Family

I was thinking about my father today. He passed away last June at age ninety-one. When he was dying, he said to me over and over, "This is really awful," like he couldn't believe how bad he felt. My mother?  She passed away the year before at ninety-one also. She was ready. She kept telling everyone that she was ready to die. But she was always very practical and she also didn't want to be a burden. My sister is dead, too. Cancer. Misdiagnosis and then it spread. My parents said that they weren't the type to sue people. That's their generation. I would have owned that fucking hospital. 

My parents were very cool. They were very proper.  My dad was a professor and my mom was an english teacher. My dad was brilliant. My mom wasn't as smart but she could teach her ass off. Still smart but not genius shit like my dad. They came from nothing but they were super aware of manners and how to act. No t-shirts at the dinner table, don't eat until my mother lifts her fork. How about that shit? My sister and I hated it then, but now, I am glad that they were like that. It's easy to be uncouth and shit, like I am now, but it's hard to be good like they were. And they were consistent.  Always "Please" and "Thank you" and no yelling in the house. My sister was 3 years older than me and she took me everywhere and I was a royal pain in the ass. When I was homesick in college she sent me a package very day. Every freaking day for a whole semester, my sister sent me letters and newspapers and all the news from home. I treated her okay, I guess. But then as she got older she started to have some problems and I sort of became her older brother. 

We didn't act silly in my house growing up. 

No giggling and whispering, no talking like a baby, no slang, no cursing, no double entendres.  You didn't say "pee" like a baby, you said, "urinate". I would be at my friend's house and say that I had to urinate and the parents didn't know what the word meant. I'm serious. There was no bathroom humor and no watching shows like Happy Days and Welcome Back Kotter or Three's Company. And no Brady Bunch. Especially not the Brady Bunch with the kids getting mad and leaving the dinner table when they got mad in a huff.  My sister did that once and we all started laughing our asses off. Nobody asked her what was wrong, and if she was okay. We just laughed. And the dad on Brady Bunch was all soft and shit.  Kids would come to school and talk about what Vinnie Barbarino did the night before on Welcome Back Kotter and I didn't know what they were referring to. My parents went out one night and my sister and I watched Happy Days and when they came home, I had my hair slicked back like the Fonz. Shit hit the fan. 

And the humor on those shows was easy, silly humor.

There was no acting silly in athletics. No celebrating, no taunting, always shake hands.  I think that is why I hate all that dancing around shit they do now in athletics. Weird and silly to me. Men do not fucking dance. Slow dance only and infrequently.  I saw a special on TV before an NFL game and they showed how a team of NFL players choreographed their end zone dance. Folks, the NFL has jumped the motherfucking shark. It used to be stories about an NFL player doing martial arts or about how hard a player hit in the game. Or Buddy Ryan. 

My parents didn't drink alcohol. Guests could drink, but they usually didn't.  I remember some dudes from Canada at the house watching hockey and drinking beer one time. My mom had beer like Shaeffer and Schlitz for guests.

 We had a guy pumping out the septic tank one day and my dad gave him a beer, an off-brand that my mother had purchased for guests. And the guy says, "Your wife don't buy beer much, do she?" That we were allowed to laugh at. My grandfather drank a bunch, but my dad never did. In fact, I remember family reunions and all the old Scottish Steel's drank. Highballs or some nasty mixed drink.  I wasn't too bright so I would steal beer and since they didn't drink it, they would notice. I stole some beer and went into my bedroom to drink it and broke the bottle. My dad didn't say anything until the next day. He said, "What's with stealing the beer?" I was in seventh grade. Another time I stole a bunch of vodka and gin and mixed them with orange juice and Pepsi. You know these big glass returnable Pepsi bottles in the old days, I mixed that liquor with 4 of them. This was the day before eighth grade. We started young in Maryland.

Anyway, I mixed all that up and went down to the creek behind my house with two friends of mine, Herb and Bert. They didn't drink much but I sure did. Down the hatch and I was sitting down the whole time. When I tried to stand up, I fell down. Right on my ass. My parents were with my sister in hospital. She was having her appendix out. I get up to the house from the creek. I throw up in the bathtub, and then I pass out on my bed throwing up while lying there.  My Dad comes home. I'm lying in puke, puke everywhere. This is a man who never drank a drop in his life and his 13-year-old son is blasted drunk. He asks if I've been drinking. He says he won't be mad. I tell him yes and he freaks the hell out. It was bad. And then my first big hangover on the first day of eighth grade. Oh, that was awful. So awful. My parents were probably freaking out when they were in bed that night. My mom was definitely freaking out. 

My parents were educated but didn't make any money so I had kids around me that weren't into obeying laws and stuff. It was definitely an influence on my surroundings. And I joined in happily. But not my parents. My dad came home every night at 5 unless he was guest teaching somewhere like Salisbury State or the University of Delaware. Mom stayed home when my sister and I were young and then went back to work as an English teacher. At night, my Dad would watch sports in his chair and Mom would grade papers and read. She was always reading. They would watch all these shows from England because they used to travel there as students. We couldn't make any noise when they were watching "Masterpiece Theatre", some English show. No flushing the toilet or talking. 

I have to admit that it was a good way to grow up and it was different than any other of my friend's families.  My two best friend's fathers had different jobs than my dad did. One was a waiter, another an electrician. Everybody's mom stayed home except the single moms, no matter how poor the family was on one salary. It was the way that it was back then in the 70's. Some moms sold Tupperware or Avon. My mom didn't go back to teaching school until I was in junior high school. I was a 70's and 80's kid and that's how it was with most of my friend's families also. Dad went to work, and Mom stayed home. Everyone had a house, a car or two, and went on vacation once a year to Ocean City, Maryland.  Nobody was poor, just didn't have extra money lying around. Most of the fathers of my friends on my youth football team were beer drinkers and cigarette smokers. They'd hang out at Phil's Bar and Grill in Beltsville, Maryland, and talk football. 

Men back then were rough and tough and worked very hard. My dad was a professor, but he was a blue-collar guy, always building walls with rocks from a quarry that he went and got by himself, working in his garden, changing his tires, and stuff like that. He was never sitting around, except when Maryland was playing either live or on TV. We went to all the games, football and basketball. Other fathers didn't exercise like my dad did, he was a crazy athlete and excelled at tennis and basketball. A lot of my parents' friends were rich. Rich people had a tendency to play tennis. Since my parents were educated, they could keep up with those Ivy Leaguers. 

I am trying to figure out how they could keep that stuff up for all those years. No arguing, no cursing, no drinking, no staying out, nothing. I can't make it 10 minutes without calling my kids assholes. Part of it, I figure was that we weren't around our parents much when growing up. We came home from school and weren't allowed in the house until dark. We went everywhere: woods, main highways, people's houses that we didn't know. Our parents had no idea where we were. I know where my kids are every second that they are away from me, and honestly, that sucks. Something about the feedom that we had growing up. Kids these days are so messed up. They are all messed up, believe me. I'm right in the the thick of all this shit today. Fuck the phones, get outside and be cold and hot and scared and joyful and tired to the bone from running around.  

Life is funny sometimes. Everyone has stories about life and experiences, all so different and unique. And all of it combined made them into who they are today. Crazy.

Today

I was just outside with my puppy, Tank and his Uncle, Rebel and I was thinking that today sure was strange. It was just a weird day. 

Today was the opening day of goose season in Maryland and I was all excited.

Tonight I was trying to figure out what was bothering me so much about the whole day. Searching. 

Even when I was driving to the hunt this morning, about a 35 minute drive, it was weird. I went over the Delaware Bridge and didn't even remember that I did. I didn't want to listen to my usual music. I didn't listen to anything. The tradition is Hank Jr. on the drive or Jocko. Not today.

I was saying my morning prayers and it felt like I was forgetting to pray for something.

We took the Tundra: Me, Rebel and Tank. Rebel has his Taj Mahal 2,000 5 star crash tested and weatherproofed, strapped in kennel in the bed of my truck. He's all set. I had to take Tank, too. I couldn't leave him at the house with my wife and other son still sleeping. He would begin to howl and they wouldn't appreciate being woken up at 5:30. He's not ready to hunt yet, so I put his kennel in the back seat. Tank absolutely hates my truck, and I suspect, any moving vehicle. He freezes in place, his ears drop as low as they can and he looks at me so pitifully. He hasn't learned to associate the truck with hunting yet, so it's this miserable time for him. He glues himself to the bottom of the kennel and does not move. Sometimes he emits a pitiful whine. When I go to get him out of the kennel, he does not move. I have to pry him out. So I was feeling bad about Tank the whole drive.

I feel really bad for my dogs, like I feel for them all the time. I care a lot about kids and dogs. But it's a different level of caring than most. My buddy Steve loves dogs, too. But he doesn't feel bad for them if they have to wait to eat a while because he got busy and he doesn't worry about every dog he owns retrieving equally during each day. I would feel so bad, so guilty that it would really mess with me. Steve is a realist. I am not when it comes to dogs. Tank is a big old baby, and he's a sweet boy. But I feel a tremendous responsibility to make him happy and not scared. I actually have a twinge of regret for getting him. It's a big responsibility to have one of these hunting dogs. They demand and deserve hours and hours of attention each day.  I give it to him, but he makes me worry.

And either Rebel's paw or shoulder or elbow is bothering him. He has an ultrasound on January 16th. I couldn't leave him at home either. He's my hunting buddy. He would be so hurt. And he would've really howled if I left him. I wouldn't be able to face him when I got home, no way. So he went and he seemed pretty good, his adrenaline was pumping like a pain killer, I am sure. So I worried about him.

And then I thought about my three boys, my sons and I worried about each of them for awhile. Actually, for a long time. Each of them has stuff going on like all kids, do. And you want them to just listen to everything that you say but they don't because they have to learn stuff on their own and fail and then fail again and then they finally learn. At least that's the hope.

Then everything just seemed a little off on the hunt today. The sky wasn't as pretty as it usually is. I didn't see any Bald Eagles or deer like I usually do. It was too windy for the geese to land in my decoys. They just flew by me. Thousands of them.  Other people were blasting the sky like it was WW3. Not me and so Rebel had no geese to retrieve. The whole time I was worried about Tank in the truck. Frozen with fear. 

When the hunt was over, I pulled frozen in fear Tank out of the kennel and he dove in the pond. He was happy. But then we had to drive home. That pitiful whine.

And on the way home my son called and we disagreed vehemently on something and I lost my shit. I felt bad about that, also. 

And then I listened on a podcast about how we have all these kids that are missing in this country. There is at least 300,000 of them. That's three filled up Michigan football stadiums. That's so fucked up that I can't believe our goverment doesn't make finding them their number one priority. Bunch of fucking greedy assholes. You want a raise and we have missing kids and people dying left and right from Fentanyl. Nothing, motherfucking crickets. Hell, it should be on every newscast and every newspaper and on every web page every day until they are all found. It is hard to believe, but it just shows how messed up this world is. Pure evil.

Tomorrow will be better. It usually is. You have to have days like today to appreciate the wonderful days.

Thanksgiving Days

Thanksgiving was always a cool holiday in my house growing up. My favorite Uncle, Uncle Mike, my mother's brother, would come to visit with his wife, Aunt June. They lived in Queens, New York and we would meet them at the train station in DC. Uncle Mike would have on an overcoat and a hat like men used to wear, not a baseball cap, but a hat like Sinatra wore. Men back then always wore long coats and hats, especially when going to work or traveling. Men born in the 30s and 40s like my dad and Uncle Mike also wore button-down shirts. They wouldn't dream of wearing a t-shirt, even to work in the yard. They would wear a T-shirt underneath their button-down, but not by itself. And no shorts. They always wore Khaki pants, no jeans. It's just the way it was.

 Uncle Mike was my favorite uncle because he was very gregarious and giving and he always thought whatever I did was just great. "Oh, boy, Jimmy, that was just great," he'd say.  He was three years first-team all-state in New Jersey in football in high school (which is nuts) and played for NC State, but transferred to Utah State because "they paid better than NC State". Basically NIL before NIL.  He had a tryout with the Rams but it didn't work out and then he went into the Air Force for a while. He drank some and he'd call me after having a few, but I didn't care, I loved him so much. He had a family from years ago but I never met them. He got remarried to Aunt June and they lived in an apartment and they actually lived below the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of OZ movie, I shit you not. She lived right upstairs. She also was the "Maxwell House lady" in the TV commercials. In that movie, she scared the shit out of me as a kid, along with those damn monkeys.

Thanksgiving was always when the Cowboys played, and everything revolved around the Cowboys, and of course, my idol, Randy White. My mom watched the games too, so she ensured nobody was eating when the Cowboys were playing. My mom's sister, Aunt Ditty would come over with her husband Uncle Bill, and my cousins Susan and Kathy. They were all Redskin fans and the Cowboys would whip up on the 'Skins pretty much every Thanksgiving. We were Cowboys fans simply because of Randy White, but I sure picked a good time to be a fan. This was 1977 to 1986 and the Cowboys rarely lost. The only team consistently better was the Steelers.  I remember one time when I was just a kid my cousin Susan, who was like 5 years older than I was, were playing around, boxing, and I hit her in her pillow-like breasts. I was like, "Uh, sorry." I don't remember what she said. I was embarrassed. 

Anyway, Uncle Mike and I would hang out all day long and then we'd have a big meal with turkey, oyster dressing, rolls, butter, broccoli casserole, mashed potatoes, and all the other stuff associated with Thanksgiving. We'd have apple and pumpkin pie with ice cream for dessert. 

Then around 7pm, Uncle Mike would say to my father "Oh, Don, we have to have one of your famous sandwiches," and Dad knew what he meant. He meant for my father to make us sandwiches with turkey, dressing, cole slaw (with lots of mayo) and butter. Yes, butter. They were amazing and we scarfed them down with serious enthusiasm. Uncle Mike was great.

And it's funny, not laugh funny, but odd funny, how I am sitting here listening to my dogs snore and I'm looking back on those times and everyone is gone. Dad, sister, Mom, Uncle Mike, Aunt June, Aunt Ditty, Uncle Bill. Ain't that just crazy? I can't believe how everyone is fucking dead now. Man. That is crazy to me, and if you are in your late 50s like I am, all those people are mostly likely gone in your life, also. Your kids do something cool and you go to call your parents to tell them and well, you remember that they are gone. Most of the time, I don't even think about it, but sometimes I do, and man it just seems like it all isn't real. And did all that life with all those people really happen? Seems like a lifetime ago. Sometimes, since nobody is here anymore, it seems like it was a dream. I was a kid with all those people, all those lives that used to exist, was with them for years. 

You just store it all away,  you put it way back in the back of your head and you know it will surface intermittently, like at the holidays and you accept it. Because what other choice do you have? And there is something damn good about memories, especially ones that are so vivid that it is like they are right there, right now. 

The Cowboys of Tom Landry's days are long gone, replaced by a game that is sorta like the game used to be, but not quite. Actually , it's not even close. And the Thanksgiving days go by, and the people leave forever and the world just keeps on changing. Me? I'm still here, missing the old days but still moving.

Get Away

Going solo.  Going on my own.  A long time ago I learned to look over a situation before opening my mouth.  Walking alone.  Covered in emotions.  Rain falls. Talking to myself.  Talking to my dogs.  They look up at me but don’t make a sound. 

The background up ahead looks fuzzy.  Seems like a dream.  Days like this, they come and go.  I go days without speaking a word.  After years of talking to people that I didn’t give a shit about, and talking to women just to get in their pants, it’s a relief not to say a word.  But I have always been comfortable with silence.  Never found it awkward at all.  Sit in a room and stare out the window.  Sit in the woods and listen.  Nothing.  Nothing.  Words exhaust me.  Words exhaust me more than anything else.  Run all day.  Lift weights all day.  Hunt all day. Never speak.

Feelings that come on those rainy days; all of them upset me.  Feelings, and thoughts that I welcome, though.  Like an old friend returning.  I once heard a new age “guru” talk about how people are comfortable with their “pain body” and they like it.  These thoughts are my pain body, I guess. The place I go to is almost an excuse, but it is a comfortable place.

The beach has always done me good, especially when I am alone.

 

 I take the dogs to a secluded national seashore in Delaware and walk and drink beer and start a fire on the beach and go swimming, even in wintertime.  We just rush into the surf.  Fuck it, it’s like electric shock therapy and calms my head down from the thoughts that I can’t get rid of, and of course, the dogs love it.  And then we go back to a pet-friendly hotel and I shower and put on jeans and a flannel and my Buck knife in my boot and walk the half mile to eat at a dive bar where watermen and hunters and locals hang out.  I eat oysters and get drunk as hell and play Kris Kristofferson on the jukebox and when I get back into the room, the dogs are happy to see me.  I grab a pint of Evan Williams from the truck and we all go for a walk on the beach.   I take pulls from the bottle and the dogs romp and chase each other and I am very happy during these moments.  

It’s dark, man, dark as hell and the buoy lights blink from far off in the sea and I can see the amusement park lights from the resort town a few miles down the road.   It’s like we are in our little world and what else is there?  What else should there be?  Nothing.  No humans are allowed during these moments.  They just fuck everything up with their useless talk about nothing.  I will take these moments for my dogs, for myself, and for no one else.

Screwed

Oh, man. My buddy Steve has a Black Labrador puppy that he wants me to get. It's Rebel's nephew. Oh, man.  But do I want a puppy? Oh, I love them so much. Them romping around and learning all the new stuff. And I could compete with him and show those snooty dog people a thing or two.  They follow you around and get into trouble but not too bad, and they look so cute doing it. And how will Rebel be? He has a bad shoulder and I'm so worried about him. It may be his elbow. I have to take him for an x-ray and I'm thinking about what if he has surgery and what that would be like him having surgery and getting a new puppy and all. And I really need a new challenge, I really do. I don't know what I will do.

I was listening to two congressman talk today on a podcast and I am afraid that we are screwed, my fellow citizen. Basically, 99% of Washington doesn't have any idea nor do they care what we little people are going through. They just want to stay elected, says the congressmen. Groceries gone up? House blown away? Generations of lead in the water, runoff from coal companies in your water? Schools in disarray?  Crime out of control? Nobody cares, they just talk and go to parties where they raise money. The congressmen talked about raising money and how it is all about raising money to keep power and nothing more. We all suspected it and hell, we knew it, but to hear them say it gave me a feeling of doom in my very soul. How far we have fallen. I picture a Mom and/or Dad trying to live right, trying to work and make it and everything being more expensive and they can't seem to get ahead, and then I picture some congressman with his arm around some Big Food lobbyist laughing as they have martini's at a fancy Georgetown restaurant. And these people in DC ain't shit, most of them. Bunch of soft-ass freeloaders, bunch of sickos. Have they seen families all messed up from Fentanyl? Kids dead everywhere? No outrage, nothing. Screwed. 

On a happier note, I'm sitting in my back yard and about 6 ducks and ten geese just flew over. Rebel and I both looked up at them. I feel sorry for people in the city.

Don't Be Common and Kids All Messed Up

It seems that all I ever do is yearn for days gone by, or rather the way it was in the "old days". I guess that one would call that living in the past, but I can't help myself. The 70’s and 80’s were a great time to grow up. 

I feel sorry for my kids and their friends. I took my 12-year-old and his friends to a football game the other night and they sat in the back seat of my truck texting each other. And they were in the same vehicle. I guess it's just strange to me. 

The kids grow up fast today, but in a different way than I did. I had my first beer and cigarette in the third grade. Now they grow up fast by learning technology and seeing stuff that they shouldn't be seeing. 

 I was very concerned with fitting in with my sister's friends. She was 3 years older than me and I never wanted to be silly around them or to seem immature. There was an expression that everyone used where I grew up in Maryland, and that was, "Don't be common".  When you do something that's not cool or it's immature, that's called being common. My big fear was having one of my sister's friends call me common. Here is the definition that I just found "The quality of being common in the sense of vulgar, coarse or low class." Like farting in the car when everyone is in it. That's common. Or spitting on the sidewalk. I thought we made up the expression in Maryland.  Side note: I talk about Maryland a lot like its Valhalla. It used to be when I was growing up. The Eastern Shore is still cool and certain other parts. Now where I grew up is a shitty place. Crime and ugly. Sad.

Phones have changed a lot of things for kids. Today, kids have porn at their fingertips. No matter how hard parents try to block it, the kids can figure out how to see it. We had the Sears catalog women's underwear section and somebody's father's old Playboy. You had to have some serious imagination with the Sears catalog. I remember one kid had a ballpoint pen that when you twisted it, would have a girl take her clothes off.  Twist it up and she had clothes. Twist it down, no clothes. Popular kid. You know that seeing shit like our kids see at a young age is screwing their brains up forever. 

Writing this, I started thinking about my sister's friends. She had a boyfriend one time who liked to go hunting, so we used to go together. I was in my 20s at the time. Everyone called him "Ticket", and I'm not sure why.  He was around 5'8 and 125 pounds. Spindly, but I liked him. He was Southern Maryland to the core, crazy strong accent. Anyway, he had knee surgery and was on crutches. We were hunting public land in Maryland and there were a few duck blinds on the property but all were taken, so we were sitting back in the bushes hoping a duck would fly by. Ticket said that he would go see if any of the blinds were open. "Okay, I said, shoot in the air twice if one is open."  He hobbled away. 

Some time went by and we heard one shot and figured it wasn't Ticket, because I had told him to shoot twice. After a while, when Ticket never came back, I went looking for him.  I found him lying in the mud, unable to get up. "The blind is open," he said, looking up at me, his crutch sticking straight up in the air and his gun lying across his chest.  "I thought you were gonna shoot twice,"  I said. "What happened?" He said, "When I shot my shotgun, it knocked me on my ass and I couldn't get up out of the mud." I was thinking that he still could have shot again from lying on his back, but didn't say it, figuring that would piss him off. Later on, he took a crap in the woods and my Labrador went and rolled in it. Yes, it was nasty. 

Back to the kids. Kids today are all messed up and it's a big plan by the elites of the world to make them slaves to porn and technology and not realize that they are controlled by them all. Make the little boys hate being men and feed them shit in the food that feminizes them and makes them nice and docile so they can keep them in the basement while they take over even more than they have already taken over. Our government is full of people who hate you whether you think that they love your agenda or not. They are just fucking with you and robbing us blind and you are too stupid to realize it. But good luck with your dreams of a new world. You can't trust anyone who acts like they are "in charge" or with a title. You can't trust anyone except maybe your family and a few friends to really look out for you,  especially when money and power are involved. 

So to summarize, kids need to shoot guns and fight and stay out in the sun and chop wood and stay off them damn phones and look at the Sears catalog or a pen that takes off clothes when you twist it. 

Time With My Buddy

I went to the beach over Labor Day weekend with my 12 year old son, Max. We usually sneak away together once a summer. The wife has to work and the 18 year old has football, so Max and I either go away to Ocean City, Maryland or Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  We even did it in the winter one time. We went to Rehoboth this time. It's about 90 miles from where we live in South Jersey.

Traffic was pretty bad but not crazy and we got into town and went to one of those Iron Hill Brewery's because it was too early to check into the hotel. The service was amazingly bad, which seems to be par for the course these days except if: A) the waitress is over 40 with some wrinkles and a smoker's voice B) The waiter is an older man. Other than that, they are in no hurry to bring me my beer or even take the order for food. I always tell Max, as soon as she/he gets back to the table, we are gonna order everything all at once, drinks, appetizers and entree. Sometimes , if the service is real bad, I tell the server that  "I'm gonna drink this beer real fast, so feel free to bring me another one in a few minutes."  I learned that one from my buddy , Rick.  He'd say, "By the time you get back to the bar, I'll be finished with this, so just bring me another one right away." Those older lady servers are the best. They tell you their life stories and they are always interesting. Most likely they got screwed over by some man.  Hard luck stories but always a cheerful disposition.  The beers were very good , 9/10 and the food was a 5/10. 

The hotel was a good, one, Fairfield Suites. The front desk lady was so nice that I had to tell her that I appreciated her being so pleasant. I hope she doesn't read this, but we got into the elevator and I asked Max, "Is that a man?" and Max said, "No, she's just a really ugly woman." But she was damn nice, bless her heart. I feel bad writing that, but it's funny. We have a rule in our family that as long as it's funny, you can't get offended. 

We left there and went to the boardwalk but Max doesn't eat any junk food or snacks, just meals, so it pretty much sucked. He didn't want caramel popcorn , or ice cream or Thrasher's Fries. I didn't want to eat alone,  because it would make me look pretty bad when he was being all dedicated and shit. So we went into some t-shirt shops and in between,  I kept asking Max if he wanted some Funnel Cake and he was all like, "No, I'm good." So we went to Wawa and he got a beef bowl and 3 Molk's and a beef bowl for the morning. I grabbed 2 pretzels and actually felt guilty for doing it. 

The next morning, I did a podcast with Marty Gallagher and Max looked at his phone and then we went downstairs to the hotel gym. They had dumbells that went up to 50 pounds and we did db curls and pushups and then hammer curls and pushups. I told Max that he had to earn his time at the beach by training first, and he agreed. We were all pumped up and feeling good. It takes us about 3 minutes to get ready to go to the beach. More when women are around and 18 year old's. Max figured out how to pay for parking and we went on the beach. Pretty dead, not many people, which was fine with us. Max stayed in the water the whole time. I went in some but the waves were almost zero, so I didn't last long. Max got bit by some sea urchin right before we left. It was a bad rash and swelling fast. I acted all calm but I was thinking, WTF? It looked like one of those worm tracks in a worm farm but it was all red and then he started to break out in his chest. I got the first aid out of the truck and put some ointment on it and it started to go down. I could've put the wrong ointment on him and screwed it all up, but it got better.  He looked it up on his phone. Sea anemone, he said it was. 

That night, we met a buddy of mine, Larry and his family, at a barbeque place in Bethany Beach, Bethany Blues, two towns over. Larry and them are some great people. We used to work at Penn together. He lifts and he's from Maryland, so I like him. I had the crab cakes which were a disappointment , but as my 18 year old said, "Dad, it's Delaware, not Maryland. What did you expect?" True. We headed back to the room after another stop at Wawa for beef bowls for breakfast and a few more Molk's. The Phillies were playing and also college football was on so we switched back and forth.

The next morning,  we went into the hotel weight room again. This time it was support rows, pushups and flies. We went to Dewey Beach, the next town over to swim, hoping the waves were better down there, but they weren't. Max didn't get bit by anything this time, so I consider the outing a success. Lunch was beef taco's (excellent) and Lagunitas beers. 9/10 on both counts. Forgot the name of the place. We then drove down to Ocean City, Maryland, about a 30 minute drive, to walk the long boardwalk that's there.  We learned  real quick that Ocean City has gone to shit. It's dirty and everyone looks like shit and Max and I lasted about 10 minutes before we left. It's like someone ruined on pupose, it's so bad and it got bad fast.

Dinner was Buffalo Wild Wings (burger and a patty melt) and DogFish Head 60 Minute Draft and a Coors Light. There food is always good, beer too.  8/10.  Always good except that one time in Gastonia, North Carolina when it was pretty bad.

Phillies and College Football finished out the night. We awoke early the next day to head home. Of course, we had to stop at Wawa on our way of town. Beef bowl for Max and not even a pretzel for me.

Lean Times

There are some poor people out there. It really sucks to be poor.  I have to admit that I have been amazingly poor before.When I was a student assistant coach 30 years ago,  I remember writing in my diary to never, ever forget how poor I was at the time. I dated girls just to get food and beer. Shallow, I know. But this one girl would bring me a sub sandwich (hoagie) every night, with a 6 pack of Coors Light. I liked her very much. She was nuts, but so was I. It was a perfect match. Man, I have some stories from those days, but I have to put them into a fiction book to protect the innocent. My buddy Larry told me one time, "You are always an inch away from being in jail." He exaggerates. But I was poor. I used to wear winter jackets into supermarkets and slide dip cans up the sleeves. I ate a lot of hot dogs with chili on them, because they were 4 hot dogs for a dollar. I loaded them up.

 The most that I made as a graduate assistant coach with 4 years experience as a strength and defensive line coach and being in charge of all the cutting and painting the practice and game fields was $520.00 a month. I'd buy a Penthouse and a 12 pack of cheap beer after I'd get paid. Every time.  That was my treat to myself. Then I'd buy a few groceries, like pasta and bagels and tuna and pay rent and phone and water and electricity. That was it. Everything was gone then. I'd sneak in the cafeteria. I delivered pizzas. I cleared land.  I depended on the kindness of women. And my friends who were married always bought the beer. They were on WIC, which is food stamps for milk and bread and cheese. My one coaching buddy was on it. Married, making minimum wage just to coach. He's now a wining head coach at a Division 2 school and has been for years. We loved it so much. We all loved it so much. Coaching is like a sickness, sometimes. We would do anything to coach. The funny thing is that if you ask us all if we were happy, we would all say yes. You appreciated things.   

Not sure what the moral is here. Maybe it's that when you work like we worked for so little money for so long that it really shows how much you loved something.

Saturday Morning

Saturday, 10 AM, Bucks Bar and Grill

I got up early today, lifted weights, worked with the dog a little and then I came here. I woke up pissed off and I thought that lifting weights would get it out of me like it usually does, but not this time. 

I'm sure that you have been there before, when everything from the coffee maker taking too long to brew, to the lawnmower not starting, to the refrigerator dinging when you left it open too long gets on your very last nerve. You think about punching the refrigerator, but decide against it. You have done stupid stuff like that before. You are older now, wiser.

I decide to go to Buck's instead.

I put a few songs on the jukebox, some Haggard, Chris Knight, and of course, Hank. I take a stool way back in the corner. Just felt the need to sit in a dark, cool bar, to have a beer and watch some games for a few hours. I don't give a shit if anyone thinks it's too early to drink or not. 

In fact, I only give a fuck about a few things in this world, and what people think ain’t one of them. I stare at the the neon Budweiser sign behind the bar as it blinks and begins to fizzle out. 

Something wrong with your sign there, I say

Snake the bartender says, Yup, been that way for awhile.

Ever thought of fixing it?

No, I reckon I haven't. I nod my head.

And that was that. And I thought to myself, why did I just have a conversation about a beer sign? Seems like some wasted words that I can't get back.

In walks Johnny Twiz. I don't know his real last name . He ate a bunch of Twizzlers all the time when he was in high school so that became his nickname. So he walks into the bar. I guess that Johnny is around six foot two and two fifty. Has some fat on him, but a big dude. Big bully in high school and 20 years later, still a bully. He always wanted to fight me for some reason, at least that's what I heard. Kick my ass and make a name for himself. Always telling people how I am not so tough. Just noises coming out of a hole in his big dumb head.

I avoid shit like that all the time, just not worth the trouble with the law and all. But this morning I was not in the mood. He walks over to me, sits down, orders some pussy craft beer. I have never liked the guy.

How are you doing, Superstar?

Good, just trying to drink my beer.

So you want to be left alone?

Yep, that'd be great. Leave me alone.

Damn, ain't you uppity.

Not uppity, just sitting here by myself. I emphasized the by myself part. 

No reason to be a dick.

Well if you would leave me alone, I wouldn't be a dick to you, now would I?

I think you need your ass kicked.

Now I knew that this guy was half crazy, but I had been stuffing my crazy side way down inside of me for a long time and I could feel it bubbling to the surface.

I’d leave me alone if I were you

Then he stood up and pushed me. And my Budweiser spilled on the barroom counter.

Hee hee you spilled your beer.

I guess I did.

He was standing there with a dumbass smile on his face, pointing at me and laughing at me as Snake began to clean the beer off of the bar. I stood up and punched him with a straight right hand as hard as I could, right on the chin. Motherfucker dropped to his knees. Best punch that I have thrown. I couldn't help myself. I lifted up his chin and hit him again. This time he fell flat on his back and was out cold. 

I looked back at the bartender and he said

He's an asshole. I didn't see nothin.

Thanks, Snake

Better get going, Slim. 

I am , buddy. 

Don't worry about the tab, I got it. What a punch!

Thanks, brother, and I appreciate it.

I put a 20 on the bar as a tip for Snake.

On the way out, I nodded to a few of the regulars. I felt better now.