31 Forgotten - and Remembered

There’s a saying, “It’s always the simple things that change our lives.”  For us maybe it’s the simple things that define our lives.

It’s the 7^th inning and the Giants are working hard at dropping a Sunday get away game to the visiting Oakland A’s.  Cora comes into the room and for some reason I remember that I should be remembering something.  That’s kind of how it works when you start getting up in age; you have to jog your memory to jog your memory; sort of a mental double clutching.

Another Giant looks at called strike three and then it comes to me.  I'm not even sure why it comes to me at this particular moment but I look at the date on my watch and then at Cora, “Uh, isn’t it our anniversary today?”

“May 20.”  It registers with her.  “Yeah; 31 years.”

“Happy anniversary,” I deadpan.

“Happy anniversary,” as she looks back at the score.
She starts to go back to what she was doing and I settle back to watch another Giant futility . 

Memorial Monday Musings

 

It's Memorial Day Weekend.  Today is the day that we celebrate the time honored tradition of  barbecuing pork flesh.  Or is it the day that we honor basketball by watching an NBA playoff game?  It could be Fireworks at the Ball Park Day.  In honor of filling corporate retail coffers it might be the day you get to take twenty five percent off anything in the store and take an extra 15 percent if you use your store credit card (exclusions apply; does not include Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Nautica or Izod).  Maybe it's the day we revel in the great American motor car by getting 0.9% financing on any new car in the lot (FICO score of 720 or better).  Actually those are some of the things that we DO on Memorial Day.  They are certainly not the spirit and meaning of Memorial Day; regardless of the fact that many of our fellow Americans believe so.  

My dad always called it by its original name, Decoration Day.  In 1868, Union veterans of the Civil War set aside May 5th to decorate the graves of Civil War dead with flowers.  Major General John Logan later established May 30th as the day to honor America's war dead; a date chosen because flowers would be in plentiful bloom nationwide. 

The Relativity of Money

Summer weather has arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area.  And my pool is still a deep shade of green.  Just don’t tell the boys at mosquito abatement.  Let’s just keep it our little secret.  Some years I’m good about keeping the chemical balance somewhat in line during the winter months.  Other years the “cee-ment pond” as Jed Clampett used to call his pool, actually looks like a pond; the only thing missing is a few lily pads.  After many springs of spending a small fortune in chemicals, not to mention the hours involved in getting out the green, one would think that I’ve learned the value of a little winter maintenance.  I haven’t heeded the financial lesson. 

Jumping Over the Candlestick

I indulged in a nooner yesterday.  Not that kind of a nooner; cleanse that dirty little mind.  A nooner is a weekday baseball game.  Years ago it was called a businessman’s special.  Take off from work at noon, maybe take a client, catch the game and back to work for a couple of hours.  Men went to the game in business suits; there was no such thing as business casual.  When I was working at a retail hardware store my co-worker Joe would often say, "I'm going to the businessman's special today.  Joe wasn't a businessman, he was the delivery driver.  His "suit" was jeans and a Giant's t-shirt.  The midweek day game is great fun, and usually an opportunity to get a good seat at a good price but unfortunately is becoming a dinosaur.  The reason; grousing about post-game traffic mingling with rush hour traffic.  Let's just take all the fun out of life. There was no work for me this day and in lieu of a client I opted to go with my wife; a definite upgrade.

Riding for a Cause

"The most moral act is one which is actuated by disinterested motives...from the viewpoint of the author of an action, unselfishness must remain the criterion of the highest morality."
Reinhold Neibuhr

“If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them.  When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope?  We have two options, medically and emotionally:  give up, or fight like hell.”
Lance Armstrong

"Cancer changes your life, often for the better. You learn what's important, you learn to prioritize, and you learn not to waste your time. You tell people you love them. My friend Gilda Radner (who died of ovarian cancer in 1989 at age 42) used to say, 'If it wasn't for the downside, having cancer would be the best thing and everyone would want it.' That's true. If it wasn't for the downside."

Joel Siegel

Running I: You Either Get It or You Don't

“Some mistakes we never stop paying for.”   Roy Hobbs; The Natural

The call came over the bullhorn, “First call, 880; First call."  That was my alarm to start warming up; a slow jog around the high school campus in my black fleece, Aragon High, sweats.

I’m sitting here staring at my right ankle.  It isn’t horribly swollen but comparing it to the left I can see a puffed up band running along the front of my ankle between those two knobs of bone on each side.  I can also tell when I slip on a sock that the right one feels noticeably tighter. 

“Second call 880; second call.”  I’d worked up a light sheen of sweat and was stretching on the infield paying some attention to the events in progress and trying to figure out how much time I had before my race. 

Working For a Living: The Retail Years

“Somedays won't end ever and somedays pass on by,

I'll be working here forever, at least until I die.”   Huey Lewis

Mulling over my working life.  I do that on these days when I come home burned out, wrung out, office politicked out and ready to opt out.  It’s been a forty year sampler of jobs.  Stocking shoes as a teenager at Kinney Shoes working for a little dandy name Marvin and watching the letch, Mr. Slick shoe salesmen try to sneak a glimpse up a skirt while forcing a pair of boots on some young thing.  Working one shift as a busboy at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor and quitting because it stunk of chocolate, couldn’t see doing that for more than the brief time I put in and I preferred going home to watch the (then) Los Angeles Rams play the (then) Baltimore Colts on Monday Night Football.  That was a good game in those days.  Beer tended at a local Round Table Pizzeria.  Then college.