Puerto Rico, 1985

My High school, Sommerset, had classes arranged in three week courses.  One of those classes was held in Puerto Rico.  Eight of us went along, lived in the student housing of a seminary, and our lone supervisor (who was 24) turned a blind eye to the abundance of DonQ rum in our possession – at least until Nancy was nearly hospitalized for alcohol poisoning.

We did some touristy stuff mixed in with Lectures on PR history, or speeches by peninsulares types about statehood, or speeches by leftists about the need for independence. 

We went to the beach -- either Isla Verde or Luquillo --nearly everyday, and raided the food trucks for pina colladas, fried plantains and land crab empenadas.

We were required to keep a journal as part of the class, and I maintained the usual “today we went to El Moro castle and found the ruins very interesting,” sort of drivel up until the night that Nancy drank too much.  That night, our chaperone told us the rest of the trip was cancelled and we would all fail.

So after that, failure and expulsion looming, I decided there was no risk in journaling more brazenly.  So I wrote as I thought, and I said Fuck a lot more.

But rather than additional punishment, my instructor asked me to continue writing in this manner.  He liked it, he said, and compared my writing to Hunter Thompson – high praise to a 17 year old.  I had to clean up the syntax and the grammar, but if I could continue in adequate volume I could pass the class.

It was that trip, after Nancy’s bender, that I decided I was a writer.

Services for Ed

Eddie drove out to the beach and shot himself in the head with a shotgun.  He was Allison’s brother, and was around every Sunday for Redskins games.  We talked every week, at least during football season, but didn’t talk much.  He seemed a nice guy.  It is a shame he died.

Turns out he tried to get treatment twice, but wasn’t admitted into the psych facility because he smoked.  That makes me angry.  It made everyone who heard it angry.

The services were on Friday in Delaware.  Kath and I drove out, and drove back.  It was nearly all family, so I felt a little like we were intruding.

Today was meant to be more low key, a small gathering at Alison’s sister’s place.  But it was more conversational and that made it intimate.  Everyone said what they remembered about Eddie – from people who hardly knew him, to his siblings and closest friends.  Some talked for ten seconds, some talked for fifteen minutes.  It was very sad and it seems he was very loved.  Alison said she felt like she let him down, Matt said it was doubly sad that people who deserved happiness didn’t get it, I said there would be a hole on Sunday, Keith talked about how hard it was to climb out of that hole.

So I guess people mostly talked about themselves, at least in passing.  Even people who told the stories about Eddie were talking about themselves.  Grieving is a personal, egocentric thing I guess.

Anyhow, everyone talked and the event wore down. 

 I made a bit of an irish exit, talked to Alison in the garage and drove home in the rain.

Coffee with Kathy

We had an ice storm Monday, snow Tuesday, and Ry had been off school for two days.  We expected a delay, but didn’t have one, so Ry and I both dragged out of bed at 6:30 for the drive to Poolesville.  Got back by 7:45, as per usual.  Kath was still in bed, so I brought her coffee and we talked for close to an hour about nothing and everything, Megadog snuggled between us.

We were finishing up the Christmas shopping – I still need to buy for Linda and my Dad.  Since we are flying down to Florida for Dad’s 80^th, and we both shoip through the same amazon account, there is little surprise what I am getting Kath.  I want to buy her something in Florida so she has something to open under the tree.

We have mixed feelings about the trip south.  It seems an added errand to the busy season.  It takes away our Christmas at home – which both kath and I love.  Riley will be at college way too soon.  We will have three more Christmases before he goes, and we begin to feel the need to guard them.

Mom’s has organized some events, but Kath and I are frustrated sometimes by the looseness of our family events.  They seldom flow.   We fear we will both be chained to the kitchen – me to cooking, she to cleaning.

Gwen has taken the time off from Wegmen’s to go down.  Her hours are already too few.  She and we worry about her job, and her future.  We figure she will be living at home long after Ry is off and away.

So Kath and I talked about these things, and politics – frustrated with the healthcare laws, glad to see more of the country is concerned about the President. We talked about Kath's work.  We talked about my new work selling real estate.  I am excited, but worry I will fail at it.  We talked about the band gig this Saturday at a real club for real money.  All this and more, then we noticed the clock and then I went downstairs to look at the market and she got ready for work.

It was a morning both typical and special.  There is so much to do, so many reasons to be thankful, and so many annoyances.  It seems like the finish line keeps getting moved farther and farther back, but that is fine on those days when you enjoy the race.

I loaded up the fireplace, debated cleaning the kitchen, played a few minutes of avenger’s alliance, and decided to make a note of the morning.

Violence

I drove Ry to school this morning, same as every morning.  He is newly 15 and usually has a tough time waking up, but today was easier than most days.  We drove out, across the misty farmland, with the sun rising in the rear-view mirror, and chatted about computer games and his cousin’s software job.  I dropped him off at 7:15 ten minutes before first bell, and drove back from Poolesville.

I’d crossed the bridge over Seneca creek, was listening to political talk on the radio when the deer jumped out.

I was quick on the brakes – luckily no one close behind me – but it was probably less than a quarter second before impact.  I caught the small deer with the center of the f-150’s grill.  I came mostly to a stop, and the carcass rolled away limp.  The deer didn’t move.  I figured it had been killed instantly. 

There was nowhere safe to pull over, and there was a long line of traffic behind me.  I drove on home,  a little bit shaken and unsure how to proceed. 

If you’re going to hit a deer.  dead center with a truck is better than a small car.  It would’ve been a very different experience for someone driving with children in a Honda.  Or if someone had swerved, which is instinct, and pulled into an oncoming car. Reading about such accidents later, I learned that most people die from deer wrecks because of swerving into something.

I got home and looked at the truck.  The front bumper was slightly damaged.  The license plate had apparently been torn off.  I looked online to see what you should do about such an accident – count your blessings if your safe, contact insurance, some suggest putting the deer out of its misery, some suggest harvesting the carcass.  I’ve heard that road kill meat is usually tainted from the impact and not fit to eat, btw.  But that was the last thing on my mind.

I did feel bad about killing the deer.  I worried that it might be alive, suffering.  I also thought I should go collect my license plate.

So I went in the garage, grabbed a sledge hammer and a small pickaxe and drove back over to where I’d hit the deer.  I stopped at a street a couple hundred yards from the carcass and looked at the truck damage again.  Turned out the license plate was still attached, just pushed in.

I decided to take the small pickaxe, which would be more manageable than the sledge, and I walked down the busy road to the deer.  It was quite lifeless, and its eyes looked quite blank.  I worried it might be paralyzed and still suffering, so I took two swings with the sharp end of the pickaxe into its brain.  Maybe three seconds to swing the axe.  I think the skull was shattered because the point went in so easily.

Not being used to such violence, it felt odd.  It felt so strange that it was so easy and quick to swing fatal blows.  You forget how fragile things are.

I drove home, political news was still on the tv.  Gwen was awake and needed a ride to work by 10:15.

When I was 15

John and I skipped school one day in the spring of 1983.  We left Whitman after 1^st period, met up with a red-haired girl we knew and invited her along.  She agreed, and prooved most adept at getting us all picked up while hitch-hiking. 

We got to my house by eleven or so, watched t.v. for a bit, then commenced to raid the liquor cabinet.  We drank shots of Bushmill’s Irish whiskey.  I think we played spin the bottle for drinks rather than kisses and we proceeded to get quite drunk. 

At some point, John – I think it was John – suggested to the drunk girl that we should have sex.  She didn’t think that was a good idea, but John kept pestering.  Finally she said she would, but only if John and I each drank three more shots of whiskey.

(In hindsight, this was clearly a stalling tactic, since there was no way she would’ve.  Also, I don’t think we really believed that she would, but any shot seems worth taking when you’re fifteen and you live in hope of pussy.)

But unfortunately, we’d run out of whiskey.

In the fridge, however, was a full bottle of iced tea.  John and I filled up the whiskey bottle, watered it down a bit and it looked a pretty convincing golden brown.  We took the faked liquor into the other room, poured our shots in her presence and made quite the show of drinking them.

We did our three shots – and one more for good luck.   She seemed quite incredulous that we weren’t puking yet, and when we suggested it was time for her to keep her end of the bargain, begrudgingly, amazingly, she agreed that she would. 

But first, she said, she wanted to take one more shot of Bushmills.

We couldn’t stop her, she insisted, and poured her own shot.  She downed it quick and made a face as she realized that it was iced tea.  She was more amused than anything, and we all agreed that we just been joking around and nothing would’ve happened anyway.  She took a nap in my parents bed, then John woke her up at 3pm, gave her money for a cab home, and later insisted he would’ve had a chance if I’d left them alone, and gave me shit for cockblocking him.

End of the story.

I haven’t thought of that afternoon in a long time, but was over a friend’s barbeque the other day, and the red haired girl’s name came up.  She had died a year or so ago from a brain aneurysm.  She was married, had young children, and from all accounts she was a very sweet person.  Her death was very sudden and very sad. 

In high school, she was always nice to me, and I’d had quite a crush on her.  I once asked her if she wanted to go see “the Outsiders” with me, and she turned me down gently with remarkable grace for a fifteen year old girl.  

It seems crass that my strongest memory of such a nice person is such an obnoxious teenage afternoon.

It seems lonesome and impossible that the red-haired teenager I knew grew up, had a life, had a family, then died.

The memories take on different notes now, like they do with my friend Taylor, like with Bruce who sold us acid in high-school, like the rest of this year’s crop of the “What ever happened to? Oh, they died!” people I knew.

And those notes seem to get a little closer each year.  I realize that my wife is the red-haired girl in somebody’s story, my sister is the girl who used to take acid by the river in high-school, and I am the obnoxious boy who filled whiskey bottles with iced tea.  We are all fifteen forever in somebody’s head, and we are all sitting in a circle, watching the bottle spin.

. 

                                           

Tough Year

Fools Market –

You are a fool to believe that the Fed’s path is sustainable, and that infinite QE will not come with a very dear price.

But you are a fool not to ride the wave of liquidity it provides.

You are a fool not to notice the problems in Europe and Asia, and to think that they will not spread.

But you are a fool not to realize that this will mean money flowing to the U.S.

You are a fool to put money into high-flyers with ridiculous multiples, like AMZN or CMG.

But if you don’t, you will underperform the market badly.’

Oil can’t be this high with abundant supply and slowing worldwide growth…  Unless the middle east heats up, then it will go higher.  Either way, you will be proven a fool.

Precious metals would be prudent, given the monetary shenanigans of the world.  But you have been proven a fool if you still own the miners.

And if you throw up your hands and go to cash or bonds, you are clearly a fool because of their negative real yield.

Curiouser and curiouser.  

And I am sucking at my job.

Bad Day

When I drove across country in 1988, I wound up spending a week or so at my Grandparent’s house in Tacoma.  We had dinner around the kitchen table, did some work in the garage, and listened to stories and such.  It was the kind of visit you have with older people when you won’t have many more chances to spend time with them.  But I didn’t know what that sort of visit felt like when I was 20.  I hadn’t known too many people who got old and died.  At 20, most of the people I knew who were old had been old for my entire life.

My Uncle Brian wasn’t old.  He was middle aged when I was a kid.  He was middle aged in a 1970’s kinda way, like McCloud or even Burt Reynolds.  He had a mustache, and liked dirty jokes.  He would go scuba diving with us.  He liked poker and fishing boats and martinis and Camel cigarettes.  The Cigarettes were what eventually killed him.  But we had lots of visits before he went, usually fishing trips.  One year he was same as he always was, he just went to bed earlier.  The next year he wouldn’t climb up to the flying bridge.  The final year he’d have to rest a few times on the walk down the dock.  Each time we planned the trip, I knew it was the sort of visit you plan in order to spend time with someone who you won’t have too many chances to spend time with.

I had a phone call with my father yesterday.  I told him we’d be in Florida and we made plans to get together in Orlando.  The phone call started to have that familiar feeling.

I’m not expecting his immediate demise. My grandmother was alive for 15 years after that first visit. 

But this phone call, and these plans felt different.  Once you start planning your visits with people with the awareness of their finality, the relationship changes.  So today I felt a little closer to being an orphan.