my dad turned sixty, he decided to call it quits, but the rest of us continued in various combinations. I am sure if my dad had social media back then he would have been posting photos of his backpacking trips.
I am glad we didn’t have social media growing up.
Maybe we had less distractions which gave us more time to go to the beach, listen to music, and do other idle things that got us in trouble.
But maybe more time to backpack, study, socialize, work, and read too.
Ultimately in his later years my father would have his social media experience with his own Facebook page. In addtion to the usual FB like activities, having Facebook allowed him to communicate with his cousins in Norway, which he really enjoyed. However, he eventually had to put that down too.
And remember, if you are currently less distracted and want to read a great uplifting book, pick up Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery. I would highly recommend it.
Hey, maybe instead of being a travel writer, I should be a book reviewer?
Or maybe a song writer…
“I got a woman sweet as she can be…sometimes I think she’s ALMOST sweet as me”
Yeah, I think I may have something there.
Oh well, it’s a process, I’m sure I will figure it out.
Postscript:
And finally, if we did have social media back in the day:
The photo above is one of my brothers and I somewhere along the Appalachian Trial
My brother in law John, my Dad, Gary, Jason, and Carl Somewhere else along the A.T. My brothers sitting above the Potomac River and Harper’s Ferry This is a 1974 trip that my buddy Corkey and I (on the right) accompanied my father’s Boy Scouts from Bear Mountain NY to Connecticut “Backpacking” through Times Square in 1974 hiking from one train station to the other on our way home from Connecticut My alternative First Day of School photo Good Book!
I just finished reading “On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer” by Rick Steves. Kim bought it for me, I think Kim saw “Hippie” in the title and thought I would like it.
I did.
The book is the recent edited and now published version of the journal that the then 23-year-old kept on his 1978 trip traveling the “Hippie Trail” from Istanbul to Kathmandu which ultimately established Steves as a travel writer and in the travel business.
A travel writer…
This book has inspired me.
I have decided I want to be a travel writer.
Yup, I finally know what I want to do when I grow up.
A travel writer.
Right about now I am guessing some of you are thinking outloud to yourselves “something doesn’t make sense here.”
And you want to jump in and say,
“But Curt, you don’t go anywhere!”
“You don’t travel!”
Okay I recognize that that could be a problem.
As a travel writer, one does need to travel.
I suppose I could make it up.
Pretend that I traveled and get my information from the internet.
But that wouldn’t be right.
That would either make me a Fiction Writer…
Or a bullshitter.
Neither of which I want to be known as.
But this traveling thing is definitely a problem.
This is the same guy who just recently needed his eleven-year-old grandson Christian from Florida to help him get to Washington D.C. on the Metro.
To be fair however, I have traveled to Western PA and written about that.
And I have gone to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and written about that.
And I have gone to New Jersey and written about that.
Doesn’t that make me a travel writer?
Are there other places?
Well maybe for now I will just travel up to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of wine.
Then I might just take a hike out to the deck and enjoy the soothing sounds of the Koi pond waterfalls as I take in the beauty of the banana trees, the tall grasses, and the palm trees in my back yard, all the while communing with the local wildlife.
And contemplate my next adventure, planning out what my very own “Hippie Trail” might look like.
And thinking, I may have just traveled it.
Postscript:
Apparently in the 60’s and 70’s, maybe influenced greatly by the Beatles’ time in India in 1968, when the Beatles traveled to Rishikesh to study Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the “Hippie Trail” was established. Many, in the then counterculture, made the trip from Europe to Asia traveling through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and maybe further.
Their quest, to escape Western materialism and spiritual growth.
To find peace and love.
However, peace and love ended in 1979 when Iran experienced a revolution and Russia entered Afghanistan. That was the end of the Hippie Trail.
It was a quick read and entertaining. If you relate to that era you might like it too.
“We watched the English news which seems to be more of a daily reminder that instability reigns all over this corner of the earth. You can’t put a price tag on the value of being an American. Stability. I really wouldn’t want it any other way. I am spoiled.”
(From Rick Steves’ On the Hippie Trail, 1978)
I’m still alive and well
I’m still alive and well
Every now and then it’s kind of hard to tell
But I’m still alive and well
(from Still Alive and Well, written by Rick Derringer, performed by Johnny Winter 1973)
In 2019 I wrote something I called Feet Faddish in which I told of the time Cameron told me that when I am not alive anymore, he wants my truck.
I reminded him of that not too long ago. He didn’t seem to remember but of course he was only nine at the time he said that to me. And besides, now that he is sixteen and getting his driver’s license in the Fall, he already has a new set of wheels lined up and doesn’t need my truck.
Thankfully.
I am not done using it.
Nope I am still alive and well.
But apparently, I was close though.
Recently my sister-in-law Kate ran into someone that Kim and I knew from the past. He told Kate that he was sorry to hear about Curt.
Not sure where that story originated, and I know every now and then it’s kind of hard to tell, but I am most definitely, at least for the moment, still alive and well.
I heard a good sermon last Sunday about mourning.
It was from the Beatitudes and specifically Matthew 5:4.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
I believe that.
I believe we have experienced that.
When I heard the pastor read that scripture, I wrote the word HELD on the notes I was taking and shared it with Kim who has firsthand experience.
But “those who mourn” doesn’t only mean mourning in a grieving way, it could also refer to those who mourn a situation they are struggling with, maybe feelings of unworthiness or helplessness; failure; or loss in another way.
Feelings we may all struggle with from time to time.
This morning I came across a file on my computer. It was an essay written by Donny titled Struggles and Decisions. It was a writing interpreting Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.”
In the essay Donny writes “I believe Frost is trying to show a relationship between the struggles and decisions made throughout life.”
Frost writes “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” Donny wrote, “by saying this he is showing how hard some decisions may be, because you never know what the final outcome might be” and “that a man comes to a point in his life where he has to make a choice of what he is going to do to better himself.”
In the sermon I listened to on Sunday, Pastor Micah used Job, a man who had everything and then loses it, as an example of someone who struggled. Job struggled with God’s fairness after his experience. In the end Job makes peace with God “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” (Job 42:5)
Donny didn’t experience Job’s loss, but I am sure he had some struggles. He wrote in his essay about taking the path less traveled and avoiding some of the less desirable situations, others he knew that were close to him chose, that seemed more traveled and more destructive.
In choosing the path less traveled he was avoiding problems others he knew had faced, and rising above.
But I also think, outside of what he discussed in this essay, Donny’s need to make that trip that summer, that he didn’t return from, was fulfilling a need he was struggling with. He had some unfinished business he had to tend to in his heart. And I think it’s fair to say he found his answer.
And ultimately, in his mourning, in his struggle, Donny received Divine comfort.
We know for sure that his “ears had heard of you.”
And now we know that “his eyes have seen you” as well.
And that’s our blessing, that’s our comfort.
I suppose like Job we could struggle with God’s fairness too.
But blessed are we who mourn, for we have the comfort of knowing Donny is blessed to be with and able to see Jesus.
That is comforting.
We are held.
And we know who holds Donny.
Who is still alive and well, in our hearts.
Postscript:
This Sunday it will be twenty-four years since Donny’s accident.
That question, those six words, will be forever burned into my brain.
Whenever I see a blueberry or a strawberry, I will imagine hearing that question playing in my head.
“May I have more fruit please?”
It’s Friday July 10 and the end of a week of returning to my normal retirement routine.
The month of June is always one of celebration in my house.
And this year’s festivities started early, as I previously mentioned in “Souvenirs” with that visit from my brother Gary the last weeks of May and our trip to Jersey the last weekend of May.
The Northern Virginia fam got together early in June for Hayley’s birthday.
I spent the anniversary of my dad’s passing with my mom on the 15th.
But then the two weeks leading up to the Fourth of July were maybe the most memorable.
Because that’s when the fruit hit the fan.
Alexa, Namaan, Hayley, and Malcolm had been planning a trip to Norway for the last year.
As a result Kim and I were tasked with taking care of Ethan and Christian while they were away.
So, on June 20th the kids arrived from Florida. That evening we celebrated Father’s Day with the whole clan at Hayley and Malcolm’s. The next day I dropped the four of them off at the airport.
And that was the beginning of Camp Mimi and Pop Pop.
Though Kim worked Monday and Tuesday, on Monday I took the boys to the movies to see Toy Story 5 that started, of course, with a trip to the snack bar.
It featured Sheriff Jessie with the message that too much technology in children’s hands has replaced real toys and real play.
A good message in my opinion.
On Tuesday I was forced to face my Metro riding anxiety with a train ride into D.C. to tour the Museum of American History.
Boy, the Museum of American History has sure changed since the last time I visited forty- five years ago.
It was a great time, with of course, the visit ending at the Gift Shop.
This was my text feed with Kim:
Me: On the train
Me: I’m nauseous
Her: Why nauseous
Me: Motion
Me: Lunch was $81
Her: Dig Deep
On Wednesday, now with Cameron too, we packed up the car and headed to the Eastern Shore.
Cameron, Christian, Ethan, Kim, and me.
And for the next week we fished, crabbed, kayaked, rode bikes and scooters and golf carts, had Nerf gun wars, hung out with neighbors, and in our down time, used our technology.
We ate fish and crabs and lots of fruit.
And for what might turn out to be a once in a lifetime event, I got to spend my 70th birthday with all three of my grandsons.
And since all five of us had birthdays in June or July, we made a cake and had a birthday party for all of us.
Though Cameron had to dip out on us early unfortunately, we continued to have fun.
We experienced a “Strawberry Moon” which was something I probably won’t experience again in my lifetime.
We visited the Harriet Tubman Museum, which ended with a visit to the Gift Shop.
And we fished and crabbed and kayaked some more until we had to go home on Tuesday.
Once back home, I endured another ride on the Metro into D.C. and the National Mall to visit the Great American State Fair.
I hadn’t planned on that one, but I got a “Pop Pop, this is a once in a lifetime experience!” from Christian.
Okay I couldn’t argue with that. And it was fun, hot, but fun, and that also ended with a visit to the Gift Shop.
On Thursday we went back to the movies, but first to the snack bar, to see Minions & Monsters that had just been released.
I was never a big fan of the Minions movies, but I liked this one.
On Thursday evening the kids returned from Norway and on Saturday they returned to Florida.
Saturday evening Kim and I, tired but content with our Camp Mimi and Pop Pop, went out to dinner to celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary, an activity that didn’t fit into the camp schedule on July 1st.
It was an awesome two weeks, time spent and memories that I will always cherish.
Fruit?
Oh yeah, fruit.
Christian is a fruit eating machine. He consumes mass quantities of blueberries and strawberries.
MASS QUANTITIES.
And each serving began with,
“May I have some more fruit please?
So what was the moral of the story?
• Sometimes, as a Pop Pop, you got to “dig deep” and just enjoy the moment.
• Sometimes you need to listen to Sheriff Jessie and put down the technology to play with Nerf guns (toys), fish, crab, kayak, etc. and be a kid.
• You can’t pass up those once in a lifetime opportunities, or those that don’t happen but every thirty years.
• Sometimes even riding the Metro is not so bad.
• And even Minion movies can leave an impact on you.
• And most important, even though I have been having a little fun with Christian’s fruit jones, he is right, and in fact, Kim and I have this week filled the refrigerator with fruit and are changing our eating habits. From now on if one of asks the question, “do you need anything from the store?” The answer will be “may I have more fruit please?”
Postscript:
One very cool thing for me that happened while the kids were in Norway, was that they got to share some time with my cousin Bjorg and her son Geir and family, and spend a dinner and evening at Geir’s home outside of Oslo.
And to my wife of now 26 years…God Only Knows…
And finally, root for Norway!
ROW!
Father’s Day celebrationKayakingEthan was’t too happy with the Sheriff Jessie talking toy, so I kept itWatching soccerOur Birthday cakeKids decorating the cakeBjorg meeting the kids at the train station in OsloNorway family
I hate graveyards and old pawn shops
For they always bring me tears
I can’t forgive the way they rob me
Of my childhood souvenirs…
Memories, they can’t be boughten
They can’t be won at carnivals for free
Well it took me years to get those souvenirs
And I don’t know how they slipped away from me…
Broken hearts and dirty windows
Make life difficult to see
That’s why last night and this mornin’
Always look the same to me…
Memories, they can’t be boughten
They can’t be won at carnivals for free
Well it took me years to get those souvenirs
And I don’t know how they slipped away from me
(from Souvenirs, written by John Prine)
On January 30th 2000, John Prine performed on the PBS television show Sessions at West 54th, which was kind of an Austin City Limits type show if you are familiar.
Prine, in his intro to the song “Souvenirs” described how he got a job at this club in Chicago after an open mic type short performance. He was to play an hour on Thursday nights and had to write more songs to fill the hour.
In his day job, John Prine was a mailman.
After four or five weeks he decided he needed to change it up a little and he told the story of how he wrote the song Souvenirs. “So, I wrote this song on the way down to the club…(pause laughs)…wish I could still do that”…(laughs again).
Man, can I relate to that.
I got an email from my cousin Judy last evening.
Judy is kind of the matriarch of the Norwegian side of the family now.
Included in Judy’s email was a photo of her as a child with my uncle Teddy (Theodore) and some memories she had of Teddy and some of my other cousins.
My uncle Teddy was my father’s younger brother. Teddy passed away in 1982 at the young age of forty-nine. It was tragic for our family, and I still miss him today.
Like John Prine, Teddy was a mailman, and worked for the Oceanport Post Office for twenty-six years.
He was larger than life, always whistling, always had a big idea to make money like flying fresh fish to upstate New York, or buying concrete molds to make and sell garden ornaments.
And you could always hear him coming on his mail route because he was always whistling.
Recently, I had the unusual opportunity to share some time with my siblings, since we are all spread out, that doesn’t happen very often anymore. My California brother Gary came east for a couple of weeks to see our mother and the last weekend of May, Kim and I visited my home town of Oceanport for an event my sister Pat had going on.
Growing up, Oceanport was home to the U.S. Army post Fort Monmouth. I have a lot of childhood memories involving Fort Monmouth. Armed Forces Day festivities on the parade grounds; going to the post movie theater to see Martin and Lewis movies and the place where my crush on Connie Francis first started; bowling for the first time at the fort bowling alley.
The Army has since moved on, and the property is now being redeveloped for commercial and residential use. One of the larger commercial development projects is with Netflix and sound stages.
Ironically, one of the streets that takes you from the old Oceanport east gate to the west gate at Eatontown is called the Avenue of Memories.
That weekend, in addition to The Avenue of Memories, I took Kim for a long walk along the streets that made the blocks that were my childhood haunts.
Up Main Street past the spot where my grandmother’s house once stood and the duplex rental property she owned next door, gone now and replaced by a new intersection. But still visible is the garage with the apartment upstairs where my brother Carl and I lived temporarily one year, and where my grandmother kept the 57 Chevy below. My grandmother would take us to the beach in North Long Branch in that 57 Chevy.
And from that same view I could see the house my father built in the background.
We passed the Oceanport Hook & Ladder fire house that was so much a part of my family’s life growing up.
We went up to the Wolf Hill School where my siblings and I, as well as my mother and father, in fact, attended school.
Down the blocks of Pemberton Avenue and past the houses of friends, classmates, and cousins.
I am pretty sure Kim was bored to death, but at least we got some steps in.
Just before Kim and I left for home in Virginia, my sister gave me an item that my grandmother had given her. It was a medal, a souvenir really, from the Drittes Deutsches Turnfest (Third German Gymnastics Festival) which was a massive national sports and patriotic event held in Leipzig, Germany from August 2 to 5, 1863. It probably belonged to her father or grandfather who came from Germany.
According to the internet and AI, “Souvenirs” by John Prine is a poignant reflection on the bittersweet reality of time passing, lost innocence, and the precious, irreplaceable nature of memories. It explores how the physical markers of our past slip away and how unresolved grief can cloud our perspective on the present.
The bittersweet reality of time passing…
The irreplaceable nature of memories…
Memories, souvenirs…they don’t all have to be medals that we can hold in our hands.
I can still drive down the Avenue of Memories and at least some of those experiences come back to me.
I can walk the blocks of my childhood neighborhood and reflect on those physical markers that are still there and I can acknowledge some of those that have now slipped away, but still manage, at least for time being, to allow me to put a story to that memory.
We can come across and share old photos, like that of Judy and my Uncle Teddy, and the irreplaceable memories that a photo can bring and capture them forever in an email just as Judy shared with me.
Because like John Prine wishing he could “still do that,” the passing of time makes for less of those spontaneous inspirational moments and more difficult for words to be captured and those souvenirs saved and shared.
And now, since I risk saying “the passing of time” one more time and this becoming more of a word salad than it already is, I will end by encouraging you to save your stories, save your souvenirs, they are irreplaceable, and need to be shared.
It took years to get them, they can be gone in an instant.
Postscript:
Who would have thought, gymnastics was that popular in 1863, that Germany would host a gymnastics festival. In fact, it turns out Leipzig has hosted thirteen of these festivals including the one in 1863 and the most recent in May of 2025 that included 80,000 participants and 750,000 visitors. Gymnastics was never very popular with me, you should have seen me flopping around on “the horse.”
And yes, when I was about nine years old, I had a huge crush on Connie Francis. I still like to listen to her sing.
I have written about John Prine before, in April of 2020 when he died as a result of complications of Covid. If you are not familiar, he is worth the listen.
Here is the original of Judy and TedThe Turnfest SouvenirThe actual 57 Chevy restored by my brother Gary. Gary got the 57 as his souvenir, I got the 1863 Gymnastics medal. Oh well, guess I should have showed more enthusiasm raking my grandmother’s leaves.
I don’t believe
I can’t believe
I won’t believe
In humans anymore
Not anymore
(From “This is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr” written by Tommy Henriksen and Johnny Depp)
Tempting right?
It’s tough to read your social media feed and learn there’s a large population of folks out there who support assassinating the President.
They also think it’s okay to assassinate CEO’s.
And they think it’s okay to assassinate conservative Christians.
And they think it’s okay to kill law enforcement officers.
And kill babies.
And Jews.
And they spend a lot of their weekends attempting to making sure we never have a king, when just a short civics lesson could allow them some more time to do yard work.
And then there are those that not only think it’s okay to assassinate the President, but they want you to believe the attempts there have been thus far were faked.
Made up.
A conspiracy.
A diversion for something more diabolical.
I think the person who presented that in my feed recently should have a conversation with the family of Corey Comperatore to find out how that faked stunt worked out for them.
Yeah, it seems pretty easy now a days to not to want to believe in humans anymore.
Which is thankfully why we have the first Saturday in May.
When we can forget humans and focus on what is lately, the more beautiful animals.
Horses.
The Kentucky Derby is this Saturday.
And two weeks after that will be the Preakness.
And three weeks after that will be the Belmont Stakes.
The Triple Crown.
And if you are a Jersey Shore guy like me you can even stretch it out a little and look forward to many of these Triple Crown runners showing up for the Haskell in July at Monmouth Park.
A great time to ditch the humans and enjoy the ride, or rides.
A great diversion from that which might make you want to jump off a bridge or cause harm to someone else.
But not a diabolical diversion, I can assure you, what you see is actually happening.
And speaking of kings and royalty, I reached out to get an update on my old friend Sid, Sir Sidney, my King of the Horse Universe. According to Marilyne “He’s doing really well. He is still living his best life in Alpharetta working in a lesson barn. They spoil the ever-loving crap out of him. He’s getting up there in age! He just turned 17 this year.”
That was nice to hear.
Sid is retired, living the good life, and getting the ever-loving crap spoiled out of him.
I am also retired, getting up there in age, but still waiting for someone to spoil the ever-loving crap out of me.
In the meantime, I will work in the yard, and enjoy the diversion of watching the beauty, the pageantry, the colors, the competition, the unusual names, and the back stories of a different world that captures our attention every Spring.
The master guitarist Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp released an album titled “18” in 2022. Beck passed away in January of 2023. This is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr is on the album and is an awesome song, written by Tommy Henriksen and Johnny Depp. Tommy Henriksen has a long list of credits that includes Alice Cooper and working with Alice and Depp as part of the Hollywood Vampires. Depp performs this song with Jeff Beck and its worth the watch, the song is amazing and Beck’s guitar contribution is captivating.
And just remember, there are some really smart people out there posting a lot of stuff they don’t themselves believe but they know there are folks out there that will believe it in hopes that some will forego their yard work and stand on a corner to make sure the US doesn’t have a king in our future, or maybe even pack up their firearms and get a train ticket to Washington, D.C.
Sadly, you can’t always believe in humans anymore.
And now…
“They’re off!”
This year’s Derby shirt
Postscript:
The photo at the top is of Sid living his best life and taking a nap.
Mr. Spaceman is a song written by Jim McGuinn of the Byrds and included on their 1966 album Fifth Dimension. The song is about extraterrestrial visitors coming to earth.
Space was big in America in the 1950s and 60s.
Last night, Kim and I sat with my mom and watched the Artemis II splashdown off the coast of San Diego after their trip around the dark side of the moon.
When we arrived, however, my mom was having a moment, missing my dad. Grief rears up on its own schedule. Not surprised, though, today, April 11, would have been my dad’s 97th birthday, and she was missing him.
My dad was a huge fan of the space program.
It was President John F. Kennedy who proposed the goal of sending an American to the moon before the end of the decade.
It was the “space race.”
And the Soviet Union was winning.
I remember being in my early years of elementary school, and with great American pride, we followed the space race in our “Weekly Readers,” a current event newsletter we reviewed “weekly.” As young kids, we knew all the astronauts’ names and their accomplishments.
And before the end of the decade of the 60s, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon surface declaring “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Kennedy, as we know, wouldn’t live to see his goal achieved.
It was a big deal for the rest of us.
So I think it’s great to see the space program being resurrected with a new goal of establishing an American presence on the Moon.
In the 1950s and 60s people were proud to be American, even democrats.
The times have changed, however.
There are days I could hope for aliens to take me along for a ride.
Things are getting pretty weird down here on earth.
Who knows, maybe the extraterrestrials are already among us.
That might explain some things.
Anyway, it’s nice to see a renewed effort to get back to the moon.
Maybe it’s something we can all get behind.
The New Frontier.
Something we could be proud of.
I know my dad would be.
Postscript:
The photo above is of my father at Cape Canaveral or Cape Kennedy as it was known then. Its from a slide so the reproduction is poor.
