Forty Years Is a Long Time -- September 13, 2015

It is funny the things you remember in life and the things that sit in the background. Some things are fuzzy and other things are crystal clear as if there is a photograph somewhere in your brain to remember what things looked like at the moment something happened. They don’t always seem to fit into what you think the priorities should be. 

It was forty years ago that I received the call from my Dad that I needed to come to Dayton from Columbus because my Mother was nearing the end. I know I received the call but I remember nothing about it. Yet, the scene in the hospital will be forever etched into my mind. After we arrived at Good Samaritan Hospital, we were met there by our neighbor and friend Dr. George Markus.  He spoke to us briefly and insisted that we not enter the room. It would be better if we didn’t see her this way before her death.  This moment is the photograph in my mind.  Sitting there in the waiting room waiting for the final notification.  After being at my Dad’s side in his last moments, I understand why it was suggested that we not be in the room, but in retrospect, I wish I had been more insistent that I wanted to be with her.

You may have noticed that I referred to my parents and Mother and Dad.  I was never to call her mom. That is what I called my grandmother, my Mother’s mother. In her mind, being called Mom would make her feel old.  She always looked older than she was because of her early gray hair, actually being asked several times if I were her grandchild. As a result, she was always “Mother.”

She did not have an easy life. She only attended 10 years of school because she needed to work.  She had more health issues than you could count. She always joked that she was the fifth child and was made with left over parts. In addition, she suffered a nervous breakdown and went to Florida for some time with my Aunt Edna to get her life back together. She went through times where she considered suicide.  Yet through it all she had a love for me that was never ending.

My parents were married for 18 ½ years when I was born. It was always “18 ½” as if the ½ made it more officially a long time.  They had tried for years to have children with my Mother having three operations in the 1940’s to help her conceive.  Finally in 1944, they gave up when the doctor told her she would never have children.  They had thought of adopting but my grandfather had forbidden them from adopting. Not sure about all of the details, but it was made clear that he would not accept the child as his grandchild. They were a couple that loved children, having a hand in helping raising my two cousins, Nancy and Jeannie when their parents divorced and my Aunt Ethel and the two girls moved in. They just would never have their own.

Then the miracle happened. My Mother was pregnant. It wasn’t that she had miscarriages in the past, she had never been pregnant. It was late spring 1952 and their world changed. He would soon be 40 and she would be 38. They were finally going to be parents. Six months into the pregnancy, my Mother started bleeding. She was immediately told to go to bed and stay there for the next three months. One thing my Mother was not, was someone that liked to stay inactive. She always had to be doing something. That had to be one of the most difficult times in her life.

There was always the hope that there would be additional children but that just was not to be.  In my Mother’s eyes, I was perfect and I was enough. Little Johnnie did no wrong. I actually was a pretty good kid, but in my Mother’s eyes I could have been a juvenile delinquent and she wouldn’t have believed it was my fault. Because I was this special gift, she was extremely conservative with everything about me. I have no memory of having a baby sitter that wasn’t a relative. I would stay at the neighbor’s house after school or with my parent’s partners in business but that was as close as it got.

I was going to receive a bicycle from my aunt and uncle when I was 12 but they were told to take it back.  We lived in a park like area with very little traffic but the thought was I was sure to die if I actually wondered out in the street. Finally, at Christmas when I was in the eighth grade I actually received that bicycle. Do you know how hard it is to learn how to ride a bike when you are 13? And it is a lot farther to drop when you are taller than four feet.

When I entered high school, my mother decided that they would sell their portion of the grocery store they shared ownership in.  Since she never felt comfortable driving, we only had one car and she was home every day when I came home and a snack was always ready.  For breakfast, I would have whatever I wanted.  Since she only slept about 2-3 hours every night, she was always awake when I got up.  When I started working in the summers, she would make me two hamburgers and French fries for breakfast.  (Please keep your spoiled only child brat comments to yourself.)

I have a standing comment that I have with people that meet my wife, Julia (not sure how that happened name wise), that everyone loves her. She can walk into a room of strangers and an hour later walk out with 10 new Facebook friends. That is the way my Mother was. Everyone loved her. She could not do enough for you. If you needed something, she would do it. If she could help in any way, she was first in line. My Julia is the same way. They say you marry your Mother, maybe I did.

It has been 40 years since I have heard her voice.  I miss her and who she was. I think I was a pretty good son, but I wish I could have been there with her more as she was fighting her losing battle against cancer.  I have a million questions for God when it is my time, but before I see Him, I want to see her and ask her how I did.

Choices — November 3, 2014

On Sunday, November 2, 2014, two women with brain cancer made decisions that could change the way we look at cancer. 

Brittany Maynard was a newlywed of about a year when she found out she had cancer in January, 2014. Nine days after the initial diagnosis she had a partial craniotomy and a partial resection of her temporal lobe. Both surgeries were attempts to slow the growth of her tumor. In April, she learned that not only had the tumor returned, it had become even more aggressive. She was 29 and had six months to live.   After a great deal of research and consultation it was determined that there was little she could do to impede the ultimate victory that cancer would eventually claim.

Young and otherwise healthy, the cancer would destroy her brain while the rest of her body would continue to function. The last months would likely be a horror for both her and her family. The thought of dying in hospice, suffering daily seizures and receiving high levels of pain medication was not how she wanted to live out her life. This is not how she wanted to be remembered.

Brittany wanted to be in control of her own death. She moved to Oregon, one of five states that allow for death with dignity. Brittany would receive a prescription that would end her life and be given the power to administer it when she felt it was time.

Brittany became a spokesperson for death with dignity after she posted a video on youtube explaining her choice. It has received over 10,000,000 views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPfe3rCcUeQ

On Sunday, surrounded by friends and family, Brittany decided that it was time to end her struggle.

Compassion & Choices, an end-of-life choice advocacy group who had worked closely with Brittany, said she "died as she intended -- peacefully in her bedroom, in the arms of her loved ones."

Having been raised a Catholic, I have always looked upon suicide as a sin. Now that I have cancer and with an understanding of how I will likely die, I have to say that I have to wonder if I have been too closed minded. As would have been Brittany’s, my own death will not be pleasant. Multiple myeloma, when no longer under control, destroys the bones. It starts with the larger bones and moves to the smaller ones. Bones become brittle and eventually break. In my own case, I had 29 areas that had been affected including a tennis ball sized tumor on my pelvis. My kidneys were shutting down and potassium and sodium were flooding my blood stream. I was lucky that chemotherapy saved my life.

I have seen both of my parents die of cancer. It was horrible. I cannot believe that this is what God wants. We have the technology to keep people alive long after they should. Sometimes past the point of cruelty. It is not my plan to end my life when it becomes hopeless, but I can certainly understand why someone would. Is it really suicide when you are already dying?

On the other side of the country, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Lauren Hill was having the best day of her life.  Lauren, too, is dying of brain cancer. There is a good chance she may not see Christmas. But Sunday, she didn’t think about that. She woke up at four in the morning with a terrific headache. It was so severe that later that day she would have to wear sunglasses and headphones to drown out the light and sound. That would not keep her away from completing a dream, the dream of playing college basketball.

It was just a little over a year ago that Lauren announced on her birthday that she would attend Mount St. Joseph’s University and play basketball. Less than two months later she found out she had brain cancer. In September, she was told that she had months to live.

The University then petitioned the NCAA to be able to play their game against Hiram College two weeks earlier than had been scheduled so Lauren could fulfill her dream. The game was moved to Cincinnati so her friends could attend. Forty five minutes after the tickets became available, Cintas Center and its 10,500 seats was sold out. This was for two teams that normally would have 100 family members and friends show up for a game.

Hiram College and its coaches and athletic department were completely on board even working with the Mount St. Joes coaches to allow Lauren to score on the first possession of the game. A backdoor screen was run for Lauren so that she could move to her right which would allow her to shoot with her left hand. Although right handed, she has been forced to shoot with her left hand as the cancer has begun to disrupt her body movements. After scoring, time was called and everyone in the arena celebrated including the Hiram coaches and players. 

Lauren has made it a point to bring attention to the plight of those with pediatric cancers. Tens of thousands of dollars have been raised for this cause. Lauren has issued a challenge to Lebron James and others in her own version of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF023AEUOtk

Fox Sports Ohio televised the game and it was streamed nationwide on the internet. After the game an emotional Lauren summed up what many were thinking, "To reach and touch this many people is amazing. Not many people knew about DIPG before me, and now that they do, we can get research going to cure this cancer. I won't be around to see that, but it's going to help so many people. That's why the support can't end with this game."

Both of these women have touched millions in their own way. Hopefully, we will see increases in cancer research so that we can experience an end to this killer in our lifetimes.

In my own little world things are going well. I continue to receive good results with my blood tests. I have been in remission without the help of chemo for 16 months. I never thought I would be able to say that. Now the goal is to see just how far I can take it.  The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night Walk is this Friday. If you haven’t had an opportunity to donate, please do. It will be my sixth walk. I hope to be doing this years from now.

http://pages.lightthenight.org/az/Phoenix14/TeamOutlaws

September 3, 2014 - Twenty-One

Is was twenty one years ago today that Jason came into our lives. Jason was the quiet one even before he was born. He was very restful before he breathed his first breath unlike his maniac brother.  Justin was always moving, often reminding us of the creature in the movie “Alien.” It wouldn’t be a surprise to see a foot or a hand trying to push its way our of Julia’s stomach. Jason, on the other hand, was content to just relax in the warmth that the womb provided.

Their personalities didn’t change a great deal after they were born.  Justin was always moving, refusing to sleep. He walked at seven months and would climb anything that wasn’t moving. Jason also walked at a fairly early age (nine months) but he did it in a more cautious manner. Justin would fly across the room, invariably smashing his face into something while Jason was steady and calculating in his movements.

When Justin would jump onto our bed, he would immediately stand up and analyze his chances of death if he jumped off, then dive.  Jason was fine getting up there, but would more likely take his time getting down not risking life and limb like his brother.  There was never a minute that Justin was clean. It seemed the second we put his clothes on him, they were filthy.  Jason was just the opposite. There were times that he would get a little water on his shirt before going to school and he would have to change it to stay perfect.

Justin was well known in the neighborhood for his antics with his toy cars.  If they lasted three months without some type of cataclysmic accident, it was only because he forgot about it. You have no idea how many die cast cars I found in the back yard that looked like they had found the business side of a sledge hammer. Jason would line his cars up in straight lines just to make sure they all looked good.

When Jason was two years old, he had a vocabulary of five wolds, highlighted with the usage of the word, “no.” Justin would talk your ear off at two which is probably why Jason didn’t have to talk much when he turned two. He had Justin to interpret his grunts and as a result didn’t need to talk. We were so concerned that we took him to a speech and hearing clinic to see if he had hearing loss. Instead, we were told that he had an excellent vocabulary and was just too stubborn to talk. For years this has been an area of discussion between Julia and myself as to whom he got that from.

When each of the boys turned three, we took them for formal portraits in keeping with the tradition started by Julia’s family, taking each of the children on their third birthday to get their picture taken.  Justin practically ran the photographer out of film. He loved being in front of the camera, often posing himself without a hint. Jason had to be coaxed to even smile for the camera. The day could not have been over quickly enough.

It has now been 18 years since that third birthday. Each of the boys have changed in their own way. Justin became the fashion plate with gym shoes matching the color of his shirt and Jason became the kid that you would only see in gym shorts, a baseball tournament tee shirt and one pair of Nikes all in white and black.  But, I guess we all change at our own pace. There is no one template that we follow.

When Jason went away to school we began to see him change.  Although he went to South Dakota to play football, it was probably an injury the first week of spring practice that began the change. It seems Jason learned more outside the classroom than he necessarily did inside. When he returned and made the decision to not return we began to see subtle changes in our quiet son.

Instead of tying all of his friends to the particular sport he was playing he started to branch out. He still had friends from high school football, but he started to make friends at the gym and at church. When he started a job as a student ambassador at his college he added his fellow workers to the mix. But the biggest change came in his interactions with other people. Being forced to be on stage with others during student orientations, he became less reserved and more outgoing.

He then decided to expand his gym workouts to enter a Physique competition. This forced him to go on stage in front of 1,000 people wearing just a pair of shorts.  If that doesn’t force you to break out of a shell, I don’t know what would. Then given an opportunity to begin an internship where I work, he had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of our associates before our biggest event of the year. At that event, he was a spokesperson for our IsaBody Challenge speaking to many of the 10,000 people in attendance.

Now at 21, the boy we thought might have a hearing problem, has grown into a man that will likely make his living talking to people about nutrition. It is amazing how we change in life and what molds those changes. I cannot say how proud we are of both of our boys as they have become their own people. Jason might actually be happy to get his picture taken now.

It has been a while since I have written as I have just enjoyed my renewed good health.  I have been off of chemo for over a year now and my most recent test all came back with good results.  As I have often said, you should use every moment of your life to enjoy the gifts we have been given. I feel like I have been given additional years that I fully intend to take advantage of. I might even find time to write now and then.

January 22, 2014 — Time

Time is a funny thing. We live our lives knowing that there is only so much time that is allocated to us, yet we either waste or wish away significant portions of that allocation. The amount of time that I have wasted just waiting for something to happen is ridiculous.  I don’t even want to think of how much time I have wasted sitting in a doctor’s office, or waiting for a red light to turn to green or for the pot of water on the stove to start to boil.  I dare not even try to calculate how much of my life has been wasted on sitting through commercials.

When we are young we think we have all the time in the world.  We also think it takes forever for things to be completed.  I’ll never forget sitting in my little wood desk while in elementary school watching the clock tick at an amazingly slow pace.  Waiting out those last two weeks before Christmas was excruciating.  Crossing out and marking down the numbers of days left until summer vacation on one of my notebooks could not have taken longer.

Things don’t change much as we grow up as we count down the number of hours left until 5 PM on Friday and we finally have our lives back.  For some reason a day at work takes a lot longer than a day of vacation. Time never seems to be on our side.

The thing that really jumps out at me when I take a look at my life is how far away the future seems, yet the past seems so close.  How many times have you tried to guess how long ago a celebrity died? I’m not sure how good you are at it, but I stink. I almost always think they died much closer to the present than they actually did. 

Not sure how many of you are “Gilligan’s Island” fans, but I always have followed the characters as they lived out the rest of their lives. I was always a fan of the “Professor” and when he died last week, I tried to remember how long ago Bob Denver died. I vaguely remembered that it was four or five years ago. It will be nine years in September. How long ago did Jim Backus (Thurston Howell, III) die? Would you be surprised to know that it will be 25 years in July? 

Completely off topic, but I preferred Mary Ann to Ginger.

I’ll never forget when Harold Kidwell, my boss from, oh-so-many-years-ago always talked about how you should double the time that you think something happened when you are trying to pinpoint how long it has been.  I have found this to be pretty accurate when I really don’t know the specific year that something happened.

All of this brings me to the point that it has been five years that I found out that I had cancer.  I’ll never forget the call I received from my doctor stating that my kidneys were in failure and that I was at a high risk of a heart attack and that I had better get myself to the nearest Emergency Room as quickly as possible. It seems like it was yesterday. I still sit at the same desk with the same telephone at my side. It could have happen yesterday if I would believe the vividness of that memory.  Even with all I have gone through, I would never think it has been five years.

When I saw Dr. Mikhael last week to go over my test results, I had to ask him a question that has lingered with me for some time.  Because I am still in remission, I felt a little cocky and I asked him, “When you saw my original results five years ago, did you think I would see 2014?”  I really wasn’t sure what he would say. If you asked me that same question back then, I would have given a definite “No.”  From everything that I had read, I felt that I might have a couple good years left and the inevitable was bound to happen.  Don’t get me wrong, I was going to give it everything I had, but the disease had progressed pretty far and the average life span was 27 months for someone in my condition.

His answer surprised me at bit. He said he thought I had a good chance to make it to five years, but not a great chance.  Funny thing with cancer, you never know what is going to happen.  If there is a 95% chance you will not survive, that means that one out of 20 actually do survive. That is why you never give up. You may be that one out of 20.  He did say that I probably have a better chance of lasting another five years than I did to make the first five years. The miracles of cancer research continue to give all of us survivors hope for a future.  Even though that future may seem to take forever to get here, I’m looking forward to it.

December 9, 2013 -- Remembering our Past

This Christmas is a turning of the page for me. This is not some earth shattering thing, but for some reason, it is important to me. You will probably think I am crazy to even think about it, but let me explain.

I finally broke down and bought a new Christmas tree.  There it is. It is out in the open.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? I guess it isn’t the buying of the new tree, it is the realization that I need to throw one away.  You see the tree that will be thrown away is the one that we have used every year since Justin was born. It has been in dozens of photographs and hours of Christmas videos. It is really the only tree that Santa has left presents under for the last 22 years.  It is the tree that Justin almost knocked over when he was five and sprawling under to get his next big gift.

I have always been a Christmasaholic. I was the guy that was going elbow to elbow with all of the crazy women shoppers at Hallmark the day after Christmas.  One year when we were staying with Julia’s parents we went to a mall that had two Hallmark stores and sent Julia’s brother running back and forth between them so we knew what each other was buying (pre-cell phone days.)

It was 23 years ago that Julia and I fell in love with a Christmas tree that was way over our budget. Today it would be a bargain, but at the time it was rather pricey. We waited until after Christmas hoping that it would drop more than the typical 50%.  We waited and waited but there was no further dropping of price.  It was February and the tree was still in the window just taunting us.

It was February 8, 1991 and we decided to drive across town to see if a miracle had happened and the price had dropped. The store was closed and I can remember Julia staying in the car while I went up to again check  if the price had dropped.  We decided to head home still debating if we should just splurge and buy the tree.

Just a few hours later, Julia went into labor and we were soon holding our first born.  The tree search became part of one of the most important nights in our lives.  After we returned home with Justin, we bought the tree.

The 21 Christmases have been wonderful, but there isn’t enough shipping tape to hold the old thing together. It was time to move on.  As a result, there is a Costco 9 foot tree with blinking LED lights flashing between white and multi-colored standing in our family room. It will be beautiful on Christmas morning, but there will still be something missing.

Sometimes in life we attach important moments or times in our lives to inanimate objects. For whatever reason, they bring back memories that are worth far more than the object ever was.  I have hundreds of old science fiction books that my dad read in the 1940’s and 50’s sitting in the basement.  I still have a couple of the sets of clothes that I wore as a baby that my Mother loving set aside. We keep mementoes from our senior prom or ticket stubs from our first game or concert. To someone else, they mean nothing, but to us, they mean the world. We always want to move on, but we love where we came from, sometimes is the strangest things that take us there.

Julia lost one of her dearest friends this last week. Robyn Driscoll fought a seeming endless war against breast cancer for almost a third of her life.  Robin was a fighter that refused to give in to the monster that stole her life well before her time.  But that was just a small part of who Robin was.  Everyone has nice words to say about someone after they die, but Robyn’s were completely deserved. She was a thoughtful, loving person that will be missed by many. Please keep Robyn’s family in your thoughts and prayers.

I feel so lucky with where I am in my own battle as I remain in remission heading into the new year.  We get caught up in our own lives sometimes, especially at Christmas.  Keep those that are fighting serious illness in your thoughts and remember to give a little gift to your own special charities as you never know when a cure might be found or a person’s life changed by your thoughtfulness.

November 4, 2013 - Light the Night

Cancer.  It is inevitable.  At some point in your life, you will be confronted by this disease. It will either be a loved one, a friend, a colleague or quite possibly yourself. In 2010, a study was released that stated there is a 41% chance that each of us will develop cancer in our lifetimes. Every four minutes someone in the United States is diagnosed with a blood cancer and, every 10 minutes, someone loses their battle. Approximately one million Americans are currently battling blood cancers.

A little less than five years ago, I had that unenviable talk with my doctor that I had become one of those with a blood cancer.  At the time, I wasn’t sure if it was a death sentence or not. The average life span for someone contracting Multiple Myeloma and finding it in Stage III was 27 months. I really didn’t know what to think. I knew that both of my parents and several other relatives had died of cancer. I couldn’t help but think that it might be my fate, too.

The bad thing was I had cancer. The good thing was a number of new chemotherapy options had recently become available and more were on their way.  I began my first round of chemo within days and followed with a stem cell transplant.  Two years after the transplant, my cancer had returned to the point that chemo was again necessary. I then started a protocol that works for most but, unfortunately, didn’t for me.  Six months later we tried a new regimen that has worked miracles for me for over a year and a half. I am able to write this today because I had options. Aside from a cure, that is what cancer patients need.

Because of your helpful donations to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s 2013 Light the Night Walk, more blood cancer patients may also have options in the future. We all hope for a cure for cancer, but it is only through donations that this will ever happen. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society not only helps fight for a cure but they also help patients and their families’ work through the difficulties that many of us face when confronted with cancer.  This ranges from research to medical bill assistance to counseling for both patients and their family members to group gatherings so that cancer patients can interact with others that are facing the same issue and learn about new advances in their treatment future.

We set a record for TeamOutlaws last year collecting over $4,000.  Please help us again gain an upper hand on cancer this year by visiting:

http://pages.lightthenight.org/az/Phoenix13/teamoutlaws

Thank you again for all of your help over the years. As it is every year, I hope to continue this tradition next year and for every year that I can. Help us beat cancer. The walk is this weekend and we are nearing our goal of $4,500 in contributions.

On a personal note, I have been in remission for four months now and chemo free.  It is a month to month proposition but it is a wonderful feeling knowing that I am where I am.  I have a blood test in another week that should give me an idea if things are continuing to go well. Stay tuned.

September 26, 2014 -- On the Road Again

It seems that having a bucket list is a rather trendy thing to do. As always, I am anything but trendy. I have never been one that has worried about a bucket list. Since I became sick, I have had a good deal of time to contemplate all of the things that I have missed in my life and to be honest with you I just don’t feel like I have missed anything of real significance. I suppose there are some things that I have never seen that would be amazing but I’m not sure that I want to fly to Egypt to spend 45 minutes staring at the pyramids.  It would be exciting to walk along the path that Jesus traveled during his life, but I’m not sure I want to be worried about dodging a stray bullet or bomb along the way either.

All in all, if I happened to get hit by a bus on the way home, I would have to say that I would have been very happy with the life I have led and the things that I have experienced.  There are some things that I miss though, some things I would like to do again.

It would be nice to wake up in the morning and not have half of my body screaming at me to stop moving so fast as the other half creaks as I get to my feet.  It would be nice to comb my hair after a shower without having to be a landscape architect to cover all of the bald spots. It would be nice to be able to read without having to find my six dollar Costco glasses first.  It would be nice to remember where I put my glasses or my keys or my wallet. It would be nice to be able to do something athletic and still be able to move the next day.

One of the things that I did when I was younger and can still do is drive.  Back in the day when gasoline was $0.50/gallon, it would make a lot more sense to drive to a vacation spot than hop in a plane.  Driving from Ohio to Florida was no big deal.  I would start at in the evening and drive for 18 hours straight only stopping to get gas. If you had to pee, you better make sure that you timed it for when the gas tank was empty.  I would order a pizza or two and put them in the back seat to dine on during the trip.  A Trip-tik from AAA was the way to go. It was light years ahead of having to read a map while driving.

It didn’t seem to bother me that I would have to make the same trip home in seven or eight days with nothing to look forward to except work on Monday morning. I would get to see parts of the country (albeit at 75 miles an hour) that I normally never got to see. The heavily wooded hills through Tennessee, the red dirt of Georgia and the smell of dampness when you finally got to Florida all made it worthwhile. Of course, avoiding radar and finding a “caravan” made it even more exciting. How I stayed up all night and never seemed to get drowsy amazes me to this day.

When Jason decided late this summer that he did not want to return to school in South Dakota, it created a dilemma since he had a storage unit filled with clothes, supplies, a TV and mini refrigerator.   It was of enough value that we didn’t just want to walk away and eventually see Jason’s stuff on “Storage Wars” so we had to come up with a way to move his various boxes 1,300 miles without having to take out a second mortgage on the house. Julia looked into moving companies and found them to be ridiculously expensive.  She found another route that was more affordable but it would require someone to get his things ready to move and then wait around for the shipping company to show up.  Both of these were doable but it just didn’t seem like the “best” way to handle the situation.

It seemed to me that I would have an opportunity to relive my youth and get to have another one of those crazy driving road trips.  Well, I can’t drive for 19 consecutive hours anymore, but I sure can drive for six hours and take a break, have someone else drive for a while and eventually find a hotel to sleep off the stiffness of sitting in a car for 12 hours. Jason was soon designated as my co-pilot and plans were starting to be hatched. Julia thought I was an idiot for doing this, but she just never could understand the enjoyment of the quest.

I had everything planned that I could including getting an SUV from Enterprise for the trip that we were going to pick up Tuesday night so we could get on the road at 6 AM and miss all of the traffic.  As I stood at the Phoenix airport Enterprise counter, I came to the realization that I was in the middle of a senior moment. When I set up the reservation, I limited my search to airports only since most off-airport locations rarely have specialty cars. Little did I know that I had actually made the reservation at a Scottsdale location. 

I called the Scottsdale location and was told they closed in 20 minutes. If I got there in 19 they could handle me, a minute later and they would have shut down all of their equipment.  I then started to break every speed limit posted between the airport and Scottsdale yet hit virtually every red light.  We pulled into the lot at 6:04 PM and watched five people pull out, one even rolled up his window as Jason approached.  This was not the way to start the trip.

When we got there at 7:30 the next morning, I went through the normal procedure to get the car which took about 15 minutes. However, when I got in the car, I found that the fuel light was on which added another 20 minutes to our wait.  This was starting to look like a mistake.

I took the first shift and the old thrill started to return.  Nothing like being on the road driving through new places.  I was going to add New Mexico, Nebraska and Wyoming to my list of states and all was good.  Jason and I got to see a camel farm, deserts where there should be green and green where you would think there should be desert.  We were able to visit the largest motorcycle rally in the world.  We made hotel reservations as we drove and hit Hooter’s with regularity. It was a good old road trip with everything but the beer and the women.

When we returned four days later with an SUV filled with Jason’s belongings and a wallet emptied by the cost of gas, we had accomplished what we had set out to do.  We had made it home with all of Jason’s things still working and had managed not to be run off the road by a semi or some other crazed driver late at night.  But what we came home with was something more, something that I had not counted on.

You see, the thing that you don’t think much about is what you are going to do for four days in a car. This was not going to be a trip where we stopped every few hours to see the sights. It was two days in the car getting there and two days back. It was just us and the freeway.  But what it turned into was something special.  Imagine four days in the car with your soon to be 20-year-old son with nothing to do but talk.

Jason has never been much of a talker.  Very quiet and sometimes an island, Jason opened up.  In the end, if I would have had to pay him by the word, I would have been even more broke.  We talked about anything that suited us at the time. There were no preconceived notions of accomplishing this or that. It was just talk.  I think I learned more about my son in those four days than I had in the previous four years. 

All of this just reiterated what Julia and I have thought for a long time.  Although far from perfect and certainly not a carbon copy of either of us, we have a great kid that makes the right decisions and does the right things. I’m not sure even he knows what he will be doing moving forward in life, but I feel pretty confident that he will continue to make the right decisions and continue to be the type of person you can only hope for when you hold your child for the first time.  It’s funny, you start out worrying about how far you will get your first day and in the end you come home with a whole new perspective on your kid.  Next time you have a chance to entrap your kid in a car for a few days, give it some thought.

September 10, 2013--Twenty Five and Counting

It was a day like most in Ohio in the Fall. The morning air was crisp and clean with just a hint of clouds in the sky. It would turn out to be a nearly perfect day with little or no breeze, temperature peaking at 72 degrees and the sun kissing the last of the summer flowers.

It was certainly a great day for a drive, even if it were just for a pizza and some ice cream. Because there was nothing else to do at the time and there is nothing better that a good pizza, the drive was going to be just a bit longer that one would expect. It was down to Cincinnati and LaRosa's. If you are not from the area and have not had LaRosa's, you have no real understanding of why someone would drive that far for a pizza. You would probably also not quite understand why someone would drive several miles out of his way just to buy 15 cans of LaRosa's sauce to jam into his suitcase to bring back to Arizona.

However, the real reason to go to Cincinnati was to get some Graeter's ice cream. At the time, few in Columbus understood the significance of Graeter's ice cream. Since that time it has been on many top 10 listings of ice creams made in the United States and opened several locations in Columbus. What is more important in life than ice cream, especially when you are talking about making it part of a special celebration?

You see, that day that was going to change my life.  I was 34 at the time and was doing OK for myself. I had a good job, a little money in the bank and other than a mortgage, had no debt.  I had good friends, went on nice vacations, had a two seater sports car and just about everything I wanted. But I was still lacking something and on September 10, 1988, that lacking would go away. On that day I married that most beautiful girl in the world. On that day, I finally had everything I really needed.

When we stand in front of the priest, minister, rabbi or justice of the peace and commit to be with the same person for the rest of our lives we really have no idea what we have committed. At that point, it is all about the amazement of the day. In reality, it is work. It is never easy no matter who you are. If you are going to make it work, you have to want to make it happen. Happily, both Julia and I have wanted it no matter how hard or easy it was.

From the outside, we are almost always amazed when we find that someone is going to get a divorce. That is because we are, more often or not, shielded from the difficulties that people go through.  Julia and I have had difficulties just like everybody else but we both realized that we were pretty darn good together despite whatever stumbling block we were facing at that point in time. We never game up because we knew what we had was right.

It is now 25 years later and she is still the most beautiful girl in the world. It doesn't matter that we have a few more pounds to lug around or have a wrinkle or two more than we had in 1988, our feelings have only grown more intense. I love Julia more today than I ever have. 

She knows all of my quirks and imperfections and she still loves me. She puts up with my love of the Browns, Reds and Flyers. I know she doesn't actually hear me when I talk about them, but she makes it look like she does and that's all that really matters. It doesn't bother her (much) when I come home and just plop on the couch or if it takes me a month to change a light bulb because that's what marriage is about.

We know who we are now. It's not 1988 and we think we know what we are doing. We actually know all of the things that drive us nuts about the other and we don't care, because we know what we have it is far more than that. We have each other and that is all we need.

Now if she can just put up with me for another 25.

I love you baby doll.

August 5, 2013 - July 13, 1913

It was the middle of July in 1913 in a small mining town in western Pennsylvania that Sophie and John Churan welcomed their first child into the world.  Times were different then.  He wasn’t born in a hospital surrounded by scores of doctors and nurses with equipment buzzing everywhere.  Little Andrew was never really sure what his actual birth date was but celebrated July 13 as his birthday because that was when his birth was recorded at the county offices.

 

The world had yet to see its first global conflict. Telephones were a luxury as less than 10% of homes had one and the first coast to coast telephone call wouldn’t happen for two more years.  There were less than one million cars in the United States. If you could afford one, it would cost $800. Trains were the ideal mode of long distance transportation as the first commercial scheduled flight wouldn’t happen for six months. The Titanic sank the year before but there was no CNN to let everyone know. The newspaper, almost dead today, was the best means of circulating the news. They were available daily with special editions available when news broke.

The first public radio broadcast had only occurred three years earlier and it would be another decade before radios became a popular household item.  Movies were fifteen minutes long and Charlie Chaplin was going to sign his first movie contract the same month. The thought of a television would have been laughable.

There were no large grocery stores. A loaf of bread was a nickel, a pound of steak was twenty cents, a gallon of milk was thirty five cents and penny candy actually did cost a penny.  That fifteen minute movie would cost you seven cents.  The average wage was $0.22 per hour and most took home between $400 and $600 per year.

In 1913, the life expectancy for a man was 50 and for a woman it was 55. In the last 100 years, that expectance has increased by 50% to 75 for men and 81 for women.  In many ways our lives have gotten easier and our health system much better which has allowed us to live much longer than our ancestors.

The world in 1913 seems more than 100 years ago in many ways.

My dad lived a life that was simple in nature but he tended to enjoy whatever it was he was a part of. Family was all important to him throughout his life as I remember relatives always being over to our home. That probably came from the close relationship he had with his mother and younger sister, Margaret as his father died when he was five.

He was as different as can be when compared to my childhood. I was sheltered from everything as my mother felt that I would die for sure if I was exposed to just about anything. My kids still love to make fun of me whenever we talk about the fact that I had to learn how to ride a bicycle at the age of 13. In comparison, my dad had to move away from home and work on a farm to help support the family at the age of 14.

At 14, he was a big as he was ever going to get. He was strong as an ox and earned every dime he was paid.  Mature beyond his years, one of his favorite stories was when some of the men he worked with put him up to fight one of the other men that worked on the farm as a cheap form of entertainment.  Dollars were wagered on both the boy and the man. They were put inside of a box car and only the winner was to walk out of the car.  There was straw and cow manure everywhere but that didn’t slow either of them down. He gave the twenty something man everything he could handle and walked out the victor. He was tough but five years later he met his match and she was anything but the rough and tumble man my father had become.

When he met my mother, Julia Pregon in 1932, his world changed. From the very first moment he saw her, he knew she would be his wife.  For 41 years, they loved, laughed, fought, cried and worked together.  My mother was just as ambitious as my father and smart well beyond her ten years of education. Individually they were strong, but together they were special. We all hope to have a life with another person as they did. When he lost her, he lost a bit of himself, I’m not sure he was ever the same.

He lived through the depression and learned the value of a dollar at a young age, something he never forgot.  Always hard working, he worked full time until he was 70. He was never a rich man, but one that enjoyed the simple things like reading a book, playing cards or just taking a walk.

His greatest thrill in life aside from yours truly was when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.  His love of science fiction was with him for decades.  In 1969 when we saw “2001: A Space Odyssey” it as if all of those years of reading paperbacks all came true.  Not sure why I have held on to them, but I still have hundreds of science fiction books that my dad read from the 1940’s on.  I guess it is just my way of hanging on to him a bit.

He lived to be 77 and he saw the world change around him unlike any generation before.  The only thing he really missed was the birth of a grandchild as died three months before Justin’s birth. He had waited so long to hold his son and just couldn’t hold on long enough to hold a grandchild.  Hopefully, both he and my mother have enjoyed seeing the boys grow and become the wonderful men that they are.  He made a real difference in my life. I can only hope I will make the same in theirs.