Anthony the Famous Demolition Expert...

A loud sound of hammering was the first thing I heard as I walked in the front door. Boom! Boom! Boom! shaking the walls of the kid’s room. Walking over and opening their door, sure enough, there was Anthony.

Ruth and Hannah were on their bed, talking to a sock doll with frayed balls of broken thread where button eyes had been. They were oblivious to the hammering. Anthony was on all fours, slamming a green steel army truck repeatedly into the wall. He accompanied each collision to the dented baseboard with his own shouts: Boom! Boom! Boom, lost in a world of violent assault.

Anthony lived with his mom, four houses down. A quietly gracious Jamaican lady, ever apologetic about her loud, non-stop son. Single mom status appeared to be a tall order for her. In the two years that we were neighbors, he was over our house more days than not. Ruth home-schooled and took on the big sister roll with him, as she already was for Hannah. These three were together constantly, often riding Ruth’s adult three wheeler that I’d had bought from an old lady who was moving into a senior living facility. The basket on the back provided a perfect spot for Hannah and Anthony to ride along while Ruth furiously pumped her skinny legs. Their own little Uber driver taking them up and down the two cul-de-sacs or one block over to Grandma’s house.

When Hannah and Anthony were in the rear basket, I would ask him: “Who is number one?” More often than not, he illustrated the answer, before I had time to ask the question.

Anthony was nonstop with his body and his questions. Constantly moving, talking, chattering away, and seemingly uninterested in the answers that he drowned out with more questions.

When we moved away I remember being impressed with how quiet our new neighborhood was, as well as the house itself. It wasn’t until one of the girls asked out loud of no one in particular, “I wonder what Anthony is up to right now?” that I realized that our new digs weren’t any quieter than the old, it was simply that Anthony wasn’t around to provide his endless soundtrack from some disaster movie.

He was cute, charming, a question generating machine, a non-stop action hero in his own mind, and yes, he was a handful.

ADHD was the popular diagnosis.

Life went on and we rarely thought about Anthony any more.

Then about 12 years later, when Carla told me that she had run into his Grandparents, who we knew from the old neighborhood, I wanted to hear about Anthony. Carla did too and had set up a lunch date with the Grandparents and a now 17-year-old Anthony.

Cool!

We wondered what to expect. A race car driver? May be a runner? A Ripley’s candidate for the fastest talker on record? Certainly something high energy and intense.

When we finally snuggled down into a booth opposite Grandma and this tall, lanky young man, I could see in his face that it was indeed Anthony. Grown-up, muscular, handsome. But what we didn’t recognize was the quiet. Anthony appeared to be a guy who had been told to come to see us at lunch against his will. Eyes averted, only answering direct questions with the quietest of whispers. like a beaten dog. Anthony wasn’t there at all.

Years of Ritalin had taken its toll.

Now it’s another 12 years later and I have no idea what the 29-year-old Anthony is up to. I just hope it has nothing to do with medication and that the old Anthony has returned. I like to think that he has outgrown some of the issues that drove him too hard and too fast, or at least that he has learned to channel them in more positive directions.

Anthony the stunt man, the rocket ship builder, the famous Brahma Bull rider, the demolition expert…I like it!

And Anthony, if you see this, you’re welcome to come over to our house and crank things up to “Wow” any time you’re in the area.

We could use a little excitement around here...

Some Assembly Required...

That’s an understatement when it comes to our own personal development. Maybe the OB-GYN should forgo the slap and stamp that on each inverted pink derrière he dangles in the air. It’s also true that there is never an end to the assembly itself. Unless we’re at the very end of the road, at no time do we say: OK, I’m done. We are always a work in progress. We just hope that by the time we get to step #8 that we don’t discover that we overlooked #4 and everything needs to be dissembled and rebuilt.

It’s all very complicated.That’s how psychologists get rich. 

You would think the opposite to be true of the physical stuff, like the assembly of a chair. In my case, an Adirondack chair. Two of them, actually.

Amazon warned me up front: “Some assembly required”. They even offered a service that provides “professional assembly” right in my home. Simply add the additional $125. to my total prior to checkout. Either way, the chairs would be delivered by Tuesday. Cool, I love Amazon!

But I thought that for an extra $125. I should get a catered lunch and a foot massage with my professional assembly. Or maybe have three Swedish bikini girls assemble my chairs on the back patio while I supervise. Carla would only care if she found out what it was costing. But to have a chair put together by some guy just out on a work release program after serving four years for home robbery, wasn’t attractive to me. He would probably look horrible in a bikini and smell of pastrami anyway.

So I put on my big boy pants and convinced myself that it wouldn’t be a problem for me to do it myself. How tough could it be?

For several nights I had bad dreams of the time when the girls were little and I waited until the last minute to put together two bicycles on Christmas Eve. Instructions clearly written in Japanese, illustrations that put step 5 before step 3. A total nightmare. I was fortunate to have my methodical, cool-headed brother-in-law who saved the day while I toasted his genius and wished him a Merry Christmas every 27 minutes.

So when Tuesday rolled around and the two boxes arrived, I unpacked them, accounted for all parts, and was pleased to see the simple instructions in English. German, French, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, Portuguese, and Bengali. All I needed was English, but thanks for being so international.

Now comes the part where you think I’m going to tell you what a journey to Hell the whole assembly became. That’s not going to happen though, because it wasn’t so bad. It did take me the better part of two mornings to complete one chair, but only because I’m slow and I triple checked every move before making it.

I should also point out that a project like this is best tackled by someone with good eyesight or at least someone wearing glasses that don’t keep slipping off of their head every time they look down, someone with the ability to easily and frequently get down on the ground without a lot of unpleasant sounds and cursing, the ability to kneel on their right knee that has never been torn apart and reconstructed by Joseph Mengele’s great grandchild, and the ability to hold a flashlight between their teeth without drooling so excessively that the entire work area becomes dangerously slippery.

One chair down, one to go. Piece of cake. Turns out I’m something of a master carpenter and a mechanical genius. That’s what I was telling myself for at least five minutes. Then a bit of perspective kicked in. Two lousy chairs, mostly assembled in the factory and all I had to do was to screw major parts together as instructed. It didn’t get any more challenging than the directions to use the CBX screws here and the CBV screws there.

I realize, of course that not only is the whole thing nothing to brag about, it’s surprising that, for a delusional second or two, I would even believe it was . I’m so lame. Now I’ve embarrassed myself with boastful pride over something that was about as difficult as making a club sandwich. I should be ashamed of myself, and I am. It’s like walking out of the AA meeting held in the vacant store in the mall and running into our neighbors across the street, or forgetting that I had a half of a Hershey Bar in my back pocket after it melted from ass heat and put a huge milk chocolate circle on the back of my light khaki pants, while I was at work…showing our model home to clients.

Classy!

Then to really put an end to my ridiculous back patting, I started comparing my accomplishment to those of a few people I know. My friend David built an authentic Boston Whaler with 19th century tools. My new son-in-law, Andrew Grubb, decided that he needed an irrigation system for his back yard, Googled and installed. No problem. Lots of real writers, published, successful. (How dare I ever call myself a writer?). Carol Sveilich posts 127 clever, out-of-the box Facebook posts every day and real books as a real job. You should check out my FB friend, Richard Mitchell. He captures incredibly beautiful pictures of birds, Bald Eagles to Hummingbirds with his camera, as a hobby. He also decided that he needed a barn for goats he planned to acquire, so he built one himself. No kits, no help. Just him. In his spare time only using a butter knife.

Don’t even get me started on Nick Patten. He paints wormholes, portals that take the viewer into other dimensions.

Nick says that it’s not about talent; it’s consistent, hard work. I know that’s the bottom line. Something that I’ve managed to avoid for 50 years.

So what is my take away from all of this? That it’s never too late to dig in and turn things around? That even very average 69-year-old people can still do great things?

Not really. I’ve learned not to compare myself to others and to take pride in my ability to be right here in my new patio chair and derive immense gratification at how very far I’m able to spit watermelon seeds out into the lawn.

Damn I’m good!

Now I can sit here and enjoy my little world, with no additional assembly required. Well, maybe throw a shot and a few ice cubes into this drink, but other than that, my world is complete...at least for the next few minutes anyway.

Layla...

My favorite “Desert Island Classic” … just the ticket for this kick-back, take me back, afternoon. I embrace and identify with this music as much as any, much more than most.

When they drop me on that island, challenged to survive on my own from that point forward, I’ll need a few things: A solar turntable, speakers that I can move around, and an original vinyl copy of the Derek and the Dominoes “Layla” album, oh, and maybe a nice grape Nehi.

Al Wheeler, my roommate who was never my roommate, turned me on to that album in 1970. Everyone had to pay for a room on campus to reimburse the college for the new dorms they built, but Al rented a place in town too. So I had a private room.

“Layla” played in rotation at my place, for months. Occasionally some of us would go over to Al’s for more of the same. He lived on the second floor of a huge old Victorian with several cavernous rooms defined by 12 foot ceilings that showcased peeling plaster. Each chip, like half peaches, revealed color from an earlier time like sky-blue billiard balls on an upside down pool table. His small kitchen was more than enough for him and the toilet worked.

That Layla album played 24-7 over there too. We crushed up some Mescaline, shaking it violently into large bottles of cheap wine, a necessary staple that fueled epic paint parties. Chromesthesia, sound becoming color, was responsible for turning that music into memories that became core imprints. My faded T-Shirt shapeshifts into an amazing technicolor dream coat, a time machine and painter’s smock, with the first seven notes of Clapton’s opening riff.

Deep Water...

On a mutual day off, we nestled down in the old couch that really should be thrown out. It’s just that the thing makes a perfect platform for pillows of all shapes and sizes. Great nesting material.

Carla was typing away furiously on her laptop, waving flags of protest and leading marches with her passionate diatribes. I stretched out with a UFC fight on the flat screen.

Pausing the action to go get more coffee, unsarcastically, Carla paused too. It’s not easy for her to break away from that stream of consciousness, in-the-moment Tsunami that often drives her. Turning to me slowly with a serious demeanor, as if surprised by the gravity of her own revelation, she looked directly into my eyes said “I love you, Hugh” and then immediately jumped back into the raging torrent that is her bright mind, chugging full speed ahead down multiple tracks and directions at the same time.

Deep water swimming, while I hold the beach. 

She comes up for perspective, oxygen only an afterthought.

Catching my eye, we nod silent agreement,

Unchanged since our beginning.

And once again, I’m reborn.

Dry Goods

It’s been twenty years or more since we visited our old stomping ground in Northern Virginia. Carla and I first lived in Reston, then Ashburn, then Lovettsville, moving farther West as the D.C. suburbs grew outward like an ever expanding circle of crabgrass.

While we were there, we drove over to Frederick, Md. to visit the Haller family graves in Mt. Olivet Cemetery. Over 200 Haller ancestors are planted there. Carla and I inherited plots too, morbid dirt vultures waiting for us to join in with the rest of the family, going back more than five generations. We’ve since decided to take a pass on all of it, voting in favor of cremation with instructions to Ruth and Hannah to merge our ashes, along with any dogs we leave behind, into colorful urns to sit on their respective mantles. I want to come out of my bottle in spirit whenever the seafood looks yummy or the party is getting to the point where neighbors just may have to call the police. That's my favorite time to be there.

None of that has anything to do with this picture though. I took this with a cheap camera while we were driving around Frederick. I noticed the fading advertising on the side of this barn. It boasts of my Grandfather Haller’s dry goods store. Painted in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s, I could just make out: “Haller Dry Goods…Suits, Coats, Corsets”

I never met the man. He made his run from 1860 to 1940, his dry goods store being a staple of the community back in his day.

Now this photograph is fading too, just like that old barn. Soon, it may not even exist anymore. This old photo, the only copy I have, will be gone soon enough, just like all those ancestors whose lives and stories are buried forever.

I’m glad that Carla and I will have more lively digs in each of the girls’ houses. I don’t want to miss out on anything.

When I've asked the girls how they feel about that plan, they both wrinkle their noses like they are smelling poop. Maybe it's too morbid. One or both may dump our ashes down the porcelain god and flush us away to the same place the rest of the clan wound up anyway.

Footnote: Carla objects to some parts of this plan. Assuming I go first, I expect that she, along with whatever dogs we have right then, will be cremated at the same time I am, even if they aren't quite ready to go. I've told her that those furnaces are so hot that it will only sting for a few minutes, but for some reason, she balking. Now my head is spinning with real questions about what "loyalty" we've really had between us all along.

Oh Good, It's The 4th of July!

Tonight will be a big night for us.

With Carla working a 3 to 11 shift at the hospital, Chica, Rufus and I will just sit and look at each other. Well, the dogs will sit and stare at me staring at a computer or iPhone screen. Until the fireworks start anyway. Then both of them will try desperately to climb up onto my head. Chica will curl up and tremble while I hold her and tell her it’s OK, but she doesn’t believe me. Certainly monsters are out there violently putting an end to all life on earth. Tyrannosaurs running rampant, up and down our street, slamming their tails to the earth with thunderclaps that shake the walls, Poodle parts hanging limp in their teeth.

Rufus will try to rip the flesh from my chest in his efforts to crawl inside of me. He did it last night during a thunderstorm. He’s a five-year-old rescue who had been abused by a man and normally avoids me whenever possible. We’ve never been close. He changes his tune when the explosions start though and I have raised claw marks on my chest from last night to prove it.

Personally, I miss the days of legal fireworks that really blew stuff up. Cherry Bombs and M80’s. We dipped them into multiple layers of glue and BB bullets. One of those bombs, taped to the windshield of an enemy auto, with the fuse shoved up the cool end of a lit cigarette, gave us five minutes to get away. My friends and I should still be doing time. Prostrates like grapefruit and stuck in year 55 of Juvie lockdown.

But my dogs would hate the personal use stuff. The show downtown is already way too scary, even from a distance. If I started lobbing cherry bombs at home, they wouldn’t just be playing dead, they would go ahead and keel over, believing the Tyrannosaurs must be the reason the trees at the edge of our yard are shaking.

Throughout our frenzied love fest, I can’t even have a beer. I go alcohol free for 30 days, every fourth month of the year, just to recalibrate. This is one of those months. Sitting at home, trying to tell the dogs that monsters aren’t real, no beer and no Carla, sucks.

It all makes me feel like a very old man.

Maybe I’ll at least be able to find some Lawrence Welk Show reruns to brighten my evening. His music is quite snappy. You can’t help but feel energized when Barbara and Bobby start to dance.

I think the dogs will like that too.

Riding The Hooker...

She smelled of rancid fish and needed a good scrubbing, but with a rowdy bunch of guys who were power drinking and just out for a good time, she was perfect. We rode the Hooker to exhaustion that day, paying in cash before walking away, drained, leaving her abused and disheveled, never to see her again.

The 4th of July

We’re fortunate to live in a time and place where, for many of us, “the livin is easy”. That’s due in large part to the fact that we’ve been the biggest dog on the block since WWII. We "bring democracy" everywhere we go, as long as it serves our best interests to go there. 

But the dog is getting grey and the only thing we can really count on, is that it will change.

Everything does. 

What are we really talking about anyway? We’re celebrating the fact that we’ve had a good run. Like Romans wallowing in wine and excess, trying to convince ourselves of just how uniquely special we are. It’s true, we are special, but no more so than any other humans who have ever lived, regardless of how many times Lee Greenwood sings “God Bless The USA”.

The entire human species is amazing. We run the gamut from putting men on the moon to throwing them into ovens. Capable of incredible highs and lows. Here in our particular hood, we’ve had a good run for a few hundred years. A nanosecond of time in the scheme of things.

It’s OK to blow stuff up, get drunk, and pat ourselves on the back, but it enters the realm of delusion when we start to believe our own spin and take any of it too seriously. 

Rome is already burning, making way for whoever is next in line.

I smell smoke in the air.