Gratitude and Attitudes Tuesday, November 18, 2014 It’s been a while since I’ve written a gratitude post. It’s not that I have nothing to be grateful for. I certainly do. I’ve just been up to my belly button in puppets, people, and projects lately A friend of mine wrote to me early this morning, and said, “Hey, where’s the positivity posts???” Oops. Apparently, some folks like reading this stuff. Perhaps these same people need a hobby, like uhm, collecting navel nerf?? I dunno. But thanks for telling me that you really like my posts, and that they make you think, and further give you reason to feel positive. That makes ME feel good, and hey, if I’m doing something positive for someone else, while doing it for myself, all the better. I’m grateful for that. Right now, I’m grateful for coffee. For two reasons: First and foremost, I need the warmth today…who turned on the refrigerator out there???...and, it helps to wake up my brain in the morning. I don’t sleep particularly well these days, from a combination of Sleep Apnea, arthritis pain, and stress….so, consequently, I’m fatigued…a lot, and the aforementioned brain therefore needs the boost. For you health gurus out there, yes, I also watch my diet, and eat plenty of veggies and fruit. Did you know for instance, that apples are nature’s natural wake –me- up- fruit? Yup, true story: apples have a sort of natural caffeine effect on the brain, without the bad stuff. I eat lots of apples. Love Granny Smiths. Unfortunately, I really like the bad stuff. I’m thoroughly addicted to coffee, have been since my teens. Ooooooops. Hey, I gave up all that other stuff. Gimme a break. If we ever run out of coffee, and the stores are all closed, you’ll find me out on the street, trying to hustle up my daily fix: “Awww, c’mon man…..just a little coffee?? Man, I’m swearin’ on my gramma’s grave, I won’t use too much. Naw, really man, I can handle it…just a little taste? And some cream and sugar??? Awww, c’mon dude….I’m jonesin’ bad…” Yeah, just make it strong enough to melt spoons, and gimme a needle to inject it with. And a squirrel. Obviously, I need a squirrel, because I certainly do go off the main thread enough, and I need a squirrel or two to blame it on. Ahem. Back to earth here…. So, giving some thought to my life this past week, and what I’m grateful for. I guess it comes down to “people”. Now, those of you that truly know me, know that I am not known for my people skills, or my love of people in general….I have evolved into a curmudgeon of the first order, and generally prefer the company of dogs over most people. I’ve become cynical, skeptical, irrascible, cantankerous, stubborn, contrary….and these are the GOOD attributes. Suffice to say, I’m not quite the people person I used to be, and certainly not the people pleaser I was. The pendulum has definitely swung in the opposing direction. However, I just gotta say, seeing my old classmates from the class of 1975, Greenfield High school the other day, for our first meeting to engineer our 40th class reunion for next August, was a rare, and very welcome treat. Some of the people I saw this past Saturday, go way back to grade school with me. Some of them, I saw for the first time in 39 years. It was a revelatory meeting for me. It made me feel good about people. These people, in particular. While we all have certainly aged (the ladies were in great shape, compared to some of us guys…I’m quite sure they have some secret elixir or fountain of youth they share amongst themselves, but refuse to share with the guys), there was an element of our former youth there: we were all reminiscing about days past, some of us, back to our days in grade school together. It was great fun. It made me feel young again. Funny what you can remember sometimes. I was talking with one guy I’d met first in the fourth grade, and I remembered talking to him and one other guy we hung out with, way back then. WE were the “T” in “Trouble” in Mrs. Becker’s fourth grade class….. We were in the boy’s bathroom. Somehow, we got to talking about Playboy magazine. I’m not entirely sure any of us had actually ever SEEN the interior of one, but we three 9 year old boys had a vague idea of what was IN them. Our Dads kept them hidden from us, but obviously, not completely. Heh heh heh. Nine year olds are stealth ninjas. One of the guy’s Dads had a Playboy pass key…you remember those…it got you into the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, or Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.. The Three Caballeros were making plans to use that key. We were determined to get into one of the clubs, and see what all the fuss was about. Never mind that we were years away from driving, more years away from being old enough to be allowed in the clubs, but….that is how 9 year old minds work: no constraints, anything is possible. We probably thought Playboy Bunnies were relatives to the Easter Bunny. I mean, geez, we WERE only nine. Probably had visions of raiding a huge Easter Basket. The three of us used to draw lots of pictures in class, and somehow, magically, were allowed to get away with it (Mrs. Beckers HAD to know…she had eyes in the back of her head). Eddie, David and I were constantly drawing pictures of tanks, airplanes, guys getting blown up, guillotine beheadings, football formations and helmet insignias. Don’t ask me how all those interrelate…cuz I have zero ideas on that….my only answer can be, “Hey, we were nine. WTF did WE know??? Ed was the jock in our group…major baseball nut…still loves the Chicago Cubs. Uhm, realllllly Ed??? Of course, back then, in 1966, Wisconsin didn’t have a major league team, but MOST Wisconsinites were rooting for the White Sox, in the American League (back then, it’s all switched around now). But, not Ed. Nope. Life long Cubbies fan…still wears the jerseys David was the electronics guru. I remember playing at his house, and him showing me all his electronic gadgets, and him trying to explain them to me. I remember this lengthy explanation of a radio he’d built----I thought the guy was some sort of Einstein-like genius. He was speaking absolute gobbledygook-early-geek to me. I’m sure, that where ever David landed (he moved sometime during the grade school years), he became a super nerd-geek-computer-gee-whizz-guy, and is probably making gazillions. Good for him. I sure hope so. I was the “artist” of our trio….the one that constantly was drawing, and for some reason, had this fixation with guillotines at that age. I’m still not completely sure why that is, though I suspect that “A Tale of Two Cities” had aired on TV, and I’d been mesmerized by the concept of chopping heads off. Not only did I draw guillotines in every perspective I could think of, I even made one out of toothpicks for a school art project. I probably got a “D” on it. “D” for “demented”. As gross and completely off-putting to me as it is now, my nine year old brain seemed to really dig the concept of guillotines. Nine year old boys are not necessarily known for deep thinking. I very definitely had few thoughts beyond, “I’m hungry”, “I wanna go outside and play”, “Oh, look! Squirrel!!”. The one thing that strikes me as I’m writing though, is that all three of us boys had already noticed GIRLS. You can tell this from the Playboy references. But of course, we NEVER admitted such a dastardly thing, as we were just out of the third grade, where girls still had “cooties”, and couldn’t be touched. Trust me though, we all had our eyes on certain girls in class. Speaking for myself, I had my eyeballs on one girl in particular---I won’t mention her name, simply because I never would wish her the embarrassment. Let’s just say she had this cute pixie haircut, big brown eyes, and a plaid miniskirt. You never quite get over your first crush, right? Of course, she wanted nothing to do with me, which is the way it usually pans out for little boy crushes. Charlie Brown, and his Little Red Haired Girl were my identity…and my nickname at home WAS Charlie Brown. I felt branded and as if my destiny had been written for me, due to that name. Gee, thanks, Mom. ;) At the same time, I must confess, I had a crush on the teacher. She was my second teacher crush. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Robinson, back in Detroit, was really my first…and they were quite similar in their approach to teaching. Both fun, both liked to read to the class, ask questions, instead of giving orders. Funny, cuz about two years ago, I was given my fourth grade teacher’s email address from one of our old classmates that had been keeping in touch with her. I wrote to her, asked if she remembered me. Not only did she remember me, but she remembers the entire class, from 45 years ago, in detail!! She can still recite poems we wrote!!! What a memory. So, I’m talking with Ed at the reunion planning meeting, and he asks if I know how to get in touch with her. I let him know I sure do, and I wrote to our old teacher, and asked permission to give her addy to him. She was delighted…and now, my old buddy gets to walk down memory lane with one of the best teachers we both ever had. Cool. Glad I could be a part of that. I saw about twenty of our old classmates from high school at that meeting. The vast majority had matured so nicely (many are grandparents, several times over), and were funny, accessible, and very ready to lend a hand in getting our reunion together. It was so much fun seeing these folks…and we’ll be seeing each other again, probably several more times before the actual reunion. As one of our own remarked that day to me, “The reunion will be just a larger get together at that point. Like family”. Yep. And I am really great with that. I’m grateful for being able to walk down memory lane with these people, and that we’ve all come to a place in our lives, where we see so much more in others, and have far more empathy, sympathy, patience, and wisdom than in our earlier incarnations as high school kids. We are now a family of people, as my buddy Mary says, “Meeting at a spark in time, this small space in time we shared together”. Yup. I have to say, I’m very grateful for this chance….the chance to rekindle old friendships, relive some moments with people who have a shared experience, who care about what happened to us, so long ago. It’s an interesting journey. A sort of time travel of the mind. Einstein was right: time is relative. When we’re together, time slips away. We find ourselves back in our youth. How cool is that? Who knew, we’d all grow up to be time travelers?? G’nite peeps, G’nite Mizz Calabash, where ever you are.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 17:02:48 +0000
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