Christmas Eve In West Milford

It always snowed on Christmas Eve when I was growing up. Or at least that’s the way I remember it. Snow falling down. Relatives falling down. Snow letting up. Relatives getting up. Me, standing at the picture window, a little too entertained by the ice capades in the driveway as my aunts and uncles arrived and made the delicate journey to the front door.

Some did better than others. My Uncle Allan, an athlete in his younger years, glided gracefully from car to house, steadying my Aunt Jean with his free hand. Uncle Sam, an avid golfer, had trouble with his short game in the poorly lit driveway, often taking up a big divot where his rump rammed into the ice. Par for the course for him, I’m afraid.

They came from the suburbs and cities, my relatives, making the trek to the mountaintop home my dad called the Ponderosa and where my parents hosted Christmas Eve dinner each year. We lived in a rural New Jersey town called West Milford, about 40 miles northwest of New York City. To many in the family, it was a place to enjoy the fresh air and wide open spaces of the country. Or, on Christmas Eve, to squeeze into our cramped 1,000 square foot ranch house and hope that the deviled eggs my mother prepared wouldn’t trigger a man-made greenhouse effect of lethal gases.   

As tradition had it, the kids were allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve. It was your tough luck if that turned out to be socks or pajamas. Before you took a moment to sulk, you were expected to hold up the socks or pajamas, wave them excitedly in the air, and yell across the room, “Wow, thanks, grandma – they’re just what I wanted!”

The adults would exchange gifts, too, often relaying a colorful story to underscore the specialness of their selection.

“I stopped at six stores to find that snow globe,” someone would announce heroically. “They don’t make that one anymore.” Maybe that’s for a good reason, I would think.

Sometimes a hot new toy would grab the spotlight, like the year my brothers Bob and Jim got some Matchbox cars and a ten foot long strip of plastic racetrack. Again and again, they would perch their miniature cars at the top of the elevated plastic track and watch them scurry along on their predictable journey to the end of the coffee table. Though they are grown men now and would deny it vehemently, in the heat of their Matchbox mania they could be heard to yell things like “Wicked!” and “Wow – Cool!” and even “In your face, herk-a-merk!” (I have no memory of the origins of the term “herk-a-merk” but knowing the banter of brothers I have no doubt that it was meant to be hurtful.)

My Aunt Sue would often bring a date to the festivities. A Stan. Or a Glen. Or a Byron. There would be the inevitable whispered comparisons to the previous year’s date, with comments like “Glen’s no Stan,” or “When did she break up with Byron?” or (cruelly) “What a total herk-a-merk.”

Surveying the proceedings from the sidelines were the revered elders of the tribe, Grandpa Herman from my mother’s side, and Grandma Bessie from my father’s side.

Grandpa Herman would sit silently for long stretches of time, sipping his Pabst Blue Ribbon and smiling softly at the commotion going on around him. Lulled by his Zen-like stillness, at some point in the evening I would slide into the next seat, greeting him with a casual, “How you doing, Grandpa?” In response, he would grab my knee in a vise-like grip, his eyes gleaming wickedly as he squeezed until all feeling left my leg and I lost consciousness.

“You’re his favorite, you know,” my mother would say later, after they revived me and packed my leg in ice.

“I know,” I’d say. “It’s when he stops crushing my knee caps that I’ll worry.”

Grandma Bessie was also content to watch from the periphery of things, a piece of pie or a slab of cake at her disposal. I’d slide into the seat next to her, hungry for her wisdom and inquisitive nature.

“Do you think your parents would mind if I took my girdle off?” she would ask me, shifting uneasily on her creaking folding chair.

“You mean right here?” I blurted.

“No, no. I meant in the bathroom.”

“I don’t think they’d care,” I ventured. “But there’s a line for the bathroom and the estimated waiting time is 35 minutes.”

“What if I do it behind the pile of coats in the bedroom?”

“Go for it,” I urged supportively. “I’ll save your seat.”

Actually, as I look back with nostalgia at those Christmas Eves of my boyhood, in my mind I’m still saving a seat for everyone. For Grandma Bessie and Grandpa Herman. For Aunt Sue. For Uncle Allan and Aunt Jean. For Uncle Bobby and Aunt Gail. For Aunt Shirley and Uncle Sam. For Aunt Janet. For Cousins Allan and Dawn. For Cousins Jenn and Diane. For my brothers, Bob and Jim. And most of all, for my parents, Al and Marge, who made the West Milford Christmas Eves a holiday tradition that will warm my heart and burn bright in my memory for as long as I live.

And some day, when my turn comes again to open just one Christmas Eve present, I will hold my socks or pajamas high, wave them gleefully in the air, and yell with joy and gratitude...

“Wow, thanks everyone – it’s just what I wanted!”

Thanksgiving Throwback: Battle For The Biscuit

 

For as far back as I can remember, Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday. No cards, no gifts, just say “grace” and begin the gluttony.

While my mother would awake at some absurdly early hour to prepare a feast that would make a pilgrim weep with gratitude, my two brothers and I were interested in only one thing. The biscuits.

When loading our plates with food, we each left ample room for the flaky golden delicacies, begrudgingly adhering to the one-at-a-time rule my parents had established after the “Biscuit Blitzkrieg of ’81.” On that infamous Thanksgiving Day, 90 percent of the biscuits landed in two of the five mouths at the table, and the battle for the last biscuit was fierce and vindictive.

I can still hear my mother say, “There, now neither of you gets it,” as she extracted it from the combined clutches of my brother Bob and I and devoured it in two lusty, unladylike bites.

Today, I still covet the biscuits at Thanksgiving dinner. Especially the last one. In fact, I’ve been known to fight for it. So, to my tablemates present and future, the question I must ask you is this:

“Are you going to step away from the bread basket,
or are we going to have a problem here?”

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. And just to show that there’s no hard feelings, please help yourself to my share of the candied yams.

 

Off The Top Of My Head

It’s time to clean out my mental closet and clear away a bottleneck of notions, reflections and ramblings.

• To the inventor of the sandwich, British statesman John Montagu, I say: Thank you Earl of Sandwich for following your impulse to stick your beloved meat between two slices of bread. You changed lunch. You changed the world. 

• At my high school reunion, a perky blonde girl was now a chunky bald man. The years can be cruel.

• We now have one of those single-cup coffee systems at the office that brews over 250 different beverages. Early Favorites: Lady Gag Gag Latte and Gas Station Goo.

 

• Wisdom From The Word Guy: Watch your tone: While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, if you keep repeating everything someone just said using a high-pitched, cartoonish voice, your flattery may get you punched in the face.

• Tried to watch some of the World Series last October but found myself lured away by ANYTHING ON ANY OTHER CHANNEL.

• When I was 17 I was attacked by a wolf. I can still see his snarling face and smell the stench of wild rabbit on his breath. I cried "Wolf! Wolf!" but no one came because of my reputation for joking around. It was a lesson learned the hard way.

• I had that dream again where I'm living in a Winnebago outside of Forest City, Iowa with a small battery-powered TV and a collection of cologne bottles.

• How's everyone doing ... good? How 'bout this weather we've been having? Did you lose some weight? Any plans for the weekend? (Just sharing my gift for small talk. I'm here all week. Thanks for coming.)

• Part II of my series, "Living With Ambiguity," may or may not air tonight on PBS, ABC or some other network with letters in it.

• When the library security guard informed me I couldn't eat in there, I said "Even tunafish?" The question made no sense of course, but in some strange way it gave me the momentary dignity of being the victim of an unjust system.

• The Beatles. They had that one hit - Norwegian Wood - and that was it. So sad these one-song-and-gone bands.

• You know your exploration of wine has reached an advanced stage when you find yourself in a store holding a bottle with a familiar label and thinking "I know I’ve had this one before, but did I love it or hate it?"

• Someone grumbled that they do their best proofreading after they hit send.  That sure hits homme with me.

• Photo Faux Pas: When someone’s taking a picture and you’re on the far end of a group shot, ignore the fear that you’ll be cut out of the photo and refrain from doing an exaggerated lean-in. If you get partially cut out, the photographer will be the one at fault. If you lean in too far and ruin the photo, you’ll forever be the bozo who blocked out Aunt Adeline on her 100^th birthday. So relax, smile, and don’t block out Aunt Adeline.

 

• Actual catalog ad I read about a manual typewriter: "Devoid of technological crutches such as spell-check and deletion, The Wordsmith Manual Typewriter encourages the patient, considered sentiment of a wordsmith who thinks before writing." Perfect. Now I can slow things down and clickety-clack my way to a thoughtful 75 words of stunning insight. If the whiteout holds up I should be done by next month.

• My rejected name for the royal baby: Prince Ethan Alan William "Wally" Worchestershire. (I still think it was the right choice.)

• Apology to Joe Blow: While talking about possibly buying a new car, I said this to my wife - "I don't want to pay what Joe Blow pays." That was unfair. You didn't deserve that, Joe Blow, and I regret making the remark. Please accept my sincere apology. And by the way, if you don't mind me asking, what did you pay for your new Camaro?

• I feel blessed to live at a time in human history when multigrain baguettes are readily available and a man need not feel self-conscious to say the words "multigrain baguettes."

• You ever notice that when you need about 20 seconds to accomplish some small task in your car you never hit a red light, but when you have absolutely nothing to do in your car you hit every red light and they all seem to last about 5 minutes?

• My new line of rainwear is out. "AlWilly WetRobe" is a fashion-forward two-ply polypropylene poncho that keeps your clothes dry and your style slick. Available at Big Lots and finer Space For Lease stores.

• Gotcha, For Dummies book series! The title of your latest edition, Bankruptcy For Dummies, makes the usual attempt at ridicule, but the joke's on you. The fact that I know nothing about bankruptcy is because I'm financially stable, which makes me pretty smart. Who's a dummy now, For Dummies dimwits? In your face!

• While reading an article about the U.S. Ice Fishing Federation I ran across the phrase "fish officials." Maybe it's because I'm a word guy, but the inadvertent wackiness of that phrase gave me a cheap thrill I'll savor for days. (No disrespect to fish officials intended.)

• I strained my back yesterday running slowly over a mildly sloping speed bump. On the bright side, my tailpipe was not damaged in the incident.

• Wisdom From The Word Guy: Using a foreign accent when you're visiting a country where you don't speak the language will not aid your communications efforts. You may even get thrown in jail for being a public nuisance where you'll wait approximately four months to speak to an attorney. Happy travels!

 

Kings Of Vegas

Let me set the scene for you. As a race car driver determined to win the Vegas Grand Prix, I need some quick cash to buy a new high-powered engine for my car. But it’s my heart that’s racing when I meet a woman who distracts me from my mission -- curvaceous swimming instructor Ann Margret. It’s a razzle-dazzle Vegas funfest of sexy showgirls, roaring race cars, and risk-it-all adventure when I take you along for a wild ride I like to call “Viva Las Vegas: Debauchery in the Desert.”

Now that I’ve got you onboard, allow me to announce a few minor changes to our story that will in no way detract from the high-voltage excitement and glittering Vegas glamour that you crave. Instead of a race car driver hell-bent on winning the Vegas Grand Prix, I’m a middle-aged ad writer with acid reflux and an enlarged prostate. I accept my brother’s invitation to join him and six of his buddies in splitting two hotel rooms and a couple of rental cars eight ways so we can do a long weekend in Vegas for roughly the amount of money one would spend for an afternoon of bowling. Oh, and if that scenario isn’t tantalizing enough, my brother can’t walk much because he’s recovering from double foot surgery and one of our roommates is a guy named “Fudd.”

Ready for an adrenalin rush of electrifying Vegas action? Then say goodbye to the dull and dreary, strap yourself in, and let’s hit the highlights.

Barbarians at the Buffet. There are two things that everyone does in Las Vegas – gamble and eat. Some will try and get the most food for the least amount of money to conserve funds for gambling. Others will spare no expense enjoying lavish meals at swank restaurants because they view it as part of an overall vacation experience to be savored and remembered. The first group is commonly known as “men.” The second group let’s categorize as “women.” Since this trip was men only, the dining strategy was simple: belly up to a buffet once a day, load up on starchy, high-carb chow, and then periodically toss down a pizza slice or hot dog to maintain that feeling of bloated grogginess.

Frolicking with Slots. As an unsophisticated gambler of modest means, I invest 100 percent of my dinero at the slot machines. This means I get to lose just as much money as the table players and the high rollers without all the social stimulation and entertainment. My big win came at a machine called “Top Dollar” that landed me in a bonus spin for $250. My big loss came at an Elvis machine where I was mesmerized by video clips of The King singing “Heartbreak Hotel” while pumping in $140 that found a new place to dwell. My standard facial expression in both situations was a trance-like stupor that I learned from my fellow slot addicts. The machines are programmed to sense emotion, so experienced players never show vulnerability.  Pretend you’ve slipped into a coma and you just might lull an older Wheel of Fortune machine into coughing up a halfway decent jackpot.   

“Funny Man” George Wallace. While other hotels foolishly squandered small fortunes to secure the likes of Bette Midler, Penn and Teller, Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil, our adopted dorm, the Flamingo Hotel, slyly recruited alleged comedian George Wallace.   Prominently placed posters throughout the casino proclaimed Wallace’s act as “The Best 10 P.M. Show in Vegas.” Now, I’m no connoisseur of live shows at Las Vegas casinos that start promptly at 10 p.m., but based on the clips of Wallace’s performance shown on our in-room hotel promo channel, the other entertainment options at the hour must have been a trash talking parrot act and “The Hand Shadow Magic of Dobbs Honda and His Portable Partitions.” Here’s a taste of Wallace’s wit and wisdom: “I saw a guy with a bumper sticker that said ‘How’s my driving?’ Am I supposed to follow this idiot around and watch him drive?” My response: “Yes, and when you come back, bring some funny stuff.”

Hanging With the J-Man. My brother Jim is the perfect tour guide for cruising the Las Vegas casino scene. Unlike our travel companions Fudd, Bucky, Screech, Zippy, Weasel and Mr.Eko, he doesn’t let day-long golf outings lure him away from the Vegas Strip and its opportunities for personal enrichment. As an accomplished black jack player, Jim gave me a crash course on the intricacies of the game.

Jim: Ace is 1 or 11.

Me: Uh huh.

Jim: The dealer must hit on all hands 16 and below.

Me: Uh huh.

Jim: Dealer must stand on all hands 17 and above.

Me: Uh huh.

Jim: You don't always need 21 to win, often you're playing for the dealer to bust.

Me: Uh huh.

Jim: Always assume the next card dealt will be a 10.

Me: Uh huh.

Jim: Money is made when you split or double.

Me: Uh huh.

Jim: Any questions?

Me: You up for playing the slots?

Perhaps the single most memorable moment of the trip came on a breezy, easygoing night out on the Strip after an exhausting day canvassing the far corners of cavernous casinos hoping to score free drinks from waitresses trained to avoid us like the plague. Jim and I paused in front of the breathtaking fountains of the Bellagio Hotel. The dancing waters soared. The lights twinkled and blazed. And somewhere in the mist, the ghostly, otherworldly voice of Celine Dion sang out the haunting words to The Titanic theme song “My Heart Must Go On.” With the warmth and spontaneity only two brothers could share, Jim reached over, gently touched my hand and, gazing into my eyes, said, “You owe me $15 for gas, slot boy.”

“Put it on my tab, James,” I mumbled in a drowsy Elvis drawl. “I’m meeting Ann Margret for a mojito and then I’ve got a Grand Prix to win.”

 

###    

The Thrilling Adventures of Task Man

As I picked up the stray piece of shredded cheddar cheese from the kitchen floor, my eye glimpsed something dark and menacing at the base of the refrigerator. Easy does it, I whispered under my breath, edging cautiously closer for a better look. Suddenly, chillingly, the repulsive ugliness of the situation hit me, sending me clattering back against the kitchen cabinets.

          “Galloping Greyhounds!” I bellowed, for that was my superhero rallying cry when duty called. The dust and crud that had accumulated on the refrigerator vent plate wasn’t going anywhere without a fight. There would be violence and horror and the kind of grunting sounds professional tennis players make when they’re trying to pound the ball. This was no task for an average civilian armed with a common household cleaner. No, my friends, this was a job for . . . ta-da-da-dut-da-da . . . Task Man!

          Now, while some superheroes might regale you with the gory details of the battle that ensued, that’s not how Task Man operates. Suffice it to say that the evil coating of crud that had invaded the refrigerator vent plate was vanquished and all signs of the epic struggle erased. Problem solved. Harmony restored. Best of all, the homeowner, a Mrs. A. Williamson, was left blissfully unaware of the narrowly averted disaster. THAT’S the Task Man way. Quick. Clean. No big scene.

          But wait. What’s that you say? It really is the gory details you want? Okay sicko, you asked for it. I give you this recent episode from the Task Man case files to satisfy your vile craving.

For weeks, a man I will refer to only as “Al Willy” had trouble shaving with his Norelco Reflex Plus electric shaver. The appliance, which normally emitted a robust buzzing sound, was making faint humming noises, not unlike those associated with an aging Paul Simon. A routine grooming task that once took Al Willy only two minutes had now become a five to seven minute skirmish that would often draw blood and leave him visibly shaken and scruffy.

Enter Task Man. One night while Al Willy slept, this chore-crushing crusader crept into the bathroom and sprang the Norelco Reflex Plus from an unguarded medicine cabinet. Prying the triple-headed rotary blade unit from the motor housing, I gasped and staggered back at the putrid proliferation of filth that poured forth. “Galloping Greyhounds!” I roared, though I kept it to a dull roar given that it was the middle of the night and people were sleeping nearby.

Each rotary blade was incased in an immovable band of solid filth and shaving stubble, unable to rotate, unable to shave. I wondered: What kind of depraved madman would neglect to clean out his razor for months on end?  I thought of taking the shaver into Al Willy’s bedroom and shaking its crude contents down his open mouth while he snored. But Task Man was not there to judge. My job was purely pragmatic. Fill what was empty. Empty what was full. Fix what was broken. With daylight about to signal the dawning of a new day, I finished painstakingly hand cleaning each rotary disc, reassembled the shaver, and went to slip out a side door at the far end of the house.

But what’s this? The once steadfast door leading out to the garage was squeaking mournfully, pitifully. Probably hadn’t had its hinges oiled in years. Pulling a small canister of silicone spray from a hidden compartment in my boxer briefs, I took dead aim and doused the shrieking hinges, flicking the door back and forth until it settled into a genial silence. Another job well done. All in a day’s work for the amazing Task Man.

Meanwhile, back in the bathroom, a groggy Al Willy plugs his Norelco Reflex Plus into the wall, splashes some pre-shave lube on his face, and begins to work the shaving head across his stubbled cheek. “Galloping Greyhounds!” he exclaims. “It’s a miracle! I’m getting the closest, smoothest shave I’ve had in months!”

Feeling a strange bulge in his underwear, he reaches down to find a small, half-empty canister of silicone spray.

          “Well that’s weird,” he mutters. “How did that get there?”

          It was a mystery, to be sure, but one that would have to be explored some other time. For the day was new and there were places to go, people to see and tasks to be tackled.

          Man, were there tasks.

###

The Repair Impaired

Good handymen are hard to find so I’ll save you some time. I’m not one of them. In fact, anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to my repair work, things often get worse before they get better.

         Ask me to fix a ceiling fan and there’s a good chance I’ll short out all your electricity leaving you sitting in the dark waiting for a breeze that comes only when the fan falls from its hanging bracket knocking you unconscious. Ask me to see what I can do about your noisy dryer and odds are you’ll be noise-free in no time as you hang your next load of laundry from the clothesline I rigged up in your backyard after turning your MayTag into a motionless mass not unlike New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

         My toolbox is a sad symbol of my repair limitations. It contains a hammer, nine different sizes of the same screwdriver, some bent nails left over from hard-knock picture hangings, plus a lifetime supply of miscellaneous scraps of junk such as wire, twine, assorted washers and two-way tape.

         Not only am I ill-equipped to put any of my toolbox items to practical use, I have actually had the shameful bad luck of injuring myself while reaching into the toolbox to get something out. Now, we all have our levels of mechanical aptitude, but I think it fair to say that it takes a special talent to draw blood while rummaging around for something in the bottom of your tool case. If I’ve learned anything from my home repair experiences, it’s that once you’re bleeding, the project tends to go sharply downhill from there.

         No one knows my fix-it flaws better than my wife. The minute something goes wrong, she tactfully maneuvers to nip my home repair misadventures in the bud. When our automatic sprinkler system failed to go off last week, she launched her usual lobbying effort for outside help.

         “Maybe you can call Tommy in the morning,” she gently suggested, referring to the handyman who’s replaced or repaired everything from doors to toilets at our place.

         “I’ll take a look at it, it might be something simple,” I proposed optimistically. Some people just never learn.

         The next morning, after a hardy breakfast and several cups of coffee, I arrived at the job site, otherwise known as the side of my house.

         Using my finely-tuned powers of observation, I swiftly determined that the sprinkler system had not been abducted by aliens as there were no crop circles carved in my lawn and the PVC pipes and electrical box were free of green slime. Encouraged, I checked each of the four sprinkler zones, flicking the switch from automatic to manual and canvassing the yard in search of blocked sprinkler heads or idle zones. Again, no signs of trouble, other than the fact that I had somehow managed to water myself more than the lawn.

         As I came full circle, I stooped to pull a weed out of the grass when it hit me. No, I don’t mean a light bulb went off in my head. What hit me was a stream of water in the ass. Turns out the big green cap that sits on top of the pipes had a crack in it reminiscent of the Liberty Bell. Investigating further, I found that the technical term for the big green cap was a “hydro-indexing valve,” an item that I had about as much chance of repairing as a heat shield on the space shuttle.

         Two phone calls and $126 later I had a fixed sprinkler system and the satisfaction of knowing I made the right move in hiring someone to do the job. But being repair impaired, it’s never long before another problem around the house puts you face to face with your limitations. In the next two weeks, I paid to have a ficus tree cut down, a garage door opener repaired, and a toilet unclogged.  When a crank handle on one of our old awning windows broke, I vowed to take on the job.

         First, I unscrewed the bolts that hold the crank mechanism to the window frame. Next, I slid the crank arm along the track in the window’s side-mounted hinges. Then, pulling the mechanism away from the window, I inspected the crank handle, arm and gear assembly. Sounds like I knew what I was doing, right? Wrong.

         When I saw the badly bent crank arm, it all came back to me. This was a crank handle that I had installed years ago. The arm didn’t fit the window’s hinge track right so I “modified” it by hitting it repeatedly with a hammer and mangling it to fit. The result is a window that you can only crank closed once before the arm jumps its track and leaves you spinning the handle in vain.

         Knowing I had hit the outskirts of my abilities once again, I did what any self-aware repair impaired man would do. I forced the twisted arm into the hinge, cranked the window closed, packed up my tools and left. Hell, in my book, that’s a successful repair.

         The only thing left to do is lecture my wife. I believe her frequent and frivolous opening and closely of windows may be inflating our energy bills.

Photo Faux Pas

If you’re ever with a group of people having their photo taken and you’re tempted to make that thumbs-up gesture, don’t. It almost always looks annoyingly dorky.

Also, when you’re on the far end of a group shot, ignore the fear that you’ll be cut out of the photo and refrain from doing an exaggerated lean-in. If you get partially cut out, the photographer will be the one at fault. If you lean in too far and ruin the photo, you’ll forever be the bozo who blocked out Aunt Adeline on her 100^th birthday.

So relax, smile, and don’t block out Aunt Adeline.

And really, Blinky – is it too much to ask to have you keep your eyes open for a couple of seconds?

Big Ed

My father-in-law and I were about as opposite as you could get. Ed Lisoski was a night owl, always finding a reason to stay up well past midnight. I was a morning person, trading late-night merriment for pre-dawn runs and sunrise solitude. Whenever my wife Sherry and I stayed with her mom and dad, I always had some version of this conversation with him around 11 p.m.

Ed: “You want some roast beef, Al? How about a shot and a beer?”

Me: “I just brushed my teeth and was heading to bed.”

Ed: (Surprised): “Oh ... sure ... ok, old buddy. See you in the morning.”

I always felt like a party pooper around Ed, which underscores another notable difference between us: He loved a big party, I liked small get-togethers, especially ones that ended by 11 p.m.  During my first few years in the family I was repeatedly distressed by outings that stretched on way past my stamina and hunger for revelry.

One particular Elks club dinner epitomized the pattern. The night started out with a crowd of about 200 people, a live band, open bar and enough food to stuff a herd of actual Elk. I ate, I drank, I even danced. At some point, I noticed the crowd was thinning out as the evening cycled down. I was ready to join the exodus. Ed had other plans.

“Everyone’s leaving, why are we still here?” I asked Sherry despairingly.

“Dad’s having a good time. He wants to be here when they end the evening with the Elks’ absent brothers toast and sing Auld Lang Syne.”

“They’re putting all the chairs on the tables and vacuuming,” I pointed out, embracing my role as a wet blanket.

Oh me of little faith. With Ed leading the search party, an authorized Elks officer was rounded up and the handful of us left at the lodge did the toast and sang Auld Lang Syne like it was midnight, New Year’s Eve.

Ed: "How about a shot and a beer, buddy?"

Me: “I was thinking more like a bed and some shut eye.”

Ed: (Surprised): “Oh ... sure ... yeah, you look tired. Better get some sleep.”

Ed was a man of big appetites and one of his cravings was the daily news. He was a newspaper junkie and, in addition to the paper he had delivered to the house, he would pick up an assortment of local rag sheets in his travels. Often, without any obvious relevance to other people in the room, he would read some random story out loud.

“Thief Steals Wooden Sign From Local Park,” he’d announce, broadcasting some yawn-inducing headline.

“Is that a park you go to?” I’d ask, expecting a connection.

“No, no. I don’t know where that park is,” he’d say, looking up at me blankly.
 
I finally realized over the years that Ed was just the kind of guy that wanted to share with you whatever he had. Sometimes it was a shot and a beer. Sometimes it was the Pizzelle cookies he was so fond of making for friends and family. Sometimes it was a Polish song he loved ... or just a story in a community paper.

Ed passed away on July 27, 2013 after battling various ailments and physical setbacks, including six years as a dialysis patient, having one of his legs amputated, and being confined to a wheelchair for the last three years of his life. He was 92, but even as his body wore out and frailty diminished his once robust presence, he never stopped being the larger than life Big Ed that marked the majority of his time on Earth.

Ed packed his life fuller than most. He was a proud ex-Marine who served his country as a Master Tech Sergeant during World War II. Before retiring, he relished his work testing new car design enhancements at General Motors. He loved his Polish heritage, music of all eras, dancing, hunting and fishing. He was devoted to his wife Leona, daughter Charlene (a.k.a. – Sherry), son Dennis, and his many nieces, nephews and godchildren.

I was Ed's son-in-law, but that description is way too formal to capture how he treated me. Ed had a way of making everyone feel special, and he always made me feel like his other son. He called me "Aloosh" or "Old Buddy" and even in his downward spiral toward the end always wanted to know what was going on in my world.

Big Ed was a people person with a great curiosity and zest for life. I'll always remember him that way and admire his courage and fighting spirit when times got tough. Love you, Dad L. I will miss you every day.

Ed: "How about a shot and a beer, old buddy?"

Me: “I was hoping you’d ask again. Count me in.”

The BBQ Meatloaf and Bavarian Cream Puff Diet

It sounds bizarre, I know. In fact, it makes no sense at all. A classic example of mystical new age mumbo jumbo. The stuff of Internet exaggeration and word of mouth gone wild. Surely there’s not a single shred of truth to it.

Well . . . that’s what I thought, too. But the thing is, The BBQ Meatloaf and Bavarian Cream Puff Diet has changed my life. And it can change your life, too. Let me explain.

Seven months ago my world was in a shambles. I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and what I saw filled me with shame and hopelessness. That bright young man who once burned with such passion and promise had been replaced by a middle-aged zombie with a gut big enough to house Reese Witherspoon.

It would be a long road back, but I was convinced that my path to redemption had to begin with reclaiming my body. I started with the well-known diets that had produced big headlines and small waistlines. I tried them all – Atkins, The Zone, Jenny Craig, The South Beach Diet. In every case, my results were less then dramatic. So I kept searching, venturing deeper and deeper into more obscure dietary terrain.

I tried the Henry Winkler Grilled Cheese and Tomato Diet, but the melted cheese didn’t melt away the pounds. I tried Connie Chung’s “Fish Kabob Your Way to a Fabulous Body,” but couldn’t keep up the kabobing.

 I ate free-range Cornish game hens raised in Santo Domino by Benedictine monks. For awhile, I lived on potato pancakes handmade by a German farmer’s wife and shipped FedEx from Frankfort. I tried eating three big meals a day, then six small ones, then, as a last resort, just one large raisin a day topped with Cool Whip. Nothing seemed to click for me, until the improbable happened.

I was standing in the magazine section at Barnes & Noble flipping through the quarterly issue of a lesser known medical journal when I saw it. There, on page 83, was a report on the results of a five-year study conducted by nutrition researchers at the Crabtree University of Medicine in Shawshank, New York. Their findings were at once shocking and inspiring.

 A group of 217 chronically overweight heart patients who were fed nothing but BBQ meatloaf and Bavarian cream puffs from June of 2007 to April of 2012 had reached and maintained their target weights. What’s more, all 217 had overcome every trace of coronary heart disease and diabetes and were living lives of optimum health and well-being. Three had even won Pulitzer Prizes and two had become Supreme Court Judges, though none of them had any formal education beyond high school.

What, I wondered, could account for such an extraordinary resurgence of body, mind and spirit in people who had once been so desperate that they agreed to be guinea pigs in such a controversial experiment?

 These words from lead researcher Dr. Lamont Meredith put it all in sharp focus:

“The fats found in BBQ meatloaf are considered essential fats, because our body cannot manufacture them. BBQ fats in particular are used by the body to create “signaling molecules” that when balanced with the meatloaf as a protein source and the sugar in the cream puffs as a quick source of energy, work to stabilize insulin production, accelerate the metabolism, and safely burn body fat at record rates.”

 For me, it worked miracles. After only four months on The BBQ Meatloaf and Bavarian Cream Puff Diet, I’ve dropped 30 pounds, taken up kayaking, learned to play the Didgeridoo, built my own hot tub, and made the cover of Zesty Guy Magazine. Twice.

Can a diet consisting of BBQ meatloaf and Bavarian cream puffs really change someone’s life for the better you ask? I’m here to tell you: It changed mine. So get that sour taste of defeat out of your mouth and say “yes” to a yummy new way of life. 

Fueled by BBQ meatloaf and Bavarian cream puffs, you’re sure to find health, happiness and a world of exciting possibilities ahead. Maybe even a seat on the Supreme Court.

I guarantee you, no one on the Connie Chung Fish Kabob diet ever made it that far.

The Stoning

The human body is a mysterious thing. One minute it can be lying comfortably in bed without a care in the world. The next, it can be mimicking the feeling of a knife in the back, causing its owner to stagger into a bathroom, clutch a towel rack like a boxer on the ropes, and debate whether to die quietly or cry out to others.

But what exactly should I yell?

“I’ve been stabbed – please come quickly!” (That wasn’t really accurate, and the request for assistance felt halfhearted.)

“Someone help me – it’s an emergency!” (Using the universal someone allows everyone to tune out, and one man’s true emergency is another man’s search for toilet paper.)

“Help – I’m in pain!” (This is a plea that lacks context, inviting a range of off-target responses from “Can I get you some antacids?” to “Here’s my therapist’s card – she’s easy to talk to and very affordable.”)

By the time I finished debating what to yell the pain had subsided. So I took some aspirin, continued on with my morning, and chalked it all up to a strained back muscle.

Bad diagnosis, Dr. Alan.  

On average each year, kidney stones are responsible for more than 600,000 emergency rooms visits in the U.S. Two nights after my mysterious back pain first surfaced, I became part of that stone cold stat.

“You have a 7 millimeter kidney stone in your right ureter,” the ER doctor confirmed.

“Is that considered big?” I asked, not sure if I should picture a poppy seed or pop corn.

“Anything below 5 millimeters usually passes on its own,” he explained. “Above 5 millimeters and it’s less predictable.”

He had that right. After those first few hours in the ER, I was hospitalized for three days; put on IV fluids, morphine and nausea meds; released from the hospital with new pain meds; given home care instructions to flush the stone out naturally; and endured four days of excruciating discomfort and nausea as the pain would ramp up before the next doses of meds could be taken. And still, the stone loitered stubbornly in my ureter making my life a living hell.

Finally, a week after my trip to the emergency room, my urologist scheduled me to undergo shockwave lithotripsy, a procedure where you’re hooked up to a machine that generates high intensity sound waves to shatter the stone into smaller pieces inside your urinary tract. Sound like fun? Not unless you consider your body a video game battleground where the one who bags the biggest rock collection wins.

“How’d it go?” I asked back in the foggy ambiance of the recovery area. “Did the shockwaves work?”

“The stone wouldn’t shatter that way, but I nailed it,” the urologist reported with the cocky air of a video game scoring champ.

“You used a nail?” I probed uncomprehendingly, still dopey from the anesthesia.

“I put in a catheter and attacked it arthroscopically,” he clarified.  “After I pushed it back into your kidney, it fragmented into a pile of powder and gravel.”

“Clutch move,” I murmured. “Sorry I slept through it.”  

My post-procedure homework assignment was to carefully strain my urine for a week so I could bring in my game-winning gravel for analysis. I don’t mean to brag, but after handing over a sample for the lab tests I had enough left over to start my own line of kidney stone jewelry and collectibles.

The brochure the doctor gives you says that once you’ve had one kidney stone there’s about a 60 to 70% chance you’ll have another. The good news is that you can greatly lower the odds of recurrence by taking certain preventative steps. Having been through one stoning and lived to tell about it, I’m in.

Reduce animal proteins? Done deal.

Cut down on sodium? No sweat.

Watch my oxalate intake? A-okay.    

Drink enough water each day to fill the killer whale tank at Miami Seaquarium? Gulp ... I’m working on it.

Hey, if it will dilute my urine enough to keep crystals from gradually building into a rock-like mass that can send me back to kidney stone purgatory, I’m all for it.

Which reminds me. I need to find a bathroom. Wait, who am I kidding? With this kind of fluid intake, I need to find every bathroom.   

Be Our Guest

“Your room is waiting,” my wife cheerfully tells friends and relatives in far-flung corners of the country. It’s part of her ongoing “Southern Hospitality” campaign to tempt someone into a trip to Fort Lauderdale so she can coax them into spending a few nights in our seldom used guest bedroom.

“We never have house guests,” she says disappointedly. “And we live in a vacation paradise.”

 “House guests,” I hasten to remind her, “are like fish. After three days they start to stink, and after a week they stink in a way that makes fleeing in the night seem like a reasonable option.”

Still, living in a bona fide “vacation paradise,” we find ourselves making the obligatory open invitation to whoever’s on the other end of the phone. The wholeheartedness of the offer differs slightly, depending on whether it’s being issued by me or my wife.

Sherry: “Come on down. You’ll have your own bedroom and bathroom, a key to the house, and you’re a mile and a half from the beach.”

Me: “It’s hot as hell here but you’re welcome to come. The foldout’s not too painful, the bathroom has a door on it, and you can help yourself to what’s in the fridge -- barbecue sauce and seltzer.”

 It’s a natural fact that, by their very presence, even the best house guests disrupt the normal ebb and flow of their hosts’ daily lives. Prolonged visits can set free powerful feelings, including anguish, grief, loathing, rage, and finally, intense longing that the ordeal will eventually end.

To ensure that everyone maintains a protective layer of comfort and no one gets hurt, I find it’s a good idea to set down a few house rules before guests arrive. Mine are as follows:

 1)    No asking “if you’ve been having trouble with that toilet in there.” I haven’t. You’re on your own.

2)    No suggesting “we all go to that big flea market we heard about.” I’ve been and lived to tell about it. Now it’s your turn.

3)    No offering to “treat” if we go to some tacky tourist attraction with you. It won’t work. Just go, and leave the money on the dresser.

4)    No talking during any television show I’ve described as “one of the few things I look forward to watching every week.” In other words, “at the sound of a commercial, please give me your name and a brief message.”

5)    No walking around in your underwear before midnight.

6)    No walking around in your underwear after midnight.

7)    No walking around in my underwear at any time.

Make no mistake. We welcome guests at our home . . . we really do. I just know from experience that unless precautions are taken, there comes a breaking point that shatters the fragile harmony of a habitat holding too much humanity.

In retrospect, our guests should have seen it coming. My flushed face, my trembling lip, the festering hostility of a thousand frustrations coming to a head.  Maybe next time they’ll think twice about asking me where the fire extinguisher is while I’m watching Amish Mafia.