Listics

My son and my dad, at my house yesterday.

Dad’s walking slower since his surgery, but he and his friend Sandy were on their way to a wedding reception. Dancing would be involved.

By the time Dad and Sandy stopped by, Ben and I had worked up a sweat cutting weeds and planting oak trees in the wood lot. More tree planting is scheduled for today, some walnuts for the mixed hardwoods, and a dozen or so birches to add to the birch grove. But first we’re off to Brunelli’s for the dad’s day brunch.

What would I have done
If I had lost my true love
In my soul’s summer

Your love has made another person a part of you. To have that other person ripped away is like an amputation. The aching stump makes sleep impossible most nights. Disturbing dreams accompany brief periods of fitful rest. Waking up you have that fleeting hope that she’s beside you. Or perhaps something you can do today will bring her back. Walking down the street she might be with you, a shadow self. Talking to her you’re aware that she’s a phantom now. You miss the best part of her, the part that responds to you.

Or perhaps you simply miss how she looked in a hat, or the smell of her, or the warmth and relaxation you felt when you embraced her at the airport. At that moment it didn’ty matter whether you or she were leaving or whether you or she had arrived, because there you were hugging happily. Do you remember the way she laughed? Wry chuckles. Open throated expostulations. A smile.

Love is like war. It’s often hard to assign a cause. The beginnings and the endings are fuzzy. Veterans often appear calloused, self protective, adopting behaviors that they hope conceal the depth of the feelings they’ve experienced.

The artist is in a peculiar position. The best have shed their integument and become one with it all. There’s a risk associated with this shedding. The nerves are exposed. A few tears can burn like acid. It’s like…

Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
In the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D. A.
Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t try “No Doz”
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows

Get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is goin’ to sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
‘Cause the vandals took the handles

Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

Dad was born December 2, 1923, the second of eight children. Four of his siblings have died. Last summer at a gathering at my cousin Paula’s place, the survivors were calling themselves “the final four.” The name has stuck. Gallows humor and what some might think a rude insensitivity runs deep in my family. We show our love by insulting each other.

Dad’s never sick. He’s one of these guys who retired without ever having used a sick day. So when he rainchecks a weekend barbeque because he’s feeling ill, we have cause to worry. My sister and I pestered him mercilessly on the telephone yesterday. And last night his friend Sandy said she was taking him to “urgent care” and she’d let us know if we needed to be concerned. Haven’t heard from her since and it’s too early to call….

I’m glad dad has lived to read Brokaw’s book and to see the WWII memorial unveiled. He was never any kind of American Legion or VFW guy. Like a lot of combat veterans he kept his memories pretty much to himself and didn’t have much use for flag waving and parades. On the other hand, ever since my brother was posted to Vietnam in the late sixties, dad has flown a flag at home.

We rainchecked the barbeque yesterday because dad said he just didn’t feel up to standing over a charcoal grill. And now, while I was writing this, my sister called and said they kept him in the hospital last night and they may be keeping him there for a few more days. The diagnosis seems to be an inflamed pancreas, but I’ll know more when I’ve talked with dad and the docs.

I think it’ll be my job later this morning to show up at the hospital and chide him for malingering. It’s my job right now to just find my own center and hold dad in the love that’s in my heart.

To protect the house, and to protect the puppy, we isolate her when we’re not around. She has a crate in our bedroom that she sleeps in at night. We get up every two or three hours to prevent accidents. She has a puppy play-pen in the kitchen where she stays during the day. We drop in every two or three hours to help her remember the difference between outdoor and indoor behavior. Meanwhile, when we’re gone, she has one of my dirty t-shirts to keep her company. The gross thing is she likes it!

On May 17, 1814, the Norwegian Constitution was signed, giving Norway independence from its 500 year union with Denmark. For the last 18 years I haven’t been able to let this date pass without a cheap aside regarding Norwegian Independence. You see, I am half Norwegian, and May 17 is Beth’s and my wedding anniversary.

I shouted up the stairs wishing her felicitations and she said “Thank you I was just thinking about that.” Then she said “I’m happy, how about you?” To which I responded “Okay” and returned to the keyboard. Shouting between floors is not conducive to complex conversation, but simple meaning is easily transmitted.

As a working-class qua middle-class white American male I share a cultural tradition that identifies marriage as a limiting institution, a condition of bondage. So the irony of the anniversary falling on Independence day is always worth a nod and a rueful chuckle. Much like Hector will always be known as “tamer of horses” (all the good cognomen’s were taken, they say) and Achilles recounted as “swift footed” and Patroclus known as “the great hearted,” I will always be known as “Frank, he of Norwegian extraction who was ironically married on Norwegian Independence Day.” And of course, with a label like that, I’ll never be the stuff of epic poetry. But then I wasn’t born a child of privilege like Achilles, and frankly speaking, I think I’m better off than some Argive hero sulking in a tent outside a walled city peeved because I’m facing a choice of soon dying in battle or blowing the scene and heading home without my favorite slave girl.

Love flowers today in Massachusetts. ‘The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society.’ A lot of marriage licenses will be issued today. These folks might not share our anniversary (and for the Norwegians among them I will add that this is probably a good thing), but today’s the day they’re getting the license. I have only the vaguest memories of the paperwork that preceded our wedding, but I have a feeling that the gay and lesbian people in Massachusetts receiving marriage licenses today will remember May 17, 2024 as favorably as they remember their actual wedding days.

Norwegian guys contemplating marriage today might ask themselves, would I go a’faering with this person? Beth and I have faered well… we’re past the days when an open boat on the fjord sounds like an opportunity to be alone together, but regardless of her aversion to cold nights on open water, we have a pretty good match.

We gave each other the gift of a puppy this anniversary; but, the gift has been delayed. Molly was at puppy pre-school with a few of her litter mates and a bunch of strangers and they all came down with something intestinal. Julie at the kennel suggested we wait a week to pick her up. Well, better Julie should be dealing with a seriously poopy puppy than me I guess, but I’m eager to get her home!

Anniversaries are like meatballs. You want to savor each one, and you’ll know when you’ve had enough. Yet if you feel full today, it’s almost certain that a year from now you’ll be ready to enjoy another one. Each anniversary is different from all the others. The anniversary-gift-products industry (AGPI)attempts to regularize the giving of gifts. Eighteen falls awkwardly between 15 (traditional: crystal; modern: watches) and 20 (traditional: china; modern: platinum). The AGPI has earmarked a gift type annually for the first fifteen anniversaries. Then they leap to counting by fives. This gets the working-class qua middle-class white male (around whom an ironic and self deprecating humorous wedding and marriage tradition has been built) off the hook. After fifteen, you really only have to attend to this obligation every five years. And if you act on that you’ll be lucky if your spouse doesn’t start throwing meatballs at you.

I’ve reviewed the list carefully and I’m pleased to note that puppies are nowhere on it. This is a fact I find both freeing and empowering. Whereas the AGPI has set the expectation that on the seventh anniversary, the loving spouses will gift each other with wool (traditional) or desk sets (modern), there is no prescription for happiness assigned to number 18. So this year we can be happy with a puppy anniversary (baked or fricasseed - traditional; kept as a pet - modern). I think we’ll go the modern route!

Happy anniversary sweetie! We had a great party, ringmasters and all!

We pick her up this weekend. Her name is Molly Bloom…. I can’t believe they whacked her tail off. She was only a day or two old, but what were they thinking? How will she express herself?

Or is that one word? And if so, how many other words in non-african, non pacific islander languages can boast a double K? Not many I’ll bet. Bookkeeping. Okay, “chukker” has a double K but it sure isn’t bracketed by a pair of double vowels, now is it? No!

Supposed to be writing checks so it’s obvious why I would get hung up in AKMA’s recent excursion into worst music. I’m with him when he says that the Blender folks’ sense of what’s bad “misses the point of worst-ness by a long chalk. But the interesting point on which my post pivots - at least I hope it seems interesting to you - certainly it is more interesting to me than paying bills - the interesting area for critical assessment lies in the selections of trooly bad stuff by the Dave Barry Corporation.

Dave Barry and AKMA have similar sensibilities when it comes to schlock. So, I was surprised when I read the Barry article to find that he didn’t find Chestnut Mare as truly stupid and nauseating as AKMA does. Hmmm, I thought. Usually my thinking is accompanied by sound effects more like a popcorn popper, and frequently you smell a little electrical fire starting when i’m thinking really hard. Anyway, the “hmmm” thing is a little literary license, since who would believe me if I said “I started thinking (pop-poppa-chachok-pop), so “hmmm” it is until the English language yields another common-place referent that bespeaks the very act of thinkage.

Anyway, I had always thought that the Chestnut Mare was kind of a cartoon… sort of like when Goofy falls off the mountaintop and goes wha-hoo-hoo-hoooo all the way down. The Byrds had followed Gram Parsons of Flying Burrito Brothers fame into the country rock genre, and in fact they legitimized it with their Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. At that point in loud music history a lot of acid heads and dopers were able to connect with their internal pedal steel air guitar player, but I digress.

I think the main reason that Dave Barry ignores Chestnut Mare as one of the stupidest songs of all time is professional courtesy and a desire not to contradict himself. Barry said recently, “McGuinn remained the pivotal member of the band throughout its various incarnations, and some of his best material stems from the late ’60s/early ’70s albums, with tunes like “Chestnut Mare,” “Tiffany Queen,” “Ballad of Easy Rider,” and others.” Or maybe McGuinn said that, but he said it at the web site of the Rock Bottom Remainders, the band he is most recently guilty of inciting toward music.

So in this modern day period, when we’re all full of angst about just what it means to catch that horse and give her your brand, and wouldn’t that hurt and if Rummy did it wouldn’t I be calling for his resignation? You bet I would. At this point in time (he-he, what a great phrase that is) it seems unfair to categorize Chestnut Mare as anything but another brilliant piece of Byrd flyte. Do you get where I’m coming from AKMA?

Neither Beth nor I had a living mom to honor this mothers day. Our boys are 24 and I was pleased that each of them remembered on his own to honor Beth and wish her Happy Mothers Day. At that age I was way too self involved to “play the man’s game” and celebrate “Hallmark Holidays.” I’m glad our boys are able to share warm feelings. It’s good to know that alienation and depression need not be hereditary!