You'd think by this point in time I'd have posted anything of noteworthiness written by Steve from his blogging days. Truthfully, this may be the last unless I find something hidden away. I had hoped to dole these out, mostly on the dates he originally posted them, over five years. Turns out, I can't wait that long; I didn't do the math correctly; I was afraid I'd forget to post and a little part of him would be forgotten. All are true but the last one might strike closest to my heart. So many things about Steve, about us, I've forgotten in the past four and a half years. And because Steve wrote about this conversation, I can remember it. A little part of Steve, recaptured.
Another quick and loving tribute to my wife... - December 21, 2005
I meant to write about this last week, but forgot. This is how far my wife has come along as a football fan: While watching another Packer abomination I started bitching about special teams. "I CANT BELIEVE HOW #$@))$% AWFUL THE SPECIAL TEAMS ARE!!!! I DON'T !*#&^%@ GET IT! THEY SHOULD FIRE THAT BALD !*(!@#(*@^&*$@ (Packer Special Teams coach John Bonemego) MOTHER&#(*$(#,#@!$^* @#^*@#($&*#. GODDAMMIT. My wife calmly replied "You know all those injuries to the startes?" "Yeah," I said, "what about them?" "Well, who do you think replaced the starters? Special teams guys. These special teams guys are guys they got off the street to replace the special teams players who replaced the injured starters. That's why they suck. It's not the coaches fault."
I was speechless. And I hadn't even thought about that.
Right again sweetie.
Showing posts with label Misty Watercolored Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Misty Watercolored Memories. Show all posts
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Thursday, October 9, 2014
"Happy Anniversary from Green Bay" from Steve
Steve wrote the following post on our 3rd wedding anniversary trip to Green Bay. I still wear the leather coat he gave me. I have the multiple-player signed football he wrote about, too. The Pack won that game. Davenport (long since traded off and then out of football) snapped his ankle on his first play. Favre is long gone, but Aaron Rogers seems to be an alright fella. I don't know about Karma, but the Pack plays on.
And so do I.
Happy Anniversary from Green Bay - October 9, 2005
Of course I do....
Karen and I arrived in Green Bay Friday morning, checked into the hotel and immediately headed over to Lambeau Field. A quick aside to set the perspective: Tuesday October 12th is our third wedding anniversary and this is our anniversary trip. Since tradition dictates couples purchase leather for the third anniversary I bought Karen a warm leather jacket for Green Bay. Karen bought me an official NFL game ball. So off we went to Lambeau field, Karen dressed in her new leather jacket and my game ball tucked in her backpack, in search of Packers to sign the ball.
Green Bay is notorious for cold weather, but our southern acclimated bodies were not prepared for 40 degree temperatures and wind chills in the 30’s so we headed into Lambeau for some Packer history.
The first stop: The Packers Hall of Fame. Picture a room shaped like a football with display cases on either side and a divider down the middle. Each display case marks a decade starting from 1919 when the Indian Packing Company sponsored Curly Lambeaus fledgling football team and ending with today’s Packers. We made it as far as the 1950’s before we had to catch our tour of the stadium.
I’ve done a lot of cool shit in my life, but the stadium tour pretty much topped them all. It’s not just because I learned some cool stuff, or got to sit in the luxury boxes, or got to see the inner workings of the stadium, no. My wife and I got to walk through the tunnel and out to the field. Yes, that tunnel, and we’ve got the pictures to prove it. I swear to Christ it gave me goose bumps. Oh, and we also saw punter B.J. Sander giving an interview to a local news bimbo. Sander was hitting on her pretty hard and my guess would be that they would hook up.
After the tour we had lunch at Curly’s Pub which overlooks the parking lot. Karen noticed some people standing by a fenced off gate and quickly surmised that this was where the Packers would be driving out. In other words, this was the spot for autographs.
We headed over to the fence and within five minutes I was way too cold to stay. However Karen, all 105 lbs of her insisted that she wanted to stay and try to get autographs for my ball. And we stayed, and she did. Her first was V.P. John Jones, followed by fullback Vontay Leach and linebacker Robert Thomas. Karen was thrilled. Later she scored Defensive Tackles coach Robert Nunn and Director of Player Personnel Reggie McKenzie (I was really happy about that one. Reggie is old school)
Karen found out that she could get more autographs on Saturday so we called it a day and went back to our hotel. We had a nice dinner at the Titletown Brewing Company, a brewpub located in an old rail station, and were asleep in bed by 9:00.
Saturday we woke and headed to the field at 10. Karen positioned herself at the fence (temperatures in the mid 40s and overcast) and I got on line for the book signing.
Oh yeah, I forgot. Karen found out that the Favre family would be signing copies of the book “Favre” written by Brett and Bonita (Brett’s mom) Favre. The signing was to begin at noon so there were only about 5 people ahead of me. The celebrity signers would include Bonita Favre, Scott Favre (Brett’s brother) and Deanna Favre who is Brett’s wife and the plan was you’d get one signature and it was pot luck. I sincerely hoped I didn’t get Scott but what the hell, $5.00 for each book sold went to their charity so who cares? It was all for a good cause. Meanwhile Karen come running in with the football. She had just scored Offensive Line coach Larry Beightol and had several players tell her they’d sign the ball when they were done with their walk through. She bought me a cup of coffee and while I waited inside the warm atrium my little trooper headed back to the front line to face the elements.
I’m running out of time here so let me get right to the good part. Karen filled the ball with signature upon signature, scoring too many Packers to name. Her coup-de-gras was Aaron Rogers who signed our ball and left everyone else standing there empty handed. It pays to have a little adorable wife who I might add would do anything for me. I'm really that lucky. Meanwhile, I got to meet Bonita, Deanna, and Scott. All three signed my book. It was so worth the wait…
Well, it’s now 8:30 local time. Karen’s up and it’s time to get ready to go to the game. She doesn’t know yet, but her man Davenport is starting. So is Roy Manning, the Michigan Wolverine the Packers picked up as an undrafted free agent. And Brett Favre is going to start as well. I’d say the karma is looking good for the Packers.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
4 Years
...4 things I need to tell you...
I never expected to date again, let alone get married.
I know you would want this new life and new love for me. I would want it for you if I had been the one to die, leaving you behind and alone. We even spoke about it on several occasions. Doesn't stop me from feeling like I've cheated on you.
Most days I'm happy in my new life.
No.
Every day I'm happy in my new life.
Some days, though, I imagine living in a parallel universe where you're still alive, we're still together, and I've never met this amazing man who loves me even while I still love you. Maybe loves me because I still love you.
He's an amazing man, Stephen. I think you'd have been great friends.
2.) I have two beautiful children.
They are smart, funny, amazing, mischievous, talented, imaginative, loving, kind, giving, brash, loud, quiet, shy, outgoing, girls that I adore with every ounce of my being. They fill my days and nights with chaos and joy, with running dialogs about purple monkeys flying at midnight and unicorns farting rainbows, with subtle winks that are anything but subtle, tears of pain and frustration, tears of joy and accomplishment, giggles and laughter that bounce around rooms, and smiles. Smiles that can teach Times Square a thing or two about lighting up a space.
You and I wanted children. We wanted six because we were insane like that. After eight years of trying, we finally gave up on that dream and chose a different dream. That last dream we shared died when you died. So much of me died when you died. I did, eventually, create a new dream. And I've been lucky enough to have this dream include these two wonderful girls that I look forward to watching grow into fabulous women.
I wish we had the opportunity to raise children together. I still think we'd have made beautiful and talented, but blind as bat, children. I believe you would have been a marvelous father. Somehow, though, I feel you smile over my shoulder when I watch the girls play, when I watch them succeed at something they've worked hard to master. As if you know, as if you watch over them during the times I can't.
3.) I've kept our house but I don't live there anymore.
I've moved to the suburbs. In an HOA. Remember how I used to rail against HOA's? Turns out, it's not so bad. I've met a lot of mother's of kids the girls are friends with in the neighborhood. We've become a mommy-network, relying on each other when some unexpected occurrence happens. In the process, I've made some truly amazing friends. I really would have hated it here without kids, though. In that much, I was correct.
Our house suffered some damage in a storm about three years ago. As a result I removed the old deck we had been trying to destroy for years. I replaced it with an extension of the roof for a covered porch. Ran electricity out for an overhead fan. It's gorgeous. Then I moved out. Still haven't redone the kitchen. The one room we always wanted to tackle but something else would pop up. I'll remodel the kitchen before I move back. Once the kids move out for college, Doug and I plan to sell his house and move back there. For the time being, it's difficult for me to even walk through it. Even with someone else's furniture filling the rooms, I still expect to see you walk around a corner. Eventually, I expect, that will wear off. Four years hasn't been long enough, though.
4.) I think about you every day.
It doesn't always hurt anymore. Frequently I still get that quick stab through the heart, my breath will catch for a moment, then my heart rate and breathing return to normal. But more and more the thought of you rises, passes through me, and nestles back into my very marrow. Memories of you are a part of me that flow and ebb, pumping through my veins, bouncing along with white and red blood cells. Missing you has become less of an assault. It is more familiar. At four years, it should be more familiar.
I think about how absolutely hilarious you'd find me now. Mother of two, living in suburbia, president of the summer swim team, driving my white Camry with red racing stripes, music always blaring. Same girl, different woman. Same woman, different girl.
I always wear at least once piece of jewelry you gave me. Sometime I still wear your wedding ring around my neck. It makes me feel closer to you when I feel small and insignificant. The baby blanket of the adult widow.
I talk about you. To Doug and the girls. Our youngest decided long ago that you are her guardian angel. If you can guard us, I know you'll watch out for the girls. You know where my heart always leads. And they are my heart now.
I miss you still. I always will. But the missing of you has changed. As I have changed. I love you. That will never change. I will always love you.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
For all those sports fans...
Eventually, everything comes full circle.
In February of 2006, the Seahawks played the Steelers in Superbowl XXsomething-or-other. The only reason I know this is because I watched it. The only reason I watched it is because I married a Packer fan. A Packer fan who wrote a sports blog with a Seahawks fan. Both of them, oddly enough, named Steve. Which is where they came up with the blog name of SportsBlogSteves.com.
My mama had always told me "Your man will be into one thing above all others. Probably it will be a sport, I'm sorry to say. Join him in it. Wholeheartedly and with enthusiasm, join him. It will give strength to your marriage."
She was right.
Steve was a Green Bay Packers fan through and through. His words to me early on were "I'm a Packer fan. Deal with it."
So I did.
I asked him to teach me football. To not speak over my head, excluding me from actually learning by using a language I didn't know. To not yell at me if I talked over an important play, cause I wasn't doing it on purpose. To help me become a true fan.
And he did.
Getting TiVo helped immensely. Instead of talking over plays, we just rewound and watched over and again until I understood the play or rule or nuance. Eventually we used it to rewind and argue about plays before hearing what the refs called. He seemed proudest when I won the rewind arguments. We tried to catch up at commercials but in our household, we finished watching the game bout a half hour behind the rest of the world.
By the early spring of 2006, I was an avid Packer fan and pretty decent at watching football in general. I couldn't speak to coaches or players outside of the Pack but I knew what I was watching, knew the positions and rules and felt comfortable making comments in rooms full of men watching football. So when we sat down to watch the Seahawks face the Steelers, I was excited for our friend.
Imagine my surprise to see officiating so bad I had to wonder what mafioso had bought the outcome. My Steve wrote a post about the game and said this:
Fast-forward to February 6, 2011. Steve died six months earlier and his team was headed to the Super Bowl. I hadn't even woken out of my widow-fog to realize what was happening until sometime in the playoffs, though I had been in front of a TV for every game. When I did finally waken enough to see what was going on, I shook. I wanted the Pack to go to the Super Bowl. I wanted them to win. It felt right and proper and fitting. Considering my husband had just died at 47 leaving me a widow at 36, proper and fitting had no place in my world. Hence, the nervousness.
There's a whole other post I could write, and have tried to write, about being a widow and watching my beloved's team make it to the Super Bowl the season after his death. Today what I'll say is... the Packers played the Steelers. The cheating team that had already stolen a Super Bowl from our friend up north.
And though I could barely watch the game, and the memories of that night are mostly fogged in, one stands out clear. A Steelers fan had made it into my house that night. And sitting in my dead husband's recliner she made a comment about an unfair call by the refs after having repeatedly screamed about taking Rodger's "out at the knees". To which I replied something along the lines of "it was a fair call (and it was), it's only fair turnabout after the last Super Bowl you cheaters showed up to play at, we don't dirty talk about intentionally hurting players in this house so watch your mouth, and get your scrawny ass out of my dead husband's chair before I actually hurt you."
Packers won the Super Bowl that night. Which felt right and proper and fitting for my dead husband. And brought a little joy to some Seahawks fans. But the circle wasn't complete. Not until this past Sunday when the Seahawks got a second chance to win the game they were supposed to win, should have won, eight years ago.
And while I'm excited and happy for our geographically challenged Seahawks friend, Steve. I feel a loss that my Stevie wasn't here to cheer and scream for his friend's team. The blogging they would have done! So I'm writing it for my Stevie. For our friend, Steve.
St. Ides, this is for you. We've come full circle now. Congrats.
In February of 2006, the Seahawks played the Steelers in Superbowl XXsomething-or-other. The only reason I know this is because I watched it. The only reason I watched it is because I married a Packer fan. A Packer fan who wrote a sports blog with a Seahawks fan. Both of them, oddly enough, named Steve. Which is where they came up with the blog name of SportsBlogSteves.com.
My mama had always told me "Your man will be into one thing above all others. Probably it will be a sport, I'm sorry to say. Join him in it. Wholeheartedly and with enthusiasm, join him. It will give strength to your marriage."
She was right.
Steve was a Green Bay Packers fan through and through. His words to me early on were "I'm a Packer fan. Deal with it."
So I did.
I asked him to teach me football. To not speak over my head, excluding me from actually learning by using a language I didn't know. To not yell at me if I talked over an important play, cause I wasn't doing it on purpose. To help me become a true fan.
And he did.
Getting TiVo helped immensely. Instead of talking over plays, we just rewound and watched over and again until I understood the play or rule or nuance. Eventually we used it to rewind and argue about plays before hearing what the refs called. He seemed proudest when I won the rewind arguments. We tried to catch up at commercials but in our household, we finished watching the game bout a half hour behind the rest of the world.
By the early spring of 2006, I was an avid Packer fan and pretty decent at watching football in general. I couldn't speak to coaches or players outside of the Pack but I knew what I was watching, knew the positions and rules and felt comfortable making comments in rooms full of men watching football. So when we sat down to watch the Seahawks face the Steelers, I was excited for our friend.
Imagine my surprise to see officiating so bad I had to wonder what mafioso had bought the outcome. My Steve wrote a post about the game and said this:
This wasn’t just one bad call, this was a consistent and deliberate agenda, a fraud perpetrated against the Seahawks by the officials. Every time Pittsburgh needed a call they got it. Every time Seattle began to move the ball, a call went against them. It was obvious and shameful.
Fast-forward to February 6, 2011. Steve died six months earlier and his team was headed to the Super Bowl. I hadn't even woken out of my widow-fog to realize what was happening until sometime in the playoffs, though I had been in front of a TV for every game. When I did finally waken enough to see what was going on, I shook. I wanted the Pack to go to the Super Bowl. I wanted them to win. It felt right and proper and fitting. Considering my husband had just died at 47 leaving me a widow at 36, proper and fitting had no place in my world. Hence, the nervousness.
There's a whole other post I could write, and have tried to write, about being a widow and watching my beloved's team make it to the Super Bowl the season after his death. Today what I'll say is... the Packers played the Steelers. The cheating team that had already stolen a Super Bowl from our friend up north.
And though I could barely watch the game, and the memories of that night are mostly fogged in, one stands out clear. A Steelers fan had made it into my house that night. And sitting in my dead husband's recliner she made a comment about an unfair call by the refs after having repeatedly screamed about taking Rodger's "out at the knees". To which I replied something along the lines of "it was a fair call (and it was), it's only fair turnabout after the last Super Bowl you cheaters showed up to play at, we don't dirty talk about intentionally hurting players in this house so watch your mouth, and get your scrawny ass out of my dead husband's chair before I actually hurt you."
Packers won the Super Bowl that night. Which felt right and proper and fitting for my dead husband. And brought a little joy to some Seahawks fans. But the circle wasn't complete. Not until this past Sunday when the Seahawks got a second chance to win the game they were supposed to win, should have won, eight years ago.
And while I'm excited and happy for our geographically challenged Seahawks friend, Steve. I feel a loss that my Stevie wasn't here to cheer and scream for his friend's team. The blogging they would have done! So I'm writing it for my Stevie. For our friend, Steve.
St. Ides, this is for you. We've come full circle now. Congrats.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
"Holocaust Museum" from Steve
Steve had wanted to visit the National Holocaust Museum for as long as I could remember. I'd been only once before, with my mother and younger brother. Both are people who understand that I have a tendency to take things in straight to my heart with hurt so deep and hard that I frequently can't function for long periods of time afterwards. True to my own history, I couldn't speak for three days after we left.
I was terrified to walk back into that building with my husband. He was the only person who could convince me to even think of facing that horror again. The man who I felt safest with in the world, grabbed my hand and promised not to let go. And he never did.
Eventually, he wrote the following. He did it to show he hurt, too. To show there exists things that change the way we view our world forever. It's one of the traits I loved most about him.
When we left the Holocaust Museum, we headed straight through the gardens to the art museum. Where we quietly sat on benches staring at some of my favorite artist, holding hands, saying nothing. We both hurt. Together. And we healed together, as well.
September 1, 2009
The saddest place I’ve ever been was the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Even after visiting ground zero of September 11, nothing has ever affected me more profoundly than the Murrah building, and this is for two reasons. First, the fence around the building was covered with children’s toys, the toys that belonged to Tim McVeigh’s victims. It was a stunning visual reminder of the horrific reality of McVeigh’s crime. Second, the people of Oklahoma City were not prepared for this violence. When I was growing up in New York, we were shown maps of Manhattan with concentric circles expanding from the Empire State Building. The circles represented the blast zone of a thermonuclear weapon and the Empire State Building was always labeled “Ground Zero” because this was where the Soviets would drop the bomb. I lived in the third circle, named “three to five miles”. New Yorkers have always prepared for ground zero; the good people of Oklahoma City had not. They thought they were safe, and that their kids were safe. That still breaks my heart.
I expected my visit to the National Holocaust Museum to challenge my experience in OKC , but it didn’t. The museum is profoundly sad, yet still manages to celebrate the lives and the spirits of those who perished during the Holocaust. Today we throw the numbers around like snowballs: 6 million Jews, 5 million non Jews. The numbers are so large that they defy any tangible meaning. But go to the museum and look at the photographs. See the faces. Read the stories. You’ll see that somehow those numbers begin to take on meaning, a horrible horrible meaning.
To those who think it is appropriate to carry posters of President Obama with a Hitler mustache to a Health Care Town Hall meeting, I challenge you to visit this museum to see who the Nazis really were. To those who think it appropriate to refer to the conservative right and their bloviated pitchmen as Nazis, I challenge you to visit the museum. “Feminazi”, “Soup Nazi”. We trivialize the memory of those who gave their lives as victims of, or as soldiers ensuring the defeat of Adolf Hitler and his tyranny when we use the term Nazi so loosely. One take away from my visit was this: The closest thing to Nazism in our culture is those who shout “Look, that one is a Nazi”. It is a disgrace I am guilty of, and I will never make that mistake again.
When I was 17 I believed in George Orwell’s philosophy that all war was wrong. My dad was a soldier in World War II, and although I loved my father I did not respect his decision to be a soldier. I believed he was fighting for a governmental ideology, sold to an ignorant mass as patriotism. I thought he was a pawn. About that time, PBS first showed the films of the liberation of the concentration camps. If you’ve never seen them then nothing I could write will ever prepare you for them. We watched it together, me and my dad, and when they were done through my tears I said to him “I am sooooo proud of you”. That’s what my dad did when he was 22 years old.
I kept thinking of that moment at the Holocaust museum. I’m still so very proud.
I was terrified to walk back into that building with my husband. He was the only person who could convince me to even think of facing that horror again. The man who I felt safest with in the world, grabbed my hand and promised not to let go. And he never did.
Eventually, he wrote the following. He did it to show he hurt, too. To show there exists things that change the way we view our world forever. It's one of the traits I loved most about him.
When we left the Holocaust Museum, we headed straight through the gardens to the art museum. Where we quietly sat on benches staring at some of my favorite artist, holding hands, saying nothing. We both hurt. Together. And we healed together, as well.
September 1, 2009
The saddest place I’ve ever been was the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Even after visiting ground zero of September 11, nothing has ever affected me more profoundly than the Murrah building, and this is for two reasons. First, the fence around the building was covered with children’s toys, the toys that belonged to Tim McVeigh’s victims. It was a stunning visual reminder of the horrific reality of McVeigh’s crime. Second, the people of Oklahoma City were not prepared for this violence. When I was growing up in New York, we were shown maps of Manhattan with concentric circles expanding from the Empire State Building. The circles represented the blast zone of a thermonuclear weapon and the Empire State Building was always labeled “Ground Zero” because this was where the Soviets would drop the bomb. I lived in the third circle, named “three to five miles”. New Yorkers have always prepared for ground zero; the good people of Oklahoma City had not. They thought they were safe, and that their kids were safe. That still breaks my heart.
I expected my visit to the National Holocaust Museum to challenge my experience in OKC , but it didn’t. The museum is profoundly sad, yet still manages to celebrate the lives and the spirits of those who perished during the Holocaust. Today we throw the numbers around like snowballs: 6 million Jews, 5 million non Jews. The numbers are so large that they defy any tangible meaning. But go to the museum and look at the photographs. See the faces. Read the stories. You’ll see that somehow those numbers begin to take on meaning, a horrible horrible meaning.
To those who think it is appropriate to carry posters of President Obama with a Hitler mustache to a Health Care Town Hall meeting, I challenge you to visit this museum to see who the Nazis really were. To those who think it appropriate to refer to the conservative right and their bloviated pitchmen as Nazis, I challenge you to visit the museum. “Feminazi”, “Soup Nazi”. We trivialize the memory of those who gave their lives as victims of, or as soldiers ensuring the defeat of Adolf Hitler and his tyranny when we use the term Nazi so loosely. One take away from my visit was this: The closest thing to Nazism in our culture is those who shout “Look, that one is a Nazi”. It is a disgrace I am guilty of, and I will never make that mistake again.
When I was 17 I believed in George Orwell’s philosophy that all war was wrong. My dad was a soldier in World War II, and although I loved my father I did not respect his decision to be a soldier. I believed he was fighting for a governmental ideology, sold to an ignorant mass as patriotism. I thought he was a pawn. About that time, PBS first showed the films of the liberation of the concentration camps. If you’ve never seen them then nothing I could write will ever prepare you for them. We watched it together, me and my dad, and when they were done through my tears I said to him “I am sooooo proud of you”. That’s what my dad did when he was 22 years old.
I kept thinking of that moment at the Holocaust museum. I’m still so very proud.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
"Arnold and the Cherubs" from Steve
I've been going through Steve's writings recently. I always loved hearing stories about growing up in New York, about his childhood, his coming of age. Those stories that are different than my own but somehow ring true to a part of me and my stories. Because, in the end, we are all just a collection of stories of our own making.
It's rare we get a chance to go back to those youthful moments that help form who we become and the people that shared those times with us. Steve was given one of those rare and precious chances. And while I had heard these stories from him before, I love reading this version of those stories. Because they had changed, just as he had.
I'm glad he got that rare chance to revisit his past. I'm glad he knew I was his biggest fan. I'm glad he got to play with the band again. I'm glad to have shared the journey with him.
August 3, 2009
In 1981, when I was 18 years old, the United States had a population of 229 million people, and there was a 5.8% chance that you would be a victim of a violent crime. The median household income in 1981 was a little over $19,000.00 per year while unemployment sat at 7.9%. As the year started, a first class postage stamp cost 15 cents but by year’s end that number would jump to 17 cents. In 1981 the Oakland Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 21 – 10 in the Super Bowl, and the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees 4 – 2 in the World Series. The Boston Celtics ruled the NBA while the New York Islanders were in the midst of their dynasty. In 1981 the record of the year was “Sailing” by Christopher Cross, while the best picture was awarded to “Ordinary People”. A new form of television entertainment debuted in 1981 called “Music Television” or “MTV” which played videos: recorded visual performances that sometimes went along with the lyrics of the song. In 1981 Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to be nominated to, and subsequently serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. IBM introduced its PC in 1981 which ran an operating system called DOS, written by a small Seattle based Software Company called Microsoft. In 1981, AIDS, which would become the scourge of a generation, was first identified. In 1981 Ronald Wilson Reagan was sworn in as the 40th president of the US and if you were 18 years old in 1981 that prospect scared the shit out of you.
In 1981, with their world and the music of their generation making less and less sense, a group of NYU pre-med students got together with some of their friends and formed a band dedicated to the music of the 1960s. For one seemingly endless summer, Arnold and the Cherubs from Commack New York met, practiced, drank, and reasonably replicated the music of The Doors, Steppenwolf, and The Animals amongst others. The band featured the amazing Lenny Stote on bass, guitar, keyboards, pretty much anything that made a musical sound, and lead vocals. Mark Garobedian, from Commack by way of the Chemistry lab at NYU was the drummer extraordinaire. Tim Salenger, a lanky rich kid who seemed to be able to channel Ray Manzarak, played a genuine Farfisa Organ attached to a rotating Leslie speaker set. On rhythm guitar, piano and vocals was Rich Perez, a brilliant musician, vocalist and songwriter who loved (in order) The Beatles, chicks, beer, and tacos. Rounding out the group on lead guitar and vocals was a stocky foul mouth from Long Island City, NY named Steve DeRose, who sang and played a Montoya Les Paul copy through an Electro-Harmonix Muff Fuzz and a Sun amp. I was poor and from the streets. My band mates were not.
The spring and summer of 1981 was my time. I so desperately wanted out of Long Island City and I so much wanted to be a musician. I saw the band from Commack as a gateway into the world I wanted to be a part of. Every week I would travel out to “the island” (as we city folk called Nassau and Suffolk counties) and lived my dream: we were a really good rock band. We had girls hanging with us. We’d go to the clubs in Huntington as a band, and drink and socialize as a band. We’d watch other bands play: I remember a night at club called The Salty Dog watching a favorite band called Kivetski, who billed themselves as “New York’s Number One Sixties Band”. Mark Garobedian and I were up front when the lead singer reached down and shook our hands. Mark repaid this kind gesture with a two handed stroking maneuver extending from his crotch. I extended my hands, palms up and pointing in the general direction of Mark’s gesture as if to say “Look at the size of THIS”. Kivetski was the band we modeled ourselves on: we were “New York’s Number Two Sixties Band”.
We were all 18 and 19 years old and life hadn’t fucked with our heads quite yet. I still believed that I could be a rock star; I was still so innocent and naive. The Cherubs gave me the first glimpse of the lifestyle, and I’m not talking about sex or drugs or even money. I’m talking about being part of something. We grew together, and the band became the fulcrum of our shared experience. When we showed up at a bar or club, it was us, we, Arnold and the Cherubs, and the bars of Huntington New York were ours. And when one of us had an idea… One night, after several hours of drinking at Huntington’s “Artful Dodger”, Lenny Stote stood up all wild eyed and suggested “Hey, you want to go see Billy Joel’s house?” This seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea, so we all piled into Lenny’s car, and all I can tell you about that car was it was really small. We were five young drunk adults crammed into a car that could uncomfortably seat four, and we were headed down the back roads of the northern shore of Long Island at some ungodly speed. Lenny was barely making the curves, and Mark was on my lap in the back seat and we were screaming. Wait, let me explain that. Mark was on my lap because there were two others crammed into the back seat with us, and we were screaming because we honestly thought we were about to die. The funny thing is I wasn’t really afraid, but I wanted to make sure my soul was at peace so I decided to tell Mark that I loved him. Or rather, screamed it at the top of my lungs. Mark screamed back “I love you too!”
Souls in order? Check.
When we got to Billy Joel’s house we stood in awe staring at... an 8 to 10 foot wall. Somewhere on the other side was a house and we conjectured who Billy might have in there with him (the names Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon were tossed around. Hey, it was 1981). It was then I noticed that Rich Perez was a few feet to my right peeing on Billy Joel’s wall. I glanced away from Rich, where about 30 feet down wind stood Lenny Stote, peeing on the far left end of the wall. Surprisingly I quickly over came my personal pee shyness, took a position to the left of Rich and began making a giant “S” on my section. Tim and Mark quickly figured out what was happening and filled the gap between where I stood and where Lenny was finishing up. And this became the night that Arnold and the Cherubs, my band, pissed on Billy Joel’s wall.
The summer of 1981 was the first time I truly fell in love. I met Linda Michos in the spring at NYU, and at age 22 from East Meadow New York she was everything I wanted in a girlfriend: funny, beautiful, suburban, and blessed with the singing voice of an angel. Oh, I should mention that she was completely uninterested in dating me, and by dating I mean... well, you figure it out. She once had a relationship with Mark’s brother Michael, and was involved with a guy who really didn’t seem all that interested in her. But none of that should have mattered because I was involved with someone who I had been dating for over a year. Lin and I hung out together at school, a lot, and became close friends. When my girlfriend left to spend the summer in France and Lin’s boyfriend left her to move out west, we grew closer still. Although we saw each other every weekend, we never grew closer than a stolen kiss once after the sunset at Jones Beach (queue the song “One Summer Night” here).
The band practiced throughout the summer and by the end of August we were ready to gig. We set up an audition at Genie’s Pub, a bar that was located in a strip mall on Jericho Turnpike, and took the stage to play 5 songs. I remember several things about that day. First, the pub had a real sound system and we never sounded better. We also had never played through a real sound system. Go figure. Second, I had caught a cold and was not in good voice. When we played “Hang on Sloopy”, and I got to the second line “…and everybody yeah tries to put my Sloopy down”, my voice totally cracked on “everybody”. Third, Linda wasn’t there much to my dismay. My one shot to use my status as a rock star to impress her was gone, but I was sure there would be others. Fourth, from the stage I was flirting with some of the girls in the audience when it occurred to me that (a) they probably have boyfriends, (b) their boyfriends might be the jealous type like I was, and (c) this bar is pretty nasty: I’ll probably lose. After that I stuck to my playlist. The audition was a success and the pub wanted to hire us, but it was nearly September and although I wasn’t aware of it, the season was changing before my eyes.
In September of 1981, Lenny Stote’s father passed away unexpectedly. Lenny, the most talent musician I have ever played with, could no longer devote his time to the band. He was heading to the State University of New York in Fredonia, just outside of Buffalo. A few weeks after Lenny’s dad died, Rich Perez’s father passed away. Rich was devastated. Mark Garobedian was transferring to Colgate University and would no longer be across from me in Chemistry lab at NYU. I said goodbye to my drummer, who I knew someday would be a terrific doctor. Tim Salenger was Mark’s friend and I don’t remember what happened with him. I imagine Tim went back to Northern Jersey, to his life and school, and continued on his path to surely become something great. And sometime around the first week of September, just a few days before my 19th birthday Linda Michos told me she was heading west to reconnect with her boyfriend. For the first time in my life I understood what heartbreak was. We decided to have one official date before she left, so I put on these ridiculous white shoes that belonged to my brother Vinnie and took her to see Kansas play at the Palladium Theater in New York City. It was her first concert ever. Afterwards we went to the Burger King on Queens Blvd, next to the Golden-Q Billiard Emporium, and had dinner in my dad’s blue Chevy Malibu. Lin took her sneakers off and put her feet up on the dashboard, and we laughed as her feet fogged up a little section of the windshield. I drove her home to East Meadow, and for the second time in our relationship we stole one last kiss, this time in a schoolyard playground around the corner from her house. And then Linda was gone. Several days later on my birthday I waited for a phone call that never came. My mom, who was always more perceptive than I ever gave her credit for, came up to me at one point and whispered “You didn’t get what you wanted for your birthday, did you?” 19 would be the last birthday party my parents ever threw for me.
I stayed friends with Rich Perez for a while, and we gigged together as a duet, but I was terribly jealous of him. Rich was such a good songwriter, and such a good singer, and he was so handsome: Rich had girls lining up to be with him. I let my jealousy ruin our friendship. I wish I could find him and tell him how sorry I am about that, and how brilliant I thought he was. I’ve looked for Rich online, but there are so many Richard Perez’s out there. I have yet to find him.
Tim Salenger disappeared from my life too. I remember hanging out at Tim’s place in New Jersey, swimming in his in-ground swimming pool, and listening to this new band he and his friends were into called U-2. I remember thinking “this is the first new band I’ve heard that I like”. You know that night at the “Salty Dog” that I wrote about earlier? Later that evening I overheard Tim say to Mark “Watching these guys play makes me realize how good Steve is”. I never told anyone that story, but I’ll tell you now that it made my night and then some. Tim was a good guy and although we were never close, I wish I could tell him how much I appreciated him letting me into his world for that brief summer.
Lenny Stote in about every way was the most amazing musician I have known. He was brilliant and over the top funny. Once at a restaurant called “Chicago’s”, the band sat drinking much beer and eating much deep dish pizza when Lenny noticed that someone’s (I think Tim’s) beer mug was a little low. In a booming medieval voice, he boldly announced “NO EMPTY GLASSES AT LENNY’S TABLE”, and proceeded to pound his fist on said table. This percussive downward blow sent two full pitchers of beer skyward, soaking the four other band members and several tables around us, and Lenny sat there smiling, admiring what he had done. A few weeks ago I found a Lenny Stote on FaceBook and sent him a private message, but I never received a reply. I always wanted to be close friends with Lenny, but I’m not sure he knew that. I miss Lenny, and wish I could thank him as well and tell him what the summer of 1981 with the band meant to me. Really, I think I’d just like to have one more beer at Lenny’s table.
Linda Michos returned to New York after things didn’t go so well out west with her boyfriend. She called one afternoon to tell me she was home and I was so happy. We got together that weekend, and for the next year and a half dated as friends. But Lin never fell in love with me, and I never fell out of love with her. There were no more stolen kisses to be had. One evening as we sat outside her home in my father’s blue Malibu, I told her I couldn’t see her any more. It just hurt too damn much. We both cried, and then Lin was gone for good. For me, it was the first time I had walked away from someone I didn’t want to walk away from, and that was when I learned no matter how much you love someone it doesn’t matter one bit. You can’t make somebody feel something that they don’t. That changed me, and not in a good way: life had finally fucked with my head. Twenty seven years have passed since that night, and the feelings I had for Linda are a part of a distant memory and no longer of any relevance. But if I ever met Lin again, I’d say to her “You know, I got two good songs out of you!” It was a private joke we had between us and I’ll bet you she’d still remember that.
I guess by now you’re probably wondering why I’ve written this. About a year ago I was searching online for my old band mates when I found Dr. Mark Garobedian who had a Pediatric practice in South Hampton, NY. If you knew Mark you’d know that he was built to be a Pediatrician. I was so happy that he had made it. But two weeks ago I decided to search again, and this time I found something new about Mark: his practice was now located in Mechanicsville, VA which is about 20 minutes from where I live. I was flabbergasted. There was a number listed, and the next day I called my old drummer. Within 20 minutes he returned my call and we laughed and talked and we couldn’t believe that 28 years later we were living about 10 miles from each other: Mark had moved his family to Virginia earlier this year and he seemed genuinely ecstatic to hear from me. About the third thing he said to me was “That band had potential!” I couldn’t agree more. But the best part? About five minutes into the conversation Mark asked “Do you still play?” and I said “just for my family and myself”. So Mark goes “Well, I know this guitarist up near DC and we should get together and play” and since we spoke, every time I hear a song on the radio all I am thinking is “We could play that”.
It’s interesting to look back at those days from the perspective of time. Time can be a great teacher if you choose to be its student. I’ve always remembered the days after the summer of 1981 as the time when I dropped out of college, began drinking, and lived a lie that I never really spoke of until after the passing of my Mother. Now, I see those days as great formative years, almost cliché in most respects: the story of a teenager, his rock and roll band, and a summer love that ended as most do: with a goodbye. Today, I am married to the most perfect woman imaginable. She is bright and beautiful, and has fulfilled me in every way. And my wife, who knew Dave Matthews and once upon a time shoved him into the water fountain on the downtown mall in Charlottesville, says I am the best guitarist she’s ever heard. My dreams of being a rock star are fulfilled as well: I get to be a rock star for my audience of one, usually when she comes out of the shower and she’s putting her makeup on.
It’s easy to get caught up in one’s past. I hear that this happens all the time to guys my age. Usually they go out, get a hot young girl and a convertible and that takes care of it. So what am I supposed to do? I already have a hot young wife and a convertible. The trick is not to get caught up in your past, the trick is to see where you’ve been, look at where you are, and imagine where you want to be. And that never changes, no matter what age you are. I love where I am and how I got here, and I can’t wait to carry on this wondrous adventure, now no longer alone, with the woman of my dreams.
One night very soon Mark and I are planning to get together to (as he put it) “…eat some pasta, drink some Chianti and laugh our asses off”. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see him. I miss my old friends, all of them, who shepherded me through the 18th and 19th years of my life. And although it seemed so chaotic and traumatic back when, now through the looking glass of time and perspective those days seem so wonderfully ordinary. And one day soon don’t be surprised if my drummer and I are playing somewhere at a bar or street corner near you. We were supposed to revolutionize rock and roll, you know? Life will fuck with your head but life will give you chances at redemption right until the glorious end.
Or am I being naive?
It's rare we get a chance to go back to those youthful moments that help form who we become and the people that shared those times with us. Steve was given one of those rare and precious chances. And while I had heard these stories from him before, I love reading this version of those stories. Because they had changed, just as he had.
I'm glad he got that rare chance to revisit his past. I'm glad he knew I was his biggest fan. I'm glad he got to play with the band again. I'm glad to have shared the journey with him.
"Life will fuck with your head but life will give you chances at redemption right until the glorious end."- Stephen DeRose
August 3, 2009
In 1981, when I was 18 years old, the United States had a population of 229 million people, and there was a 5.8% chance that you would be a victim of a violent crime. The median household income in 1981 was a little over $19,000.00 per year while unemployment sat at 7.9%. As the year started, a first class postage stamp cost 15 cents but by year’s end that number would jump to 17 cents. In 1981 the Oakland Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 21 – 10 in the Super Bowl, and the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees 4 – 2 in the World Series. The Boston Celtics ruled the NBA while the New York Islanders were in the midst of their dynasty. In 1981 the record of the year was “Sailing” by Christopher Cross, while the best picture was awarded to “Ordinary People”. A new form of television entertainment debuted in 1981 called “Music Television” or “MTV” which played videos: recorded visual performances that sometimes went along with the lyrics of the song. In 1981 Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to be nominated to, and subsequently serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. IBM introduced its PC in 1981 which ran an operating system called DOS, written by a small Seattle based Software Company called Microsoft. In 1981, AIDS, which would become the scourge of a generation, was first identified. In 1981 Ronald Wilson Reagan was sworn in as the 40th president of the US and if you were 18 years old in 1981 that prospect scared the shit out of you.
In 1981, with their world and the music of their generation making less and less sense, a group of NYU pre-med students got together with some of their friends and formed a band dedicated to the music of the 1960s. For one seemingly endless summer, Arnold and the Cherubs from Commack New York met, practiced, drank, and reasonably replicated the music of The Doors, Steppenwolf, and The Animals amongst others. The band featured the amazing Lenny Stote on bass, guitar, keyboards, pretty much anything that made a musical sound, and lead vocals. Mark Garobedian, from Commack by way of the Chemistry lab at NYU was the drummer extraordinaire. Tim Salenger, a lanky rich kid who seemed to be able to channel Ray Manzarak, played a genuine Farfisa Organ attached to a rotating Leslie speaker set. On rhythm guitar, piano and vocals was Rich Perez, a brilliant musician, vocalist and songwriter who loved (in order) The Beatles, chicks, beer, and tacos. Rounding out the group on lead guitar and vocals was a stocky foul mouth from Long Island City, NY named Steve DeRose, who sang and played a Montoya Les Paul copy through an Electro-Harmonix Muff Fuzz and a Sun amp. I was poor and from the streets. My band mates were not.
The spring and summer of 1981 was my time. I so desperately wanted out of Long Island City and I so much wanted to be a musician. I saw the band from Commack as a gateway into the world I wanted to be a part of. Every week I would travel out to “the island” (as we city folk called Nassau and Suffolk counties) and lived my dream: we were a really good rock band. We had girls hanging with us. We’d go to the clubs in Huntington as a band, and drink and socialize as a band. We’d watch other bands play: I remember a night at club called The Salty Dog watching a favorite band called Kivetski, who billed themselves as “New York’s Number One Sixties Band”. Mark Garobedian and I were up front when the lead singer reached down and shook our hands. Mark repaid this kind gesture with a two handed stroking maneuver extending from his crotch. I extended my hands, palms up and pointing in the general direction of Mark’s gesture as if to say “Look at the size of THIS”. Kivetski was the band we modeled ourselves on: we were “New York’s Number Two Sixties Band”.
We were all 18 and 19 years old and life hadn’t fucked with our heads quite yet. I still believed that I could be a rock star; I was still so innocent and naive. The Cherubs gave me the first glimpse of the lifestyle, and I’m not talking about sex or drugs or even money. I’m talking about being part of something. We grew together, and the band became the fulcrum of our shared experience. When we showed up at a bar or club, it was us, we, Arnold and the Cherubs, and the bars of Huntington New York were ours. And when one of us had an idea… One night, after several hours of drinking at Huntington’s “Artful Dodger”, Lenny Stote stood up all wild eyed and suggested “Hey, you want to go see Billy Joel’s house?” This seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea, so we all piled into Lenny’s car, and all I can tell you about that car was it was really small. We were five young drunk adults crammed into a car that could uncomfortably seat four, and we were headed down the back roads of the northern shore of Long Island at some ungodly speed. Lenny was barely making the curves, and Mark was on my lap in the back seat and we were screaming. Wait, let me explain that. Mark was on my lap because there were two others crammed into the back seat with us, and we were screaming because we honestly thought we were about to die. The funny thing is I wasn’t really afraid, but I wanted to make sure my soul was at peace so I decided to tell Mark that I loved him. Or rather, screamed it at the top of my lungs. Mark screamed back “I love you too!”
Souls in order? Check.
When we got to Billy Joel’s house we stood in awe staring at... an 8 to 10 foot wall. Somewhere on the other side was a house and we conjectured who Billy might have in there with him (the names Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon were tossed around. Hey, it was 1981). It was then I noticed that Rich Perez was a few feet to my right peeing on Billy Joel’s wall. I glanced away from Rich, where about 30 feet down wind stood Lenny Stote, peeing on the far left end of the wall. Surprisingly I quickly over came my personal pee shyness, took a position to the left of Rich and began making a giant “S” on my section. Tim and Mark quickly figured out what was happening and filled the gap between where I stood and where Lenny was finishing up. And this became the night that Arnold and the Cherubs, my band, pissed on Billy Joel’s wall.
The summer of 1981 was the first time I truly fell in love. I met Linda Michos in the spring at NYU, and at age 22 from East Meadow New York she was everything I wanted in a girlfriend: funny, beautiful, suburban, and blessed with the singing voice of an angel. Oh, I should mention that she was completely uninterested in dating me, and by dating I mean... well, you figure it out. She once had a relationship with Mark’s brother Michael, and was involved with a guy who really didn’t seem all that interested in her. But none of that should have mattered because I was involved with someone who I had been dating for over a year. Lin and I hung out together at school, a lot, and became close friends. When my girlfriend left to spend the summer in France and Lin’s boyfriend left her to move out west, we grew closer still. Although we saw each other every weekend, we never grew closer than a stolen kiss once after the sunset at Jones Beach (queue the song “One Summer Night” here).
The band practiced throughout the summer and by the end of August we were ready to gig. We set up an audition at Genie’s Pub, a bar that was located in a strip mall on Jericho Turnpike, and took the stage to play 5 songs. I remember several things about that day. First, the pub had a real sound system and we never sounded better. We also had never played through a real sound system. Go figure. Second, I had caught a cold and was not in good voice. When we played “Hang on Sloopy”, and I got to the second line “…and everybody yeah tries to put my Sloopy down”, my voice totally cracked on “everybody”. Third, Linda wasn’t there much to my dismay. My one shot to use my status as a rock star to impress her was gone, but I was sure there would be others. Fourth, from the stage I was flirting with some of the girls in the audience when it occurred to me that (a) they probably have boyfriends, (b) their boyfriends might be the jealous type like I was, and (c) this bar is pretty nasty: I’ll probably lose. After that I stuck to my playlist. The audition was a success and the pub wanted to hire us, but it was nearly September and although I wasn’t aware of it, the season was changing before my eyes.
In September of 1981, Lenny Stote’s father passed away unexpectedly. Lenny, the most talent musician I have ever played with, could no longer devote his time to the band. He was heading to the State University of New York in Fredonia, just outside of Buffalo. A few weeks after Lenny’s dad died, Rich Perez’s father passed away. Rich was devastated. Mark Garobedian was transferring to Colgate University and would no longer be across from me in Chemistry lab at NYU. I said goodbye to my drummer, who I knew someday would be a terrific doctor. Tim Salenger was Mark’s friend and I don’t remember what happened with him. I imagine Tim went back to Northern Jersey, to his life and school, and continued on his path to surely become something great. And sometime around the first week of September, just a few days before my 19th birthday Linda Michos told me she was heading west to reconnect with her boyfriend. For the first time in my life I understood what heartbreak was. We decided to have one official date before she left, so I put on these ridiculous white shoes that belonged to my brother Vinnie and took her to see Kansas play at the Palladium Theater in New York City. It was her first concert ever. Afterwards we went to the Burger King on Queens Blvd, next to the Golden-Q Billiard Emporium, and had dinner in my dad’s blue Chevy Malibu. Lin took her sneakers off and put her feet up on the dashboard, and we laughed as her feet fogged up a little section of the windshield. I drove her home to East Meadow, and for the second time in our relationship we stole one last kiss, this time in a schoolyard playground around the corner from her house. And then Linda was gone. Several days later on my birthday I waited for a phone call that never came. My mom, who was always more perceptive than I ever gave her credit for, came up to me at one point and whispered “You didn’t get what you wanted for your birthday, did you?” 19 would be the last birthday party my parents ever threw for me.
I stayed friends with Rich Perez for a while, and we gigged together as a duet, but I was terribly jealous of him. Rich was such a good songwriter, and such a good singer, and he was so handsome: Rich had girls lining up to be with him. I let my jealousy ruin our friendship. I wish I could find him and tell him how sorry I am about that, and how brilliant I thought he was. I’ve looked for Rich online, but there are so many Richard Perez’s out there. I have yet to find him.
Tim Salenger disappeared from my life too. I remember hanging out at Tim’s place in New Jersey, swimming in his in-ground swimming pool, and listening to this new band he and his friends were into called U-2. I remember thinking “this is the first new band I’ve heard that I like”. You know that night at the “Salty Dog” that I wrote about earlier? Later that evening I overheard Tim say to Mark “Watching these guys play makes me realize how good Steve is”. I never told anyone that story, but I’ll tell you now that it made my night and then some. Tim was a good guy and although we were never close, I wish I could tell him how much I appreciated him letting me into his world for that brief summer.
Lenny Stote in about every way was the most amazing musician I have known. He was brilliant and over the top funny. Once at a restaurant called “Chicago’s”, the band sat drinking much beer and eating much deep dish pizza when Lenny noticed that someone’s (I think Tim’s) beer mug was a little low. In a booming medieval voice, he boldly announced “NO EMPTY GLASSES AT LENNY’S TABLE”, and proceeded to pound his fist on said table. This percussive downward blow sent two full pitchers of beer skyward, soaking the four other band members and several tables around us, and Lenny sat there smiling, admiring what he had done. A few weeks ago I found a Lenny Stote on FaceBook and sent him a private message, but I never received a reply. I always wanted to be close friends with Lenny, but I’m not sure he knew that. I miss Lenny, and wish I could thank him as well and tell him what the summer of 1981 with the band meant to me. Really, I think I’d just like to have one more beer at Lenny’s table.
Linda Michos returned to New York after things didn’t go so well out west with her boyfriend. She called one afternoon to tell me she was home and I was so happy. We got together that weekend, and for the next year and a half dated as friends. But Lin never fell in love with me, and I never fell out of love with her. There were no more stolen kisses to be had. One evening as we sat outside her home in my father’s blue Malibu, I told her I couldn’t see her any more. It just hurt too damn much. We both cried, and then Lin was gone for good. For me, it was the first time I had walked away from someone I didn’t want to walk away from, and that was when I learned no matter how much you love someone it doesn’t matter one bit. You can’t make somebody feel something that they don’t. That changed me, and not in a good way: life had finally fucked with my head. Twenty seven years have passed since that night, and the feelings I had for Linda are a part of a distant memory and no longer of any relevance. But if I ever met Lin again, I’d say to her “You know, I got two good songs out of you!” It was a private joke we had between us and I’ll bet you she’d still remember that.
I guess by now you’re probably wondering why I’ve written this. About a year ago I was searching online for my old band mates when I found Dr. Mark Garobedian who had a Pediatric practice in South Hampton, NY. If you knew Mark you’d know that he was built to be a Pediatrician. I was so happy that he had made it. But two weeks ago I decided to search again, and this time I found something new about Mark: his practice was now located in Mechanicsville, VA which is about 20 minutes from where I live. I was flabbergasted. There was a number listed, and the next day I called my old drummer. Within 20 minutes he returned my call and we laughed and talked and we couldn’t believe that 28 years later we were living about 10 miles from each other: Mark had moved his family to Virginia earlier this year and he seemed genuinely ecstatic to hear from me. About the third thing he said to me was “That band had potential!” I couldn’t agree more. But the best part? About five minutes into the conversation Mark asked “Do you still play?” and I said “just for my family and myself”. So Mark goes “Well, I know this guitarist up near DC and we should get together and play” and since we spoke, every time I hear a song on the radio all I am thinking is “We could play that”.
It’s interesting to look back at those days from the perspective of time. Time can be a great teacher if you choose to be its student. I’ve always remembered the days after the summer of 1981 as the time when I dropped out of college, began drinking, and lived a lie that I never really spoke of until after the passing of my Mother. Now, I see those days as great formative years, almost cliché in most respects: the story of a teenager, his rock and roll band, and a summer love that ended as most do: with a goodbye. Today, I am married to the most perfect woman imaginable. She is bright and beautiful, and has fulfilled me in every way. And my wife, who knew Dave Matthews and once upon a time shoved him into the water fountain on the downtown mall in Charlottesville, says I am the best guitarist she’s ever heard. My dreams of being a rock star are fulfilled as well: I get to be a rock star for my audience of one, usually when she comes out of the shower and she’s putting her makeup on.
It’s easy to get caught up in one’s past. I hear that this happens all the time to guys my age. Usually they go out, get a hot young girl and a convertible and that takes care of it. So what am I supposed to do? I already have a hot young wife and a convertible. The trick is not to get caught up in your past, the trick is to see where you’ve been, look at where you are, and imagine where you want to be. And that never changes, no matter what age you are. I love where I am and how I got here, and I can’t wait to carry on this wondrous adventure, now no longer alone, with the woman of my dreams.
One night very soon Mark and I are planning to get together to (as he put it) “…eat some pasta, drink some Chianti and laugh our asses off”. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see him. I miss my old friends, all of them, who shepherded me through the 18th and 19th years of my life. And although it seemed so chaotic and traumatic back when, now through the looking glass of time and perspective those days seem so wonderfully ordinary. And one day soon don’t be surprised if my drummer and I are playing somewhere at a bar or street corner near you. We were supposed to revolutionize rock and roll, you know? Life will fuck with your head but life will give you chances at redemption right until the glorious end.
Or am I being naive?
Saturday, July 20, 2013
"Moon Landing" from Steve
Steve, like most IT guys, loved science. Loved science-fiction, too. Don't get me started on his obsession with asking pilots if they ever saw UFO's while flying planes. Got to a point I was scared to have us sit in an airport too long for fear he'd go pestering all the incoming pilots. But he'd send me all sorts of articles to read or burst out in normal conversation with some weird pieces of arcane information. He could hold a piece of information in his head in ways that perplex me to this day. He was a walking encyclopedia. He was constantly teaching me things.
But what I enjoyed most was when the information coincided with stories from his past. His childhood. Steve didn't need the nightly newsman to tell him it was the 40th anniversary of walking on the moon. He had written this earlier in the week and waited to post it. Just one of those pieces of arcane information in his head waiting to burst out at the appropriate time.
July 20, 2009
I was 6 years old when we landed on the moon 40 years ago today.
My parents let me stay up late that night to watch Neil Armstrong take his historic steps, and to me that was as big a deal as the steps themselves. I want to say it was about 10:15 at night when it happened and even at 6 I knew it was a big deal, but at that age could I fully grasp what exactly was going on?
There were clues. My dad fought in World War II, and had seen it all or so it seemed, but he too paused on a work night to watch the TV in the living room with the rest of his sons. I noticed that. Mom kept telling me that I would always remember that day, and that I would tell my children about it. She was half right: I have no children, so I'm telling all of you. My grandmother, Bombina, was terrified. She was convinced that the moon would fall from the sky if they landed on it. "Vinny, why do they HAVE to go???" she would plead with my father.
The picture wasn't very good but that didn't bother me. The only thing that ever play well on that TV were cartoons so who cared. It was 1969. I was used to bad pictures on TV. Disturbing images of helicopters and soldiers broadcast like a blurry surrealistic nightmare. Maybe I didn't comprehend it all, but somehow I knew enough. I know this because it didn't escape me that the ship was called the Eagle, or that it landed in a place called the Sea of Tranquility. I knew the future when I saw it, and I saw hope in my family's eyes that night.
1969 was the year I became aware. I was aware of the Mets, and found a hero in George Thomas Seaver. I knew who Joe Namath was, and I knew who Willis Reed was. I knew what Viet Nam was and I knew my oldest brother was a soldier. I knew grandma Bombi had nothing to worry about, the moon was going to stay right where it was. And I knew that Neil and Buzz stood in the confines of the Sea of Tranquility 250,000 miles away and it all made perfect sense.
But what I enjoyed most was when the information coincided with stories from his past. His childhood. Steve didn't need the nightly newsman to tell him it was the 40th anniversary of walking on the moon. He had written this earlier in the week and waited to post it. Just one of those pieces of arcane information in his head waiting to burst out at the appropriate time.
July 20, 2009
I was 6 years old when we landed on the moon 40 years ago today.
My parents let me stay up late that night to watch Neil Armstrong take his historic steps, and to me that was as big a deal as the steps themselves. I want to say it was about 10:15 at night when it happened and even at 6 I knew it was a big deal, but at that age could I fully grasp what exactly was going on?
There were clues. My dad fought in World War II, and had seen it all or so it seemed, but he too paused on a work night to watch the TV in the living room with the rest of his sons. I noticed that. Mom kept telling me that I would always remember that day, and that I would tell my children about it. She was half right: I have no children, so I'm telling all of you. My grandmother, Bombina, was terrified. She was convinced that the moon would fall from the sky if they landed on it. "Vinny, why do they HAVE to go???" she would plead with my father.
The picture wasn't very good but that didn't bother me. The only thing that ever play well on that TV were cartoons so who cared. It was 1969. I was used to bad pictures on TV. Disturbing images of helicopters and soldiers broadcast like a blurry surrealistic nightmare. Maybe I didn't comprehend it all, but somehow I knew enough. I know this because it didn't escape me that the ship was called the Eagle, or that it landed in a place called the Sea of Tranquility. I knew the future when I saw it, and I saw hope in my family's eyes that night.
1969 was the year I became aware. I was aware of the Mets, and found a hero in George Thomas Seaver. I knew who Joe Namath was, and I knew who Willis Reed was. I knew what Viet Nam was and I knew my oldest brother was a soldier. I knew grandma Bombi had nothing to worry about, the moon was going to stay right where it was. And I knew that Neil and Buzz stood in the confines of the Sea of Tranquility 250,000 miles away and it all made perfect sense.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
"Father's Day" - from Steve
Doc was one of Steve's closest friends not in the family. Being Italian, a friend not in the family quickly becomes family. Doc was what I would call "a brother from another mother". In light of this father's day posting maybe it should be "a brother from another father".
When Steve died, I mistakenly phoned Doc after midnight. I had no idea of the time, being entirely out of my mind with shock and grief. All I felt was a desperation to get a hold of those who loved Steve and was loved by Steve. I can't imagine waking from a deep sleep to take that call. But Mike took that call, stayed calm and made some additional calls on my behalf. He stood tall exactly where Steve would have for him had the tables been reversed.
About a year later, Mike came to Richmond for work. He took me out to one of Steve's favorite restaurants. A place Steve and I always took out of town visitors or to celebrate special occasions. And while we spoke of Steve now and again, mostly we spoke of mundane every day topics. We were both trying to stand tall in Steve's place for each other, making an awkward mess of it in the process.
I haven't seen or heard from Doc since that dinner. I sent him the lucite encased Super Bowl ticket which Steve saved these many years. While I had heard the stories written below many times, I knew Steve would have wanted Mike to have the heft of those shared memories. Something to hold in hand of the times they shared with pride.
I wish I could do that for each and every person Steve held dear in his life.
June 19, 2010
June 20th is my best friend not named Karen’s birthday. When I was in High School and for many years thereafter Mike Lozano and I shared many an adventure as we grew from 14 year old boys into the first incarnations of the men we are today.
Mike and I met in sophomore year at Archbishop Molloy, in the fall of 1977. I don’t know how we avoided each other for freshman year, we were on the same academic track, but needless to say when we finally met we became good friends. Mike was always a little smarter than me. He worked a little harder and got better grades. I was more of the “disassociated artist’ type. I never studied, never worked, and got passing grades much to my parent’s consternation (they had this “valedictorian or bust” attitude that I still don’t quite get. Once, my dad beat the snot out me for bringing home an 86 average)
Our friendship however really took off in college when we both discovered bars. This was more of a bad thing for me than Mike, who as I mentioned was always a little smarter than me. Doc as we now called him knew when to party and knew when to study. I on the other hand (who Doc now called “Wildman”) knew absolutely nothing about when to study. All the time was a good time to party, and being at NYU in the heart of Greenwich Village during the post-punk new wave era was probably not the most conducive environment for focusing on my academics. By 1983 I dropped out.
Doc finished Syracuse University in 2.5 years (OK, he was A LOT smarter than me), took a half a semester off, and started Mt. Sinai medical school while I had gotten some steady work in various mailrooms around the city. We still partied and drank, and for several years I was proud to subsidize our good times. Doc became an ER Doctor and married a beautiful woman named Tania, who I might add is smarter than the two of us (Tania went to Yale and is an Endocrinologist). For a while they lived in New York but eventually they moved to Tampa where they live today.
I wish I could tell you all of the stories and adventures we shared, but I can’t. One of the conditions of sobriety is to walk away from the people, places, and things that you knew when you drank and most of my stories about Doc start off “So one night Doc and I were out drinking…”. I can’t tell those stories any more, but there is one story I can tell...
Doc is one of the most decisive, intelligent people you will ever meet, but when it came to picking his favorite football team he couldn’t. I always thought he was a Jets fan, but when he moved to Tampa he became a Bucs fan, and when I questioned this his reply was something along the lines of “I really don’t have a favorite football team”.
Hmmm.
So I told him about the Green Bay Packers. Here’s a football team that was made for the Doc. They have a rich history. They are successful. They are owned by the people of Green Bay. Green Bay is about as different from New York City as different can be. Within days Doc was coming back to me with facts that I didn’t know (did I mention he’s somewhere between a little and a lot smarter than me?) “Did you know that if the team gets sold, all of the proceeds have to go to the local American Legion Post??” he gleefully exclaimed in one phone call. It didn’t hurt that we had Brett Favre on the team, and this was 1995 Brett Favre, so Doc became a Packers fan.
And the next year they went to the Super Bowl and so did we.
When the Packers made it to Super Bowl XXXI Doc immediately called and said “We’re going”.
“But I can’t afford it” I said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it” said Doc.
“But I’ll never be able to pay you back”.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it” said Doc
“I have to pay you back”.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it. It’s my way of saying thanks” said Doc, at this point getting annoyed. “Look, I’ve always wanted to be able to do this for my friends”, and that I understood. We came from the same place, me and the Doc, and he had made it out.
Doc took me to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and we watched Brett Favre win his only championship. That was a dream come true, and I have the ticket stub to prove it.
If I’ve never said thank you as I should have for that adventure then please allow me to do it now.
Thank you Mike.
A lot has changed since that day in 1996. I started changing my drinking habits, and Doc went on with his life. We grown apart over time and distance, but never so far that one can’t pick up the phone any day and call the other. Oh, and when I got married Doc and his family were there. He and Tania and their children Jackie and Vickie (who is my godchild) made the trip to Vegas. Jackie and Vickie stood as our flower girls and bowled with us in celebration that afternoon.
There’s a lot for me to think about today. I thought about writing about my Dad, but I think about him enough, and he knows how much I love him even if he did beat the snot out of me for bringing home an 86 average. Also? I’m tired of reflecting on the dead for now. This world is for the living. Here’s to the Doc, husband, father, and my friend always. Happy Fathers Day!
PS…
I can’t post this without wishing a happy Fathers Day to Miguel Lozano, Sr., who is Doc’s dad and was always a second dad to me. Mr. Lozano is a typical Puerto Rican man: he is strong and proud and of few words. When I met Mr. Lozano in 1977 our conversations would go like this:
Steve: Hi Mr. Lozano.
Mr. Lozano: >
It was the strangest noise I’d ever heard. In the first three years I knew him, the only actual words he ever said to me were this one time when he said: “Move your car”. I had no idea why he wanted me to move my car, nor did I think there was anything wrong with where I parked it, but I was ready to move it to the cemetery out back just so he wouldn’t have to see it ever again. I don’t think I ever moved so fast in my life. Anyway, three years of this goes on and one day we are sitting on his living room couch together watching a Mets game and all of a sudden I hear this voice go “Jorgensen.” I looked around wondering where it had came from but I really had no idea. Then I heard “Jorgensen. He’s good. Strong”
It was Mr. Lozano.
I looked around again to see who he was speaking to, but there was no one around. Then it dawned on me: he was talking to me. I remember thinking “Holy crap, he wants to have a conversation. Now what”? You know those old western movies, the way the Indians would talk? That was me. “Yes. Jorgensen. Good. Strong. Power hitter”.
It was Mr. Lozano’s way of letting me know I passed the test.
Happy Fathers day Dad. Give Mom and big hug and kiss from her wayward son.
When Steve died, I mistakenly phoned Doc after midnight. I had no idea of the time, being entirely out of my mind with shock and grief. All I felt was a desperation to get a hold of those who loved Steve and was loved by Steve. I can't imagine waking from a deep sleep to take that call. But Mike took that call, stayed calm and made some additional calls on my behalf. He stood tall exactly where Steve would have for him had the tables been reversed.
About a year later, Mike came to Richmond for work. He took me out to one of Steve's favorite restaurants. A place Steve and I always took out of town visitors or to celebrate special occasions. And while we spoke of Steve now and again, mostly we spoke of mundane every day topics. We were both trying to stand tall in Steve's place for each other, making an awkward mess of it in the process.
I haven't seen or heard from Doc since that dinner. I sent him the lucite encased Super Bowl ticket which Steve saved these many years. While I had heard the stories written below many times, I knew Steve would have wanted Mike to have the heft of those shared memories. Something to hold in hand of the times they shared with pride.
I wish I could do that for each and every person Steve held dear in his life.
June 19, 2010
June 20th is my best friend not named Karen’s birthday. When I was in High School and for many years thereafter Mike Lozano and I shared many an adventure as we grew from 14 year old boys into the first incarnations of the men we are today.
Mike and I met in sophomore year at Archbishop Molloy, in the fall of 1977. I don’t know how we avoided each other for freshman year, we were on the same academic track, but needless to say when we finally met we became good friends. Mike was always a little smarter than me. He worked a little harder and got better grades. I was more of the “disassociated artist’ type. I never studied, never worked, and got passing grades much to my parent’s consternation (they had this “valedictorian or bust” attitude that I still don’t quite get. Once, my dad beat the snot out me for bringing home an 86 average)
Our friendship however really took off in college when we both discovered bars. This was more of a bad thing for me than Mike, who as I mentioned was always a little smarter than me. Doc as we now called him knew when to party and knew when to study. I on the other hand (who Doc now called “Wildman”) knew absolutely nothing about when to study. All the time was a good time to party, and being at NYU in the heart of Greenwich Village during the post-punk new wave era was probably not the most conducive environment for focusing on my academics. By 1983 I dropped out.
Doc finished Syracuse University in 2.5 years (OK, he was A LOT smarter than me), took a half a semester off, and started Mt. Sinai medical school while I had gotten some steady work in various mailrooms around the city. We still partied and drank, and for several years I was proud to subsidize our good times. Doc became an ER Doctor and married a beautiful woman named Tania, who I might add is smarter than the two of us (Tania went to Yale and is an Endocrinologist). For a while they lived in New York but eventually they moved to Tampa where they live today.
I wish I could tell you all of the stories and adventures we shared, but I can’t. One of the conditions of sobriety is to walk away from the people, places, and things that you knew when you drank and most of my stories about Doc start off “So one night Doc and I were out drinking…”. I can’t tell those stories any more, but there is one story I can tell...
Doc is one of the most decisive, intelligent people you will ever meet, but when it came to picking his favorite football team he couldn’t. I always thought he was a Jets fan, but when he moved to Tampa he became a Bucs fan, and when I questioned this his reply was something along the lines of “I really don’t have a favorite football team”.
Hmmm.
So I told him about the Green Bay Packers. Here’s a football team that was made for the Doc. They have a rich history. They are successful. They are owned by the people of Green Bay. Green Bay is about as different from New York City as different can be. Within days Doc was coming back to me with facts that I didn’t know (did I mention he’s somewhere between a little and a lot smarter than me?) “Did you know that if the team gets sold, all of the proceeds have to go to the local American Legion Post??” he gleefully exclaimed in one phone call. It didn’t hurt that we had Brett Favre on the team, and this was 1995 Brett Favre, so Doc became a Packers fan.
And the next year they went to the Super Bowl and so did we.
When the Packers made it to Super Bowl XXXI Doc immediately called and said “We’re going”.
“But I can’t afford it” I said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it” said Doc.
“But I’ll never be able to pay you back”.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it” said Doc
“I have to pay you back”.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it. It’s my way of saying thanks” said Doc, at this point getting annoyed. “Look, I’ve always wanted to be able to do this for my friends”, and that I understood. We came from the same place, me and the Doc, and he had made it out.
Doc took me to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and we watched Brett Favre win his only championship. That was a dream come true, and I have the ticket stub to prove it.
If I’ve never said thank you as I should have for that adventure then please allow me to do it now.
Thank you Mike.
A lot has changed since that day in 1996. I started changing my drinking habits, and Doc went on with his life. We grown apart over time and distance, but never so far that one can’t pick up the phone any day and call the other. Oh, and when I got married Doc and his family were there. He and Tania and their children Jackie and Vickie (who is my godchild) made the trip to Vegas. Jackie and Vickie stood as our flower girls and bowled with us in celebration that afternoon.
There’s a lot for me to think about today. I thought about writing about my Dad, but I think about him enough, and he knows how much I love him even if he did beat the snot out of me for bringing home an 86 average. Also? I’m tired of reflecting on the dead for now. This world is for the living. Here’s to the Doc, husband, father, and my friend always. Happy Fathers Day!
PS…
I can’t post this without wishing a happy Fathers Day to Miguel Lozano, Sr., who is Doc’s dad and was always a second dad to me. Mr. Lozano is a typical Puerto Rican man: he is strong and proud and of few words. When I met Mr. Lozano in 1977 our conversations would go like this:
Steve: Hi Mr. Lozano.
Mr. Lozano: >
It was the strangest noise I’d ever heard. In the first three years I knew him, the only actual words he ever said to me were this one time when he said: “Move your car”. I had no idea why he wanted me to move my car, nor did I think there was anything wrong with where I parked it, but I was ready to move it to the cemetery out back just so he wouldn’t have to see it ever again. I don’t think I ever moved so fast in my life. Anyway, three years of this goes on and one day we are sitting on his living room couch together watching a Mets game and all of a sudden I hear this voice go “Jorgensen.” I looked around wondering where it had came from but I really had no idea. Then I heard “Jorgensen. He’s good. Strong”
It was Mr. Lozano.
I looked around again to see who he was speaking to, but there was no one around. Then it dawned on me: he was talking to me. I remember thinking “Holy crap, he wants to have a conversation. Now what”? You know those old western movies, the way the Indians would talk? That was me. “Yes. Jorgensen. Good. Strong. Power hitter”.
It was Mr. Lozano’s way of letting me know I passed the test.
Happy Fathers day Dad. Give Mom and big hug and kiss from her wayward son.
Friday, April 19, 2013
All Those Precious Rings
When Steve asked me to marry him, he proudly put a one point something carat diamond on my left hand, kneeling in Rockefeller Center on Christmas Eve. I was facing away from Steve looking at the tree and the ice skaters when he got on bended knee. After he called my name and gently tugged on the corner of my coat, I turned to face him. I thought he had slipped and fallen. I started to kneel on that cold pavement to help him to his feet when I realized he hadn't fallen to his knee... he was on bended knee.
The only part I can remember of what he said that night was "I've waited for you my entire life..." After that all I hear in my memory is the inner dialog of "ohmygawd. ohmygawd. ohmygawd."
We chose simple, plain, gold wedding bands. I'd heard horror stories of wedding bands slipping off in the ocean, never to be seen again. If that ever happened to us I wanted to only mourn the emotional loss of the ring, not the financial.
I wore those rings up until about six months ago.
When Steve died, I put his pinky ring, which he received as a gift for his confirmation and wore every day of his life, along with his wedding band on a chain with a cross, which he also received for his confirmation and wore every day of his life. It was a rather large clump of metal to bang between my breasts. Kinda made my chest feel like some sort of jingly bongo drum set. After a week I took the cross off the necklace, along with the pinky ring, leaving just his wedding band to bounce over my heart.
And that's where it stayed until about seven months ago, when I started dating. Even after I started dating I wore it more often than not. Even now I'll still swing it over my neck for no apparent reason except I like the comfort of the weight.
For Christmas in 2011, my second set of holidays without Steve but my first set of holidays without my father, I had best gift I could have received. I was invited to New York to spend Christmas with my in-laws. I spent a few days alone in the city (and if you need to ask which city, get a life. There's only one city in New York referred to as THE city) visiting some of our favorite spots before heading up to join the family. I tried to take a picture or two of places that meant something to us. I stayed at the same hotel we stayed at during our last visit. I visited the house he grew up in, his cousin kept me company via text the entire time, dropped in on Sister Flora who has been such a God send to the family.
And I did a bit of shopping.
I stopped in to Tiffany & Co., where Steve bought my first piece of jewelry not related to our marriage. It was a Christmas gift that I still wear on my right hand thumb to this day. Now Steve gave me many sparkly jewels over the years, and each means something different to me. But there was something special about receiving that little blue box with the white bow. So on the 23rd of December in 2011, I walked into Tiffany's completely out of my mind thinking I'd be able to see anything, let alone buy something. And yet, the first counter I walked up to, I found exactly what I didn't even know I was looking for. It's two rings, one in yellow gold, one in white gold, intertwined so they can't be separated but still swing freely of each other. I knew I needed it for that day in future when I was ready to take my wedding band and engagement ring off, but didn't want an empty finger. I wanted a ring that would hold some meaning while I transitioned from married to widowed. A ring that I could, even later, move to another finger and still like it. What better than a ring that looks like two entwined wedding bands?
I know the exact day I took off my wedding band. I was in Rome for what would have been our tenth wedding anniversary. At dinner on our anniversary, overlooking the Forum Boarium, Steve's ring in my hand, letting the necklace slip through my fingers like flowing water, it occurred to me to place my band on the chain along with his. The rings naturally fell in together forming a smaller circle inside a larger circle. And all the sudden, it made sense to me. I slipped the necklace over my head, took my new double band ring I had been wearing on my right hand in the meanwhile, and placed it on my newly naked left ring finger. When I walked out of that restaurant I felt a little emptier. I felt a little lighter. I felt a little giddy. I was ready for something new.
By March of this year, I had moved that double band back to my right hand and was wearing a big chunky thing on the middle finger of my left hand. I even went back to New York to experience the city not immersed in memories but to help show them off, give vision to the words I'd been speaking. I even managed a picture, which says more than all these words put together can say.
Cause you see, a little over a week ago, I got a surprise parade just for me. An entire bagpipe band marched down my street. Two of the most amazing, heart-stealing, little girls held signs expressing love. My piper got on bended knee in my front yard and asked me to marry him.
And as Doug placed the one carat blue sapphire ring on my left ring finger... I replied with a resounding yes.
The only part I can remember of what he said that night was "I've waited for you my entire life..." After that all I hear in my memory is the inner dialog of "ohmygawd. ohmygawd. ohmygawd."
We chose simple, plain, gold wedding bands. I'd heard horror stories of wedding bands slipping off in the ocean, never to be seen again. If that ever happened to us I wanted to only mourn the emotional loss of the ring, not the financial.
I wore those rings up until about six months ago.
When Steve died, I put his pinky ring, which he received as a gift for his confirmation and wore every day of his life, along with his wedding band on a chain with a cross, which he also received for his confirmation and wore every day of his life. It was a rather large clump of metal to bang between my breasts. Kinda made my chest feel like some sort of jingly bongo drum set. After a week I took the cross off the necklace, along with the pinky ring, leaving just his wedding band to bounce over my heart.
And that's where it stayed until about seven months ago, when I started dating. Even after I started dating I wore it more often than not. Even now I'll still swing it over my neck for no apparent reason except I like the comfort of the weight.
For Christmas in 2011, my second set of holidays without Steve but my first set of holidays without my father, I had best gift I could have received. I was invited to New York to spend Christmas with my in-laws. I spent a few days alone in the city (and if you need to ask which city, get a life. There's only one city in New York referred to as THE city) visiting some of our favorite spots before heading up to join the family. I tried to take a picture or two of places that meant something to us. I stayed at the same hotel we stayed at during our last visit. I visited the house he grew up in, his cousin kept me company via text the entire time, dropped in on Sister Flora who has been such a God send to the family.
And I did a bit of shopping.
I stopped in to Tiffany & Co., where Steve bought my first piece of jewelry not related to our marriage. It was a Christmas gift that I still wear on my right hand thumb to this day. Now Steve gave me many sparkly jewels over the years, and each means something different to me. But there was something special about receiving that little blue box with the white bow. So on the 23rd of December in 2011, I walked into Tiffany's completely out of my mind thinking I'd be able to see anything, let alone buy something. And yet, the first counter I walked up to, I found exactly what I didn't even know I was looking for. It's two rings, one in yellow gold, one in white gold, intertwined so they can't be separated but still swing freely of each other. I knew I needed it for that day in future when I was ready to take my wedding band and engagement ring off, but didn't want an empty finger. I wanted a ring that would hold some meaning while I transitioned from married to widowed. A ring that I could, even later, move to another finger and still like it. What better than a ring that looks like two entwined wedding bands?
I know the exact day I took off my wedding band. I was in Rome for what would have been our tenth wedding anniversary. At dinner on our anniversary, overlooking the Forum Boarium, Steve's ring in my hand, letting the necklace slip through my fingers like flowing water, it occurred to me to place my band on the chain along with his. The rings naturally fell in together forming a smaller circle inside a larger circle. And all the sudden, it made sense to me. I slipped the necklace over my head, took my new double band ring I had been wearing on my right hand in the meanwhile, and placed it on my newly naked left ring finger. When I walked out of that restaurant I felt a little emptier. I felt a little lighter. I felt a little giddy. I was ready for something new.
By March of this year, I had moved that double band back to my right hand and was wearing a big chunky thing on the middle finger of my left hand. I even went back to New York to experience the city not immersed in memories but to help show them off, give vision to the words I'd been speaking. I even managed a picture, which says more than all these words put together can say.
Cause you see, a little over a week ago, I got a surprise parade just for me. An entire bagpipe band marched down my street. Two of the most amazing, heart-stealing, little girls held signs expressing love. My piper got on bended knee in my front yard and asked me to marry him.
And as Doug placed the one carat blue sapphire ring on my left ring finger... I replied with a resounding yes.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Missing - Everything But The Girl
There are many versions of this song out there. I've always been partial to remixes, though.
I had dinner with my in-laws the other night. I saw them last at Christmas, when I also spent a few days in New York City revisiting old places and times. All of which are connected to Steve. This song was cycling through my head when I visited Steve's old neighborhood. Cousin Frank was at work that day but managed to text me the entire time I was in the old neighborhood. Amongst a dozen other reasons, I love him for that.
Seeing Steve's family a week after his death anniversary has me revisiting my last visit with them. I never feel like I'm able to say what it is I want to say to them. I never feel like I have enough time with them. I wish I could find the words to tell them how much my love has grown for them in the past two years. How much I want to give Steve back to them. How sorry I am that for ten years we didn't visit as often as we could have, as much as Steve wanted to visit.
I never knew how wonderful my in-laws were until we were no longer, technically speaking, in-laws. What a fool I've been.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Dan
Steve was working a contract in Wisconsin when he met Dan's father. In the course of their time working together, Steve found out Dan was accepted to VCU/MCV for his doctorate. We immediately invited them to Richmond to visit the school and promised to give them a full tour of the city.
Guess we were good tour guides, because Dan decided to stay. Steve immediately announced that Dan would be at our house for every Packer game. This wasn't an invitation, it was a command. I lent a hand by looking at apartments for Dan while he went back home to pack for the move.
That first year, Dan did come over for every Packer game. We took him to the state fair, where Dan got to watch my New Yorker husband be amazed by livestock. (Yes, Steve, sheep actually say baaaaa.) We had Dan over for cookouts. We took him to the botanical gardens at Christmas to see the lights. We drove Dan to his first marathon. We drove like maniacs to as many of the stops along the marathon so we could scream our fool heads off as Dan ran by. We brought Dan back to our place after the marathon worried he wouldn't be able to climb the stairs to his apartment. We were, we came to realize through a series of events, surrogate parents. We called Dan our adopted college-aged son. And though he made us feel old when he expressed shock we could use the word "epic" just as appropriately as any hipster, we loved having him around.
Steve had a favorite story about Dan. And this version isn't purely Steve's language because we often told this story together, one interrupting the other to insert some piece of information. Here it is as we would tell it together:
Dan is the stereotypically nice, corn-fed, mid-westerner. Please and thank you are the words we most often heard come from his mouth those first few months. He wouldn't say "shit" if he had a mouthful. Always willing to help or lend a hand however he's able. Always a smile. Always up for anything.
One game-day Monday, Steve was working out of town. Dan came over to the house to watch the Packer game with me. I was on the phone with Steve as the game was starting. Steve started bragging about watching the game on a large, high-def, flat screen TV in his comfy hotel room with the air conditioner cranked to the max.
"Are you jealous" Steve asked Dan.
... pause ...
"I have your wife" replied Dan.We were so floor by the unexpected change from wouldn't-say-shit-if-he-had-a-mouthful guy to clever retort guy, that we were still telling that story regularly when Steve died.
After Steve died, everything reversed. Dan made sure I was sitting in front of a TV for every Packer game. Dan invited me over for cookouts with his grad-school friends. Dan competed in a triathlon in Steve's memory and gave me the medal. Dan grubbed in my yard. Dan took me out to eat. Dan accompanied me to Christmas ballets, anniversary dinners, and Packer games in Washington DC in place of my husband. He kept me company when I wasn't fit company.
Which may be why I felt so genuinely happy and excited for Dan when he graduated a few weeks ago. He is an amazing man who picked up and moved cross country not knowing anyone, met an incredible group of friends, and with apparent ease, earned his doctorate. He bikes, he runs, he hula-hoops. I have yet to hear him say a bad word about anyone. I have, however, finally heard him say "shit" and I don't believe he actually means it when he says it.
Tonight was Dan's going away party. Dan is moving cross country, once again. Moving somewhere he doesn't know anyone, once again. This time he's starting his career. And I am, once again, genuinely happy and excited for him.
But as everyone was telling their favorite Dan memory, I kept quiet. Not because I don't have one, but because mine are so... oddly tainted by grief that I don't trust myself to speak without weeping for the kindness he's shown me. All the same, here are a few:
Sitting in the parking lot before the Packer / Redskins game, me drunker than I realized, watching the swooping dragonflies while wondering where they all came from. Then getting lost trying to find the car after the game because I was too drunk to pay attention and Dan was too preoccupied with keeping me on my feet on the way into the stadium.
Dying Dan's hair a bright turquoise and shaving it into a mohawk for the triathlon he ran in Steve's memory. He looked like he'd rubbed a smurf up and down the center of his head. It looked good on him.
Dan, quietly dogging me around as I drunkenly climb eight foot tall, cast iron fences in my dress and heels to read a monument on my wedding anniversary simply because I'm not ready to go home to that empty house yet.
Plastering half a pound of pink glitter on Dan's eyes for his "naughty school-girl" Halloween outfit. Then plastering another half pound all over his face. Dan's runner's legs look good in fishnet stockings, by the way.Dan and I have known each other longer without Steve than we've known each other with Steve. The relationship changed along the way. I don't know how I'd describe it now. Friends, I suppose. Though I don't feel I've the right to be named a friend as I haven't done much to hold up my end for the past two years. Maybe better is to state, one friend who is deeply indebted to the other. And while I am happy, excited, and thrilled for Dan and this new journey he's beginning, that didn't stop me from crying the entire drive home.
Wandering around some small, hick, West Virgina town arguing that yes, that house with the sign out front saying it's a place to meet singles and an ATM neon light in the front window really IS a whore house.
Watching the world's worst Christmas play of "A Christmas Story" in the same small, hick, West Virgina town. And being able to pick out the town's hairdresser because he's the gay man in black leather pants, black leather vest, with a bright red button down shirt. The diamond earrings are what gave him away, though.
I will never be able to repay your kindness and support, Dan. But that won't stop me from trying. Good travels, my friend. I will miss you.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Feels Like Summer
Steve ~
I haven't written to you in such a long time. When you first died, back when I was lucky to get four hours of sleep a night, I'd write you every morning. As soon as the sun came up I'd grab a cup of coffee and the notebook you used to keep music notes, and spend an hour watching the birds at the feeders while writing you how hard it was to face each day.
A lot has changed since then. A lot about me has changed since then.
Tonight I want to tell you about how it feels like summer.
I spent the day gardening. I started gardening a lot last year. Mostly it was something to do with my hands while I tried desperately to chase away the cycling thoughts of you. How much I loved you. How I failed you. How I missed you. How much I wanted to come find you. So I dug in the earth and told myself you were watching me. That I had to behave.
I bought two bleeding heart plants last year. I thought it apropos since it felt like my own heart was bleeding. I never managed to put them in the ground, though. Two weeks ago I went down to Lowe's and bought two more. I got them in the ground the day I brought them home. They're right next to the back porch where the rain is always washing the dirt uneven. Where the slate used to be. I dug up all the slate last year. I dug up the entire grown-over walkway of slate leading from the side gate to the shed. My plan had been to smooth the area out and plant grass. Never happened. But this year I started planting grass. It almost looks like a yard now.
I moved the bird-feeders again the this year. I moved them last year, as well. I think I may have even added a new one or two, but I can't exactly remember. There's so much about last year that I can't remember. But this year I finally got them right. I can see each feeder from any spot on the porch and the wind won't cluster them up again. I even bought some domes to hang over them so the squirrels have a more interesting time trying to rob the birds of their food.
I've managed to keep the feeders stocked since you died. Once or twice I've fallen into a funk and they ran dry but as you always told me: the birds come back when the food is back. The weather has been nice enough that I frequently sit on the back porch around dusk to watch all the birds come and feed. Do you hear me when I sigh and point out the babies fluffing themselves for mama bird? You always like the babies with their constant 'feed-me-now-mama' chirping. I don't feel as lonely without you here to watch them as I did last year. Can you see that, too? Does it make you happy?
I put in an addition to our bird friendly house today. I installed two cedar birdhouses on the back fence. They're supposed to be good for blue birds. I'm afraid I didn't get them up early enough to be used this spring. If not, there's always next year. These won't fall apart like the ones I painted several years ago. I don't think those were actually meant to be hung outside. You never complained when you had to stop your mowing to pick up the pieces, though.
I've been good about the mowing this year, too. I weed whack each time I mow and it makes a huge difference to the look of the place. Last year, I broke down crying every time I mowed. I would force myself to mow because I didn't want to slump on your chores. If you were looking down on me, I wanted you to be proud of the way I pushed through the pain. I wanted you to see me doing all the things you would want to do for me if you were here. Now I do it because it makes me feel good to have a nice looking yard. I enjoy the exercise and the making of my vitamin D.
I have a lot of projects to finish this year. Last year it seems I just tore things out with the plans of replacing or upgrading them. By the time I tore something out I was too upset to finish. I couldn't forgive myself for not having started and finished the project while you were alive to enjoy the change. I don't know if I'll get them all completed this year, as I've found several things I want to do that I'd never before considered. I'm rather excited about those. But did you hear that? I'm excited! I didn't think the day would come when I'd ever be excited to change anything ever again.
I still miss you like crazy, though. Tonight was the first night I had to light incense to keep the mosquitoes away. That smell always makes me look around to see if you're coming through the back door to join me on the porch. And I'm drinking our 'Eastern Shore' concoction. Cheap light beer mixed with clamato juice. I have a lot left over from the barbeque I threw last year. Seems my guests didn't like our drink as much as we did.
And because it was such a hot day I gave your dog a Frosty Paws. I found the box in the freezer after you died. I saw one was missing from the box already. I can't remember if I gave one to Belle last year or if that one was missing because you had given it to her before you died. It saddens me that I can't remember things like that. All the same, when I handed it to her, I told her it was a gift from Daddy for keeping me company in the yard. Do you know she still perks up when I say Daddy? I wonder if it's just habit or if she's still waiting for you to come home.
I know I was. I'm not anymore. And I can't figure out if that makes it easier, harder, or just different.
I love you. With all my heart. And I don't know if you can see me, but if you can, I hope you're proud of me. I was proud of you. Always.
- Karen
I haven't written to you in such a long time. When you first died, back when I was lucky to get four hours of sleep a night, I'd write you every morning. As soon as the sun came up I'd grab a cup of coffee and the notebook you used to keep music notes, and spend an hour watching the birds at the feeders while writing you how hard it was to face each day.
A lot has changed since then. A lot about me has changed since then.
Tonight I want to tell you about how it feels like summer.
I spent the day gardening. I started gardening a lot last year. Mostly it was something to do with my hands while I tried desperately to chase away the cycling thoughts of you. How much I loved you. How I failed you. How I missed you. How much I wanted to come find you. So I dug in the earth and told myself you were watching me. That I had to behave.
I bought two bleeding heart plants last year. I thought it apropos since it felt like my own heart was bleeding. I never managed to put them in the ground, though. Two weeks ago I went down to Lowe's and bought two more. I got them in the ground the day I brought them home. They're right next to the back porch where the rain is always washing the dirt uneven. Where the slate used to be. I dug up all the slate last year. I dug up the entire grown-over walkway of slate leading from the side gate to the shed. My plan had been to smooth the area out and plant grass. Never happened. But this year I started planting grass. It almost looks like a yard now.
I moved the bird-feeders again the this year. I moved them last year, as well. I think I may have even added a new one or two, but I can't exactly remember. There's so much about last year that I can't remember. But this year I finally got them right. I can see each feeder from any spot on the porch and the wind won't cluster them up again. I even bought some domes to hang over them so the squirrels have a more interesting time trying to rob the birds of their food.
I've managed to keep the feeders stocked since you died. Once or twice I've fallen into a funk and they ran dry but as you always told me: the birds come back when the food is back. The weather has been nice enough that I frequently sit on the back porch around dusk to watch all the birds come and feed. Do you hear me when I sigh and point out the babies fluffing themselves for mama bird? You always like the babies with their constant 'feed-me-now-mama' chirping. I don't feel as lonely without you here to watch them as I did last year. Can you see that, too? Does it make you happy?
I put in an addition to our bird friendly house today. I installed two cedar birdhouses on the back fence. They're supposed to be good for blue birds. I'm afraid I didn't get them up early enough to be used this spring. If not, there's always next year. These won't fall apart like the ones I painted several years ago. I don't think those were actually meant to be hung outside. You never complained when you had to stop your mowing to pick up the pieces, though.
I've been good about the mowing this year, too. I weed whack each time I mow and it makes a huge difference to the look of the place. Last year, I broke down crying every time I mowed. I would force myself to mow because I didn't want to slump on your chores. If you were looking down on me, I wanted you to be proud of the way I pushed through the pain. I wanted you to see me doing all the things you would want to do for me if you were here. Now I do it because it makes me feel good to have a nice looking yard. I enjoy the exercise and the making of my vitamin D.
I have a lot of projects to finish this year. Last year it seems I just tore things out with the plans of replacing or upgrading them. By the time I tore something out I was too upset to finish. I couldn't forgive myself for not having started and finished the project while you were alive to enjoy the change. I don't know if I'll get them all completed this year, as I've found several things I want to do that I'd never before considered. I'm rather excited about those. But did you hear that? I'm excited! I didn't think the day would come when I'd ever be excited to change anything ever again.
I still miss you like crazy, though. Tonight was the first night I had to light incense to keep the mosquitoes away. That smell always makes me look around to see if you're coming through the back door to join me on the porch. And I'm drinking our 'Eastern Shore' concoction. Cheap light beer mixed with clamato juice. I have a lot left over from the barbeque I threw last year. Seems my guests didn't like our drink as much as we did.
And because it was such a hot day I gave your dog a Frosty Paws. I found the box in the freezer after you died. I saw one was missing from the box already. I can't remember if I gave one to Belle last year or if that one was missing because you had given it to her before you died. It saddens me that I can't remember things like that. All the same, when I handed it to her, I told her it was a gift from Daddy for keeping me company in the yard. Do you know she still perks up when I say Daddy? I wonder if it's just habit or if she's still waiting for you to come home.
I know I was. I'm not anymore. And I can't figure out if that makes it easier, harder, or just different.
I love you. With all my heart. And I don't know if you can see me, but if you can, I hope you're proud of me. I was proud of you. Always.
- Karen
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Documenting our Life Part II
The last time I posted a few pictures and stories of Steve's belongings I was pushing myself as hard as I could to make some progress, any kind of progress, towards... I dunno. Reclaiming my life? Reclaiming my house? Reclaiming my grief? Reclaiming my happy memories? All apply, actually.
It's been a week on what I now call my "widow drugs". The Zoloft hasn't kicked in yet and I've had a few interesting side effects from the Xanax. Like, if I'm late on a dosage I go to sleep for three to four hours. And my dreams? Woo hee. They are fun. Complicated and full of mazes and talking rabbits. Hey, I'm not complaining, they're better then any Tim Burton movie I've seen. Cause when I take my Xanax on time, those four hours? They are some of the most functional hours I've had in months. Actually. The first time I took it I did more in four hours than I had done in a month. I showered AND shaved my legs! Life is improving.
I took a couple of photos a few months back while trying to sort through the bedroom yet again. I tackled Steve's beside table once, then never touched another thing. Just couldn't face it. I did eventually move a few of my clothes into his closet but his shoes are still on the floor in there. My shoes are kept in a pile under the coffee table. It's gotten to a point I won't let people past my front porch if they come to visit me.
This last effort got me a bit further but I still have a ways to go. So, once again, I thought I'd share a few special items and their stories. Please forgive the dark and odd reddish cast to everything. Our room is painted maroon. Very womb-like for those times you need to feel all nestled in and rather infantile while moodily crying.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is Steve's little dresser catch-all. It's where he'd place his jewelry, his wallet, his pocket change, his work ID and his cell phone. I took his cross of the chain, where I wear his wedding ring around my neck. His pinky ring, which he never took off, is resting there as well. The change was in his pocket when he died. In his wallet is exactly twenty-six dollars, including the two dollar bill his father gave him as a child. His mother's prayer card is in there, too. Periodically I take everything off the tray, dust it down and then place everything back in it's place. I did eventually throw out his drug store reading glasses.
The tray is red and gold embossed leather. On the back it says "made in Italy." Steve's mother gave it to him when she moved. Every day in Florence last year, I passed a shop that sold hundreds of these trays in various shapes and sizes. My last day I finally built up enough courage to walk in and look around. I wanted to buy a new one, to maybe place in another room. Something to remind me of Mama DeRose and Steve. I couldn't do it, though. I so badly wanted Steve next to me to help decide what shape, what size, what color, what room. But it was nice to see reminders of them both so very far from home.
The perfume bottles are all mine except for the one slightly behind and to the right of the maroon bottle. That's Steve's cologne. Took us years to find the scent that fit his chemistry. It was Coach, of all freaking things. I've been wearing t since he died. It smells completely different on me but every now and again I'll catch an odd whiff and think "Steve?" and then look around for him. Maybe that sounds sad but it always makes me a bit happy.
All my perfumes Steve helped me pick out. I've always been of the mindset that I dress and, well, smell good, for my husband. It made sense that I'd only wear something that he found beguiling. I always knew he liked a new perfume when it'd suddenly show up all gift-wrapped for no reason at all. The bottle in the back on the far left I bought myself while in Florence. I've only worn it once but I like knowing it's there for when I'm ready to head out on my own. I imagine he'd have picked it out had he been standing next to me in Italy.
This is the ugliest puke green chair. It belonged to my grandmother. When my father died I immediately laid claim to it. It reminds me of a chair Steve's mother had that I wanted to bring home with us when she moved. I didn't speak up fast enough and it was taken to the dump. Hers was, of course, much prettier. The pillow, which can't really been seen very well, has both a bird and a monkey on it. It's a relatively recent acquisition but it reminds me of how monkeys made Steve think of me and birds made me think of him. Now, of course, I'm all confused as what to collect so my house is starting to look like some weird rainforest.
The cowboy hat was Steve's. He bought it on a work trip to Texas. It was better than the steer he has been looking at - Lord only knows where we'd have put THAT. He never really wore the hat cause he couldn't figure out where it'd be appropriate to wear in public. And I don't know anyone with a head as big as his who I could pass it on to. So it sits on the chair in our bedroom where I can look at it and laugh about his "big pumpkin head." (His words.)
It's been a week on what I now call my "widow drugs". The Zoloft hasn't kicked in yet and I've had a few interesting side effects from the Xanax. Like, if I'm late on a dosage I go to sleep for three to four hours. And my dreams? Woo hee. They are fun. Complicated and full of mazes and talking rabbits. Hey, I'm not complaining, they're better then any Tim Burton movie I've seen. Cause when I take my Xanax on time, those four hours? They are some of the most functional hours I've had in months. Actually. The first time I took it I did more in four hours than I had done in a month. I showered AND shaved my legs! Life is improving.
I took a couple of photos a few months back while trying to sort through the bedroom yet again. I tackled Steve's beside table once, then never touched another thing. Just couldn't face it. I did eventually move a few of my clothes into his closet but his shoes are still on the floor in there. My shoes are kept in a pile under the coffee table. It's gotten to a point I won't let people past my front porch if they come to visit me.
This last effort got me a bit further but I still have a ways to go. So, once again, I thought I'd share a few special items and their stories. Please forgive the dark and odd reddish cast to everything. Our room is painted maroon. Very womb-like for those times you need to feel all nestled in and rather infantile while moodily crying.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is Steve's little dresser catch-all. It's where he'd place his jewelry, his wallet, his pocket change, his work ID and his cell phone. I took his cross of the chain, where I wear his wedding ring around my neck. His pinky ring, which he never took off, is resting there as well. The change was in his pocket when he died. In his wallet is exactly twenty-six dollars, including the two dollar bill his father gave him as a child. His mother's prayer card is in there, too. Periodically I take everything off the tray, dust it down and then place everything back in it's place. I did eventually throw out his drug store reading glasses.
The tray is red and gold embossed leather. On the back it says "made in Italy." Steve's mother gave it to him when she moved. Every day in Florence last year, I passed a shop that sold hundreds of these trays in various shapes and sizes. My last day I finally built up enough courage to walk in and look around. I wanted to buy a new one, to maybe place in another room. Something to remind me of Mama DeRose and Steve. I couldn't do it, though. I so badly wanted Steve next to me to help decide what shape, what size, what color, what room. But it was nice to see reminders of them both so very far from home.
The perfume bottles are all mine except for the one slightly behind and to the right of the maroon bottle. That's Steve's cologne. Took us years to find the scent that fit his chemistry. It was Coach, of all freaking things. I've been wearing t since he died. It smells completely different on me but every now and again I'll catch an odd whiff and think "Steve?" and then look around for him. Maybe that sounds sad but it always makes me a bit happy.
All my perfumes Steve helped me pick out. I've always been of the mindset that I dress and, well, smell good, for my husband. It made sense that I'd only wear something that he found beguiling. I always knew he liked a new perfume when it'd suddenly show up all gift-wrapped for no reason at all. The bottle in the back on the far left I bought myself while in Florence. I've only worn it once but I like knowing it's there for when I'm ready to head out on my own. I imagine he'd have picked it out had he been standing next to me in Italy.
This is the ugliest puke green chair. It belonged to my grandmother. When my father died I immediately laid claim to it. It reminds me of a chair Steve's mother had that I wanted to bring home with us when she moved. I didn't speak up fast enough and it was taken to the dump. Hers was, of course, much prettier. The pillow, which can't really been seen very well, has both a bird and a monkey on it. It's a relatively recent acquisition but it reminds me of how monkeys made Steve think of me and birds made me think of him. Now, of course, I'm all confused as what to collect so my house is starting to look like some weird rainforest.
The cowboy hat was Steve's. He bought it on a work trip to Texas. It was better than the steer he has been looking at - Lord only knows where we'd have put THAT. He never really wore the hat cause he couldn't figure out where it'd be appropriate to wear in public. And I don't know anyone with a head as big as his who I could pass it on to. So it sits on the chair in our bedroom where I can look at it and laugh about his "big pumpkin head." (His words.)
Monday, November 14, 2011
"The luckiest guys in the world" from Steve
Last week was a new first for me. I went to a sports bar by myself to watch the Packer game. Since Steve died I've had a football buddy and cohort in our friend, Dan. Dan is off doing an eight week internship stint in West Virginia, leaving me to fend for myself through the remainder of the season. Which is fine, and right, and something I am finally ready for.
Last season Dan watched every game with me. And the Packers had a nice run. Ran it all the way to the Super Bowl. I didn't actually start waking up from my widow haze to see what was in front of my face until the playoffs. And then I was all jittery. It was seemed too good to be true - The Pack winning a Super Bowl for my Stevie in heaven. It was the ending I craved. It was the ending I got.
This year has been a bit different. My sight is clearer and I am able to see the plays, see the calls, see the game. I find myself looking around for Steve, wanting an explanation about a rule or trying to understand a line-up. But I play on, truly finding my own stride in being a Packer fan.
And I'm still a Packer fan. Sixteen months tomorrow and I'm still a Packer fan. Moving the ball forward. Moving it down the field. I was the lucky one, Babe.
(The following was written by Steve on his blog six years ago.)
The luckiest guys in the world - October 28, 2005
I have a very special relationship with my cousin. Before I met my wife he was my absolute best friend. We’d take trips together, have great meals together, go to cultural events together, and on those occasions where as St. Ides once put it “the drink may have flowed too freely”, we reveled in our everlasting adolescence together. He’s the one person in my family who I actually get along with. On the friend depth chart (if adults still keep such things) it goes my wife, my cousin, and all the rest. Well, that’s not true St. Ides cracked the top 5 this year and continues to move up the charts. We’ll re-visit that when my December final standings come out.
We grew up avid Mets fans. I was the product of a Brooklyn Dodger fanatic whose heart was broken in 1959 and somehow blamed this on the Yankees. My cousin is the product of an amazing union between a die hard Yankee fan and a die hard Red Sox fan who finally got her prayers answered last fall. Since we’re 4 years apart, I can’t imagine that he remembers the ’69 Mets (he was 3), but we spent the decade of the 70s being Mets fans together. These were the Frank Tavaras years, the time when the team was run by the miserly M. Donald Grant who in June of 1976 broke my heart by trading Tom Seaver to the Reds. It was a time of futility, a time of mediocrity, and a time when the other New York team had Reggie and Guidry and Thurman Munson to name a few.
By the 1980’s we were old enough to go to games together, and I was old enough to by the beer. $20.00 could get you four big beers at Shea, and in 1980 that was all the money in the world (and before you do the Math my cousin was 14). We spent a lot of days at Shea together throughout that decade. We were there in 1988 when the Mets clinched the division. We saw numerous games with what we called the “Tud Tickets”. These were the corporate box seats for the Alfred Mainzer Greeting Card Co., and were located on the Field level, first base, about the 4th row. Uncle Tud swept the floors for Mainzer and occasionally they’d throw him a bone and give him the tickets.
But as much of a Mets fan as I am, my cousin is the penultimate Mets fan. Not only does he bleed blue and orange, he shits it too. In little baseball shaped shits. Once he shit a shit that looked exactly like “Le Grande Orange” himself, Rusty Staub, as God as my witness. Time and distance and several nasty baseball strikes have waned my passion for the game. Living in Richmond hasn’t helped much either, as maybe 6 or 7 Mets games per year make it on the national broadcast. So last week when I found my commemorative 1986 World Champion Mets cap, given away on some forgotten evening in 1987 at Shea, I had to send it to him. See, not only is my cousin a huge Mets fan, so is his wife. Our conversation went something like this:
Ring Ring Ring….
“Samichlaus residence, hello?”
“Hey Dude”
“Hey Dude, what’s going on?”
“Dude, I just wanted to say thanks so much for the hat! That is so cool!”
“Yeah dude, when I saw it, I immediately thought of you and Lisa. You guys are like Mr. and Mrs. Met”
“Thanks dude”
“Man, dude, you are so lucky. It’s so cool that you found someone who loves the Mets as much as you do”
“Dude, there like 162 games in a season and I’d say that we watch at least 150 of ‘em”
“Duuuuuude!”
Men are truly blessed when they find wives that share their passions.
When I met Mrs. Samichlaus, she knew nothing and cared little about football. But she quickly saw my passion for the game and decided to learn. She knew that one of the keys to a good marriage was sharing common interests, so she agreed to learn about the Green Bay Packers. We would always watch the Packer games, no questions asked. I in turn agreed to (a) teach her what I knew and (b) giver her veto over any other game I wanted to watch.
And she learned about the Packers, and started to enjoy the games. The Packers, it seemed, played better when we watched together. They played better when we wore certain clothes. They played better when the autographed Brett Favre helmet was placed between us and the TV. They played better when she pounced on me and, well I better leave that one alone. So Sunday, with the Packers up 17 – 0 and the Vikings falling apart. She decided to go and take a nap.
“If things start to go bad”, she said, “wake me up”.
And I didn’t.
After the game when she woke, I sadly told her that the Packers had lost. Incredulous, she replied “You were supposed to wake me up!”
“Oh honey”, I said, “you needed to sleep and you know it really doesn’t make a difference”
“But you were supposed to wake me up!!!!”
She wasn’t happy with me, not one bit.
Things stayed quiet in the Samichlaus house for a while until a little after 7:00. I was in the kitchen doing dishes when I heard something that sounded like a football game coming from my living room. Thinking I was mistaken, I continued with my chore, but no… this was definitely a football game. I calmly walked into the living room and found my wife glued to the Giants – Broncos game.
“They can win if they score a touchdown, and they have the ball” she said, her eyes never shifting from the screen.
“Who?” I inquired
“THE GIANTS!!! GOD!!!” And then she observed: “Manning looks so puny out there…”
I was surprised with her familiarity with Eli Manning. She actually knew about him.
We watched the end of the game, the Giants drove, and when Manning threw the TD with almost no time on the clock, we both screamed in joy.
“Son of a bitch”, said Mrs. Samichlaus, “I can’t believe I’m watching football games on my own and enjoying them!”
She wasn’t upset by this, not one bit.
My cousin and I are the two luckiest fuckers I know.
Last season Dan watched every game with me. And the Packers had a nice run. Ran it all the way to the Super Bowl. I didn't actually start waking up from my widow haze to see what was in front of my face until the playoffs. And then I was all jittery. It was seemed too good to be true - The Pack winning a Super Bowl for my Stevie in heaven. It was the ending I craved. It was the ending I got.
This year has been a bit different. My sight is clearer and I am able to see the plays, see the calls, see the game. I find myself looking around for Steve, wanting an explanation about a rule or trying to understand a line-up. But I play on, truly finding my own stride in being a Packer fan.
And I'm still a Packer fan. Sixteen months tomorrow and I'm still a Packer fan. Moving the ball forward. Moving it down the field. I was the lucky one, Babe.
(The following was written by Steve on his blog six years ago.)
The luckiest guys in the world - October 28, 2005
I have a very special relationship with my cousin. Before I met my wife he was my absolute best friend. We’d take trips together, have great meals together, go to cultural events together, and on those occasions where as St. Ides once put it “the drink may have flowed too freely”, we reveled in our everlasting adolescence together. He’s the one person in my family who I actually get along with. On the friend depth chart (if adults still keep such things) it goes my wife, my cousin, and all the rest. Well, that’s not true St. Ides cracked the top 5 this year and continues to move up the charts. We’ll re-visit that when my December final standings come out.
We grew up avid Mets fans. I was the product of a Brooklyn Dodger fanatic whose heart was broken in 1959 and somehow blamed this on the Yankees. My cousin is the product of an amazing union between a die hard Yankee fan and a die hard Red Sox fan who finally got her prayers answered last fall. Since we’re 4 years apart, I can’t imagine that he remembers the ’69 Mets (he was 3), but we spent the decade of the 70s being Mets fans together. These were the Frank Tavaras years, the time when the team was run by the miserly M. Donald Grant who in June of 1976 broke my heart by trading Tom Seaver to the Reds. It was a time of futility, a time of mediocrity, and a time when the other New York team had Reggie and Guidry and Thurman Munson to name a few.
By the 1980’s we were old enough to go to games together, and I was old enough to by the beer. $20.00 could get you four big beers at Shea, and in 1980 that was all the money in the world (and before you do the Math my cousin was 14). We spent a lot of days at Shea together throughout that decade. We were there in 1988 when the Mets clinched the division. We saw numerous games with what we called the “Tud Tickets”. These were the corporate box seats for the Alfred Mainzer Greeting Card Co., and were located on the Field level, first base, about the 4th row. Uncle Tud swept the floors for Mainzer and occasionally they’d throw him a bone and give him the tickets.
But as much of a Mets fan as I am, my cousin is the penultimate Mets fan. Not only does he bleed blue and orange, he shits it too. In little baseball shaped shits. Once he shit a shit that looked exactly like “Le Grande Orange” himself, Rusty Staub, as God as my witness. Time and distance and several nasty baseball strikes have waned my passion for the game. Living in Richmond hasn’t helped much either, as maybe 6 or 7 Mets games per year make it on the national broadcast. So last week when I found my commemorative 1986 World Champion Mets cap, given away on some forgotten evening in 1987 at Shea, I had to send it to him. See, not only is my cousin a huge Mets fan, so is his wife. Our conversation went something like this:
Ring Ring Ring….
“Samichlaus residence, hello?”
“Hey Dude”
“Hey Dude, what’s going on?”
“Dude, I just wanted to say thanks so much for the hat! That is so cool!”
“Yeah dude, when I saw it, I immediately thought of you and Lisa. You guys are like Mr. and Mrs. Met”
“Thanks dude”
“Man, dude, you are so lucky. It’s so cool that you found someone who loves the Mets as much as you do”
“Dude, there like 162 games in a season and I’d say that we watch at least 150 of ‘em”
“Duuuuuude!”
Men are truly blessed when they find wives that share their passions.
When I met Mrs. Samichlaus, she knew nothing and cared little about football. But she quickly saw my passion for the game and decided to learn. She knew that one of the keys to a good marriage was sharing common interests, so she agreed to learn about the Green Bay Packers. We would always watch the Packer games, no questions asked. I in turn agreed to (a) teach her what I knew and (b) giver her veto over any other game I wanted to watch.
And she learned about the Packers, and started to enjoy the games. The Packers, it seemed, played better when we watched together. They played better when we wore certain clothes. They played better when the autographed Brett Favre helmet was placed between us and the TV. They played better when she pounced on me and, well I better leave that one alone. So Sunday, with the Packers up 17 – 0 and the Vikings falling apart. She decided to go and take a nap.
“If things start to go bad”, she said, “wake me up”.
And I didn’t.
After the game when she woke, I sadly told her that the Packers had lost. Incredulous, she replied “You were supposed to wake me up!”
“Oh honey”, I said, “you needed to sleep and you know it really doesn’t make a difference”
“But you were supposed to wake me up!!!!”
She wasn’t happy with me, not one bit.
Things stayed quiet in the Samichlaus house for a while until a little after 7:00. I was in the kitchen doing dishes when I heard something that sounded like a football game coming from my living room. Thinking I was mistaken, I continued with my chore, but no… this was definitely a football game. I calmly walked into the living room and found my wife glued to the Giants – Broncos game.
“They can win if they score a touchdown, and they have the ball” she said, her eyes never shifting from the screen.
“Who?” I inquired
“THE GIANTS!!! GOD!!!” And then she observed: “Manning looks so puny out there…”
I was surprised with her familiarity with Eli Manning. She actually knew about him.
We watched the end of the game, the Giants drove, and when Manning threw the TD with almost no time on the clock, we both screamed in joy.
“Son of a bitch”, said Mrs. Samichlaus, “I can’t believe I’m watching football games on my own and enjoying them!”
She wasn’t upset by this, not one bit.
My cousin and I are the two luckiest fuckers I know.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Mess of Puppies
Steve on the brain as his birthday approaches. This is really just a taste of Steve. As always, I'll take it.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
"Far away feelings" from Steve
E-mail sent to me by Steve ten years ago today. My 9/11 story changed since Steve died. I view all of our history differently now.
Far away feelings - September 11, 2001 at 10:32 PM
Far away feelings - September 11, 2001 at 10:32 PM
Today strengthened my resolve to be with you my love. I miss you so...
Friday, August 5, 2011
Butterfly - Crazy Town
Back in middle school, we'd make mixed tapes for our boy/girl friends. Not so much as adults. But when Steve and I were dating he confessed every time he heard this song he'd think of me. I hadn't thought of this song in years when it popped up on my iPod this evening. Made me smile. I need more smiles. I need more Steve. Moments like this is the closest I get anymore. I'll take it.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Stairway to Gilligan's Island
The first time Steve and my father met, Steve played "Stairway to Gilligan's Island" for him. My father was a man who loved goofy songs like "Chicken Train" and "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road" and "King Tut". So, of course, "Stairway to Gilligan's Island" was gonna send my father over the moon.
We never recorded Steve playing/singing the song, but whenever I hear "Stairway to Heaven" I think of the two of them laughing like loons to this version.
Daddy, I hope Stevie is playing all your favorite tunes for you right now. I love you both. And thank you, Daddy, for carrying me through the first year without Steve.
We never recorded Steve playing/singing the song, but whenever I hear "Stairway to Heaven" I think of the two of them laughing like loons to this version.
Daddy, I hope Stevie is playing all your favorite tunes for you right now. I love you both. And thank you, Daddy, for carrying me through the first year without Steve.
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