My Dad
You were a hero.
You remain a modest soldier, a reluctant, unsung hero.
You were a diplomat, a communicator and a peace maker for all.

You were a builder, an engineer of fine doll houses,
A constructor of intricate machines for the common good
.
You were a teacher when men knew not what to do with them.

You were a humble leader, an example of the ordinary person who does extraordinary things.

You are the climber of buildings, of mountains. The pathfinder; you were a monkey, a stuntman, and most of all, the humorist with the quick smile and quip.

You are the listener. I have seen you give your undivided attention to your mate, and I have learned this is an unequaled gift.

You are a model human, someone no man may ever live up to, in these eyes.

You are the defender, the protector. You rallied for the cause.

You are a farmer, a cultivator, and a wise man beyond words.

You are an enchanting story teller, always humored by your own memories.
You are an entrepreneur.
You chose your own path.
It was most certainly the one far less travelled.

Highland School

I grew up two blocks from an elementary school (grades Kindergarten to grade 6. Kindergarten, hmmm, sounds Germanic to me. I wonder what that means...) I can remember many vivid images from my early school days:

The most profound audio memory was of a very loud buzzer that rang periodically during the day, for the start and end of the school day, and the start and end of the lunch period. I can remember going home to eat lunch and running back to school when that buzzer went off. Life by the bell. Little did I know what was to follow...

The school itself was a very large stone structure that seemed to be very old. The third floor was condemned, and was off limits to the students, so we were always sneaking up there to explore. We would sneak up there, look around, get excited, make noise, and get caught and sent to the principal's office in a pattern that repeated itself many times.

We had a small library at the school, too. That's where I got my first library card, and where I first really got into reading books. I enjoyed the fact that I could pick out whatever book interested me, and not have to settle for reading a book that some adult said was "good for me." That started me on a long happy relationship with books and reading.

Play periods outside the building consisted of many activities involving balls: dodgeball was a perennial favorite. We got into a circle and threw that red spongy ball as hard as we could at the person across the circle. We also played softball, and stickball, and as a consequence, a lot of our balls ended up on the roof of the school, where they stayed until the semi annual cleaning of the roof by the custodian. He would go up to the roof at lunchtime, and toss the accumulation of orphaned balls down on us like rain. The event was always looked forward to by the students. We fought over the choice balls, too. The big kids usually got the best ones.

The playground of the school was a paved blacktop affair, with a dozen large trees providing shade, and also providing a place to play with marbles. When I was a kid, everyone had a bag of marbles of all sizes. The largest ones were the most prized, and every kid had his favorite shooter. We never drew a circle and knocked marbles around within it, instead we used to aim our shooters at the pockets that formed along the base of the tree between the tree's roots. The goal was to sink the marble into the pocket. Sort of like miniature golf in a way.

Baseball cards also figured into the equation, too. Along the foundation of the school building were windows with ledges that would fit a baseball card perfectly. Kids would toss their cards toward the window ledge, and if the card landed on the ledge, he won. Next in value was if you could make your card lean on the window sill, and the last rule was the person who got his card closest to the window would win if no one got a "Sill" or a "Leaner."

The school was set on a sloping piece of property, and as a result, the back of the school was a good four feet lower than the front of the building. This left the rear of the building with a very cool four foot ramp that was used as a bicycle jump. If you drove your bike across the parking lot as fast as you could you could cause both wheels to leave the ground when you hit the ramp. We spent a lot of time airborne.

Back then modified motorcycles called "Choppers" were very popular. We kids used to emulate their look by using a hacksaw to cut off the front forks of a broken bicycle. We would then put the two fork pieces onto the front forks of our bikes to extend them and get that chopper look. The local department store, J.M. Fields, carried chrome sissy bars that you would attach to your extended banana seat, and presto, a nine year old kid had a version of a motorcycle. Baseball cards or balloons clipped onto the frame and making contact with the spokes of the wheels provided the proper audio ambiance. Seeing our homemade "Choppers" flying into the air in the school ground was quite the sight.

In the front of the school was a large field that we used for kite-flying. Our little legs made that field seem very large. Eventually they built a modern addition onto the front of the school to provide a proper gymnasium and cafeteria for the students. It looked totally out of place with the old main building. This building would also house the principal's office and a few classrooms. Compared with the old main building, this new addition was very nice. Everything worked properly and was clean. The cafeteria was combined with an auditorium. I think they had a snappy name for the combination, something like "The Cafetorium." It was sort of a dining room with a stage on one end. It was on that stage that I got my first performing experiences. It instilled in me the seeds of a future performance career.

I had an occasion to return to the school before it was condemned and torn down. The city kept the windows boarded up, and I happened to be driving by when I caught sight of a city pickup truck in the school parking lot. City workers were there doing some repair work. I talked my way into the building and gave myself a tour. The new addition was all beat up, and the roof leaked all over the wooden floor of the gym, ruining it. I worked my way to the old main building and went straight up the the "off limits" third floor. This once magestic building still showed signs of elegance, and I was taken by the sheer size of the building. The ceilings had to be more than twenty feet high. In direct contrast to the huge rooms were the tiny desks and chairs. The drinking fountains in the halls barely reached my knee. I can remember standing on my tippytoes to reach that very same water fountain. The deterioration caused by water damage from the leaking roof was very advanced. There would be no saving of this building. As I walked from room to room I paused and looked into them all, remembering all of my different classrooms over the time I spent there. The memories were quite spectacular to me. I touched on emotions that had been dormant for many years.

When I read in the newspaper that the old school was going to be razed because of safety concerns, I headed there for one last minute of nostalgia. As the bulldozers and cranes knocked the building to the ground, I felt saddened by the finality of the moment.

The original part of the building had a unique off white color to the brickwork, and I was able to take one of those special bricks with me. The emotion caused by looking at that brick runs deep within me. You can never go home.

Racy
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Heat Wave
So there I was
lying in bed late at night
it's too sticky, so humid I can't sleep
despite the 4 fans that are running full blast.
I'm laying there, looking up at the rickety old ceiling fan hung precariously over my head
watching it wobble like a kid's top that's starting to slow down, spinning in wider and wider arcs on my ceiling
wondering when the thing will finally tumble down and finish me off
Tomorrow's headline
Man dies quietly in his sleep
only the fan will know the truth

Ah, living in the city
I can hear the whirring of one hundred air conditioners
the motor noises penetrating the quiet of the neighborhood
all I can think of is, I bet those lucky people haven't a clue

Blug, blug, blug
my neighbor motors up to his place across the street from me
He's drunk
again

I know he's loaded because after he steps out of his vehicle, he starts to climb his front stairs
he gets to the top stair, then turns around and goes back down
where he lifts a bottle of beer to his lips and drains it
before retracing his steps up to his place

He has a wonderful stereo system
which he cranks up this morning at 2 A.M.
Blasting grunge into the night
Oh, lucky me
Usually he's cool about cranking up the tunes
and turns things down at a reasonable hour
Not tonight, though

So I lay there
and the humidity compounds my frustration with the roar of music from across the street
and I wonder
doesn't ANYONE else hear that racket?
isn't anyone else gonna call in the local cops to restore peace and quiet in my little corner of the world?
I guess no, not tonight

After what seems an eternity
the stereo goes silent
and I respond with a silent hurrah
and right as I start to drift off to sleep I hear
what sounds like a gunshot
oh shit, I suppose I ought to look

It's a kid with a huge rock
and he's tossing it at the side of a van parked on the corner
he must have issues with the van driver

Life in the city. Sigh.

Racy
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