Taking the leaves off the trees… .


Here it is Adam, taken on the end of the dock.

For the Historian.

The summer of my sophomore year in high school I worked in Nevada Missouri, helping -nominally- to build my uncle Willoughby’s new auto parts store. Nevada (long “a”) is a town of about ten thousand, two hours southwest of Excelsior Springs and a handful of miles from Fort Scott, Kansas. Fort Scott was established in the mid-eighteen hundreds as part of our government’s “Manifest Destiny” program.

At sixteen, I was painfully shy around kids my own age. Thus, I was happy to move cinder blocks and bolt together metal display shelving, but I dreaded my aunt Mary Jane’s plans. Meet her friends, play with their kids. My uncle Willoughby, my mother’s brother, could see my discomfort and that is when he pulled me aside,
“As an adult you’ll constantly be doing things you don’t want to do. But not now, not this summer.”

He must have said something similar to his wife because after that, when Mary Jane came by, I no longer had to pretend to be asleep. When my uncle offered, I was thrilled to shoot skeet, eat the cattle drive of steaks that he provided, drive his souped-up yellow pickup truck (no license), and stock up on M-80’s.

Short of being dead, the week we spent at Torroemore is as close as I’ll ever get to to that summer in Nevada. I ate meat, though more tomatoes; I shot images, not clay pigeons, and I limited my daily activities to what would make a flagellum happy. Quite simply, I did what I wanted to do, and not one thing more.

Matthew has made seventeen trips to visit Susan and Jim’s, some alone, many with friends, none of late with us, his parents. He loves his Minnesota trips, to the red house on the hill called Torroemore. The smile on his face when I drop him at Logan is exceeded only by the one he brings home.

This is the first year in five that he begrudgingly consented to our company. While his need to leave us far behind has never been a mystery, it was only last week that I realized Torroemore has always been his Nevada summer.

Photo Gallery (New Window Opens)

Travis, from the time he was sixteen, spent part of every summer at our house. We worked together at Channel1, where he would write code and I would surf porn sites. One summer, the last one, he helped paint my house. Then he went away to college and like the successful athlete who outgrows his old stomping grounds, he turned his back on us. We saw him briefly, a year and a half ago, when he stopped by on his way to the Caribbean. His only comment. “Firewood should be stacked closer to your house.”

Tomorrow: Torroemore, in total (more or less).

Most years Jimmy’s tomatoes begin to ripen in early July.
His plants are tall, exposed to less than a half day of sun, grown
in the blackest compost and are visible from the shore of the Northridge.

I have to confess, I ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I ate more than
my share and I hoped no one noticed. For me, the last
tomato is almost as bad as the shortest day.

Home Depot has automated checkout llines where customers scan
their own items. The Annandale DQ uses robots.

Looking at this “ad”, wouldn’t you buy their Lime Misty Slushes?

Our flight home from Minnesota was uneventful. We sat together, I talked to no one, Diane dozed, Matthew read his new Ken Follett book, and I’m sure we all reminisced about our time at Torroemore. It was, in a word, restorative.

Diane and Matthew floating on Lake Sylvia in Asgard III.

I tried to convince Matthew that this guy looked like his friend,
Daryl. Maybe it was the way the head swiveled. His answer?
“Just Shuuuut – Up. ” (Protects Grampa Earl’s Country Store)

When I talk to Jim at the lumber yard, I don’t say, “ I need ten 2×12’s with joist hangers and by the way, my wife thinks I should use eight penny galvanized nails instead of joist hanger nails.”
When the concrete truck arrives, I don’t say, “My wife wants a thinner mix, can you add more water.”

Robert Atwan, the instructor for my Epiphanies writing class, didn’t ask,
“Why did you take my course?”
He simply said, “ I’d like to know who you are, so tell me a little bit about yourselves.”
There were twelve students and we moved clockwise around the wood paneled, conference room. I was second, after Ann, a pastoral counselor on a sixth month sabbatical who plunged into both writing and painting workshops. Ann was brief and I hadn’t time to fully prepare.

“I am blah, blah, and I live in blah,blah, and I work as a blah, and I’m here because my wife urged me to take this course. I wanted to take a writing class but it was she who found the Blue Hills Writing Institute’s ad. When it came time to choose between Memoirs, Finding Your Voice, or Epiphanies, she said,
ëYou have a voice, take Epiphanies.’ “

Our class format was simple. We all had an opportunity to read our stories, hopefully Epiphanies, which were then critiqued by students and teacher. Everyone followed that format but me. Wednesday morning, when it was my turn, I said, “I’ve read my story so many times that it would help me if someone else read it. That would allow me to hear it. It helps at home when my wife reads my work. “

After Robert Atwan finished reading my story, Martha, an Emory law professor, read hers. Titled Starting Over, it is a polished stone about her father and his suicide. For the first time, Mr. Atwan didn’t need to troll for opinions. Everybody had one and like a boy at a fishing tournament, I waited impatiently to throw mine on the scales.

“You handed out your story yesterday, therefore I was able to read it several times. The second time I listened as my wife read it aloud. When she finished, I wanted to applaud – she was silent.
After a few moments I said, somberly,” I hope I get to read my story first.”
My wife paused a moment, and then replied, “ I hope so too.”

I listed my opinions, quickly: strong paragraph- ending sentences, subtle but powerful content, and a perfect conclusion. “But,” I said, “If there is one thing to change, my wife thinks you should remove the word narcissistic.”

Worst of all, I was aware of what I was doing but I couldn’t stop.
Do I see writing as a female pursuit, something a real man wouldn’t follow?
Was this my way of displaying my female side to the class of mostly women?
Did I think that Diane, not me, should be taking this class?

On Friday, during our final lunch and before the certificate presentation, I shuffled along the buffet line in front of Becky, who teaches English at Lawrence Academy in Groton. As I spooned salad next to my steak tips she asked,
“Would you be interested in forming a writer’s group with me? There is Tim and …”

Before she could finish I interrupted, “Yes, I’d love to.”

Or that is what I would have said before I became my wife.

Instead I said. “When I left home this morning one of my assignments from my wife was to return with a writer’s group. I’d be flattered to be part of yours.”

“Diane, did you know there’s a dinner reception tomorrow at Curry College so staff and students can meet one another?”
It was Saturday and I was prepared to begin my writing course on Monday, not Sunday.
“Isn’t that what it says on the schedule? The one they sent you weeks ago?”

I filled my plate from the buffet and sat down at a table with three women and two men. I felt anxious about this writing course and unhappy that I knew no one. Jeanne, who had taught writing at a local community college for forty-two years, was sitting to my right. She introduced me to Bob Demling, a surgeon, and Joe Dolan, a retired insurance salesman, both of whom I learned, were in my writing class. There were four separate courses offered at the Blue Hills Writing Institute- Memoirs, Advanced Memoirs, Finding Your Voice, and I was hunting for those I hoped would share mine – Epiphanies.

I saw Mercedes, short brown hair, well dressed, and slender, as she was choosing her table. From across the room she reminded me of a folk singer. I couldn’t will her into my Epiphanies class, but Monday morning, there she was. And Nancy, a woman with hair like my wife’s, blonde streaks, but tighter curls, and an alluring smile. The only person missing from my wish list was a strawberry blonde, hair pulled up, whose posture reminded me of the only poet I know.

But it was Mercedes, Ann, and Edith with whom I had lunch on Tuesday, the second day of class. We talked about how the course was progressing. All three were adamant – they wanted more structure and more assignments. I was perfectly content with Mr. Atwan’s polite request for people to distribute copies of their stories to be read aloud and critiqued. It jelled with the one given to me by Diane.
“Pick a story and make it better,” she said.

After Ann and Edith left, I asked Mercedes,who from across the table looked less like a singer and more like a descendant of the Founding Fathers, if she received writing help from her friends.
“Some like my writing, some say it’s terrible.” she answered matter of factly.
I thought about my own experience. Some people focus on content, mostly, or so it seems, style and grammar. Some like the weaving of time lines, some don’t. But no one yet has said it’s terrible.

“TERRIBLE!” I couldn’t contain myself. Mercedes, the woman I had given a Puritan heritage, was so, well, restrained. She had said, “terrible.” She could just as well have said, “Uninteresting”, or “Make mine medium rare.” I felt like I had to supply the proper emotion. How can a friend write back and say something is terrible?

“Sometimes she – she’s an editor but of business publications – she sends my story back with paragraphs moved, lines missing or crossed out.”
Sent back unrecognizable. Better to say it’s terrible.

The following day Mercedes read the second of her two essays, Respite , a gentle, introspective, story that takes the reader on a spring walk. It was written around the time of our invasion of Iraq.

When she finished reading Respite Mr. Atwan said,” This is publishable. It doesn’t need editing. Send it out just as it is.”

Mercedes expression changed but only slightly. Her face redder but not by a full shade. From my seat, I wanted to clap. I rationalized that Mercedes was unprepared to respond, as though her creator had tacked five more years onto her life, but instead of presenting the gift, wrapped, with trumpets blaring, had slipped a note under her front door.

Hadn’t we all taken this class secretly hoping to hear those words?

At our last lunch together, I scouted Mercedes’ table and sat down. I reminded her of Mr. Atwan’s comments. I wanted her to know how happy I was; I wanted see more reaction from her.
“Now what do you think of your editor friend, the one who said some of your writing was terrible?”
She reflected, only briefly, her face brightening, her eyes finally betraying how flattered she was. As if she were just now reading that note shoved under her door.

“Well, I guess she doesn’t know everything!”

And then with a broad smile,

“Well, I guess she doesn’t even know something!”

Carrying a bottle of Dasani, my ticket, Friday’s USA Today, and my suitcase, I trailed Diane, thinking here we go again – seats at the very back of the plane. Matt always sits on the wing and when we fly without him, we usually back up against the bathroom wall. But not this time. Diane stopped halfway past the wing and excused herself as she slid past Nikki, the young woman in the aisle seat. I hefted both suitcases overhead, lost my water bottle, and squeezed into the middle seat.

Nikki grew up in Excelsior Springs twenty miles north of Kansas City. She lives in Wilmington MA, but was going back home for the funeral of her grandmother who had died from complications of emphysema.

“She was sick, even when I was a little girl,” she said.

“Probably started smoking at thirteen,” I replied, thinking of my own Missouri born mother.

“ I started when I was eleven and stopped at nineteen and I still have dreams where I’m smoking cigarettes.”

We didn’t start talking until after I realized that my book, My Old Man and the Sea by David and Daniel Hays, lay tucked in my suitcase above our heads. Like many of my books, this was a loaner from Ed. He had mailed it with the book I had sent him , A Year on Whale Island written by the son Daniel. I loved Whale Island and since it was a hardcover gift from Andrea Geyer, I wanted it back. Little did I know that it would reproduce.

If Whale Island were paper back and not also a gift, I would have said pass it on because I’ve run out of room on my bookcase. Ed, however, has more room in his house. On the inside cover of the books he sends he writes, “Stolen from Ed Schmahl.” I had the paper, an airline magazine with Robert Duvall on the cover and a promise of a long nap, but I suddenly craved his book. With apologies, I said, “This is going to be a long flight, I need my book,” and I again squeezed past Nikki.

When I sat back down, Nikki asked if my book were related to Hemingway’s. Airplane rides create these spontaneous conversations and sometimes I’ll keep score. That would have been a minus one for her. But I refrained from making one of my patented snap judgments and I’m glad I did. She was, I think, looking for a conversational opening. I soon learned that she had left high school at the end of her junior year to attend Clarkston University and then returned to attend her high school graduation.

“Grades have always been more important than friends, still are.”

She then transferred to BU and graduated with a degree in neurobiology.

Nikki had a collection of interesting stories, many of which I accused her of making up.

“When you get back to Wilmington you’ll tell John (her boyfriend) about the gullible guy you met on the flight. How much fun you had with him.”

“I haven’t lied in five years,” she protested.

Nikki began with her dog retrieved at an animal shelter in Salem. The dog’s physical description sounded like the reverse of Charlie’s Welsh Corgi, long legs and not much body. And less obedient than Spud until she spoke Spanish. Sit, come, lie down – nothing, but sientese, venido, acuestese and presto.

I told Matthew this story and he was unfazed.

“Robby’s dog understands Spanish.”

Suddenly, I’m the only one who has never met a Spanish speaking dog? But it gets better. Her dog can stand on his hind legs for five minutes at a time, a trick it learned in Puerto Rico when begging for food. And often, when they go for a walk, the dog would stand up, put his paws near her shoulders and Congo-line-like, they’d walk down the street together.

“Maybe after five years, you feel you’re overdue,” I said.

I’m guarded about how I sound to the much younger generation. I know they’re processing information at two or three times the speed I am – just ask Matthew – and when I’m falling behind I’ve learned to nod without my rather well honed blank stare. Nikki’s dog stories were followed by waitressing stories. and then stories about her job as a psych aide at the Edinburg Center. Golda Edinburg was Diane’s mentor at McLean.

The Golda connection gave me a time capsule view of Nikki. She became my wife, Diane, at twenty-three working at McLean with choices yet to be made. I felt I knew her future and that prodded me to formulate a retrospective, self aware, but I’m-too-young-to-know-the answer-so-why- are-you-asking, question. You know, as if Nikki really were young Diane.

You don’t know, do you? And neither did I, but the short metaphysical exploration made me tired and I thought better to take a nap than sound like a burned out old hippie. Nikki watched as I struggled to recline my seat using Diane’s controls. I pressed the button and pushed against the back of my chair. Nothing. I pressed harder, pushed harder, still nothing. As I was propping my feet up on the chair in front of me for better leverage, she politely lowered the arm of my chair using the button between our two seats – my button.

I drifted off hoping that I was the only one keeping score.

Team BCD with one M from 3M

Matt devouring The Da Vinci Code; Charlie contemplating poking Matt in
the eye.

Susan is right, I don’t have time to add to the blog. I sit in class most of the day and then I come home and try to write. Looking back on my last entry I’d say the writing course has hurt more than it has helped. Maybe it takes time for all this knowledge to move from my brain to my fingertips.

In the meantime, here is one photo from this year’s Vineyard trip. Our annual stay with Bob, Mary and Charlie (more about that later) could hardly have been better. We laughed so hard we didn’t noticed the almost total absence of that bright yellow object in the sky. One of many memorable comments – Matt telling Diane that she is a, “Delirious little woman.” .

Mini golf: Millers 155 Hopkins 155 || However, the much anticipated
match between Matt and Mary resulted in a tie.

CATCHING UP

The BMW cost $330.00 for various estimates and to fix the oil pump problem that had left Matt’s instructor scratching his head. We whittled down various Alpha Cars recommended to-do’s and gave them only the go ahead to fix the clutch and drive shaft. That came to about $1400.00. I use the past tense because I just talked to Leonard who said the flywheel could not be machined as planned and they had already ordered a new one from Germany. Add another $182.00. I’m betting that Karen, who had envisioned making this car her own, and perhaps had nostalgic feelings as it left her driveway the final time, has now shed any sense of loss.

Matthew is in Minnesota and anyone who would like to receive the daily edition of the Camp Torroemore Times need only say so in the comments section.

Diane urged me to take a writing class, which is ongoing this week at Curry College. It cost a mint, but after day two, I’m convinced it is worth it. The instructor is good, the workshop format rewarding and tomorrow I read aloud one of my stories.

GIBBERISH
August is early to begin our fall camping trip preparations but there had been early warnings about schedule conflicts. We agreed to meet at La Provence in Concord to discuss dates and places to ensure that this fall we wouldn’t wake up in the woods in the snow. We are a talkative group AND I knew there were real issues that might make facing this year’s trip difficult but I never thought we’d spend so little time on topic.
Here is a look back at last Sunday.
I arrived first, then Dan, who pulled into a space with a broken parking meter. We spent ten minutes attempting to get the meter to work. Our solution -removing the already stuck dime- involved Dan with pen knife in hand, balancing the dime (this is Concord) in the slot so that when I clobbered the back of the meter with the palm of my hand, the dime would spit out. It worked for the stuck dime and it worked for Dan’s dime that replaced the stuck dime, when it too got stuck. Smacking the parking meter in front of a restaurant full of wide-eyed lunch eaters reminded me of Lukas Jackson in Cool Hand Luke.
We all sat down and talked about:

• Mark Schreiber’s computer virus
• Dan’s security talk at Palmer & Dodge. Dan figures every hour of presentation requires sixteen of preparation.Mold in Mark’s basement, which begged the question, did the computer virus produce the mold or the mold the virus.
• Tricia selling books on Amazon resulted, in a round about way, Adam being late as he stood in line as his local post office. Small town America.
• My writing class that began on Sunday with a reception to meet staff and students. Adam called it a social, Dan a mixer. Diane said it better not be a mixer.
• Chris is home and playing tennis with Mark.
• Molly’s tuition at TISCH. As always, I brought up Tulane where she was offered almost eighteen grand a year.Dan compared Molly’s tuition to buying a house every year but amended it to a third of a house. I said a house in Ohio and then added Matthew’s observation – a block in Evansville. Mark’s meager consolation – Molly tested out of a semester.
  
• Mark Queijo and his ongoing voice mail upgrade problem. This time, his new boss is out because of emotional issues leaving him, once again, to struggle alone.
• Dan brought up my comment about memory inhibiting change. He said because he is has no memory, he is a free man.
• Questions about how Matt is doing and the cost of his car repairs. I forgot to bring up the Paypal account where everyone can contribute to those repairs.
  
• Mark Queijo’s father’s 1982 Volvo that was about to become Mark’s nephew Brett’s car.
• Adam’s addition. Not as far along as he would like, but further along these last two weeks than he assumed he would be.
• Mark Garabedian – exam and registration issues. There is always November.Mark Queijo’s plan to dismantle part of the beaver dam that causes his road to be perpetually flooded. I assumed C-4, but Mark claims a pry bar and a shovel will be sufficient.