"It's not your birthday!"

In planning for Joan's birthday dinner Saturday afternoon, she codependently considered the children as she weighed her choices.

Evan, as I've chronicled before, is a notoriously picky eater. Painfully picky. "Why don't you wait in the car while we go in and eat?" picky. Lora is not so picky, she's just opinionated. She knows what she likes and where to get it.

Joan narrowed it down to three choices:

1. [local Italian bistro with the patio view of the traffic headache that is Highway 280]
2. [local seafood restaurant with the kicking catfish tenders]
3. [internationally-famous local rib joint]

Early polls indicated a preference for [seafood], as Joan had a craving for coconut shrimp. Evan was excited by this prospect, since he likes the chicken fingers there, though I tell him they fry them in fish grease.

[Aside: Are chicken fingers a product of poultry genetic engineering or something? When I was a child, chickens didn't have fingers. Or lips, either.]

Lora protested because seafood is on her short-list of won't-eats.

Then Joan leaned toward [ribs], which got Lora's and my attention. Yeah, a thick slab of juicy ribs with vinegary red sauce, tea sweet enough to give a zombie the shakes, and a pint of banana pudding to top it off. Lora's chant of "Ribs, ribs, ribs!" was overshadowed only by barfing sounds from Evan, who, it pains me deeply to report, "doesn't like bbq." The last time we ate at [ribs], he dodged flying sauce from my fingers while picking the onions out of a pint of potato salad with a spork, no less. Joan responded to his protests with a hearty "it's not your birthday!" but the gagging didn't stop.

Then Joan mentioned [Italian], home of the piping garlic rolls and gnarly eggplant parmesan, and the more she thought of Lora protesting seafood and Evan eating melba toast and Sweet'nLow at [ribs], she decided that [Italian] was the way to go.

Which broke Lora's heart. She lay face down on the ottoman and wailed, "I want to go to [ribs]!" She was inconsolable. "It's not your birthday!" Joan reasoned, but the wailing only got louder. I felt like crying, too, because I realized that [ribs] was now out of the question. Going to [ribs] after an outburst like that would concede all sorts of parental power to a pugnacious five-year-old, and bad as I could taste that sauce hours later in my goatee, I knew it was not to be.

So we ended up at [Italian]. Joan had a tasty loaded calzone, I had eggplant parmesan, Lora had spaghetti and meatballs, and Evan had a cheese calzone (the Italian counterpart to the cheese quesidillas he orders when we go to [local Mexican dive with the hottest salsa on the planet and tea sweet enough to rival that at [ribs]]).

"I have an idea," said Evan. "After we're done here, can we go ..."

"It's not your birthday!" said Joan and I, at the same time, as Lora dropped a fully-loaded 7-Up onto the patio floor.

Joan's Fortieth

Joan turned forty today.

It makes me old to think that I have a forty-year-old wife. And that I was around when she turned twenty. And that we've been together over half our lives. Wow.

I think for her first birthday I got her an add-a-bead necklace. Anyone remember those? Yeah, I don't think she was impressed either.

This year has been tough on both of us, as a couple and individually, so I thought it best to test the waters before acquiesing to the pull-something-over-on-someone crap that is mandatory on birthdays that end in zero. Her response? "Under no circumstances am I to be made the center of attention, anywhere, at any time." Rather vague, no? I abided her wishes through firestorms of protest from some of her well-meaning friends, even though they thought me either a cold-hearted bastard or a walking manifestion of male cluelessness, of which I am neither, I must say. Some people just have to learn things for themselves.

Joan had a prior obligation for tonight, so we did her celebratory dinner Saturday night at [local Italian bistro with the patio view of the traffic headache that is Highway 280]. Yesterday we gifted her with birthday bounty. Zelda is a writer, too, so I gave her a copy of A Writer's Paris: A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul as inspiration for her in-progress manuscript, and a copy of Paul McCartney's new CD, just because I heard an interview about it on Morning Edition a few weeks ago. Lora picked out a necklace and earrings from her and Evan. I think we did well. The sentiment was there, anyway.

Today, Joan thwarted an attempt at pushiness from an aforementioned friend whom I'd tried to discourage for two weeks. Said friend couldn't fathom that Joan wanted nothing more than a picnic lunch with her children on her birthday, so that's what they did, with friend and son in tow. I'm expecting an apology from friend. I'm already practicing my I-tried-to-tell-you.

Happy fortieth, Joan. From Brian, with love.

Wedding Surprise

A couple of months ago, I ran into a friend who introduced me to her fiancee. I didn't know she was dating anyone, so I asked the requisite questions such as How did you meet?, When did you get engaged?, and When is the big day?

The first two answers were somewhat predictable (went to high school together; over the holidays), but the third answer gave me fleeting pause (we're going to have an engagement party at the end of July and announce our wedding date then). I've never known of anyone doing that before but I quickly shrugged it off, mainly 'cause I'm not really hip, socially-speaking. Joan and I got married in a pastor's office one morning before Sunday school without telling anyone, so it's not like anyone is beating on our door for successful wedding tips. I just do as I'm told, invitation-wise.

So in that spirit, we received our invitation a few weeks ago and calendared tonight for the engagement party.

As five o'clock rolled around, I dressed in my best silk Hawaiian shirt, beige cargo shorts and New Balance sneaks and drove toward the merriment. After a half-hour of manuevering through a crowd of many strangers (which bothers me somewhat), most of whom were dressed better than me (which doesn't), the happy couple interrupted the kickin' blues band to give the long-awaited announcement: the date of the wedding.

After some stalling by the groom-to-be for dramatic effect, the bride-to-be broadcast We're getting married tonight! and as the band cranked back up they ran off the stage to don their wedding togs. Ten minutes later (!), a procession of a groomsman, a maid-of-honor, the groom, the bride and her father met the pastor in the middle of the room and we had a wedding!

Congratulations Molly and Ben, and thanks for the surprise.

Between two pastures

Nanny, feeling cramped last Thursday in her basement apartment, suggested we go outside and see the animals.

Aunt Sandra got the golf cart and drove her to the barn. One of the livestock was way over her species' gestational average and they had been concerned about her. She was huge and uncomfortable, but spirits were high as she showed signs of the birth's imminence: restlessness, raised tail, wandering in circles. When she pulled away from the herd and headed for the privacy of the upper pasture, we were sure she was about to deliver.

We had been out for a good half-hour in the blazing sun, but Nanny insisted on following the mother-to-be. I escorted her, hand at her elbow, along the fence line between the pastures to a front row seat for the big occasion, though there was no seat. I asked Nanny if she was ready to go back inside. No, I want to see the baby come.

So we waited. Gradually, a glistening, spindly leg appeared, with a snout not far behind. Granddaddy was chomping at the bit to help the mother, but Nanny yelled at him to leave her be. I could tell he was tiring of being ordered around, even by a sick, weak wife, but he stood firm between the mother and her pasture-mates who had wandered into her delivery area.

Then, as another leg appeared, the mother squatted down and with a tremendous push got the baby halfway out, his wet head soaking up its first rays of sunshine there between heaven and earth. Another squat, another push, and the baby landed in a heap at the mother's hind feet. Her ordeal was over.

Nanny was enthralled, relieved for the success of the new mother and proud of her own baby's confidence as Aunt Becky rushed in with a towel and began drying off the newborn. Aunt Becky and Granddaddy stood guard as the baby struggled to find his legs. Time and again, he would get his front legs under him and be almost up on his back legs, being nudged by mama, but either his coordination or his strength failed him and he crumpled back into a tumbleweed on the high plains floor.

Suddenly, Nanny swooned at my side. She'd been standing in the hot sun for some time, her first foray into the wild in several days, and her strength was sapped. Her stomach protruded in front of her as she tried to relieve her aching back. Oh sugar, she said to me, I should never have come out here.

I grabbed her right arm to steady her, shocked by its clammy thinness. She grabbed the top of the fence on the other side, and we shuffled back toward the barn.

We were passed in short order by Aunt Becky, who, concerned that the sun was too intense for the baby, had scooped him up and headed for the shade of the barn. And there I stood, flanked between an eighty-year-old woman in the grip of a terminal illness and a newborn creature not fifteen minutes old. Neither of them seemed to have mastery over their musculature. Both of them relied on the strength of others to protect them from the elements and get them to the safety of the barn. One had just been introduced to the pasture and his new home while the other was making one of her final visits as precious time slipped away. One was on a fast track to growth and development, while the other was on a fast track to atrophy and confinement.

Aunt Becky, the new baby, Nanny, the cycle of life, and me, slow-waltzing between two pastures.

Nanny

One Sunday in late May, I was on my way to worship, alone - Joan was on a writing retreat with some friends, and Evan and Lora spent the weekend with my parents. I received a cell phone call from Aunt Becky, informing me that Nanny been rushed to the hospital in the night with a severe bleeding problem. Joan was to return from her retreat that afternoon from the airport that serves Aunt Becky's community, and she immediately changed her flight to check on my grandmother.

A phone call from Joan later in the afternoon confirmed our worst fears. Nanny had undergone emergency surgery to patch a blood clot in her chest cavity, as well as cauterizing an ulcer, and that recurring problems with her liver weren't helping matters. I met my parents with a heavy heart to pick up the kids. I would have to explain to the kids Nanny's situation as I told them why mama wasn't coming home as expected. It was a tough night.

But Nanny pulled through, and a week later she was back home in the apartment in Aunt Becky's house that she shares with Granddaddy, her husband of sixty-three years. Nanny slowly improved, and last Wednesday week I booked a plane ticket out out west for mid-July to spend some time with them all.

Then Aunt Sandra called last Friday week.

Nanny's internist called her in to reveal results from earlier testing. After giving her the results, he sent her home to "get her affairs in order," which is 21st century medical euphemism for "your condition is terminal, and we've done all that we can do."

Aunts Becky and Sandra were understandably devastated. As were we, 1800 miles away. Joan and I broke the news to the children and spent the next several nights crying and praying Lora to sleep. Evan slipped into a quiet funk. Joan began planning for the inevitable, a bit morbidly premature perhaps, but that's how she copes. I, on the other hand, was my usual cool self in a crisis, slowing to a glacial pace of life. I did have enough synapses firing, though, to realize that sticking with my planned visit in mid-July just might be too late.

So I flew out last Wednesday.

I wasn't quite prepared for what I encountered. Nanny had gone down considerably since I left her last November. She is so frail, and forgetful, and weak. She is already a shell of the woman I knew as grandmother.

She has been diagnosed with non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver, caused by hepatitis-C she picked up on a mission trip probably thirty years ago. She will slowly bleed to death.

To talk with her and Grandaddy is to wrestle with paradoxes. At times they are at peace with her passing, yet at times grasping for hoped healing. At times they are complimentary of her doctors, yet at times angry at them for undiagnosing her problem for so long and mis-medicating her. At times they are grateful for the phone calls from friends who have been informed of her condition, yet at times they bristle at the intrusions and displays of "premature" grief. At times they brag on the care Aunts Becky and Sandra give them, yet at times they complain about their lack of privacy.

At times Nanny reverted to her benevolent-controlling ways, yet at times she couldn't remember who she had just spoken with on the phone, or wanted to argue about whether she had taken her medicine. At times she giggled like a schoolgirl at her clumsiness and forgetfulness, yet at times she despaired as she struggled to remember a friend's name.

I was a paradox as well, oscillating from being frustrated at hearing the same stories for the hundredth time to being melancholy over her dementia. At times I was ready to return home to my world and its challenges until I realized that once I left that place and time it would be lost to me forever.

It would take a lifetime to explain to you what an impact Nanny and Granddaddy, Aunt Becky, and Aunt Sandra have had on my life, both positively and negatively. Neither aunt has children. I am the first-born grandson and the only one that is still in contact with them. Neither can I express the relief I felt walking into the house last Wednesday to find Nanny still alive. I had made it. On time. I got four good days with her. She may not remember them, but I will. I hope to get back to see her again before she goes, but if I don't, I know that I did my best, I did what I needed to do, I said my good-bye, and I will see her on the other side someday. I pray that I will mean to someone what she means to me.

Happy Independence Day, Nanny.

Anyone seen my buggy whip?

We are in the midst of a minor monsoon season in Birmingham. My cheap, plastic, backyard rain-gauge has measured over 4.5" of rain since Sunday. It's been nice sloshing through my yard instead of crunching, and, as a bonus, the temperatures have remained cool.

On one of my regular excursions to the restroom at work today (my oily skin and small bladder make me a frequent visitor, if you'll pardon the overabundance of personal information), I saw something that I haven't seen in probably twenty years.

As I was washing my face, a man came in and set his briefcase on the counter and rounded the corner to the, ummm, facilities. I dried my face and put on my glasses and found myself staring at...

...a pair of galoshes.

That's right, folks, resting atop a soft-sided leather bag - black, vulcanized, injection-molded, rubber galoshes.

It was quite an anachronistic moment, right there in the fourth-floor men's room. Galoshes. Don't see those every day. At least I don't.

They looked heavy-dutier than the galoshes I remember. Of course, there probably have been exponential advances in galosh-technology in the past two decades since I've been as close to a pair as I was these. They were smooth and sturdy, yet pliant enough to hug whatever loafers the man was wearing that he didn't want to get wet. I never saw the man or his shoes, but I must say I was tempted to pick up the galoshes and examine them tactilely, looking for at least a brand-name to link you to a picture, but I estimated that the man was too far along in his, ummm, business, for me to safely do so. Besides, I'm not really into bothering other people's stuff (especially not in the men's room), so it was a fleeting temptation at best.

I am now, however, on a quest for obsolete (or rarely encountered) objects. Anyone seen a buggy whip, a coffee percolator, or a slide rule lately?

Know thy audience

Last night,the Alabama Symphony Orchestra gave a free Mother's Day concert at one of our upscale, outdoor shopping meccas.

Of course, we were there. It was free. And there were fireworks. Did I mention there were free fireworks?

We dragged our bag chairs through a sea of humanity to a relatively open spot stage right. The weather was much improved over the past two weekends. A cool breeze wafted Macaroni Grill garlic to mix with the aroma of tailgaters seated around us. There were people of all ages in the sea of chairs; old people with their older mothers, babies with their young mothers, middle-aged couples with their older children, and of course the pre-teen demographic.

Who were thrilled to be there, let me tell you. One in particular, seated in front of me to my left, stared a hole in the pavement, head in hands, waiting for the fun to end. He listened to his iPod until the batteries went dead, then he took pictures of his hand with his mother's camera phone before launching into a riveting round of Tetris. He was amusing to watch, and I was going to point him out to Evan, my pre-teen, but Evan was doing the same thing off to my right. Well, sans iPod and camera phone.

The concert was great. They played a tribute to Ethel Merman, some Edward Elgar, a couple of Latin-flavored compositions of Leroy Anderson, an extended medley from Camelot, and a medley of tunes from movie musicals.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the program immensely. An older man wearing a flannel shirt and a white-haired crewcut ask his daughter (I presume) to dance during one of the Leroy Anderson waltzes, to the delight of the crowd on our side of the parking lot. Several young girls, our Lora included, pirouetted between the chairs during some of the Merman numbers.

The pre-teens were, in a word, underwhelmed, let me tell you. Until the conductor related a story of taking his two young sons shopping for Mother's Day gifts. The punch line of the story was that they couldn't decide which Star Wars action figure to buy her. As the audience laughed, I read between the lines and correctly guessed what was coming next.

In that spirit, we'd like to present for you the Theme from Star Wars by John Williams, said the conductor.

That got their attention. They cheered, they applauded, they participated in the experience. Even before the fireworks.

Bravo, maestro!

See the Art in Me

Lora and I found ourselves alone this afternoon. She crawled up into my chair to share sunflower seeds and impede my reading.

With Joan and Evan gone, the house was unusually quiet. It apparently bothered Lora, so she climbed up on the computer table to retrieve a CD. She picked the self-titled Jars of Clay album and popped it into the player.

We listened to the first four songs at varying volumes (she kept turning it up, I kept turning it down, an expected conflict between a four-year-old and a forty-year-old). When the fifth song started, Lora turned it up and got out of the chair.

And she began to dance.

Not head-shaking, bebopping, gotta-pee-right-now dancing. She became a ballerina. She twirled. She skipped. She jumped. She flew.

She never once hesitated. She never gave a thought to her next move as she followed her muse throughout the kitchen, around the island, and back to the reading corner. She was free. Flowing. Focused. I was floored.

The name of the song was "Art in Me."

Images on the sidewalk speak of dream's descent
Washed away by storms to graves of cynical lament
Dirty canvases to call my own
Protest limericks carved by the old pay phone

In your picture book I'm trying hard to see
Turning endless pages of this tragedy
Sculpting every move you compose a symphony
You plead to everyone, "See the art in Me"

Broken stained-glass windows, the fragments ramble on
Tales of broken souls, an eternity's been won
As critics scorn the thoughts and works of mortal man
My eyes are drawn to you in awe once again

In your picture book I'm trying hard to see
Turning endless pages of this tragedy
Sculpting every move you compose a symphony
You plead to everyone, "See the art in Me"

Thank you, Father, for letting me see the art in You, through Lora's dance.

Lord, teach me...

Last night: a funeral home visit. A young couple whose baby died in his sleep.

To a young mother, and a young father, and grieving grandparents: I'll pray for you.

Today: a chance meeting in the bookstore. An old friend whose adult child has moved back home in the throes of an addiction. A crumbling marriage. Three young children.

To a distraught father, searching for answers, and relief: I'll pray for you.

I love words. Words are my life. Yet, as hard as I try, try as I might, my words are not adequate.

Father, forgive my feebleness.

Holy Spirit, interpret my groanings.

Lord, teach me to pray.

You can't judge a book...

Perusing the library shelves today, I came across several classics that I need to read. I rejected them all.

One had a dingy, smudged cover with dirty finger prints all over the edges. One was printed on what appeared to be grocery sacks during an apparent paper-saving drive from back in the '70's. One had an eery, unpleasant typeface and the prospect of following it for 200+ pages made me nauseated.

Today, I was guilty of judging books by their covers.

What'd I do to deserve this?

We went to [trendy chain deli with the good salad bar] for lunch today.

I filled my salad plate to Neil Diamond's and Barbra Streisand's attempt to out-herniate one another.

My first bite was taken to the strains of Barry Manilow pouring his heart out over somebody named Mandy.

I finished my last bite as someone tightened the vise ahold Michael Bolton's thumb.

Disgustedly, I trudged toward the ice cream machine for some frosty relief.

I found a deli employee with his arm up to the elbow inside the machine, an "out of order" sign over his shoulder.

What did I do to deserve this?

Bilingual Conversation

I was sitting in the children's section of the library today, determining the check-out worthiness of a stack of books while Lora pestered the caged parakeet, when the cutest little scruffy-headed Chinese girl came around a shelf with a sippy-cup of milk.

Hi! she grinned at me.

Hi! I grinned back.

Her dad followed close behind. I nodded hello to him. Before he could respond, an older little girl came running toward him, clutching a video.

This one, daddy! she cried, holding it aloft for him to bag.

[Uninterpreted response in Chinese], he replied.

But just one more, please daddy? she begged.

[Uninterpreted response in Chinese], he replied, stuffing the video into his book bag.

Birmingham is a multi-cultural city, despite our well-documented racist propensity. UAB attracts medical students and researchers from all over the world. We have large Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Latino populations within the metro area. I grew up not too far from Birmingham (as the crow flies, that is; light-years away culturally and otherwise). I don't remember if I knew a single bilingual family then.

I was blown away today by the little Chinese girl's ability to converse with her father in two languages.

I have trouble conversing with mine in one.

Three wooden crosses

Three wooden crosses.

The cup and the bread.

Struggles written on index cards.

People lined up to nail them to a cross.

The sound of hammer and nails.

Good Friday. Good, indeed.

Two car lengths at a time

I was out early this morning. It was so foggy I couldn't see more than a couple of car lengths ahead of me.

I drove those two car lengths and then I could see two car lengths further down the road. I drove those two and then I could see...well, you get the picture.

I never saw more than two car lengths ahead of me, all the way to my destination. The sun was up, but it was never more than just a dim blob. I could tell that it was there, but just barely.

The fog, my navigation through it, and the sun metaphorically reminded me of the journey of life. The sun is always there, though I don't always see it. I don't know what is three car lengths ahead of me, and if I'm not careful I can run off the road or head-on into someone else, especially if I think I know the way to my destination (since I'm so familiar with the route).

This metaphor also reminded me of a different perspective I received about this one night some time ago on a flight into Birmingham. On descent, while low enough to make out individual houses and cars but still high enough to see whole neighborhoods, I saw a car back out of a driveway and head down a street, its headlights shining on the pavement like thin ice cream cones in front of it. I could see to the end of the street while realizing that the driver could not. I could see the grocery store three blocks over that I imagined was his destination, while realizing that the driver could not.

Someone once described the difference in perspective of time between man and God as man standing on a sidewalk, watching a parade. Man sees the first band come into view, and then the next, and a couple of floats, more bands, some clowns, etc., until the end of the parade passes by. God, however, sees the beginning, middle, and end of the parade at the same time.

Every once in a while I get a glimpse of who I am and who He is, and the fog lifts, and I am grateful.

Mr. Potato Head

Children's eating habits are so enigmatic.

Lora is like a little chick pecking around the barnyard; she only eats a bite or two at a time, but she does it all day long. Rare is the meal where she doesn't want to sample off my plate. The exchange is usually thus:

L: What's that?
B: It's herb-crusted lizard brains in prickly-pear butter.
L: Can I have some?

If I sat down with a bowl of dirt, she'd want a spoonful.

Evan, on the other hand, is like a python; he eats one dish all in a big lump. We used to have a rule that he try everything once and what he didn't like he didn't have to eat. He just had to try it. We figured that if exposed to an assortment of foods he would build a vast menu of favorites. We were wrong. Were Evan a condemned criminal, his last meal request would be:

Chicken fingers
Spaghetti noodles (with butter)
Grits (with butter)
Potatoes (with butter)
Butter
Gatorade

It has been an exasperating experience for someone who enjoys food as I do. Growing up, I had a cousin who would circle my grandmother's potluck-laden table every holiday meal to score a piece of ham and a roll. I didn't understand picky eaters then; now I'm raising one.

Yesterday at lunch, Evan ordered a plain baked potato (a little cheese, a few chives, some bacon bits, and lots of butter) at [chain deli with the great salad bar]. Later in the afternoon, we were knocking around town when he reminded us of a play he wanted to attend. It was too short notice to take him home, feed him supper, and get him to the play, so Joan wheeled the family wagon into the parking lot of [chain faux-fifties ice cream parlor]. The drive-thru was backed up, so she handed Evan six dollars and sent him inside to buy his supper. He returned with drink and bag in hand, handing his mother two-seventy-five in change.

Lora, of course, wanted a sample of Evan's meal, which he, of course, declined to offer, so Joan intervened by ordering him to pinch off a bite of chicken finger for his sister (Joan, obviously concluding that he must have ordered chicken fingers based on years of precedence).

E: I don't have any chicken.
B: (shocked) No chicken? What did you order?
E: Large fries.
B: Large fries! You paid three-twenty-five for a coke and LARGE FRIES?!?
E: It's not a coke. It's sweet tea.
B: (bellowing) THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT!

I then gave him an economic lesson.

B: Your potato at lunch was six dollars, rounded off (Actually, it was two small potatoes crammed together to look like one large potato. They don't fool me.). Your potato at supper was three dollars, rounded off. So I paid nine dollars today for THREE potatoes. THAT IS THREE DOLLARS PER POTATO.

I was a raving lunatic on a spud-induced rant, the vicarious starch coarsing through my veins, raising my blood sugar to dangerous, apoplectic levels.

E: (with a twenty-five-cent french fry dangling from his greasy lips) Sorry.

And Dan Quayle thought he had potatoe problems.

Please forgive me, Willie Brown

I saw him across a sea of strangers in the crowded room, and I knew immediately that his name was Willie Brown.

Our assignment had been simple enough. Wrap glue-soaked yarn around an empty olive jar to make a vase, add a few "flowers" (egg-carton blooms, pipe-cleaner stems, and construction-paper leaves), draw a card, and address it to a resident of a nearby nursing home whose name we'd randomly drawn from a hat. I unfolded the slip of paper and read the name: Willie Brown.

One spring morning we walked several blocks down tree-lined residential streets to the four-lane highway that "bypassed" downtown. We crossed the highway and climbed the hill, behind the Ford tractor dealership and a local cafe' that served the best hamburger steak in town, to the nursing home.

The nursing home cafeteria was filled with old people and nurses, strangers all. We second-graders took our places against the wall to await instructions on how to distribute our bouquets. I nervously scanned the room and my eyes fell upon the man destined to be my partner.

He was old and black and sat in a wheelchair. He had lost both legs above the knee; his stumps weren't even long enough to hang over the edge of the seat. He was the most alien creature in the room and I was convinced that he was Willie Brown.

I became aware that the program had begun. Someone called out a name. An old person raised a hand. A second-grader peeled off the wall, delivered the gift, and then scurried back across the floor.

Agnes Andrews. Raised hand. Delivered gift.

Milton Baker. Raised hand. Delivered gift.

Willie Brown. Raised hand. The black man. In the wheelchair. With no legs. Of course. I had known it all along.

The wall would not let go of me. The room grew into a cavern. The floor became a desert and each step I took drained more energy from my parched body. There was silence, save for the snickers of my classmates, safe against the wall, staring at my safari to the stranger with no legs.

I finally made it across the room and I shoved the vase and card into the old man's hands. I ran back to the safety of the wall without ever making eye contact with him.

I was so afraid. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't relate to him on even the basest level. I was frustrated. Guilty. Ashamed. Inadequate.

I thought of Willie Brown today. I relived the same feelings as I dealt with a contemporary Willie Brown yesterday. Fear. Shame. Frustration. Inadequacy.

Willie Brown, wherever you are, I hope that someone crossed your path and made your life a little brighter before you moved on. I'm sorry I blew my chance.

Pity is, I don't seem to have learned from the experience.

Tombstone, Alabama

Aunt Becky was blessed with some unseasonably warm weather for her weekend visit. As well as some rain. She enjoyed listening to the rainfall Sunday night. Apparently it doesn't rain much out west where she lives.

She had told me a couple of weeks ago that she wanted to drive up to our hometown and see how things had changed. I don't get up there much anymore so it sounded like a good idea to me. I asked her what she wanted to see, mentally mapping out the most efficient tour route of schools we'd attended, businesses we'd patronized, and houses we'd lived in or visited the kinfolks in. She predictably named a few of them before mentioning one specifically.

Will you take me to see Mammy?

Mammy. Wow. I hadn't been to see her in several years. Mammy was Aunt Becky's grandmother; my great-grandmother. She was a sweet thing, and I feel robbed that I didn't know her in her prime. She was stricken with Parkinson's disease shortly after I was born; my memories consist of her shuffling along behind an aluminum walker and her sitting cross-legged in a big naugahyde chair wearing a cotton house dress with her thumbs and forefingers clacking together uncontrollably like an ambidextrous telegraph operator. She died over twenty years ago, during my first semester of college. On the day of her funeral I left the college bookstore after spending the astronomical sum of $180 buying textbooks to find a parking ticket on my windshield for having my back bumper hanging over a yellow curb in one of those welcome-to-the-real-world-you-ain't-in-high-school-no-more cosmic coincidences.

Yes, I'll take you to see Mammy, I replied. But that wasn't all. She wanted to see where Mammy's sisters were buried, so I agreed to take her there. And then she wanted to see where her father's (my grandfather's) folks are buried, and I agreed to take her there. And to the schools. And to the businesses. And to the houses.

It was quite a list but I thought it through and had a pretty good route picked out. There were a couple of shortcomings with my plan, however. First, it would take a good bit of time and miles to fit it all in. Second, Joan, Evan, and Lora wanted to go as well.

I wasn't worried about Joan. She has proven time and again that she will follow me anywhere. Lora was a natural concern simply because her age, attention span, and bladder capacity are all in the single digits. Evan was a concern because, well, because he's Evan.

Evan and I often clash during those teachable moments between a father and a son. If I explicitly try to impart some knowledge to him about something, he sometimes rebels with exasperated huffs and eye-rolls. He told me the last time we were at Vulcan Park as I pointed out the cooling towers of Miller Steam Plant on the horizon, Please, dad, no more geography! Being cooped up in a van with him for a couple of hours of intermittent cemetery stops didn't sound like the best possible Saturday, but for Aunt Becky's sake I determined that if I could handle it, he could too.

We quickly checked the first two cemeteries off our list. Cemetery #1 is where Mammy's sisters, their husbands, and some of their kids are buried. We tried to recall whose funerals we had attended and whose we hadn't and why. Our people buried in cemetery #2 died way before we were gleams in anyone's eyes, but I had discovered the graves during genealogical research some years back and thought Aunt Becky would be interested. Back on the road, we did the school, business, house portion of the tour before stopping for a bite to eat to fortify ourselves for cemetery #3.

I drove right to Mammy's grave as if I visit it every day. It was just as I remembered. Mammy and Papa, her husband (my great-grandfather), are buried between a dogwood tree and a white pine on a downslope near the edge of the cemetery. Mammy's mother, Mama R, is buried beside her. Mama R died when I was in first grade; her funeral is the first one I remember.

Evan soon wandered off as we stood in reflective silence over the graves. After a while he called me to come check out a soldier's grave marker he had found. Then, he found the grave of someone born in the 1800's, and then someone who lived into their nineties, and then someone with a familiar name. He began to connect husband's graves with those of their wives and then their children. I showed him the grave of a congressman's wife and then a grouping of Jewish merchant's graves, clustered together on a hillside in much the same order as their stores were arranged on Main Street. I showed him the grave of one of my neighbors growing up whose daughter he knows. Suddenly and inexplicably, in between simple stones and ostentatious monuments, the past connected with the present for Evan, and it was almost all I could do to get him back into the car so we could make the remainder of our stops before dark.

We drove past Mammy and Papa's old house and Mama R's last residence on our way to cemetery #4. I found my great-great-grandfather's grave, and I remembered a story my grandfather told me about how they loaded his grandfather into a wagon after he died to take him to the highway because the ambulance wouldn't come to the farm to get him. It was so cold they had to build a fire to thaw the ground enough to dig his grave, so cold was the winter of '32 in Alabama. As I passed the story to Evan, it began to rain.

It was an emotional day, for me and Aunt Becky more than the others; for Aunt Becky most of all. After all, she was 1,800 miles away from home and didn't know when she might pass this way again. I was glad I could share it with her, and I was glad that Evan felt a spark of interest for something that I didn't prompt. I hope he never forgets the day we toured the cemeteries with his great-Aunt Becky. I know I won't.

And yes, Mammy, we still miss you.

Not my bag

We made a roadtrip to Atlanta today to pick up my Aunt Becky who is visiting from out west.

Aunt Becky doesn't get back this way very often anymore, but she has a professional association meeting in Atlanta next week and she flew in early to spend a long weekend with her favorite nephew and his fam. We were all too happy to meet her at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

It isn't every day that I jump at the chance to go to Atlanta. Atlanta is high on my "been there, done that" list. I mean, one traffic jam on I-285 looks like another, and once you've driven down one street with Peachtree embedded in the name you've driven down them all. To me, the only saving grace to the whole city is their mass transit system, known as MARTA.

As soon as I heard about Aunt Becky's trip I immediately began to contemplate the stress-free journey from the Hamilton E. Holmes station (W5) to the Airport station (S7) with no traffic, parking, or other concerns inherent to our culture's obsession with all things automotive. We left our modest suburban driveway a little before 7:00 a.m., and two hours later we were standing in the drafty Holmes terminal, trying to get the token machine to work.

Now, I had already figured out our fare requirements for the day. Lora, being four, could ride for free, which meant that we need three tokens to get to the airport (me, Joan, and Evan) and four to get back (us + Aunt Becky). At $1.75 per, I needed $12.25 to by the seven tokens. I had a twenty, a ten, and a couple of ones in my wallet, and of course, no machine in the building would take my ten. Which meant I had to use my twenty, which meant I purchased four tokens more than I needed. And that griped me. What am I going to do with four extra MARTA tokens? I mentally screamed at the machine(s). Thanks for nothing!

But my private rant notwithstanding, Joan, Evan, Lora, and I boarded the train and were soon locomoting through the Atlanta cityscape. Five stops to the Five Points station, a transfer to the southbound train, and seven stops and an escalator ride later we were waving across Delta's baggage claim concourse to Aunt Becky, who had just arrived and retrieved her bags from carousel 5.

Joan grabbed Aunt Becky's backpack, Evan grabbed her small carry-on, I grabbed her large rolling suitcase, and Lora grabbed her hand and we all traipsed back to the MARTA station. We were in the airport terminal maybe ten minutes, max. Northbound train to Five Points, transfer to the westbound train, and five stops later we were wheeling luggage toward the exit in anticipation of pointing the chariot back to the Magic City.

I was about to hoist the big bag chest-high so I could maneuver through the exit turnstile when Aunt Becky uttered some pretty ominous words. You know, I don't think that's my bag. I screeched to a halt before the turnstile and did a did-you-say-what-I-think-you-said 180 degree turn. I sat the bag upright on its wheels and I noticed for the very first time a small white tag containing the name and address of the bag's owner, which unfortunately did not match the name of my Aunt Becky. We had someone else's bag.

I can tell you that all kinds of questions go through your mind when you are standing at an exit turnstile holding someone else's bag, such as:
1. Is there something illegal in this bag that's gonna land my careless, didn't-verify-the-claim-check butt in the Fulton County Jail?
2. Has [unfortunate owner of bag] already left on his/her flight to Brazil for a month-long Amazon expedition without their life-saving supply of insulin?
3. You mean I'm gonna have to ride the train all the way to the airport and back before I can get to Cracker Barrel for lunch?
4. Is that why neither token machine would take my ten and I had to buy four extra tokens?

The answers to those questions are:
1. I don't know
2. I don't know
3. Yes
4. Yes

So off we went. Again. Five stops to the Five Points station, a transfer to the southbound train, and seven stops and an escalator ride. I began to feel like a MARTA regular. I actually thought at one point, man, we're at Oakland City already? We dropped off [unfortunate owner]'s bag at the baggage service counter and backtracked to carousel 5 to find Aunt Becky's bag still traveling around in circles.

I kinda know how the bag felt.

Welcome back to Birmingham, Aunt Becky.

Fourteen stitches later

Today is seventh day of Joan's ordeal with her finger and the fourteen stitches.

I finally looked at the finger today.

Y'all think I was trying to be funny about almost passing out in the ER last Monday night. I wish it were true. I've spent the last week peeking around corners to make sure she didn't have the gauze off while she cleaned the wound. I did get close enough to it to help her tie off the new gauze on occasion, but even that was almost too much.

I even got queasy talking with her about it on the phone one day last week.

But today I accepted her offer to look at it. Words cannot describe. Trouble is, there's no observant nurse at my house to grab me by the arm and make me take a big mouthful of crushed ice.

Pardon me while I go stick my head in the freezer.

By the way, my friend who had the emergency surgery went home today. He has a long recovery ahead of him but he's on his way.

Healing, in my little corner of the world, has begun, at least for now. Thank you, Lord.

Cool in a crisis

Joan fell and cut her hand today.

Evan called me at work to come take her to the emergency room. I pulled up to the house and she was standing in the garage, her left hand wrapped in a beach towel. Not the most pleasant welcome home I've ever received.

The kids were nowhere to be found. Evan walked Lora to [neighborhood playmate's] house, Joan explained. Can we go now, please?

A few minutes later I dropped her off near the entrance to the ER and I miraculously found a curbside parking place just around the corner. I confidently strode through the sliding glass doors (well, as confidently as a man can stride while hiding his wife's purse under his coat) with that ER adrenaline flowing through my veins. I gotta tell ya...

...it ain't like it is on TV: doors flying open, gurneys skidding around corners on two wheels with 18-member medical teams hanging on for dear life and pouty, blonde interns yelling Stat! like Parris Island drill instructors. The real ER is peopled with bored clerks typing insurance information, green-around-the-gills flu sufferers holding their bellies, and old folks hobbling back and forth to the restroom. And people sleeping while sitting up. 'Cause in the real ER, you do an awful lot of...

...waiting.

If Joan had not fashioned a homemade tourniquet to stanch the flow of blood, we might have seen a lot more action, but as it was, even after the triage nurse examined her, we waited for two hours before being called into a room.

And then the fun really started.

Dr. Red Duke danced into Examination Room 10 to have a look-see. I, your humble reporter, tried everything within my power to refrain from having a look-see. I held The Periodic Table at eye-level, effectively blocking Dr. Duke, Joan, and more importantly, the parts of Joan that began bleeding when Dr. D ripped the gauze away. Can you bend this finger? Dr. Duke asked. OOOOWWWW!?! Joan cried. Uh-oh... I moaned, as the room began to spin. I dashed from the room to keep from fainting but the head rush I got from standing up so quickly only made matters worse. I'm gonna faint in front of all these nurses if I keep standing here I reasoned, wondering if my insurance would charge me two co-payments if I did. So I wobbled back into Room 10 and sat down again. Dr. Duke left to retrieve his bone saw from under the seat of his buckboard as I tried with every ounce of strength I had to regain my composure.

I didn't fool a soul.

A nurse, who had seen me standing up against the outside wall, followed me into the room. Are you about to faint? she asked.

Yes, ma'am, I am.

Come on, we got to get you outta here.

I'm afraid to stand up.

You got to go she said as she dragged my pale, clammy butt out of the chair, shoved a cup of ice into my hand, and pushed me outside into the fresh air. When you feel better, you go back to the waiting room she ordered, muttering something about men's and women's thresholds for pain.

So I meekly took a seat in the waiting room along with the other moaning sickfolk. I was being no help to anyone. And I hated it.

I had received a disturbing e-mail earlier in the day that a good friend had been rushed to emergency surgery for a problem we thought had been fixed months ago. Joan was behind the swinging doors getting bits of glass dug out of her fingers. Some guy across the room was doubled over in pain between trips to the restroom to, well, you know... And I wasn't doing a bit of good for any of them.

I tried to pray but I felt so impotent. What does it mean to pray for one another? To pray for God's presence, which he already promised us? To pray for healing, which may or may not be in His will? To pray for His will, which may mean that they suffer (say it Brian, say it: or that they die)? That He "bless" them and the doctors and nurses? What does that mean?

There, in that waiting room, I felt very, very small.

Emergency! Crisis! Adam, go boil some water! Bill, grab some bandages! Brian, bend over and put your head between your knees! We don't need two invalids.

"Larry" Adams, "Moe" Jefferson, and "Curly" Washington?!?

Lora ambled over to my chair in the corner the other night to see what I was reading.

"I'm reading David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of John Adams," I replied.

(Actually, I told her I'm reading a book about a man named John who used to be president.)

"Is that him?" she asked, pointing to the cover.

"Yes, that's him. He was a really neat man."

"He looks like that guy in [hip, pricey, chain hamburger joint]," she said, pointing to Adams' hair.

"Huh?" I pondered, until I remembered the cardboard cutout standing in the entrance to [hip, pricey, chain hamburger joint].

Lora saw John Adams and thought Larry from the Three Stooges.

Boy, I have a lot of work to do.

No wonder Ralph Kramden was a grouch

Is there any lonelier job than driving a bus in Birmingham?

I saw a Greyhound bus on 280 today heading into town. There was one passenger on board. One. She was a middle-aged African-American woman wearing a red hat. She sat three rows behind the driver on his side of the bus, staring straight ahead as he did.

I wonder where she came from. How does it feel to be the only passenger on a bus leaving town? Are you thinking Those fools can stay there if they want but I'm getting out while the gettin's good or are you thinking How come nobody else is leaving?

I wonder where she was going. How does it feel to be the only passenger on a bus arriving in town? Are you excited to be ahead of the crowd, with the opportunities to yourself at your first-come, first-served feet? Or are you questioning your judgment, wondering if you missed the Welcome to Nowheresville sign at the city limits?

How does it feel to be the driver of a one-passenger bus? Gotta be some weird economic indicator karma going on there. This chick's fare won't buy the diesel fuel for this trip, much less pay my salary. What kinda two-bit outfit have I hooked up with? It just ain't cool tooling in a big ole bus like this with only one passenger.

He probably doesn't know it, being an out-of-town Greyhound driver, but it could be worse. He could be driving a MAX bus down 280. They never have any passengers.

What a difference a week makes

Tonight I was sitting in my chair in a quiet corner, watching the wind blow the pansies in the window boxes, a little jazz on the radio, a bowl of popcorn in my lap. Evan was checking his e-mail, staring intently at the monitor, the click of the keyboard barely audible over Duke Ellington. Lora wandered into the room to tell me about her very first big-girl choir practice. Then she said, "Can I go to sleep on your shoulder?" So I set aside my popcorn bowl, lay my head back as she crawled into my lap, and in three minutes she was sound asleep.

What a difference a week makes.

Last Wednesday, Joan and I had an important dinner meeting to attend. A minute and a half before we were to walk out the door, I noticed some peanut butter on Lora's shirt. I took her to her room to change it, but nothing I picked out would do. Nothing. A wardrobe malfunction with a four-year-old. I finally picked a shirt for her and made her put it on. She followed me out of her room, protesting, and then she about-faced and came stomping back with a Raggedy Ann doll under each arm, both of which were as tall as she is. "I'm taking these with me," she declared, the air thick with self-appeasement.

"No, you're not," I replied. "They are too big. Find something smaller." To which I headed to the garage to open the car for Evan, who was uncharacteristically anxious to go somewhere since he had a friend waiting to meet him. I opened the garage door, cranked the chariot, and waited. No Joan. No Lora. Not even a Raggedy Ann.

Faced with the prospect of entering late a room full of people, I went back in the house looking for my wayward women. I didn't have to search very hard; I just followed the trail of wails. Lora ran past me into the garage and collapsed on the floor in an hysterical heap. I went to pick her up and she did something she had never done before. She screamed at me. Actually, "scream" is such an impotent word. It was one of those Darth Vader "I am your father" guttural groans that stabbed me right through the heart. I expected her head to start spinning round and round at any moment. I realized quickly that I had a struggle on my hands.

I picked her up and gave her the I'm-bigger-than-you speech as I put her in her car seat and tried to buckle the seatbelt. Mission accomplished without getting kicked anywhere important, I took my frustrations out on the car door, giving it a slam that rattled my teeth. I got behind the wheel, slammed the chariot into reverse, and began backing out of the driveway. And then I caught an earful from Evan.

Evan is a wonderful big brother. He has been wrapped around Lora's little finger since day one. He is eight years older than her and when she was a baby and we were trying to get her to go to sleep on her own, he would yell out from his bed, "Am I the only one that hears her crying?" and "Is nobody going to feed her? Are y'all just going to let her die?" He came to her rescue again tonight, wondering aloud if I was proud of myself and why I hadn't let her bring her dolls so we could have avoided this major scene.

So I transformed into a mode that surely was the catalyst for dueling back when black powder pistols were all the rage. I let him have it. I told him how wrong giving in to her would have been, for that night and for the future. I told him how hard I worked to provide a safe and secure home, insulated from the outside world as much as possible, and that I wouldn't stand for her disrespect. Nor his.

And then he got hysterical. About how he didn't feel safe and secure and how upset he was and that I didn't care. I coasted to a stop at the traffic signal at a major crossroads on the way to our destination with a carload of insane, irrational, emotional, and hysterical people, three minutes away from our meeting.

And it hit me. I was at a crossroads not just on the highway, but in my relationship with my kids and within my inner being. I was three minutes away from sending Lora off to childcare in a state of emotional upheaval, wreaking unknown havoc on herself and her caregivers. I was three minutes away from sending Evan off to find his friend and fend for himself for an hour and a half when not thirty seconds before he had declared his insecurity. I was three minutes away from dragging Joan and myself into a room full of people to discuss their Purpose Driven Lives, having painted on the happy family masks and pretending that our lives were conflict-free.

When the light changed, I asked the chariot occupants where they wanted to go for supper. Evan got more upset when he realized he wasn't going to meet his friend as planned, so I offered to go pick his friend up and take him with us. We popped into [local chain deli with the good salad bar], and within five minutes I had my family back. Lora was sharing her fruit cup with me, Evan and his friend were talking about the latest releases from Hollywood (that neither one will probably get to see).

When we got home, we had long talks with the kids individually. Lora understood the importance of obedience, and Evan talked through why the incident upset him so. And we healed a little bit.

And tonight, the click of the keyboard and Lora's drowsy hiccups on my shoulder bear testament that the healing has held up pretty well so far.

What a difference a week makes.

Splinter Removal

I performed one of the more dreaded duties of fatherhood today: splinter removal.

Lora came home from a friend's house yesterday and said she had a splinter but she wouldn't let me look at it. This evening I caught her favoring her middle finger, and I coaxed her out of a peek.

It was red and swollen, and it had to come out.

It was horizontal across the second joint palmside, parallel with the end of her finger. The wound had closed over; there was no accessible exit point. This was going to be bad. An excavation. Code-3 emergency. Certified personnel only.

To say I was merely worried is to understate the lack confidence I had in my excavation skills. I had a flashback to when Evan was just a little older than Lora is now. He had a splinter deep in the sole of his foot that he wouldn't let go of. Or, more accurately, wouldn't let anyone touch. It, too, had to come out, though, so into the floor we went, Joan holding him topside and me latched onto his ankle. Oh, the screaming. Shrill, hysterical, pterodactyl-level screaming. Whether I was actually touching him or the splinter or not. Once, a stray sigh of desperation wafted from my nostrils and brushed across the wound, starting the scream cycle over again from the first octave. I thought I would never get the splinter out of his foot and get his voice back down into a comfortable decibel level again. I was dreading a repeat situation with my little princess.

But it didn't happen. Oh, she cried. Ok, she wailed, a little. But she was not hysterical. I comforted her with my tone of voice and usual calmness, as I had done with Evan, but she responded much differently than he had. I know it hurt her, but she was a trooper. I have seldom been as relieved as I was when I made a desperation grab at the splinter and came out with it. A little soap here, a bandaid there, and something to drink, and my little smiley girl is back to normal.

God help me when her hurts get bigger.