Editor's Note

I published the preceding post on August 27 (in my defense, it was late at night!). It kept drifting through my thoughts all day today, and I became convinced that I hadn't been clear enough in what I was trying to say. This evening I made a few small edits. I didn't say anything "wrong" the first time, but I hope I've said it better the second time....

Reunion

Although we're all officially back to work (OK, the kids have a little vacation left), our thoughts often drift to the Sunshine State. They weren’t kidding about that, by the way; it turns out the State Legislature previously rejected “The Oppressive Heat State” as bad for business.

This was the big Yearly Vacation Trip, including our Date With Mickey. Wait, I already used that with Donnie Iris. In any case, I'm pleased to report that the trip, logistically, was about as routine as could be hoped. There’s even one measurable incidental benefit to flying Southwest: the in-flight magazine, Southwest Airlines Spirit.

The big general-interest magazines like Life went extinct awhile back, but it seems airline mags are the 21st-century equivalent, with an eclectic selection of articles. And they’re even interesting… generally.

My favorite piece this month was an essay by the editor on high school reunions. I briefly considered pasting my own picture over his at the top of the page, because it was kinda funny/kinda touching, or in other words what I'm shooting for in this blog. It was also a reminder, as if I needed it, that he’s a pro and I’m not, and that there’s a lot more to being a writer than good grammar & spelling.

Since I started my own writing “career”, I’ve become much more sensitive to connections and parallels, so I immediately identified with his topic. On our way to pay homage to the Oversized Rodent, we attended my parents’ 60th Anniversary party – which of course also served as at least a partial family reunion.

It was the first time this combination had coalesced in 3 years; perhaps 4 or 5 times in the last 10 years. As a result it took on almost the quality of a high school reunion: infrequent, and a group of people that knew each other most intimately several years ago. I should stress above all that we had a wonderful time during our visit, and time with my family (especially as infrequent as it is) is one of my most prized commodities. At the same time I think it's important to acknowledge that success in these instances is not a foregone conclusion, no matter how loved your loved ones are.

At such times it’s hard not to see each other through the lens of those long-ago experiences… even if the “prescription” has changed significantly in the meantime. Not only that, but I think there's a temptation for most of us to play the same part, even if we’ve outgrown it.

At my recent high school reunions, I was still amazed that the Pretty Girls would talk to me and that the Cool Guys acknowledged me – despite the fact that I’m a married man now, and that 25 years or so tends to level the “coolness” playing field to a large degree.

In the same way, when the family assembles, it’s all too easy for me to be the smart-alecky little brother. Now I know how Jerry Mathers felt when they made “Still the Beaver”; it’s tough to play the same role at 44 that you did at 9 (or even 19). After all, Lucy played basically the same character into her mid-70s – but at the end, none of us could bear to watch.

At a high school reunion, you have the luxury of playing that part, since you probably won't see these people for another 5 years (and chances are you don't care that much about their opinion anyway). Family, or any real relationship, is a different story. The highlight of the week for me was viewing a pile of old family photographs -- but as treasured as they are, I want to make sure none of us gets frozen (or freezes each other) into that image from long ago. In those experiences, I think it's best to remember: snapshots are valuable memories, but life itself is a motion picture.

Into the Rodent's Jaws

You think you understand something about life, and then you become a parent; suddenly everything you once knew is inoperative. For example, we used to drive cars. Then we had a child. At first, everything seemed normal enough, but then one day I woke up and there was a minivan in the garage. I’m still not sure what kind of cosmic waves were emanating from our home … must’ve been those gamma rays that were always creating mutants and raising havoc in those ‘50s movies.

In the same way, once the kids are out of diapers, at least, a sort of homing instinct begins to grow. The swallows always return to Capistrano; the buzzards come back annually to Hinckley, Ohio; and every family with small children is inexorably drawn to the vicinity of Orlando, Florida.

As a matter of fact, most of them were there last week when we visited the Magic Kingdom. I quickly deduced why they call it a Kingdom – it’s approximately the same size as Liechtenstein, at least when you include all the other associated Disney fiefdoms. It even has a moat, at least in a functional sense, in the miles of Mouse-ka-highways that surround the nerve center. I’m pretty sure that if any evildoers massed to attack, Central Command would have time to scramble squadrons of costumed characters to defend Cinderella’s Castle.

The main impression, as a result, that you tend to take away from the whole venture is the utter immensity of it all. There are something like 35,000 people living in my town… but there are approximately 55,000 Cast Members (not “employees”, “staff”, or “indentured servants”) at the Magic Kingdom. And I literally cannot even comprehend how many other sweaty, suddenly-much-poorer souls were in attendance along with us (and Disney ain't telling, either -- I asked them).

But there is clearly no enterprise on the planet more attuned to processing the great wads of humanity (and cash) that show up every day. After awhile I confess I stopped thinking of myself as “someone on vacation having a good time”, or even “a customer seeking to get my money’s worth”, and I became what industry sometimes describes as a “throughput”: a commodity designed to go through a certain process and come out the other end in some different state.

Here’s the truly odd thing – I say that not in resentment for being manipulated, but in sincere admiration for how they pull it off. Despite the fact that we were surrounded by more people than have ever watched UPN, we really never experienced an interminable wait. That’s fairly significant considering two of our party were under 7.

And you know what, we had a lovely family time, despite being trapped in the world’s largest convection oven. In fact, considering the unrelenting barrage of entertainment (and courtesy, and even cheerfulness), I even came away with an almost unsettling sense of having gotten my money’s worth – which anyone who has seen me with my hand over my wallet knows I do not say lightly. I think that in some sense I began to see the way we were being efficiently fed through an enormous machine as part of the show.

So I find myself against all odds recommending the experience and even considering repeating it. Someday. After my feet and my bank account and my internal thermostat recover. And here’s a little extra ammo for my family to save up and use against me: if I balk, remind me of the feeling of a family of four, ranging in age from 4 to 44 and in life attitude from totally trusting to … somewhat skeptical :-) … remind me of those four people all cackling gleefully as we blast the Bad Guys together on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. The omnipresent MasterCard ads would describe those moments as "priceless", and although that's not the way it shows up on my Visa bill, it will certainly remain a slide in my mental Powerpoint of highlights for some time to come.

Everybody Has a Dream

There are four distinct television periods in our home. First is 7-9 am, dominated by a wide variety of animated programs (but always including, if at all possible, “Magic School Bus”); next is midday, which is a TV-free zone punctuated by an occasional video; fourth is the after-8-pm/after kids’ bedtime period.

In between the last two is the pre-bedtime period. Understand that we don’t as a rule use TV as a child-distraction technique, but in the half-hour or so before bedtime, it can be an effective landing strip for kids to come down from a long, busy day. Even at that hour, it’s possible to find kid-oriented programming, but that’s not cartoon time in our den.

No, even if you take Our Boy out for ice cream, or the circus – or ice cream at the circus – his main preoccupation will be whether he’s going to miss “Unwrapped”. If you’re not familiar, this is a show on the Food Network that goes behind-the-scenes to show how things like M & M’s, ice cream, or chips are made. I have to admit that I am often as transfixed, or more so.

His official bedtime is at 8, but unfortunately that’s when The King makes his entrance, and nothing will do but that we watch at least a few minutes. I’m speaking, of course, of the one and only Emeril. Once he’s seen the segment before the first commercial, it’s as if his day is officially complete and he can go to bed fulfilled.

I’m not sure I understand the fascination. Maybe it’s because he’s loud and boisterous and laughs at his own jokes. Maybe it’s just the “Bam!”, although my son rarely if ever emulates it. One way or the other, he’s clearly the Big Cheese, or Pork, or Pasta, at our house.

The truth is I’m a bit obsessed with him myself. I wish I were an accomplished chef, a wealthy man, a TV star, a celebrity… but it’s really not just a shallow envy of someone who could buy and sell me 100 times over.

I want his support staff.

When he stands up to cook, you know it wasn’t him who chopped all the veggies, boned all the chicken breasts and measured all the spices. When he gets every pot in the house dirty, it’s not him staying after the show to wash dishes; he doesn’t have much incentive to re-use a measuring cup and he never runs out of clean paring knives.

I’d surely love all that, but I’m really most fixated on something even more obscure. After he does the opening bit, the theme song plays and the stagehands come out. One wraps him in a clean, white apron; one pins his mike on him; and right before he takes center stage, they hand him a pristine, snowy white towel.

If he were in my kitchen, he’d be wiping his hands on the same scrap of paper towel all day – trying not to use up the whole roll, since I also have no shopping support staff. And forget about using a kitchen towel, because guess who’s the laundry support staff?

Every time I see the show, that towel seems to loom a little larger, glow a little brighter. I think at this point I’d chop all the veggies, bone all the chicken breasts, measure all the spices, wash all the dishes… if only there were someone to hand me a pristine, snowy white towel when I’m ready to cook.

Brought to You By Hanes

Our local sports/civic arena has fallen on hard times lately. Every year seems to be a virtual torrent of red ink (“but don’t worry, we get great benefit to our economy from the visitors”); now the main tenant, the hockey team, has flown the coop.

If you’ve watched SportsCenter lately, you might guess what solution is being proposed. Maybe you’ve seen some highlights from an Astros game at Minute Maid Park, or perhaps you schedule your New Year’s Day activities around the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. In the 21st century sports world, the way to raise quick cash is to sell naming rights. The Army used to say, "If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, paint it." The modern equivalent is selling sponsorships; our local arena is selling every surface, region, and object, down to individual seats.

I’ll say more about that in a sec, but the most positive local news the past few days is that we’ve finally achieved a respite from the oppressive weather we’d been experiencing – one day last week brought a high temperature of 96 and a heat index of 115. It made me wonder, to the extent that one could form a coherent thought last week, whether it would have been a good time for a fire & brimstone kind of sermon: you know, clean up your act or you could be having this kind of weather for all eternity.

After thinking about it, though, I concluded that would never work. In the first place, one of my core beliefs (and I still intend to explore those more fully sometime) is that you can’t scare anyone into believing. Even more than that, you can’t impress today’s spiritual consumers (word chosen intentionally) with a threat of hell or a promise of heaven. Maybe colonial-era folks – who weren’t having all that much fun in this life, especially if you were the colonize-ee – were motivated by thoughts of the next, but in the present age if faith doesn’t have benefits for the “user” right here/right now, it’s going to be a tough sell.

The good news is, we believe faith does mean something more than pie in the sky, by & by. But even if threats were effective, I’m not sure we have much ammunition. After all, it may be hotter in That Other Place, but I can’t imagine there’s as much humidity.

And if you were wondering, I thought the first “title sponsor” of my blog should be Hanes – since this entry is… umm… brief.