Sports And Me

Boys and sports are supposed to go together. What is a more nostalgic picture than a father and son playing catch? But my father wasn't around much in my childhood. I can't recall he and I ever having a catch with baseball or football. My grandfather was about, but tossing balls wasn't in his repertoire either. His sport was fox hunting, but there wasn't much opportunity to go out in the backyard and toss a fox around.

When I was five my grandfather did give me a bunch of sports paraphernalia, a baseball uniform, glove, bat and catcher's mask. That is me squatted down in the photo, rather out of position for a catcher. (The other two boys are Tim Mahan with the bat and Billy Smith. They were my best friends in those days.) The bat my grandfather gave me was an Official Stan Musial Signature Louisville Slugger. It weighted 36 ounces and was about that length in inches. I don't know if that is the bat Timmy's holding or not. It was really too big for a child my age, but it was what I learned to hit with and I used that bat forever. I mean, I still have that bat, although it is pockmarked and Stan's signature long ago wore off and there is a crack down one side held closed with duct tape now.

In those early years of my life, boys really only engaged in three sports, baseball, football and basketball. (Hockey was strictly a girl's game in those years. I recall somewhere at some school a boy went out for the field hockey team, but they made him wear one of those little plaid skirts. ) Because of circumstances beyond my control, I was isolated from other children for some of my first grade school years. Halfway through third grade we moved into Downingtown and I found myself an outsider, often teased and not very knowledgable about team sports. In grade school others didn't want me on their team when sides were chosen. Although I was not usually the last player picked, I was often sort of ignored during the game.

Yet I really wasn't too bad when I began to learn the sports, especially in baseball and football. I even had a football uniform, with shoulder pads and helmet. I think my grandmother gave me that outfit. I liked the rough and tumble of football and usually played running back, because I was fast and hard to catch. The only thing I didn't like was being piled upon by a bevy of boys. I sort of panicked if I was buried beneath a half-dozen other kids with my face smashed into the ground. Once I got kicked in the throat while squashed beneath such a scrum and thought I was going to die, but nonetheless, the older I got the more I enjoyed the violence of the sport. When I was in high school we used to play our pickup games in a graveyard with a couple of tombstones as the goal line.

I would never go out for the teams at school, though. I had such a fear of being made fun of in those days I wouldn't have chanced failing at anything in front of others. I was content to play in pick-up games with friends and acquaintances.

Whenever there was a chance to play baseball I took it. Despite owning that catcher's mask, I wanted to pitch...at first...and for a brief awhile. In grade school I use to pitch in these playground games until one day I caught a line drive in the solar plexus and crumbled to the ground in a pile of pain. After that I preferred the outfield. The further away from batter and ball the better.

I tried out for one team while I lived in Downingtown. There was not in those days a Little League team in town, but there was Babe Ruth Baseball for boys over 13 and up. My friend Stuart (pictured left) and I tried out for Babe Ruth when I was 14, but my family moved out of town before the rosters were announced, so I never got to play. I don't really know if Stuart made the team or not.

When I started at my new school after the move, I was approached by a coach about playing basketball.  The only qualification I had was being tall. I am six foot. Back in 1956 that height was well above average. Now, I was good at volleyball, bad mitten, ping pong and tennis. It seemed I excelled at games with a net, but not basketball. Oh, no, I could throw the ball through the hoop and in games of PIG and HORSE could certainly hold my own, but on the basketball court I was completely lost. I was constantly confused by the fouls. I didn't know what the heck they were talking about. Traveling, of course I'm traveling cause I'm trying to get down there where the net is. Everybody around me is traveling too. Double dribble? What are you talking about? I don't have anything running down my chin. All that chaos going on put me in a trance. If someone said, "Toss me the ball," I would, it didn't matter if it was a guy on the other team or not.  As I  noted, I could throw the ball through the hoop, but chances were I'd do this through the one on the wrong side of the court and score two points for the opposition.

In my senior year at high school they had tournaments for wrestling and boxing. I went undefeated in both. In my final wrestling bout Phil Hahn was my opponent. He out weighted me by fifty pounds, but I prevailed. At some point he whacked me hard on the nose with his elbow. When the bout was over all I heard was the gym teacher yelling, "Who got blood on my new mats?" That would be me. Blood was streaming out of my nose.

I was best at boxing. I don't know how good my technique was, but I could take a punch. You might knock me down, but I always got up and I would just keep going like the Energizer Bunny.

I might as well mention I also won the sit-up competition.

Perhaps the success I had in boxing and wrestling, and sit-ups,  gave me some confidence. I finally went out for an actual team in my senior year. I joined the track team. That is the team on the left, so where's Waldo? We were not a great team. We lost every one of our meets, but one. We beat Phoenixville in our final meet and it was the one I came closest to winning my event. (If you are looking for Waldo, he isn't there, but I am. I'm the guy in the dark sweatshirt and glasses near the right side three rows up.)

Now here is the thing about me and track. In the beginning there were tryouts in all the events. I stood out in the mile run. I had the fastest time, just over 5 minutes. It was, in fact, a very good time for a teenager who had never ran a mile before. The record at that time was something like 4 minutes 12 seconds for a high schooler. The coach wanted me to be a long distance guy. He figured with some training I could press that 4 minute 12 second mark.

I didn't see it that way.

I hated running and I knew the milers ran all the time. That was all they did, run, run and run some more. I decided to shot the put and fling the discus instead. The shot putters and discus throwers were called weight men. Most of the kids who did these events were big and heavy. I was not. I was tall, but slender and I had never been know for my upper body strength. However, weight guys ran the least, so that was for me. Of course, I didn't stand much chance against some of the behemoths the other schools rolled out to the throwing circles. I was like a popgun in the middle of a cannonade.

I was a bit better with the discus. It was a lighter missile, kind of a frisbee on steroids. Throwing these things goes back to antiquity, but at least the school allowed us to wear a uniform.

If I remember rightly, and at my age that is not guaranteed, one began standing at a slight crouch with one's back to the field inside a circle. Some places had actual wooden circles, but most had circles drawn in lime. On my one brief moment of glory, the circle was wood. The tosser would then spin about inside this circle and as one approached the front edge would release the discus into the air with a mighty fling of the arm.

You got three flings.

On this particular day, our last meet of the year in Phoenixville, I was the last competitor in the discus and had come to my third and final fling. I crouched, I spun, I released and gloryoski that discus was arcing far out over the football field and when it came slashing down it was further than any fling by any flinger before me. I teetered there on one foot watching victory and then I bounced again the wooden frame and tapped my other foot down and outside the circle.

I had fouled. I was disqualified. I was disgraced. My team went on to win the meet, our only win of the year, which is supposed to be of consequence since it is a team and that is the object, but it was little solace to loser me.

I've played my share of sports since those boyhood days, bowling, tennis and golf mostly. I was on a church league softball team in the 1970s and I was the best hitter with an average somewhere over .800. We played softball a lot in Junior High Gym and I could never seem to catch the softball when it was hit my way. My way was right field, because that is where they put guys who couldn't catch. I could catch hard balls just fine, so I blamed this inability on not having a glove. But when I played in the church league we wore softball gloves, but I was back in right field because I still couldn't catch a softball. I wonder why? I mean, the thing is big so you have to see it coming at you like some huge white meteorite from outer space that is going to crash into you hand, glove or not, and take your arm off up to the elbow...but I digress.

At any rate, my sports playing days are pretty much over, I guess, unless walking counts.

Shallow Eyes

The Super Bowl hip-hyped juggernaut has left town. Joe Flacco is off to Disneyland and the 49niners are off licking their wounds and electricians are off to the Super Dome. The only things left are the second-guessing and the criticisms.

One of the weird phenomena created by the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl Commercials. These have become almost as anticipated as the game itself. It has also spawned the bizarre annual TV Show where people sit for an hour watching commercials only interrupted occasionally for a commercial by the sponsors. Is that an only in America moment or what?

I find a lot of people liked the Doritos Goat ad this year. I thought the Ram Truck ad was a perfect ad. It was like a little History Channel show, a beautifully photographed collection of farmers shown against the narration of Paul Harvey in praise of these men and women of the soil. It was a two-minute tribute and only at the very end did you find out who it was for and that was brilliant. Not only a matching of product to a targeted audience, but after it was done I actually knew who the sponsor was even though Ram Trucks was mentioned only briefly.

Another ad that drew a lot of comment was for Go-Daddy. I do not know why, but some years back Go-Daddy's ad agency decided to go with the tasteless, somewhat sleazy, sex-tease ads. I suppose on the theory that sex sells. Many of their pitches featured scantily clad models promising you could see more by going to the website. They even hired race driver Danica Patrick as their pitch person What any of this has to do with a business that registers domain names and hosts websites I do not know. (Somewhat incongruous, my church's website is registered by Go-Daddy.)

To many, though, Go-Daddy stepped over a line this year with their Sexy meets Smart ad. I have read a  number of critical comments on the social networks concerning this one and every one I saw was very negative. The general feeling was of a mutual disgust with the presentation. In case you did not see this particular little display it went this way. Danica Patrick, dressed in her racing leathers stands off to one side of a bench. Seated upon this bench are two people, a model that is introduced as  Bar Rafaeli. I never heard of her and her name sounds much like a Key West watering hole where Hemingway might have hung out, but she is called Sexy. Next to her is an obviously short, overweight young man called only Walter. He wears glasses, has blotchy skin and is dressed in stereotypical nerd fashion. He is called Smart. After this introduction, Danica said, "Together they're perfect."

We are now treated to a close-up of these two kissing accompanied by a lot of slurping sound effects. It really is rather disturbing to watch and one would expect there might be some protest about this prolonged and intimate kiss on a show where kids are watching. At least in this Go-Daddy ad everyone keeps their clothes on. There was protest, too. However as a long ago Sociology Major I was fascinated  by what the criticism focused upon.

It wasn't what one might expect. Most of the reaction was repulsion that this (allegedly) beautiful woman would engage in such a kiss with such an (allegedly) repulsive looking man. "Eww, how could she lock lips with that ugly nerd?" was even stated.

Oh how shallow we are. This was not people reacting to some moral breakdown. It was people showing their prejudice against someone who wasn't considered good looking. If this kiss had been presented between Bar (who names their daughter Bar anyway) and one of those gyrating gentlemen in the Calvin Klein underwear ad (on right and another inappropriate ad for the game) would there have been as much negative comment?

This ad was so objectionable on so many levels besides bad taste. For one, look at the idea that to be smart you must also be homely or socially awkward. For another, the idea that two people who are far different in their appearance couldn't seriously be in love. But yet, so many people embraced those two bias and were turned off by this beauty and the beast match up. Go stand in the corner with the ad execs of Go-Daddy and be ashamed for your shallowness...and take Calvin Kein with you.

You Need Your Knees

You take a lot for granted about your body when everything is working as it should. You forget that the whole is the sum of its parts. When a part isn't doing what it should it just might bring the machine to a halt.

My left knee just about brought this old contrapion called me to a stop. I wrote about the pain a week ago, so consider this a progress report.

Knees are ugly things, at least on me they are. They are bumpy and scared, and of course a popular gathering place for my psoriasis. I don't really have to look at them all that much. They are down there someplace kind of in a blind spot. I barely consider them, except on those occasions with Mr. Arthur Itis comes by to visit those joints. But as I last reported his cousin Mr. Bur S. Itis moved in this month, lock stock, balloon  and red-hot poker.

There's what he looked like back on the 23rd in the right photo.

He blew up enough to take out some of the wrinkles, but who cares if their knees are smooth? Fact was it hurt like blazes and I couldn't bend my leg, not a wit, not an inch.

It is a real inconvenience when the knee won't bend, especially with the pain. I couldn't easily get in the car. I had to push my self up high and half over the passenger seat to slide that left foot up and in. Once I got the leg and foot in the car it was agony driving even short distances because I couldn't stretch it straight out and that little bend I forced upon it keep burning at me all the way.

Getting dressed was another interesting maneuver. You can't bend the thing and you can't hardly lift your foot without Mr. Bur S. Itis shooting a dart down your shin. I had to devise a way to manage.

I would have to hold my underwear so the leg hole was an open target. Lift my left leg a inch while gritting my teeth and then wave the shorts back and forth until I lassoed the toes. After that I gently tugged them over the foot and then slipped in the right foot, because that leg I could bend and pulled them up. Somewhat the same with trousers, except they were too long and bulky to wave at my toes. I would place  the left side of them pretty much down on the floor, then ease my foot up on them hoping to get into the top of the leg. Now again an easing up inch by inch until my foot peeked through the other side. Then dip down the right side and slip in the right foot and pull into place.

I would put my right shoe on first. I would place my left shoe on the floor and again force my left leg and foot off the found and over the back into the opening. After than I just had to press until my foot was inside, which usually broke down the back of my shoe under my heel. It wasn't easy getting that leather out and back where it should be either. A lot of pushing with my other foot.

Of course for the first week I couldn't tie that shoe. My wife had to do it for me. "Thank you, mommy. Someday I'll learn to do it myself!"

Now I didn't mention something else. Something goes on between the pants and the shoe called a sock. I figured out how to get the pants on Larry and the shoe over my toes, but I found no way to get the sock on. Again, I had to ask my wife to do it.

So I was dressed with no where to go, because I couldn't blasted walk. I was more or less a paperweight for a week. Then it began to improve a bit. I could bend it a teeny tiny bit.

Here is how I measured progress. "Mommy, mommy, I tied my shoe all by myself today!" Yes, it bent just enough I could lean over while standing up, just grasp my shoelace ends and by gritting my teeth manage a reasonable bow knot. I still couldn't get my sock anywhere near my toes though. I was still dragging myself into the car and trying to hide the pain of driving. I still couldn't sleep but in one position at night, assuming I could get to sleep at all.

But a couple days ago the pain easied and the knee bent a little more. I could actually change how I lay at night and sleep. It was getting easier to dress and to get in the car. Then another day and a bit more bend and bit less swelling. Now I had almost no pain, unless I forgot myself and bent my leg too far. It wasn't too far to too far, either.

I felt my leg was about 85% back to normal. I felt no discomfort now driving, although I still had to be careful getting into a vehicle. And then I actually managed to put my sock on myself. It wasn't all that easy, but I can do it.

I still couldn't cross my legs, but I was walking almost like a human being again.

Now today both my knees are looking more like their good old wrinkled up ugly selves. This morning they almost look like twins, although you can still see a little swelling in the left.

However, I can't catch a break. I woke up at two o'clock this morning from pain. It wasn't my left knee.

It seems Mr. Arthur Itis took up residence in the apartment below. My ankle is killing me and I'm back to an old man's shuffle.

Why I should Stop Being Lazy and Carry My camera

I guess I am lazy, but I hate to carry anything when I walk. Thank goodness I wasn't born a woman, I could never tolerate a pocketbook. But I have come to the conclusion I need to get over this laziness and carry my camera. You see, I keep my camera in a pouch strapped to my belt. Very convenient, but very difficult to get to quickly. As a result I am missing some interesting pictures, such as the fox I met face to face on the trail a bit ago. The fox froze in a perfect pose, but by the time I got my camera out it bolded into a nearby field and I missed it.

I've missed a few more good shots  the last couple of days.

Today, for instance, I thought a stroll up Rocky Run would be enjoyable. I haven't walked that path recently, especially with the rain and floods we've had. I went up the path, but at the meadow the trail disappeared into a marsh of mud and water. I didn't feel like sinking over my shoe tops thus I backtracked a little ways and went up what I call High Ridge. It is up atop a mount and runs parallel to the main trail. I walked back and followed up where it rises even higher up the Piedmont and through the woods and emerges on a campsite high on the hill. Then I turned around and came back.

As I was walking I heard a twig snap to my left. I glance over and thought I saw a white shirt and movement behind a bush. That made me edgy. Why would anyone be back there? It is the deep scruff and there is no trail, only rough ground and thicket.

I walked on and another twig snapped. I stopped and stood looking over in the direction of the sound. A few moments passed before I realized I was being watched. There between two trees stood a large deer staring at me. I don't know if it was a buck, it didn't have antlers, but it was very large and quite handsome. I reached to my pouch, but as soon as I did it bolted back into the brush. I saw another set of legs follow, so I have no idea how many deer may have been there.

But once again I missed the shot because my camera was zipped away at my side.

I continued down off the mount to Rocky Run heading out this time. As I reached that trail two dogs came bounding up it toward me. The lead dog was a Yellow Lab, looking much like my dog, Tucker (who died earlier). The other was also a large dog, but all black.

As they ran toward me, I froze. They had been at a distance when first I spotted them and there was no sign of a person about. The dogs stopped directly in front of me and I began to stick one hand out for them to sniff. Suddenly the yellow lab begins barking at me. The black dog quickly follows suit. Both are blocking the path and barking and making little lunges in my direction. I am saying something, probably, "It's okay, fellows."

I am glancing about for something to protect me, like a large sharp stick, when I hear a woman's voice far down the trail call a name and yell, "Come here!" The dogs pay it no mind. Finally two women appear and after several calls and admonishments to the pooches, the hounds turn tail and run to them. I see them snap leashes on the beasts.

The women are very apologetic and assure me this was very unusual behavior. We have a little chat of pleasantries and they go up the trail and I go down. After while I wonder if I should have told them of the deer. I wouldn't want the dogs to go chasing, but it is too late now. I go on.

I am coming up the main trail and happen to glance left at the creek. The Brandywine is several yards beyond this trail. There is a narrow barrier of trees along the left side, then the ground dips down to a large apron of grass. Across the way I see the Great Blue Heron sitting up on a downed tree branch.

I ignore the brush and press through the tree line, cross a patch of mud (this whole area had been under water a week ago) and pull my camera free as I step over the grass to the shoreline of the creek. Amazingly the great bird doesn't fly away as it has every time in the past I have tried to film it.

I stand on the bank as still as I can for nearly a half hour filming the Heron. I am staying so long now hoping it will raise its wings and fly so I can capture that graceful departure. But it doesn't leave. It stands on the branch and looks about. It preens itself, looks across at me, but it doesn't fly. I finally move on. I have the bird recorded, but it is still at a distance. You can see it in the photo at the top of this post if you look closely. You can almost see it better in its reflection in the water than its actual body against the background.

But this is what I mean, for the day before I had been walking on the Northern Greenway from Rockwood to Bellevue and back. Coming back I turned a corner and there was a Great Blue Heron standing directly in the middle of the path not more than 15 feet away. Magnificent, what an opportunity, but as usual, when I began to unzip my camera pouch it took flight. For such a large bird it disappeared very quickly.

Later, as I was driving through the woods after my walk, heading home, a pelican flew directly in front of me. This was rather unusual for around here. Perhaps the pelican had been driven northward by the hurricane, but it was definitely a pelican. I was driving then, so there was no chance of retrieving my camera from its garage on my belt.

As disappointing as it was to miss these pictures of wild beastee and bird these were't the most disappointing of all. That missed shot had come earlier on my Rockwood-Bellevue walk.

When I parked at Rockwood and exited my car, I also pulled out my camera. There were three large trees that had been uprooted near the gazebo. I filmed these and walked up the hill and around past the mansion. Here I took some more film of those trees from above. Now I walked on, taking some shots of downed trees and branches in the mansion yard. I decided I would film the creek that ran alongside the woods I was entering. I had been here the day before and that creek was roaring, splashing high over rocks and creating the white foam of rapids.

I came down today and no roaring, no big splashes, no foam. The creek was wider than normal, but pretty calm. I decided not to film and to put my camera safely away in its little black pouch. I stood on a curve of the path struggling to get my camera back in its bed. The pouch isn't large and I carry my id in it (I don't take my wallet or money on my hikes) and also my car keys. It took some effort, but I got the camera in and zipped the pouch closed.

Now as you pass through these woods to the rear of Rockwood you see a community of homes across this creek. Up ahead of me was a footbridge over the water that joined a path which meandered through that community and if you followed it, you could walk all the way into Alapocas Run State Park.

I noticed a woman standing just on the other side of the bridge. As I came nearer on my path, she stepped out to the middle of the bridge and leaned against the railing to the far side from me. She was looking down toward the creek. I then noticed a man on my side, presumedly her husband. He was on the grass and walking down the embankment toward the stream bed.

They were saying something to each other, but I couldn't hear.

He disappeared behind the bridge and down the slight hill and suddenly she pulled her shorts down.

I do not know why, but yes, she pulled her shorts down and she was wearing nothing beneath.

I do not think she was mooning me because I am fairly certain neither of them were aware I was there. They had both been intently looking down at the stream. Perhaps it was an accident, a wardrobe malfunction. I have sometimes had my pants slip down, in fact, a regular happening this year after I lost several pounds when I started walking regularly again, although I always caught my trouser or shorts before they fell that far.

Maybe she was flashing her husband.

I do not know the reason and she pulled them up a moment later. I only know if I had kept my camera in my hand I would have recorded that posterior for posterity.

I must get over my laziness.

Flutter by, Butterfly

Always rambling, always exploring, I am and I am not a creature of habit. If I do not work, and I have not worked much lately, I go for a long, early morning walk. That is the habitual part.

But walking the same trail, the same route each day, no, I like a constant variety and thankfully the good souls who have preserved our nature hereabouts have provided it.

Besides the several fine and handsome parks surrounding my neck of the woods, these parks are festooned with many trails. Not only do I take a different path each day, I look for ones I've missed before and go exploring. Sometimes they prove short or dead end and I can only turn around and go back as I came, but most present new scenery and often surprises. Sometimes the surprise is I don't know my way back to where I started and am lost for a bit. I don't mind, it is interesting being lost as long as you know ways of eventually de-losing yourself.

At any rate, I turned off on to a road less traveled yesterday. It was a totally random choice this time. I was searching for something. (I will probably make this search a Frank March Adventure if I ever find the object of my desire.)  I am looking for an elusive waterfall. I had a conversation with a bicyclist I met after I had climbed hills and forded streams and had returned to a main trail unsuccessful. I asked if he knew where the waterfall was. He didn't. He didn't know there was a waterfall and thought with our dry weather it might not exist at the moment. His assumption was this mysterious waterfall only appeared after heavy rains or only at some magical time like Brigadoon.

Perhaps, but I think not. There is on the Internet at the Woodlawn website a trail map, and it indicates a waterfall up in one corner of this acreage, right over the state border I suspect. I just don't think I've walked down the right route yet or far enough.

Once a month I get together with a group of poets and we share our poetry. The latest meeting was this past Thursday and a story that was told became my catalyst to once again search for the waterfall on Friday morning. My friend and fellow poet, Dallas (pictured left), had a motorcycle accident this past week. It left him with a broken hand and broken rib. He can't work (he drives a bus) and he can't do his daily bike ride or his martial arts exercises either. This forced inability led to a story mentioning the waterfall, although it was peripheral to the tale.

The story: Dallas had gone on his regular bike ride up into the Woodlawn forest, when he came to a waterfall. Here was a nice open space beside a pond. He parked his bike and spend some time doing his martial arts exercises. It was a very hot day and that pond looked more and more inviting as he finished up his forms. Yes, it looked very enticing and there was no one around, he had been quite alone all day, he striped off to skin and dove into the water. It was very refreshing and he splashed there enjoying this cooling bath when he heard voices. A group of children suddenly appeared marching toward the spot, so he sunk himself down into the pond up to his chin. Some waved, some spoke to him and he said "hi" back. As this group settled upon the bank their teacher came from behind and began pointing and explaining things surrounding (presumably this did not include the head bobbing in the pond). Finally, the lecture finished, they waved goodbye and were gone. He, with relief and wrinkled skin, climbed ashore, quickly dressed and got out of there.

So I thought, there is definitely a waterfall somewhere out there and the next morning I set off again to find it.

I also thought isn't this always the way. When you think you are alone and safe along comes someone to embarrass you. It was just like my telling about removing my shirt in this heat while on what was to me a very unused trail. I almost never met anyone on in that place, but this time along comes a lady and her dogs. At least I had only removed my shirt.

Thus it was I wandered in a whole lot of new territory yesterday morning without finding my waterfall. I came to a choice far up on a mount after walking long. Perhaps the path going to my right would have led me to my goal, but I had been hiking long and the day was heating up, so I went left.

This took me up a narrow path I had also never been on before. It ran along the very top of the ridge and there was a fence along one side, probably electrified, for it only had three well-spaced strands of thick cable on white plastic knobs.  There was a cornfield along where I first came, then later I could see a road across a meadow. Meanwhile, the path grew very narrow and all around were high brush, especially cockleburs.

This is where I saw them, a flutter of yellow here and there. There were butterflies in packs flitting from plant to plant and then around my head. It was a marvelous place to be. Cicada were singing in the nearby woods and these beautiful, colorful creatures leading me along. It was an enchanting moment of beauty and peace.

I pulled out my camera and began filming, following their flight, and at times they seemed to pose for their close-up.

Not just the yellow ones, but these darker flies of black and blue and silver.

I do not know butterfly types. When you encounter large yellow ones with black trim you always think Monarch, but I am not sure the markings were right and there are yellow butterflies that mimic the Monarch. The dark one on the left seems to be some kind of swallowtail. There was one that when sitting still spread its wings forming almost a star that looked metallic. You can see that one near the end of my little two minute film below.

By the way, did you know they tag butterflies out of the nature center in Brandywine Creek State Park. Imagine catching and tagging these delicate looking creatures. You do it gently, a tiny sticker on the wing that doesn't harm or hinder the butterfly. They catch them, take them to the center, feed them, tag them and led them loose. This way they can trace the migrations of the insect.

 

Hot and Hazy: I Sing the Body Elastic and other Rambles, The Series Continues

  "The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them..." wrote Walt Whitman as the beginning of his poem known as "I Sing the Body Electric", a title and line not included on the original, but added later.

Spellcheck is saying that word "engirth" is incorrect and it is difficult finding a definition of it. You have to get back to Shakespearian times to find out it means "surround". Whitman, being a poet, couldn't make reading easy and just say, "The armies of those I love surround me."

Despite whatever archaic vocabulary Whitman choose to employ, some people understood certain lines of his poem well enough to feel uncomfortable, thus Leaves of Grass, the collection of poems that engirthed it, was often banned.

I hope my Blog doesn't suffer a similar state as I Sing the Body Elastic.

My piece isn't a poem. It is a paean and diatribe about this soma that has carried me about for more than seventy years. Yes, I know paean and diatribe are quite opposite things; this is a little bit of both, a tiny bit of bitter with the sweet.

I feel my body was created by a government committee, you know a bunch of rascals who make a compromise and come up with a convolution rather than a solution. You give a group of monkeys enough time and they will recreate the works of Shakespeare; you give a government committee any time and they'll screw it up. My own twisted up body may have thus resulted because my father was a Democrat and my mother was a Republican, proof positive that love conquers all.

I am told when I was born the doctor said I had a beautiful and most perfectly shaped head.  I don't know what that bought me. I never had a girl come on to me and say, "I must date you for you have such a perfectly shaped head!" Maybe by the time I was dating age it wasn't so perfect anymore, after all it had been knocked about a good bit by then, had a brick fall on it and been hit by a golf club (a driver specifically). Whatever, when I look at my baby pictures it looks like most other baby heads. (What's with that cap? Did I have a unicorn horn on the top of my beautiful, perfectly formed skull?)

I was tall for my age and tall for my times. There were a few contemporaries as tall or taller, but I was always in the top ten. In my kindergarden class photo (I am kneeling in the front row on the far left wearing the striped shirt and baggy shorts) you can see I was already above my peers vertically. (Note also the prejudice of the era as the only black child in the class is standing apart from the rest of us.)

I may actually be taller than my height. It sounds a ridiculous statement, but is probably true nonetheless. That government committee that designed my carcass packaged me with scoliosis and if you straightened out my spine I might be a couple inches higher.

My father was always yelling at me to stand up straight and threatening to put me in a brace, which he never did. He also made the idea of a brace sound a dire punishment, something that would hurt terribly, so a medical aid became an object I feared and had nightmares about. I would try to stand straight, but of course I really couldn't since I was born crooked. Now I say scoliosis, but I am not certain it was ever really diagnosed. My children were diagnosis with mild scoliosis, but it is barely noticeable. They don't have quite the same physique as I and I wonder if I don't have Scheuermann's disease. When I feel my backbone it doesn't seem to have any twist to it, just a rounding at the top, and my shoulders don't tilt to one side or the other. I certainly do have the typical traits of Scheuermann's, a humped back and a deep barrel chest. (Aren't barrel chests supposed to be manly? Ernest Hemingway had a barrel chest. Bob Hoffman had a barrel chest [more about Hoffman later]).

You can see this curvature very clearly in the photo on the right as I bend to stroke a cat. This certainly resemble illustrations I have seen of people with Scheuermann's and a hump does pop up upon me, although perhaps not as severe as the photo of the disease's victim on the left.

According to what I read neither of these conditions is easily changed, especially once past childhood. There isn't a lot that can be done, really, although surgery might be used on those with extreme cases. Surgery on the spine is always a delicate operation, and like my psoriasis, the risks aren't necessarily worth the cure.  (Yes, that was another nice add-on provided by the government committee on body implantation, psoriasis, which also came equipped with a side dish of psoriatic arthritis.)

Coming head-on, this little hiccup in design isn't very apparent, except my neck kind of disappears. In this photo, taken in days when I still had hair, and dark hair at that, you can just see the slight curve of my spine. You can also see how it has given me that barrel chest spoken of. (You can also see I really do have a neck.) Although I would hardly call my distortions extreme, it was enough for other kids to taunt me as a humpback, and worse, as Quasimodo.

Adding to my ridicule at the hands of some of my peers, my eyesight was deteriorating. I did not know this for who knows how long. I knew I couldn't see a lot of writing on the blackboard, but just attributed this to being seated too far back. You see, it was common practice then to seat pupils by height. I was among the tallest so usually I was sitting in or near the rear row. When I went to Junior High my nearsightedness was uncovered because they gave us eye exams in school.

Now I had to wear glasses; now I was "four-eyes".

There weren't a lot of kids wearing glasses in those days, so it made you stick out. I don't know if it is such a big deal anymore. At least today you can get contacts or thin wire frames that are almost invisible. No such things when I first got specs. Oh, no, they came with thick heavy plastic frames, tortoise shell or black. There was no hiding them.

Worst yet, I got glasses as I entered puberty. My body now became very elastic, very thin, very gangly. I was like some large insect, a Praying Mantis perhaps, long, thin, with too many appendages, but with a pumpkin for a head.

This picture of me in my Boy Scout Summer Uniform is one I dislike with a passion, but it does best represent the awkwardness my body adopted in my adolescent years.

Note in this picture my long arms. I have unusually long arms for my height. Or maybe my arms are perfectly matched to my "real" height, but appear too long because my twisted spine has lowered me by a couple inches. I do not know, but I know it is very hard to find shirt sleeves to fit. Generally if a shirt fits my chest and my neck, several inches of wrist still hang bare.

Overall, my body is very difficult to tailor. I have broad shoulders, a barrel chest, a curved spine, thinner hips, a narrower waist-to-chest ratio and these over-extended arms. Once when I had to have some new suits altered, the tailor, with his tape measure about his neck, pins in his mouth and chalk in his hand stopped in mid-mark to call to an associate.

"Hey, Matty, come over here and look at there arms!"

Somewhat humiliating.

I've mentioned there was another period when I did not like taking off my shirt in public. My teen years were the time. It was not because of my spine curvature nor the beginning spots of psoriasis. It was my skinniness.

Oh, I was thin. That is a picture of me in my junior year of high school on the left. Strip off my shirt and you could use me in biology to explain the human skelton. Every bone was prominent. My ribs stood out making me a human Glockenspiel. I didn't want anyone seeing that chest. I feared gym because teams were usually divided into shirts and skins. When we counted off, I always seemed to end up on the skins.

I followed the usual route of the skinny guy getting sand kicked in his face, I turned to exercise. I had a course, ordered from a magazine ad, called The Manly Art of Self-Defense or some such title. It was mostly devoted to boxing lessons, which I wasn't all that interested in, but it also came with various calisthenics and charts where you could record you progress, both in reps and in muscle gain. There was a little wheel you turned and it would tell you the best exercises for baseball or football or wrestling and so forth.

Despite this I stayed skinny, so I got my mom to buy me a barbell set. I still have that set and I have used it over and over in the years between then and now. It came with little booklets on developing various body parts, all written by Bob Hoffman (remember him of the barrel chest), who was a bodybuilder and head of York Barbell Company.

I suppose my lifting helped build my muscle tone, but nature took care of my thinness automatically. Halfway through my senior year I suddenly, like over night, filled out somewhat. I jumped from 155 pounds to 180 pounds.

Despite my weight gain, my limbs still looked like pipes. They were just too long. The measurements weren't bad and there was some definition, but with the extra long wrists what muscles I had kind of got lost. It is still this way. In most pictures my arms seem to dangle about with not much meat to them, but they really aren't all that slight.

Okay, I may not resemble Hulk Hogan, except around the hairline, but my arms get the job done.

My problem with my chest these days isn't it is too thin. It is the opposite. Oh, it was never in such great shape that I would ever be mistaken for Mr. America, but it was okay for laying about the pool without being totally a shame that it was seen in daylight by anyone.

When I was a teenager heros and tough guys in novels were always described as being six foot tall and weighing 200 pounds. That was what I thought was ideal during those skinny years. I was six foot tall, just nowhere near 200 pounds.

About a year before the picture on the right was taken, I had reached my dream and it was a nightmare. I not only achieved 200 pounds, I went up to 215 (my best bowling score incidentally). It was uncomfortable and this picture was after I shed all that excess baggage and got back well below 200 to the 180 I weighted at graduation from high school.

My weight has fluctuated up and down over the last few years. At the beginning of summer I was at 180 again, but I seem to always bloat up during the hot months and when i weighted myself yesterday I was at 190.

It is amazing how much difference ten pounds and the pull of gravity over seventy years can make, and that is why I never, well hardly ever, take my shirt off in public these days. And my paunch and drooping chest should make Ron feel a whole lot better about his own slight slippage.

Gee, do you think my white beard will get as long as Walt Whitman's?












Illustrations:
 Photo at top of post: Walt Whitman in Camden, New Jersey, 1887 by Thomas Eakins
 Photo of Scheuermann's Disease victim from Wikipedia.
All other photos taken by or owned by the author.

Hot and Hazy: Man Boobs and other Rambles, The Series Continues

At this time in my life I do not appear in public shirtless, for basically the same reason that Arnold (pictured left) should consider the same policy. There was a time I hated to remove my top for another reason, but we'll get to that next post.

Even so, it has been a blast furnace out there for several days, and since the "out there" I have been in the most is backwoods, I made a couple concessions to the hot and broke my rule. Doing so was not without reluctance, but a week ago I was on a trail where over the many moments I have walked it, I have almost never met another hiker and it had been months since that last "almost never" occurred. It seemed safe to throw caution, and my shirt, to the wind and I must say the shade of the forest did feel good on my bare skin.

I was indeed enjoying this freedom when what to my wandering eyes should appear, but a lady and two tiny reind...I mean, two dogs, neither really tiny, coming up the path toward me.

Oh well, nothing to do but step aside, blush, and let the lady and her pooches pass. We spoke briefly as polite people do and went our separate ways.

And yesterday I was on the same trail and made the same reluctant decision, and wouldn't you know, here comes the same woman and the same dogs and we exchanges the same pleasantries and went our same separate ways. And still I met the same woman once again before I had finished the trail. This lady has now seen my bare chest more times in recent years than anyone except my wife. My doctor hasn't even seen my bare chest three times in the last two years.

Okay, why are we talking about bare chests today anyway. It is because in a recent Post on his Blog, "Retired in Delaware", my life-long friend Ron complained he was getting "man boobs" (sometimes called "moobs"). On the right is the photo he posted as proof of his getting this condition plus a paunch. But before we deal with how if he thinks this he has a very vivid imagination, we probably should take a look at the word "boob" and gain some insight into it and this thing called "man boobs".

The word was once considered somewhat vulgar, but it has grown to such common overuse you barely go a day without hearing or seeing it, especially on the boob tube. For some of a newer generation who may think boob tube is some sort of pornographic peep show on the Internet, the term came into being about fifty years ago to describe television. Therefore, we see the word was in the common vocabulary decades ago. It is a stupid sounding word — boob — and that was its meaning during the years of my youth. If you did something stupid, you were a "boob". Crazy people were put in a "booby hatch", because they had to be restrained from doing stupid things. These terms had a different origin and had nothing to do with chests.

Boob, meaning fool, is a corruption of the Spanish for stupid, "bobo". It actually traces to the Latin word "balbus". Balbus didn't mean stupid, it meant stammering, but since the Romans thought anyone who stammered was stupid, it is virtually the same thing. Anybody ever read I, Claudius or see the PBS series based on it? Claudius had a bad stammer so everyone thought he was a moron until he became emperor.

Boob, meaning breast, has a different etymology, not Spanish nor Latin. Actually, there are some varied opinions. Some think it came from the buboes, the swelling of lymph glads, during the bubonic plague. Others place the blame on a 1762 novel by Henry Fielding, where a woman named Lady Booby tried to seduce the hero by exposing her breasts.  Since the word boob or booby didn't really come into popular usage until the mid-1900s I rather discount this theory. Somehow I don't think a lot of people were reading,  Fielding s' The History of Joseph Andrews in the 1930s and '40s.

The word "bubby" came about in the 1930s and over the next couple decades turned into "booby" and "boob". "Bubby" came from the German word "Bubbi", and remember Germany was a country much watched in the 'thirties. "Bubbi" means "teat" and "teat" means basically a nipple or the part of a mammal where it's young can drink milk. Teat was a fairly common term in farm country when I was a boy.

Fine, students, history lesson is over, let's get to the heart of his matter of "man boobs".

This term probably became popular in our lexicon after a particular Seinfeld episode concerning a problem of George's father and the invention of the Manssiere or Bro. It is a condition many of we males experience with age as years of gravity, decline of exercise and possible overeating have their way with our bodies. (Remember when Arnold had six-pack abs instead of looking like there were too many six-packs inside the abs.) Yes, sad but true, for many of us our once defined hard pecs become round and soft and resemble women's breasts. It generally does go as a set with a growing paunch. Look at my friend's photo again and you'll see he has pretty much failed the test of true man boobs and paunch. But he is young yet, only 69, he still has time to grow that belly and droop that chest.

In truth, this condition my friend is concerned about isn't really man boobs. It is just some flab and weakening muscle tone. There is a medical condition of man boobs called "Gynecomastia" caused by possible hormonal imbalances or other health issues and sometimes by medications. Men suffering from Gynecomastia can develop quite impressive breasts.

If Ron is concerned, he need only compare himself to Arnold. He has a long way to go to boast of a paunch of such worthwhile note.

Oh, and what of myself? I've already confessed I never take my shirt off in public. I don't even walk about my house shirtless. So this is very difficult for me, but here I be shirtless on that trail yesterday. Ron can take more comfort now. I am three inches shorter than he and probably weight thirty pounds more right now.

I've always felt I had a body build by a government committee. More about that next time.


TO BE CONTINUED -- NEXT: I Sing the Body Elastic.

Hot and Hazy: Words Writers Write and Bloggers Blab, Great Blue Herons, Man Boobs and other Rambles, The Series Continues

I was going to call this series "Hot and Bothered". It seemed a good enough theme. A heat wave of possibly deadly proportions settled over the area for the week. It is 82 degrees out as I key this at 6:30 AM. It is supposed to reach, according to The Weather Channel, 103 this afternoon with heat indexes up to 115. For Arizona this is a shrug; for here it is abnormally hot. Plus we have humidity.

Therefore Hot was certainly suitable to use in the title and theme.

Since it was a series containing several posts dealing with "bothers", some for me, some for others, it also seemed appropriate using Bothered.

However, putting these words together not so much. Given the slang connotation, one long in existence and in the mind of many, the combination of "Hot and Bothered" would conjure up images not so proper for a PG rated Blog.

It is one of my pet peeves that so many fine, upstanding words have been gutterized into sexual and drug-culture slang. But this is the mind of man and such vulgarizing has always occurred and always will I imagine. Still, it is something a writer must be aware of. Nothing can kill your piece more than having everybody giggling like adolescent 15 year-olds, beer and bong-infested Frat boys or those...well, jackasses from Jackass, just because you use some street code for a private body part or sexual act.

Actually using the wrong word in any context can destroy your effort. Not only can this change your meaning, it is a distraction to the reader.  It is akin to attempting to speak in an unfamiliar language. You try to impress a beautiful French lady by saying she has the face of a flower —  "Vous avez le visage d'une fleur!" Instead, you purr in her ear, "Vous avez le visage d'un furet!"

Comparing her face to that of a ferret will probably not get you the reaction you hoped for.

Believe me I have been guilty of the wrong word faux pas many times. It can be quite embarrassing, even harm your credibility or reputation.  I wrote a poem called "Exhibition", which became quite popular at readings, but only after I changed one line and eliminated one word. The first time I ever read it publicly I was totally humiliated because of that word. I was describing a painting of a nude woman, which was very much paramount to appreciating the humor in the poem. My original line read something like:

"With breasts unrobed and arms and legs akimbo".

I finished and immediately a fellow in the audience said, "She must have been quite the contortionist to have her legs akimbo." This stole all the meaning and craft from my effort and brought him a laugh at my expense. I had wanted to show the woman was quite exposed and thought the word akimbo meant "spread wide apart". The word actually means to have your hands on your hips and your elbows pushed out and forward. If the lady had also had her feet upon her hips with her kneecaps pushed out and forward she would have been a contortionist indeed.

I changed that line to read:

"With arms down, breasts disrobed and legs audacious."

This is using the wrong word, a technical malfunction either from vocabulary deficiency or spell-check deception. It can be corrected by carefully proofreading or having someone else look over your work. But should an author be concerned about the actual content of their writing?

The obvious answer is yes. A lot depends on your audience. If you are writing a story for a children's publication you certainly want to avoid the use of certain expletives and subject matter; whereas, If you are writing for "Hustler" you will not be telling the story of a cute, fluffy bunny-rabbit's adventures in the cabbage patch.

But that is marketing. Something you do if you are out there trying to sell your stories to whatever magazines are left buying work from freelancers. The old world of words has changed. It isn't the same in many ways since I was a young man. One great difference is there is no longer an editor or publisher standing between you and having what you write in the public forum.  The Blog is here and good, bad or indifferent, Bloggers are everywhere.

Which is what I am today and probably what readership I have is also. So we are free to write what we please, put down what is in our mind, be it grand philosophic thoughts or the mundane deeds of our daily life. Some things don't change, though. What do we dare say or what should we not say in our Blog? We have no editor to put a check on whether we cross some line of good taste. We don't have some style booklet or subject framework of a newspaper or a magazine. We have nothing between what we key on the screen and the whole wide world except some form of a button saying, "Publish".

Do I have any rules for writing?

First, if you are overly concerned about what people will think of you, don't ever consider writing. It isn't going to matter how inconsequential or bland your post, chances are somebody, somewhere is not going to like it, not going to like you and is going to be highly insulted and offended for some reason over something you wrote. If this fact bothers you, then write in your journal and keep it locked up in a drawer. If everyone has to like you or agree with you or never utter a negative criticism, this is not the game for you.

I have been doing this a long time, long before the Blog, the Webpage, the World Wide Web or the Internet ever came along. I'm not a household name, hardly rich and famous and not in demand for interviews on the Today Show, but nonetheless, I am a professional writer. Why so? Because I have been published and paid for my work and that is what a professional is. I have been so in seven decades, my first published pieces in the 1950s and my last just this year. The only decade of my life in which I was not published was the 1940s, so I guess I wasn't a child prodigy. Actually, my first published-for-pay articles were when I was 11 years old. Yes, I have put my hide up on a fence post for public potshots for a long time indeed.

I've been peppered with some literary buckshot over the years. I had boxes of rejection slips. I've been praised and vilified. I had a handwritten rejection slip from a magazine editor some decades back. Now normally a handwritten rejection is a positive thing. If an editor takes the time to personally comment on your piece, even if they don't buy, it means you show promise or they want to see more of your work. Not in this case. This editor called me some very nasty, and I might add unprofessional, names and told me my story had insulted the intelligence of every person living in the Southern United States. I had the feeling if I had hand delivered my opus the good citizen's of that state would have tarred and feathered me at best.

So Rule Number One: grow a thick skin and a sense of humor.

Rule Number Two is be true to yourself and it is only second because if you don't adopt Rule Number One, you shouldn't be writing anyway. This is especially so if you are writing a Blog. When I was young and hungry to be a much-published and potentially rich writer, I wrote as a mercenary. I tried to write to the market and what I thought some editor wanted. Just like any job, sometimes you have to do it the boss' way even when you know your way is better. Not so anymore. I am an old man and I made the decision that what I write from now on will be what I want to write. In other words, I will be true to myself and write my way. I'm Blogging. No one has to read it. Besides, writing to please others eventually pleases no one.

This doesn't mean you never listen to criticism or stop trying to be a better writer. We all can learn to be better and we all make mistakes. It means, though, my content is going to be true to me and my style is going to be true to me and I'm not changing my voice because someone thinks it is not simple enough for today's reader.

However, in writing a Blog, one must be cognizant that it is out there for anyone who wishes to read. It may be someone on the other side of the world you will never meet. It may be many such strangers who pass through your domain, read your thoughts and never comment. It may also be you next door neighbor, the gang down at your favorite hangout, fellow employees where you work, your boss, your boss' wife, your best friend, your worst enemy, your parents, the people in your parent's church, or your church if you have one. It can be anyone and everyone.

This knowledge of who might be reading can become a stumbling block and keep us from good writing, true writing. I have three rules for dealing with this situation, unless, of course, you are the rare bird who truly doesn't care what anyone else thinks of you and isn't worried if everybody in your life comes to despise you.

My last rules:

Write nothing consciously or maliciously to hurt another person or betray a trust or reveal a confidentiality between you and another.

Write nothing that may harm you.  This means give it some thought before you push that publish button. For instance, did I say something that if my boss reads it I will lose my job? Or, did I say something my friends will find so insulting they will no longer be my friend? Maybe you don't need that job and don't care if you lose it and maybe you feel you don't need friends, but if you do, then maybe you want to hold off writing what you just did until another day, like publish posthumously.

This doesn't make you a sell-out or a coward. It just means you seriously consider the consequences of what you do. If you can live with the consequence, then go forth. If you will lose sleep even considering the consequences, 86 it.

My last rule is think hard and deep and long before jumping on a fellow Blogger because you disagree or feel offended by their Post. I have never known two people in my life that agreed 100% of the time on 100% of everything. There is also no right not to be offended. Part of the problem in this country anymore is everyone gets too easily offended. People get shot because someone felt they offended them somehow, perhaps they raised an eyebrow at the wrong time. Choose your battles  is what I am saying. Some are worth fighting and some are better ignored. Also remember, you want the freedom to write what you think and in your way. Give others the same freedom, even if sometimes it hurts, because most likely, you wrote something at some time that hurt someone else and they gave you a pass.

Besides I would bet that 80%, maybe even higher, of the things people get bend out of shape over and offended by are misinterpretations and not substance.

If you keep these simple rules in mind you can freely write in the way you wish about what you wish. But most important of all, be true to yourself.

Now just as a coda, I recently had a story criticized by a college professor no less. I will consider some of what was said, but whether I will change anything I don't know. I'm not impressed by the number of letters behind someone's name. One of the criticisms really bothered me though. It concerned my main character: "Is she black or white? American or Canadian? As a person, she is totally lost to me."

What the...!!!!!

This is how you determine a person? By the shade of their skin or their ethnicity? Perhaps I failed to shape this character as a living, breathing person, but the color of the characters skin or where they came from had absolutely nothing of pertinence to do with either the character or the plot or the theme of the story. This is something I have spend much of my life fighting against, this judgement of who a person is by such superficial things as race, sex, religion, etc. I made a determination several years ago not to identify my characters by race unless this had a true baring on the plot. This constance stereotyping, pigeonhole approach on film and in literature is part and parcel of continuing the suspicion and divide between we people. We need to show people as people first, not as some template of race, sex, etc.

I am surprised this professor did not assume the character was Jewish because her name was Goldie, a possible stereotypical Jewish name in some people's mind. Her name was Goldie because every female character in the story was purposely given a color as a name, Goldie, Rose and Amber. These names were part of the sub-theme of the story, beyond that they meant nothing as far as nationality, religion or whatever.

When I create a character I will give as much description as necessary for the tale. I gave Goldie's age, for that was an important detail, but I didn't give much else. I didn't say what color eyes or hair she had, how tall she was, even if she were pretty or plain, because these didn't matter. Let the reader fill in the blanks sometimes.  Give the reader the freedom to see themselves  as the character. What was the magic of radio? You couldn't see the characters, so their looks were seen in your head they way you imagined them.

If you are white, you can imagine Goldie as white; if you are black, you can see her as black. It does not matter, she is a human being facing a psychological crisis in her life. Actually, Goldie didn't even have to be a woman. It could have been a man, perhaps with a few adjustments. It could have been an Asian-American woman. Frankly, the main character could have been a Drag Queen, although I suppose if it had been about a Drag Queen people would have read more into the story than intended and taken it away from what was my subtext.

At any rate, write what is in your heart and head and don't lose sleep over what others think as long as you've been considerate to their secrets while bring true to yourself.


TO BE CONTINUED -- NEXT: The Great Blue Heron and Violations on the Trail.

Photographs of Dads and Sons and Pickup Trucks

My friend at Retired in Delaware wrote a post today called "Pop". It was about his relationship, or lack thereof, with his father. Ron and I became buddies in 1950 while in third grade. I met his father on occasion when I visited Ron at his homes 9he moved three times in that period)  and I admit, his father always scared me. He was a big man and always seemed to glare at me.

As to my friend visiting me, I am sure at times my dad might have been there, but my dad wasn't often at home. He was a long-haul trucker and usually on the road. However, this was fine with me. I always worried what my dad would do to embarrass me or upset my friends if he was home.

Ron and I had many things in common as children and certainly the wall between ourselves and our dads was one.  His dad would call him "Beak," a jibe about his nose that did nothing for his self-image; my father would call me, "Gertrude" or make other belittling remarks in front of others.

Our dads were contemporaries. Ron's father died in the year 2000 at the age of 80, and so would have been 91 this year. My dad is still living and is age 92. The men even knew each other at one time, back around when Ron and I were born, both men worked in a steel mill in Coatesville. Both had sons who I guess they couldn't quite understand. Both smoked pipes, although Ron's dad continued smoking all his life and mine quit at some point in middle age. In my youth my dad always seemed to have that pipe between his lips and that is how I sketched him in 1966.

I was also drawn to the photographs Ron included of himself with his dad. I don't know how many he has altogether. He had five on his Blog that ranged from when Ron was a baby until he was in his early forties, and I have pictures Ron sent me of he and his dad as late as 1999. It made me wonder how many photos I had of me and dad together.

Not many.

I was 25 when the one on the right was taken. It was our June Celebration dinner. My grandmother, mother and I were all born in June. My mother and father were married in June and of course, these dates all fell near Father's Day. I think this restaurant was called The Warehouse and was located outside of Philadelphia, perhaps in Conshohocken or Manayunk. Clockwise from the left sit yours truly, my grandmother, my dad, my mom and my wife.

There is another picture much later than this taken as we entered to a surprise 25th Wedding Anniversary in 1986, but in this my dad is half hidden in the background.

Perhaps that says a lot about our relationship right there.

In this photo, left to right, is our oldest daughter, Laurel, my wife (no longer a blond), me again, our middle child, Noelle (who looks thrilled to be there) , our son, Darryl, my mom (snapping a picture) and my dad talking to someone elsewhere.

Most the other photos are when I was very young.







This was the first, when I was a little bitty babe of three months, he standing out in the yard at Whitford holding me on a September day.

Here we sit on the porch after moving into Downingtown that December. Both the country house and the city house were rentals and the homes of my maternal grandparents. My mom and pop didn't have a place of their own at this point and when this last picture was taken, World War II had just begun and my dad would soon be sailing away for several years.

A couple years later and I am two and my dad is home on leave. He dressed me up in a look-a-like uniform and they had this family portrait taken.

And then not long after he was off again and gone for a few more years.

One wonders if we would have bonded and been closer if the war had not separated us in those years.

Amazing as it seems, we have to jump ahead 18 years to find my father and I together in another photo. I was just turned 20 by a month when this photo was taken after a fishing trip for tuna out of Indian River Inlet off Bethany Beach, Delaware.

This was one of two such trips.

The other fishing trip.

Someone snapped these photos of us with the catch of the day. Here is my bride-to-be and I, then my dad and the captain of the boat.

My fiancee and soon-to-be wife looks well enough here and she was the first of the crew to catch a Tuna, one of the largest; however, thereafter she was seasick the rest of the day.





And that's all, folks. Just those few photos, almost all before I turned 21, which I guess speaks much about my dad and my closeness.

One other thing, though, in Retired in Delaware's Post is the pickup truck. Funny now, but this is something we saw quite differently.

On the right is my dad's pickup truck (and my teenage shadow taking the photo). My friend, Ron, was humiliated by having to ride in the back of his dad's pickup. I loved riding in the back of this one. That was where I wanted to ride, me and my friend Richard.

We thought it was cool.

There are some stories about that pickup, but for another time.