Forgetting Memory

They are starting to remember...

Abe found his hands today.
He’s had them all along, but he just realized.

It's beautiful to watch...

We could learn a lot from babies:
Contentment and amazement and all that.

He smiles a lot, now, too.
Smiles, for smiling's sake.
When’s the last time you smiled? Just because.

Ben laughed this morning because I made a fart noise with my mouth.

I love to hear my children laugh.

They always seem to find the miraculous in the mundane.

Anna is beautiful and smart.
She amazes me, too.
I take her for granted,
And I fear that she knows.

She’s very smart.

Merrie Cannon scares me.
She’s starting not to think about her hands.

She watches television. Plays with dolls.
She’s starting to talk: Hat. Cat. Girl. Dog. Thank you.

She has memory.
And we all know where that leads…

Abe recognizes. And reacts.
“I’m hungry." I’m crying.
“Hey, look! There are those finger-things again…”

But memory will come. It won’t be long.

Soon daddy’s voice will frighten and scold and direct and demand.
Soon Mama will be more than shiny teeth and warmth and scent.

It won’t be long.

Memory comes, and we forget.

Abe finds his hands and smiles.
We all laugh.
Seems like the first time.

And then I remember.

A hero goes down... or up... I cannot be sure.

One of the greatest – if not THE greatest (I do not know how to judge these things but with “it’s a matter of mood, opinion, diet or time of day) – writers, novelists, essayists, satirists and storytellers the world has ever known passed away yesterday.

If there has ever been anything good, fun, entertaining, emotive, gut-wrenching, witty, smart-ass or somewhat close to good that has come from my fingertips, pen or pencil… I probably stole it from Kurt Vonnegut.

I do not know what I am going to do now…

Go. Read.

“What the heck. Practicing an art is not a way to make money. It is simply a means to making one’s soul grow. Bon Voyage.” —Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
1922-2007

A mountain out of a mole hill... so to speak

I'm not sure why Diamond Head Mountain became important to me today, but it's funny... the things you remember:

You know, Diamond Head Mountain is not a "mountain," after all... It's a volcanic crater.

Diamond Head is located on the South-east Coast of Oahu at the end of Waikiki. It was originally named "Laeahi" by the ancient Hawaiians. The name meant "brow of the tuna," and looking at the silhouette of the crater from the beach, you can see the resemblance.

The current name was given to the crater by British sailors in the 1800's. When they first saw the crater from sea, the calcite crystals in the lava rock appeared to glimmer in the sunlight. The sailors thought there must be diamonds in the soil.

There were no diamonds in the soil.

Anyway, the volcano has been extinct for 150,000 years, and my entire family went there the day after my twelfth birthday.

*****

I was in Hawaii on my twelfth birthday. Not too many kids can say that. Probably more than I give credit, but I like to think that I am one of a very select few.

Father took the entire family to Waikiki the week before he ran the Honolulu Marathon. There are, more than likely, even fewer kids who can claim that their father ran in five marathons. I guess that made this vacation extra special...

We have somewhat of a tradition in my family. We celebrate birthdays by allowing the honoree to choose the restaurant at which we all dine for the day.

I chose Burger King. I was 12.

Father and I left the Hawaii Prince Hotel at around six-thirty in the morning. We strolled down Holomoana Street towards the Burger King to retrieve breakfast croissants for my Mom and sister, still sleeping in their rooms.

"Why don't you and I go down to the water after we eat... we'll let your mom and Deb sleep a little while longer."

We ate my birthday breakfast on the move. We were but a few hundred feet from the beach, and it seemed that Father was on a mission. I remember thinking that the sausage, egg and cheese croissant and large Coca-Cola was not on his "marathon diet." He ate it in one breath.

"I was your age the first time I ever realized I had an erection," he said.

"Wah...?! Gross!" I exclaimed.

I wasn't the brightest kid in the world, but I had known what the word erection meant for quite a while. 6 months—give or take about 13 days—before this trip, I overheard my Mom — in all her glory — discuss with Dad how she'd found me in the bathtub, "rubbing on his erection," she said.

I don't recall ever hearing the word used, other than to describe tall buildings before that moment, but I knew exactly what she'd seen me rubbing in the bathtub.

"Who cares, Dad? I don't want to hear about that!"

"I was with Becky Tomlinson at the 6th Grade formal. We were slow dancing, and then all the sudden: Boom!"

"Boom?" I asked aloud.

Suddenly I wasn't so sure my mother hadn't simply seen me trying to pop a zit.

He continued: "Yeah, there it was for all the world to see. My penis was sticking out so far it made my sport coat fly open."

Nope. Not a zit.

There I was, in arguably the most beautiful place in the world, looking out over the blue water... a light breeze gently wisped through my hair... no one and nothing but early morning joggers and dedicated surfers to obscure my view. But I didn't "see" any of it. Instead I choked down what was left of my bacon and cheese French pastry and focused on NOT picturing my father's first hard-on.

To this day, I do not remember my reaction to the "sport coat comment," but I do recall quickly turning the discussion to para-sailing and our impending climb up Diamond Head Mountain the next day.

*****

Beauty in the rough...

I actually wrote this a long time ago. But I watched the Master's this weekend and it reminded me why I love a game I suck at.

*****

When Did My Trajectory Change?

I played golf the other day. I enjoyed it, though I am not very good.

Never have been.

When I was in high school, my friends and I would ride down to the local 9-hole, public golf course that separated us from the country-club-kids a few miles away — taking advantage of Daddy’s account number in the “19th Hole Grille.”

We’d pay our eight-dollars and proceed to play our rounds with stolen range balls from the Percy Warner Golf Park. It wasn’t even called a course... It was a golf park for the love of Robert Trent Jones! But it was great. No worries. No score sheets. No 20-dollar Titleist golf gloves. And no tees, most of the time.

We wore basketball shoes with the laces untied. The name “FootJoy” sounded sissy.

That’s when golf was golf. Real golf. The way those Fifteenth Century Scots meant for the game to be enjoyed. When golf was real golf, players would hit a pebble around a natural course of sand dunes, rabbit runs and tracks using a stick or primitive “club”.

That's what WE did! Just the four of us on a Tuesday afternoon or Saturday morning — whenever the spirit moved.

But time got the best of us, and over the years we’ve all married — one of us got divorced — and now our Tuesday’s are full of client meetings, deadlines and inter-office “attitude seminars”. Our Saturday’s are spent with the kids at Chuck E. Cheese’s or in the front yard pulling weeds.

Ah, but I still love play. The wife lets me go out just about every other week and get in a round with some guys from work. It’s OK, but it's different.

Definitely different.

In high school, the winner was the guy who ended up losing the least amount of balls. Nowadays, losing a ball will get you called out at the next monthly staff meeting.

Back then, if you used your Putter on the tee-box, you automatically gained a stroke. Now, if I don’t take a good back swing with my Big Bertha Hawkeye VFT Driver, I’m automatically “in one… out two… hitting three”.

I used to actually look forward to hitting out of the sand. It was an adventure! Now, the sand trap means I didn’t read my trajectory correctly, or perhaps I just hit it “fat” — whatever the hell that means. The only guy who “hit it fat” at the Percy Warner Golf Park was T.J. He was an all-state Defensive Lineman. We all thought he was fat. Turns out he was just a much better athlete than the rest of us.

I had a really nice “approach shot” last week. Used to be, I’d have an “awesome, high one”. My “short game” is still the weakest part of my day on the course. A short game used to mean we’d finish playing before Stuart Olson had to check his blood sugar.

I’m getting older now, and I am beginning to realize that perspective has EVERYTHING to do with happiness. The difference between what is now and what was then has much less to do about the game of golf as it does the way I look at golf.

As with life, golf is so much more fun when you don’t treat the people around you as opponents. Why can‘t they just be there... with you... enjoying the game?

So what if your drive on the Par 5 doesn’t make it passed the women’s tee? We used to get a big laugh out of that sort of thing: “Attaboy, Ivey! Now you have to play the rest of the hole with your pants around your ankles!"

And who cares if you veer off-course every once in a while? There is beauty in the rough, sometimes.

Sure, I want to be better than I am right now. I even get embarrassed from time to time by the way I perform. My game isn’t all that it could or should be. But sometimes, shouldn’t it be enough to just play?

(Perspective, shmer-spective… I still think “FootJoy” sounds sissy.)