SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE . . .

Nine stories up, looking out over the balcony at Alabama’s sandy shore and the warm Gulf, lapping up on the beach. It’s New Year’s Eve with about six hours left to celebrate its passing. The plan is to wander Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, listen to music, sip a little vino and not eat too much. 

Funny how we single out today and tomorrow for the sole purpose of wrapping up one story and beginning again, fresh and new. I find myself celebrating the end of every day, even when I get bad news or break things. They are milestones that, at my age, take on more and more significance. The wake-up is equally sweet, with bed-head and stiff joints I smile at myself in the mirror. We get to play this game another day. But 2012 has been a remarkable year. Besides multiple road trips to Dallas, New Orleans/Baton Rouge, Chicago, Michigan and Ohio, I spent three months in Nova Scotia: swam a couple of hundred miles and lost twenty pounds. My doctors are all happy with my numbers, my friends still talk to me and every day is full of Story & Music. My children and grandchildren are well and I have a delightful new daughter (Pete & Betsy married on 12/21). So for tonight: Here’s a hand my trusty friend, give back a hand of thine, we’ll raise our spirits and the cup, for days of auld lang syne.

TICK TOCK

Waking up this morning, can’t be sure if it was a dream or low level consciousness. Maybe it started out one and stretched into the other but I was aware enough to wonder what time it was. The mantle clock began it’s hourly report as if it knew I was listening. Seven chimes and I knew, it was a good time to get up. 

I got the clock nine years ago, at an antique shop in Ludington, Michigan. It was  over a hundred years old, in great shape and everything worked. When I got it home I discovered that it only worked for a day or two, then stopped. After some searching I discovered “Bryant’s Clock Restoration”. John Bryant is a relatively young man in a traditionally, old man’s trade. He restores old, “Tick-Tock” clocks. He’s old enough to have experience and young enough you would think he’ll be around another twenty years. His shop is in Kansas City's north end. It used to be known as “Little Italy” but Columbus Circle is now home to Asian and Haitian families as well. The place screams of ethnicity but the faces and the architecture just don’t seem to go together. 

I took my new, antique, intermittently working clock to John. He told me he had a six month back log and then treated me to a short course on clock repair. With old clocks, cheap short cuts yield temporary results and then you have the same dilemma all over again. So I left my clock with him. Just over six months and $400 later, I got my clock back. All of the shafts were nested in new, oversized bushings; in newly drilled holes, with new springs and rebalanced gears. I’ve got it tweaked so it only needs a reset about every other week; and then only a few minutes. 

So, 7:00 and I’m up for the day. But I’m far, far away from any bed that I would normally sleep in. My clock and I are in Dayton, Ohio to celebrate the wedding of my son Pete and his delightful, darling Betsy. The clock has been with me long enough that I can bear to let it go. I want to give them something that suggests a tangible and enduring legacy. My mantle clock is the best I can do. 

We take time for granted, but it’s a human construct. Everything about us, all of our experiences are qualified within that framework. Was it last year, or has it only been ten minutes? How long can I hold my breath? When will you call? Time! Somehow, the ticking clock gives measure to experience and centers us in the moment. In fact, time is nothing more nor less than a way to order experience. We are stuck in the present, able to remember and to anticipate but only able to act in the moment.  

The clock is real, with a practical purpose and a story of its own. Whose home moved to its rhythm a hundred years ago? Who woke up to its chime? The hand that turned the key, wound the spring; we are without a clue but that doesn’t alter its story. At most, it’s just not for us to know. For the past nine years, this striking mantle clock has been on my dresser, reassuring me in the middle of the night and reminding me from the other end of the house. Life is moving on, with memories in its wake and a thin veneer of possibility for its future. We will celebrate a wedding this evening; in another seven hours or so. 

POW WOW

I’m not a “Tribal” kind of guy but when the whole clan is present at the same table, it’s time to Pow Wow. Sarah, in from Soldotna, Alaska; Pete & Betsy in from Dayton, Ohio and we celebrated Sarah’s birthday a couple of days early, just because we could. Jon & Jay, with their families, their mother and myself; we ate too much, played with grandchildren, told lies, tall tales, and tried to not miss a thing.

“Bedlam” is defined as, the condition of wild uproar and confusion. I remember all too well, in the 70’s & 80‘s the six of us at the same table and it was bedlam. But now they hang on each other’s words and laugh at when they made each other cry. Grandkids are well, and doing well. We must have done something right. About kids, Gibran said, “. . . you can house their bodies but not their souls. Their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow and we can’t go there; not even in our dreams.” But I get to peak in the window, the house of tomorrow, the tomorrow after that and they look like good places to be. If I was still faster than a speeding bullet and leaping tall buildings in a single bound, this growing old thing wouldn’t be bad at all. But I’ve slowed down some and my best days are watching my kids and grandkids reinvent the world.

Pete & Betsy are actually getting married next week, 12/21/12, in Dayton, OH. These two have been working on this for almost three years; trying to get their jobs in the same town and only one house between them. Looking good; I’ll be there. 

L to R - Front {Jon & Stacy's Little girls.} Cecilia, 6 and Mahala, 8 

Big girls - Stacy, Betsy, Sarah, {J.D.’s - Alexa, 12} & Granny Odis

Back row - Pete, {J.D.’s - Bailey, 16}  Jon, J.D., and me, the Poohbah.

R.H.S. CHRISTMAS PARTY

On the 1st Saturday of December, for the past eight years, old Eagles from Ruskin High School, Kansas City, classes from the 50’s & 60’s get together for a holiday party. I learned about it last year, was the only person there from my class. I saw a few people I knew and met some people who said they knew me. 

The party is paid for by anonymous alumnus: great ribs, sausage, potato salad, baked beans, finger food and beer. So we’re all going around, squinting at hard to read name tags, making jokes about growing old, trying to remember fifty year old history. The paramedics only had to come take care of one person.

This year there were four of us from '57 and it was really good to see them, find out how they are doing. Carl {on left} and I go back to the 3rd or 4th grade. Mary and Janet {next to me} back to the 9th grade. There was plenty of hoot and hollering when the classes checked in and some big “Party” talk. But by 9:00, everybody was partied out and I’m home in time to write and watch the news. We’re hoping we can get enough class mates next year to fill up a table. I can see it in my mind: dancing on the table tops and food fights until we fall asleep, or 9:00, whichever comes first. If Santa's watching, all he'll see are good little boys and girls.